Why do Hungarian recipes say “we add” instead of “add”?

Hungarian recipes almost never give orders. Instead of “add the meat,” they say hozzáadjuk a húst — “we add the meat.” Every step arrives in the first-person plural: pirítjuk (we fry it), megsózzuk (we salt it), felöntjük (we pour liquid over it), főzzük (we cook it). The cook and the reader are doing it together, which is why a Hungarian recipe reads like a shared kitchen rather than a checklist.

The ending also marks the object as definite: hozzáadjuk is “we add it,” while hozzáadunk would be “we add some.” Recipes reach for the definite form because the ingredient was named a line earlier. Follow this clip’s chain — pirítjuk, hozzáadjuk, megsózzuk, felöntjük, főzzük — and you have the grammar of an entire Hungarian cookbook in one paragraph.