The recipe written down may omit the gesture that made it work.

The written recipe loses the hand. How much is a handful, when the dough feels right, the particular movement that changes the texture: these live in the body and do not survive transcription. What gets written down is the part that can be written down, which is not the part that made it work.

If someone in your life cooks something you want to keep, do not ask for the recipe. Ask to be there while they make it, and do it with your hands. The same applies to any craft you want to inherit. Documentation preserves the structure and only presence preserves the gesture, and the gesture is usually the difference.