Look, I listen to a lot of weird stuff on the Caltrain. When you're stuck between San Francisco and Mountain View for two hours a day, you run out of the good sci-fi pretty fast. But listening to a 100-year-old cookbook about fish? That might be a new low for me. Or a high, depending on how much you value knowing how to boil a cod like it's 1908.
I picked this up because I was feeling guilty about my DoorDash habits. Thought maybe some "back to basics" content would inspire me. Spoiler: It didn't. But it was... an experience.
Bottom Line: The ROI on this is negative unless you really, really like hearing lists of fish.
The "Legacy Code" of Cooking
Here's the thing about Myrtle Reed (writing as Olive Green)—she's thorough. If this book were a codebase, the documentation would be impeccable. She covers literally everything that swims. But listening to recipes in audio format is basically like listening to someone read a phone book.
"Take three pounds of fish. Wash it. Dry it."
It's a list. A 10-hour list.
The content itself is actually kind of fascinating in a historical way. It's the culinary equivalent of reading about punch cards. The techniques are valid, but the technology (or lack thereof) makes it feel archaic. There's no sous-vide here, obviously. It's a lot of boiling. So much boiling.
(Kevin asked me what I was listening to, and when I told him, he just handed me the remote for the TV. He's not wrong.)
The "Distributed System" Problem
My biggest gripe—and this is a dealbreaker for my commute—is the "Various Readers" tag.
If you're in tech, you know that context switching is expensive. Your brain has to dump the cache and reload for a new task. This audiobook does that every few chapters. It's a collaborative project (LibriVox style), which I respect in theory—open source is life—but in practice? It's a nightmare for flow.
You get settled into one narrator's rhythm—maybe they're clear, pacing is good—and then suddenly you're thrown to someone recording on what sounds like a potato in a wind tunnel. The audio quality varies wildly. The volume levels jump. I had to keep adjusting my AirPods, which defeats the purpose of "set it and forget it" listening. Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Raven Edition, Volume 1 has the same narrator roulette problem—you're deep into "The Tell-Tale Heart" and suddenly someone's reading on a tin can.
It's inconsistent. And if there's one thing I need at 6 AM, it's consistency.
Who's This Actually For?
Culinary historians, researchers writing a novel set in the early 20th century, or anyone building a database of Edwardian cooking methods—the data is there. Everyone else? Hard skip. Recipes are meant to be scanned visually. You need random access memory—you need to jump back to the ingredients list while you're cooking. Linear audio is the worst possible interface for this data structure.
Back to the Bobiverse
I cranked this up to 2.5x speed just to get through it (don't judge me), and even then, it felt like a slog. It's dry. Literally and figuratively.
Save this for a text read if you're curious about historical home economics. Otherwise, skip it and go listen to The Bobiverse again. Trust me.
