Food.com Searches All The Major Recipe Sites At Once
Food.com’s recipe search is worth getting excited about. It comes from Food Network founder Scripps Networks, but can pull recipes from Epicurious, Food & Wine, Cooking Light, Gourmet, Chow.com—basically, any US food site you’ve heard of.
Not only does it pull basic recipe links and descriptions from all those third-party sites, but it grabs the full ingredient lists, pictures, user ratings, and preparation/serving instructions, then categorises them for search refining. So if you’re looking for a Vietnamese dish to whip up tonight, but you don’t want anything deep-fried, and you’d like the main ingredient to be chicken, Food.com can help you get there.
You can save recipes you find to your “Recipe Box” by grabbing them whole and dragging them into a little AJAX box at the bottom of your page view, and also add recipes to your box from sites not covered by Food.com’s rather extensively searchy fingers, or upload your own entirely new text recipe. There’s a toolbar to help with collecting and searching recipes (as if you didn’t have enough already—where’s our bookmarklet?), and the front page provides a history of your searches for quickly getting back to what you just found.
It’s hard to believe it took so long for someone to offer a recipe search with this kind of breadth and functionality. The service is still in beta, so you’ll need to sign up and log in to use it. From a first look, though, it’s definitely worth it.
Food.com [via The Food Section]
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
But will it do what all cooks have to invariably do when searching these sites? Will it compare the recipes for duplicates?
If it could categorize and provide the "basic" recipe with variations found from similar recipes, then it would be absolutely amazing!
TheStephenRay
But will it do what all cooks have to invariably do when searching these sites? Will it compare the recipes for duplicates?
If it could categorize and provide the "basic" recipe with variations found from similar recipes, then it would be absolutely amazing!
TheStephenRay
Tried to check it out but instantly ran into a registration wall. Requiring registration before the user even knows if they need/want your services means the user is just going to go somewhere else. Somewhere this isn't invasive and less of a hassle.
JeremiahHippodamia
Tried to check it out but instantly ran into a registration wall. Requiring registration before the user even knows if they need/want your services means the user is just going to go somewhere else. Somewhere this isn't invasive and less of a hassle.
JeremiahHippodamia
Tried to check it out but instantly ran into a registration wall. Requiring registration before the user even knows if they need/want your services means the user is just going to go somewhere else. Somewhere this isn't invasive and less of a hassle.
JeremiahHippodamia
food.com additionally provides a pretty sophisticated browser add on / extension sign up and download it it allows you to search from your toolbar. save and clip recipes you are browsing on other sites and such worth checking out as well
DallasHÂlios
It took less than a minute to register. The site certainly needs some work, but when it's truly ready it will rock.
Dai Tryon
Registration makes it a 'no' for me. I usually get my recipes from a few great food blogs (Kitchn, Omnomicon, and La Tartine Gourmande) and clip anything that looks fun to Evernote. If I want to cook something specific I just do a google image search.
mathmonkey
@DallasHÂlios:
Of course that's only useful if you happen to use ff or ie... I wish they had a bookmarklet instead.
Slart
While registration can be "annoying" in that you have to do it, i don't understand why people are so annoyed by it. It's not like they're asking for nude pictures of your mother or something. If you want to use it, register, if not then don't.
Papercutninja
I like this site already if for no other reason than the design and how things work (or will work, given that it is in beta). I wish it included a few other sites I visit like The Kitchn and Serious Eats.
@JeremiahHippodamia: Registration did not require email address verification. Just fill it with bogus information. It takes 10 seconds.
"basically, any food site you've heard of."
Does that include the BBC food website, Good Food, Jamie Oliver recipe website, UKTV Food website, Delia Online, Sainsburys, Channel 4 recipes, Waitrose recipes, Times Online recipes, allrecipes.co.uk....and so on.....?
Or are we just assuming that only US readers use this site? Or that only the US has websites?
mraquinn
"basically, any food site you've heard of."
Does that include the BBC food website, Good Food, Jamie Oliver recipe website, UKTV Food website, Delia Online, Sainsburys, Channel 4 recipes, Waitrose recipes, Times Online recipes, allrecipes.co.uk....and so on.....?
