Doublex The Rise and Fall of the Recipe Card A brief history of how we started bequeathing our favorite recipes via 3-by-5-inch index cards—and what will be lost when they finally disappear.

The recipes in late 19th-century American cookbooks—precise and detailed—met the needs of cooks in a highly mobile and modern country. Image from "Recipes: cards with text; depicting a woman ...

To prepare a cacio e pepe meal for two people—with around 11 ounces of pasta and 7 ounces of cheese—the team’s “scientific recipe” calls for 0.18 ounces of starch.