In the face of documented difficulties in the public understanding of genetics, new metaphors have been suggested. The language of information coding and processing has become deeply entrenched in the public representation of genetics, and some critics have found fault in the “blueprint” metaphor, a variant of the dominant theme. They have offered the language of the “recipe” as a preferable metaphor. The metaphors of the blueprint and the recipe are compared in respect to their deterministic implications and other associations. The likelihood of the recipe metaphor framing cognition in more useful ways is called into question. (Celeste Condit and Deirdre Condit)