Or are we just assuming that only US readers use this site? Or that only the US has websites?
mraquinn
I use [www.foodieview.com] for all my searches. They offer a search plug-in, so you can search their database directly from the search box in Firefox.
penguiniator
I use [www.foodieview.com] for all my searches. They offer a search plug-in, so you can search their database directly from the search box in Firefox.
penguiniator
Except that most internet recipes suck (or are at least unreliable). I got into cooking last year, and started off using the internet for my recipes. After several near-misses and outright disappointments, I bought some respected cookbooks. The difference was amazing.
Except that most internet recipes suck (or are at least unreliable). I got into cooking last year, and started off using the internet for my recipes. After several near-misses and outright disappointments, I bought some respected cookbooks. The difference was amazing.
Except that most internet recipes suck (or are at least unreliable). I got into cooking last year, and started off using the internet for my recipes. After several near-misses and outright disappointments, I bought some respected cookbooks. The difference was amazing.
@joelena: i tried that, it didn't like what i gave it on 2 tries. next.
Larry Hirschhorn
@JeremiahHippodamia: i keep many food sites bookmarked for recipies. to have an aggregator would be great, but i agree with you regarding the registration. actually a google search is awesome, but sometimes overwhelming in the number of choices.
Larry Hirschhorn
@Doug Nelson: i always recommend the Good Housekeeping Illustrated cookbook, it's fantastic and covers theory as well as just "follow the recipe" everyone i have ever shown it to has bought it.
mfusion
@Doug Nelson: i always recommend the Good Housekeeping Illustrated cookbook, it's fantastic and covers theory as well as just "follow the recipe" everyone i have ever shown it to has bought it.
mfusion
@DallasHÂlios: i use Zotero for this. saves me one extra extension. in fact i use zotero for lots of things that have specialized extensions. it's even better than bookmarking for me.
mfusion
@DallasHÂlios: i use Zotero for this. saves me one extra extension. in fact i use zotero for lots of things that have specialized extensions. it's even better than bookmarking for me.
mfusion
Kevin, you mentioned that it has preparation/serving instructions, but I think that's incorrect, unless I'm missing it. It looks it categorizes by prep method, but you have to click through to original site to get the full recipe and instructions. I believe it's a legal thing. Ingredient lists are not copywrite protected, but directions and their wording are, so I don't think they can legally put the full recipe and instructions on the site. What I don't understand is why they don't put full instructions on the recipes that are from their own websites... Scripps networks owns both Food Network and Recipezaar. It's still great that you can search all those sites and categorize the results.... it's definitely a step in right direction.
YoshiSilus
Go to Google and type
recipe:"your recipe name here with no space after the colon but with quotes if you need them"
for example
recipe:"killer shrimp"
@mraquinn: this was going to be my reply!
The BBC site IS one of the best out. Coupled with [www.riverford.co.uk] of course :)
Being that I actually signed up and tried it, I can say this is one of the most fantastic search tools ever. The results are presented beautifully and the breadth of the search is amazing. Standing Ovation to Food.com!!!
cliffordthered
@[budurl.com]
I found a generic user-submitted account there that worked ;)
I actually can't browse the web without Bugmenot now.
Daniel Sedholm
mraquinn is right - not a bad service (once you register), but appears to miss some big sites, like (my personal favorite) allrecipes.com
I'm the co-founder of [www.recipebridge.com] a recipe vertical search that Lifehacker rejected for an article several months ago. Just pure clean search of over 200 cooking websites and blogs and over 1.4 million recipes -no login, -fully operational today. If you like Food.com's concept give our site a try. Cheers!
Andy Theimer
I'll have to check this out. I've been annoyed for a while that typing in "food.com" no longer takes me to "foodnetwork.com," and I have to type all those additional letters :) Yes, I'm too lazy to even bookmark it :p
I'll agree with the commenter that said online recipes are unreliable. All the recipes I've tried from various sites that were submitted by "normal people" have been terrible. I tend to have more luck following/modifying recipes by the pros.
Dignan17
Once upon a time, I went out to a restaurant in the bay area and ordered something called firecracker chicken. I thought the firecracker part meant it would be really spicy, but when it arrived I discovered it meant something entirely different.
While somewhat hot, it tasted like a spent firecracker smells! Mmmmmmmmmm.... Best chicken I've ever had. I *wish* I could find that recipe.
nighttimestereo