An Engineer's Old Cooking Trick Is Going Viral, Divides the Internet

Software engineer Michael Chu created a column-based recipe format decades ago that organizes ingredients and cooking steps visually using HTML tables, eliminating the need to scroll through lengthy text. The format went viral recently when it was shared on X, surprising many internet users who had never seen this cleaner approach to recipe presentation, though Chu's Cooking For Engineers website had featured it all along. Chu developed the system by combining engineering problem-solving with culinary intuition, believing that well-organized recipes help people understand cooking faster.