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July 2003
Contents
Part 1: Introduction -- Finding Recipes Online
According to Nielsen//NetRatings, searching for recipes is the most popular food-related online activity.
Millions of people search for recipes each month.
Over 60% of online shoppers have done it at one time or another.
Over 150 web sites publish and promote large recipe collections,
and millions of personal pages publish at least one recipe or a small collection of favorites.
If you're looking for recipes, at least one of these sites is bound to help you.
But which one will it be? Or will you use more than one?
If you're looking for recipes, you could start a web search -- but that can be messy.
What we'll do here is provide you with some at-a-glance data to help you find a site or sites that will interest you.
We've also got a free "Recipe Finder" tool that lets you search for recipes at several popular sites at once.
You can learn more about it at
Search the Popular Recipe Sites All At Once
or just start using the tool directly at
Recipe Finder.
You can use this recipe finder by itself,
or create a free MakeLifeEasy account to store and organize your searches,
and to use the other shopping list management features, too.
We've located and reviewed ten of the most popular sites.
We'll provide you with some key facts about these sites.
This will help you find a site or sites that interest you.
Of course, there is no best one -- or two or three -- for everyone. You'll ultimately use
your own personal taste to select a site or sites to use.
We'll update this review about every six months,
as the online recipe sites change and
as we learn more about how well they perform over time.
You can help by sending your comments, questions, and suggestions.
Return to Contents
Part 2: How We Appraise The Sites
Here are the basic aspects we look for in each site:
- What's the Site About?
What's the site's "raison d'etre"?
Just for background, we try to understand why the site exists.
This could be the answer to one or more of these questions:
Who started it? Why?
What's the purpose (or goal, objective, etc.) of the site?
Do they have a special focus or strength?
- Where Do the Recipes Come From?
What is the source of the recipes in the database?
Do they come from individuals? Magazines? Restaurants? Somewhere else?
- How Many Recipes Are in the Database?
Here we'll usually just display the number they claim (e.g. "over 5000 recipes").
If there is other information about the database size, we'll provide that, too.
- How Many Popular Recipes Are in the Database?
This describes the results of a search for five very popular recipe types:
- salad recipes
- chicken recipes
- salmon recipes
- cookie recipes
- cake recipes
Also we've searched for a more obscure type of food to see how "broad" the database is:
This helps to give a clue about how big the database really is,
and it may help you to find which sites have more of the recipes you're looking for.
- How Can the Recipes Be Searched?
Here we'll describe how easy it is to find the recipes you're looking for.
- What Special Features Does the Site Have?
They are listed as pros (+), cons (-), or neutral aspects (*).
Here is where the sites can differ quite a bit.
Most sites are more than just recipe databases.
In some cases, "Recipes" is just a section of a larger site
on food, cooking, living, etc.
Or, a "Recipes" site may include a built-in nutrition planner, shopping list, member forums,
or other major feature that adds a lot of value to the site.
By the way, we tend to not include commercial links as "special features"
unless they're really unique or really add some unexpected value.
So, for example, if a site sells cookbooks or has links to Amazon,
we don't consider that a special feature per se.
However, we might consider it a special feature
if the site was the only source for a highly-demanded cookbook, for example.
- How Potentially Vulnerable is Your Privacy?
We're on guard for sites that want your email address to start sending you unsolicited email, or worse.
If a site never asks for your email address -- to sign up for a membership or otherwise --
it's a pretty safe bet that your privacy is protected.
If a site asks for your email address, your physical address, personal data,
or asks you to download and install software, etc., then we start to get worried.
We'll alert you to any of these aspects that we find.
- Future Possibilities. We'll be updating this review regularly,
and we plan to improve these appraisal points. Some possibilities are:
(1) testing for category strength. That is, in addition to searching
for specific keywords, we'll look for sites that have the most recipes in common categories
(e.g. appetizers, entrees, desserts, etc.). (2) Good recipe format. That is,
which sites have common, easy-to-understand recipe formats with useful data,
such as preparation time, preparation difficulty, etc.
Return to Contents
Part 3: How We Pick the Sites to Appraise
Recipes are very popular on the web.
Yahoo lists over 150 sites devoted to recipes.
We selected many of the most popular sites, then added some other well-known sites and
some lesser-known sites that we felt might be promising or "upcoming".
Then we added a few others that aren't as well known
but that provide a large, full-featured recipe database.
