Crepes Lab338 recipes
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Crepes around the world

338 crepe recipes in 7 languages: English 112, French 77, Portuguese 52, German 30, Italian 23, Spanish 23 and Dutch 21. Each is reduced to grams per 100 g of flour, the same as everywhere in the lab, so a French page and an American one line up. English, the largest group, is the one the others are compared with.

The language is the page's, not the cook's country: a French page may be from Quebec, a Portuguese one from Brazil, a Dutch one from Belgium. Each language's lines are read in its own words and units, and a recipe that gives “a pinch” of salt counts a pinch.

Where they part from English

The clearest differences for each language, medians per 100 g of flour. Only differences large enough to matter and unlikely to be chance are listed (how below).

  • Portuguese 52 recipesMost Portuguese recipes use no sugar (75%, against 31% of English recipes) and no salt (53%, against 18%).
  • Italian 23 recipesItalian recipes use under a third as much butter as English ones (6% against 23% of the flour weight); most use no salt (65%, against 18% of English recipes).
  • German 30 recipesGerman recipes use 22% less liquid than English ones (189% against 244% of the flour weight) and under a third as much salt (0.2% against 0.8%).
  • Dutch 21 recipes42% of Dutch recipes use no butter, against 11% of English recipes; most use no salt (52%, against 18%).
  • French 77 recipesFrench recipes use about half as much butter as English ones (10% against 23% of the flour weight) and under a third as much salt (0.2% against 0.8%).
  • Spanish 23 recipesMost Spanish recipes use no salt (65%, against 18% of English recipes).

Every ingredient, language by language

Grams per 100 g of flour. One row a language, largest first.

middle half, and the median (the number at right; when most use none, the share that uses any)middle half of every recipesmall number after a name: recipes

Liquid
Egg
Butter
Sugar
Salt

The typical batch in each language

The median of each language's recipes for every ingredient, scaled to 125 g of flour. No single recipe is exactly this. Under each, the recipe nearest its language's medians.

The medians and middle halves as a table
Median and middle half per 100 g of flour, by language
LanguageLiquidEggButterSugarSalt
English 112244%206% to 289%80%80% to 107%23%15% to 33%10%0% to 20%0.8%0.3% to 1.5%
French 77224%206% to 258%67%53% to 80%10%0% to 20%10%0% to 19%0.2%0% to 0.2%
Portuguese 52218%195% to 285%77%40% to 100%11%3.3% to 25%0%0% to 0.4%0%0% to 0.9%
German 30189%172% to 227%73%67% to 98%14%0.4% to 28%3.6%0% to 7.2%0.2%0% to 0.3%
Italian 23240%206% to 249%80%63% to 92%6%0% to 18%0%0% to 20%0%0% to 0.2%
Spanish 23250%206% to 278%80%67% to 80%17%0% to 30%0%0% to 6.2%0%0% to 0.3%
Dutch 21258%206% to 309%100%67% to 100%16%0% to 21%0%0% to 17%0%0% to 0.3%

How the comparison works

A language gets a row with at least 8 recipes. Each is compared with the English recipes on every ingredient, and a difference is listed only when it clears two bars: the medians sit at least a third of the middle half of all recipes apart (about half a standard deviation, a medium effect), and a rank test puts the gap at 3 standard errors or more, so a language with few recipes needs a large difference. For an ingredient many recipes skip, the share using none counts too: at least 25 points apart, at the same 3 standard errors.

Every ingredient is tested for every language, a few dozen tests per lab, which is why the bar is higher than the usual two standard errors. Salt is listed last when it differs: many recipes give it as a pinch or leave it to taste. Shares and “more than” percentages are rounded down, so none is an overstatement.

These are what recipe writers in each language do, not rules of each country's cooking. A language with 8 to 20 recipes may come mostly from a few sites; each recipe page names its source.