As far as the purpose of a recipe, it still informs me of the ingredients and amounts so I can make a reasonable approximation. Say I want to cook chili, something that there seems to be innumerable recipes for. And say I want to add beans to mine, though my personal recipe doesn't normally include beans. So how many beans should I add? And what kind of beans should I add? Well if I check the top 5 recipes for chili with beans and see that 4 of them use kidney beans and that they tend to use 1 cup per pound of meat average, I can now modify my own recipe in a more informed fashion. This also works for cooking something when I don't know where to begin.