Here are the sites appraised in this review:
- AllRecipes
- Cook's Recipes
- Epicurious
- FoodGeeks
- Food Network
- FreeRecipe.org
- Global Gourmet
- Perfect Entertaining
- RecipeSource
- Top Secret Recipes
Here are more sites planned for the next edition:
Do you think we've missed an important site?
If so, please
email us and we'll have a look.
Return to Contents
Part 4: The Site-by-Site Comparison
Here are the results of our comparison.
The sites are listed alphabetically within each "site type":
- Really Big Databases contain well over 10,000 recipes.
Within this category are some "full service" sites.
Some of these are sponsored by big companies.
They often contain links to several types of content (articles, etc.) and
extra "tools" (e.g. an online recipe box, etc.).
They may also be cluttered up with a lot of ads and other distractions.
By contrast, RecipeSource is a really big database with
few extra features but with a very simple and clean interface.
- Additional Popular Sites have less recipes than the big databases
but still have a broad selection and are popular or well-known for some reason.
They may be a part of a larger web site (say, on cooking in general), they may be run by one person,
or anything in between.
- Specialty Sites don't carry a broad range of recipes,
but specialize in one genre, nationality, time period, point-of-view, etc.
These are usually also popular or well-known for some reason.
- NOTE: Some sites have a distinct international "flavor" (pun intended),
but we haven't broken that out as a separate type.
| Web site |
Recipe source(s) |
How many
recipes? |
How many
popular
recipes? |
Search? |
Special features
Pro(+), Con(-) |
Privacy |
| Really Big Databases (Many Are "Full Service" Sites) |
AllRecipes
(more info...)
|
* Individuals
* Cookbooks
* Partners |
20,000+ |
200+ salad
200+ chicken
149 salmon
200+ cookies
200+ cake
21 risotto
|
Yes
* by name
* by ingr
* by submitter
* more |
- Pop-up ads
+ Scaling
+ NutriPlanner
+ Recipe box
+ Shopping list
+ Many more |
Fine |
Epicurious
(more info...)
|
* Magazines
- Bon Appetit
- Gourmet
- Etc.
* Cookbooks
* (other) |
15,000+ |
1535 salad
2387 chicken
303 salmon
560 cookies
819 cake
86 risotto
|
Yes
* keyword
* cuisine
* filters |
- Pop-up ads
+ Recipe box
+ Forums
+ Dictionaries
+ Many more |
Fine |
Food Network
(more info...)
|
* Food network
chefs/shows |
25,000+ |
2159 salad
3348 chicken
499 salmon
417 cookies
1334 cake
152 risotto
|
Yes
* keyword(s)
* filters |
+ Unique
search filters
+ Menus
+ Food reference
("Meal helpers")
+ Many more |
Fine |
RecipeSource
(more info...)
|
* Individuals |
70,000+ |
3403 salad
4575 chicken
551 salmon
2302 cookies
4175 cake
166 risotto
|
Yes
* title only
* advanced |
+ No frills
+ Excellent
international
coverage |
Fine |
| Additional Popular Sites |
CooksRecipes
(more info...)
|
Not stated;
some from
Meals.com |
10,000+ |
1306 salad
1404 chicken
563 salmon
1271 cookies
1190 cake
31 risotto
|
Yes
- Site-level
* in cat(s) |
- Popup ads
+ Forums
+ Dictionary
+ Charts & tips |
Fine |
FoodGeeks
(more info...)
|
Individuals |
6500+- |
334 salad
293 chicken
40 salmon
267 cookies
674 cake
8 risotto
|
Yes
* by title
* by ingrs
* in cat(s)
* syntax |
+ Recipe box
+ Ratings
+ Prep times
+ Newsletter |
Fine |
FreeRecipe.org
(more info...)
|
Not stated |
1000+- |
100+ salad
50+ chicken
17 salmon
34 cookies
43 cake
0? risotto
|
No |
+ Unique
time period
+ Very simple,
clean site |
Fine |
Global Gourmet
(more info...)
|
Various;
mostly
unspecified |
Not stated;
moderate? |
"20+" salad
"20+" chicken
"20+" salmon
"20+" cookies
"20+" cake
"20+" risotto
|
Limited
-Excite search |
+ International
context and
organization
+ New content
daily |
Fine |
Perfect Entertaining
(more info...)
|
Individuals |
600+- |
70+- salad
28+- chicken
4+- salmon
3+- cookies
15+- cake
0? risotto
|
No |
+ Articles
+ Menus
* Newsletter |
Fine |
| Specialty Sites |
TopSecretRecipes
(more info...)
|
Todd Wilbur |
150+- |
10 salad
15 chicken
0 salmon
9 cookies
5 cake
0 risotto
|
Limited
* by ingr only |
+ Fun articles |
Fine |
Notes On The Table
- How Many Recipes?
