SEATTLE — Post your favorite recipe online at Foodista.com … if you dare.
Next time you look at it, an ingredient might have changed in your contribution to the Seattle-based Web site. The baking time might lengthen. A new garnish could be on top. And that’s just the beginning.
The new online community is billed as the first cooking encyclopedia of its kind, one that ranges from recipes to ingredients to cooking techniques, and one that everyone can edit.
A collaborative approach to recipes “is really counterintuitive to a lot of people,” acknowledged Foodista co-founder Barnaby Dorfman, whose background ranges from running a Portland-based bakery chain to serving as a vice president for A9.com, Amazon.com’s search engine. It’s true that opinions on food are highly personal and heavily subjective.
However, he would argue, the same is true for much of the content on the grandfather of collaborative sites, Wikipedia.
“As they say, history is written by the victor,” he said.
Dorfman said the online encyclopedia sprang from the realization that “your average cookbook is better than what you will find in the average cooking Web site today.” Online, he thought, there could be new ways to make information about food more useful, better organized and more easily shared.
The site’s data are interlinked, for starters. A look at one dish could lead in any number of directions: Users could jump from a recipe to a mini-tutorial on simmering or browning or other terms in the recipe’s directions. They could check out the equipment it calls for, if they aren’t clear on what a double boiler does or what a potato ricer looks like. If they’ve never seen an ingredient before — a Jerusalem artichoke, say, or a shallot — they can click on photos or definitions (some pulled in from Wikipedia itself). They can find suggested substitutions for ingredients or visit bloggers who wrote about a given dish and embedded their links on the Foodista page.
And, if they don’t think the recipe works, they can make their own changes or add their own versions. (They can check the history of any entry to see what changes already have been made.)
“It’s definitely interesting,” said Tim Mar, chief executive of Chefshop.com, as he clicked through a beta version of the site.
Mar, one of the earliest to venture into the world of online food sites, said he didn’t think he’d be bothered if he posted a recipe that was later changed. “I modify every recipe I do.”
At first glance, the ease of loading photographs to the site was a nice touch, he said; on the down side, the large number of links on each page could get tiring. “I don’t know if I need a definition of water.”
The site has been simmering over the past few years in the minds of Dorfman and partner Sheri Wetherell, also an alumna of Amazon. It stayed on their mental back burners until they found a technology partner in Colin Saunders, whom they met when Saunders was also at A9.com. Foodista is self-funded by the three partners — they have invested less than $100,000, Dorfman said, and are just starting to talk with potential investors. It’s published under a Creative Commons Attribution License, allowing — encouraging, really — people to share or reinvent what’s there.
How will the site make a profit? For now, ads are limited to some Google Adsense terms — search “garlic press” and you could click on an ad to buy one. Dorfman said he could see print-on-demand coupons or other targeted ads in the future. While the basic site likely will remain free, they could add subscription options that provide extra data such as nutritional analyses, or are directed at particular diets or food allergies.
Over the past year, the trio have built up a fan base through the Foodista blog, where Sheri writes about cooking. They’ve crawled the Web and found some 2 million recipes, discovering that many online are repeats or variations on the same. (The site is starting with just 1,500.)
Dorfman noted that Wikipedia also started small. If people have an easy way to share their passions and be part of a community, he thinks, they’ll be interested enough to make it comprehensive. And who will police the site if recipes don’t work or definitions go wrong?
There will be ways to contact the administrators, of course. But the basic answer is the same: “The community.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
