It’s not unusual to find people on TikTok or Instagram putting old recipes to the test — often with great trepidation. It is unusual to find someone who combines the zinging one-liners of Rodney Dangerfield with the oddball charisma of Ed Grimley (Martin Short circa 1984) or Pee-Wee Herman (Paul Reubens circa 1983).
Meet B. Dylan Hollis, a man who may not need much introduction based on the size of his followings: He has 8.2 million TikTok followers, 1.1 million subscribers on Youtube, and 396,000 followers on Instagram (no recipe testing here, just pics and videos, sometimes playing the accordion). His recipe-testing videos are universally short and generally follow the same template:
- screaming recitation of the recipe name and era when it was created
- joke about said name of dish or concept
- jiggling pompadour a la Conan O’Brien
- incredulity when reading certain ingredients
- sour face when tasting the abomination he’s made
But Hollis is not just making fun of old recipes. He clearly knows his subject; he’s finding these arcane recipes somewhere (he collects them apparently) and he’s genuinely taking the time to test them out, one by one — since 2020 as far as we can tell. It’s hard to deny his charisma; his eyebrows have a life of their own, the double entendres fly, and the pace is rapid-fire.
Below, I’ve selected three recipes that demonstrate his skills. You’ll get the idea 10 seconds into any of them. But I bet you’ll click to see a second one too.
Who: B. Dylan Hollis
https://www.tiktok.com/@bdylanhollis
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDkEssvZ2uu_ntlIGy64GIg
https://www.instagram.com/bdylanhollis/
What: Vintage Recipes
Jellied Meatloaf from 1931
@bdylanhollis
0:08 “Who’s mooing now,” he screams at a pan of ground beef.
0:18 “You know what stings more than a knife Mr. Onion? Rejection!”
0:51 “It’s a cat food recipe!”
Ration Cake from 1942
@bdylanhollis I have no words for what came out of the oven #baking #vintage #cooking #cake
0:02 “So it’s the ‘40s and we don’t have any butter, sugar, milk or eggs and we need to bake a cake!”
0:29 “Looks like barbecue sauce, smells of death.”
0:54 The sour face he makes at the end of many of his videos.
Water Pie from 1929
@bdylanhollis Hands down the worst so far #vintage #baking #cooking #recipe
0:02 “Can you make a pie with 4 ingredients? Yes, I could also eat my mattress.”
0:21 “Add 3 gills of water… is this written for a fish?”
0:36 “Finished a bit early… like my ex.”