"+" means "more than". "+-" means "more or less".
So, for example, "10,000+-" means "10,000 (more or less)"
- Searches.
"By ingr" means you can search by ingredient.
"In cat(s)" means you can search within a single category or categories.
"Syntax" means you can do more than just search for a phrase;
usually it means you can use logical syntax (AND, OR, etc.).
- Privacy.
"Fine" means you are not required to provide any personal data, including your email address.
Notes On Selected Sites
"A large network of cooking sites, great recipes, meal ideas, and cooking advice."
AllRecipes has been online since 1997.
They have gradually merged data and software from several sources
to form a large, diverse, full-featured recipe site.
They are one of the top 5 sites in terms of visitors, and often the leader.
This "full-featured" site has many special features and "tools" for meal preparation (summarized in the table).
"Contains recipes, culinary articles, a cooking dictionary, tips, charts, and more."
"Includes thousands of searchable, tested recipes and menus from Bon Appetit and Gourmet."
This is the recipe site of the Conde-Nast network,
and it's very well integrated with all this network's other assets.
These include magazines (Bon Appetit, Gourmet), cookbooks, a restaurant guide, television shows,
and other media. Overall it's a lifestyle site with food as a cornerstone.
This "full-featured" site has many special features and "tools" for meal preparation.
"Recipes, a to do list, advice on using leftovers, and more."
The site is very simple, streamlined, and easy to use.
For example, lists of the newest ten recipes, seasonal recipes, etc.,
are instantly available without commercial distractions.
"foodnetwork.com is the companion website to the the Food Network shows on cable TV."
This "full-featured" site has many special features and "tools" for meal preparation (summarized in the table).
"Offers recipes for homemade and old fashioned cooking including
appetizers, breakfast, dessert, main and side dishes, and soups."
...
"Like grandma's grandma used to make. All of the recipes at FreeRecipe.org date back to the early 1900s."
This is a very simple, clean, no-frills site. Just recipes and nothing more.
"Including foodwine.com and the electronic gourmet guide."
Global Gourmet has a heavy emphasis on international cooking
and provides a broad database of international recipes.
They also include background articles on cultures and customs
that can provide a useful context for your international cooking.
"Features articles, planned menus, recipes, tips, and party ideas. Also offers a weekly newsletter."
"Recipes organized by region and ethnic group, or type of dish."
This is a vast collection of recipes submitted by individuals.
It's been around since 1995, and is supported by four volunteers.
It's a no-frills site, which you may find refreshing compared to the full-featured sites.
You can browse recipes by type (which is very common),
and also by geographical region (which is more unique).
It has excellent regional coverage, probably the best.
"From Planet Hollywood Pot Stickers to the In-N-Out Double-Double, attempts to clone the tastes we love."
Todd Wilbur re-creates famous brand-name recipes from restaurants, packaged foods, etc.
It's a simple, clean site with a few entertaining articles, but it stays focused on its goal:
re-creating those well-known tastes.
Return to Contents
Part 5: Using Recipes With Your Smart Shopping List
Right now, you can quickly search for recipes for the items on your shopping lists
and save your searches to easily re-use them.
See Search the Popular Recipe Sites All At Once.
In the coming months, we'll be linking recipes even more closely with your smart shopping list.
Return to Contents
Part 6: Finding Popular Recipes
See Find The Most Popular Recipes Online.
Return to Contents
Part 7: Conclusion
Which recipe site(s) you use depends heavily on personal taste.
We've tried to help by clarifying the different types of sites,
listing some of the bigger, more popular, and/or higher value sites of each type,
and providing tools to help you perform your recipe searches more quickly and easily.
There are few if any privacy issues with basic use of any of the sites reviewed.
That's because no site requires you to sign up to access recipes.
The online recipe sites will continue to change.
We'll update this review often and we want to do out best to make it accurate and useful.
Here's how you can help:
- Do you have a recipe site to recommend? Please tell us.
- Do you operate a recipe site that we should evaluate? Please tell us.
- Have we missed anything about your site?
Please send your comments to
the editors.
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