Recipe
Consumer and social
recipe site
SHOW HN2011
How HN took it
9 positive, 7 neutral or asking, 4 mixed, 12 critical, out of 32 comments about the project. Thread score 0.00.
Execution: 2 for, 10 againstIdea: 4 for, 2 againstDesign: 3 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Clean, slick design
From 3 comments
I think this is really cool from a technical perspective, but I don't understand the purpose of the guided recipe tool. Why would I want to create a recipe with the tool in the…
sray on HNCooking + statistics = ♥ Design is really nice, I'll just make hover menu font little bigger and changed the color of "ask a question" btn.
Santas on HNIs there any way of changing how the ingredients are measured ie pounds to grams? Also.. perhaps cups is not the best way to measure onions ;) Nice work though, design looks slick
sycren on HN
Useful for adjusting recipes you already know
From 2 comments
A lot of comments here are about what you can't do with this site (with the usual conclusion that therefore the site is useless). Sure, there are some things it doesn't do. It…
jmilloy on HNWith only three clicks, using the suggested ingredients, I removed one ingredient, added two others, and was told the proportions automatically. Notepad neither suggested the…
jmilloy on HN
Interesting statistics-based approach
From 2 comments
Cooking + statistics = ♥ Design is really nice, I'll just make hover menu font little bigger and changed the color of "ask a question" btn.
Santas on HNInteresting concept. I suppose this is based on statistics/ml, which is nice for finding positive matches. It doesn't work with diets avoiding certain ingredients like…
konstruktor on HN
Objections
Ingredient database is inaccurate (e.g. units, broad matching)
From 3 comments
It's interesting. Wholesale scraping of thousands of other peoples' recipes is ballsy, clever, but makes me a bit queasy. But, I'm not sure how useful it is in this packaging.…
tptacek on HNYou need units; I typed in lasagna and got suggestions for "200 cheese" and "1 beef". EDIT: just realized that I actually typed in "lasanga", hence the weird ingredients.
ryanwaggoner on HNYum, except you might have to tweak whatever function you're using to add or multiply ingredients... I typed in "popcorn" and it suggested using 9 1/2 cups of popcorn =) I think…
noduerme on HN
Quantities don't scale linearly across recipes
From 2 comments
A pretty basic point to make here is that many recipes --- perhaps most --- don't scale linearly with ingredients. There's usually a core ratio you can distill out that can scale…
tptacek on HNI feel like this is pretty well known; not that recipes can't be scaled, but that you can't reliably do it by multiplying the ingredients. I just flipped through Ferran Adria's…
tptacek on HN
Unclear purpose for users
From 2 comments
I think this is really cool from a technical perspective, but I don't understand the purpose of the guided recipe tool. Why would I want to create a recipe with the tool in the…
sray on HNIt looks nice. I like the simple and functional design. I don't know how I'd use this though. If I want to make pancakes and type that in it gives me six of the seven ingredients…
thirdstation on HN
Recipe scraping raises copyright and ethical concerns
From 2 comments
It's interesting. Wholesale scraping of thousands of other peoples' recipes is ballsy, clever, but makes me a bit queasy. But, I'm not sure how useful it is in this packaging.…
tptacek on HNIt's interesting. Wholesale scraping of thousands of other peoples' recipes is ballsy, clever, but makes me a bit queasy. You probably already know this, but the ingredients…
nitrogen on HN
Fails with dietary restrictions like vegan or gluten-free
From 1 comment
Interesting concept. I suppose this is based on statistics/ml, which is nice for finding positive matches. It doesn't work with diets avoiding certain ingredients like…
konstruktor on HN
Requests
Ingredient substitution support
From 1 comment
One cool feature would be how to handle substitutions. For example, if I am trying to make a pie crust. And I don't have butter, it would be good to be able to cross out butter,…
aaronjg on HN
Ability to input available ingredients and get shopping list
From 1 comment
It looks nice. I like the simple and functional design. I don't know how I'd use this though. If I want to make pancakes and type that in it gives me six of the seven ingredients…
thirdstation on HN
Metric (SI) units and unit conversion
From 2 comments
You should definitely show temperatures and measurements in SI units as well for us Scandinavians (and other non-crazy folks)!
Zolomon on HNIs there any way of changing how the ingredients are measured ie pounds to grams? Also.. perhaps cups is not the best way to measure onions ;) Nice work though, design looks slick
sycren on HN
Dietary filtering for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free
From 1 comment
Interesting concept. I suppose this is based on statistics/ml, which is nice for finding positive matches. It doesn't work with diets avoiding certain ingredients like…
konstruktor on HN
Questions
What is the purpose of the guided recipe tool?
From 1 comment
I think this is really cool from a technical perspective, but I don't understand the purpose of the guided recipe tool. Why would I want to create a recipe with the tool in the…
sray on HN
Are recipes sourced by scraping other sites?
From 1 comment
It's interesting. Wholesale scraping of thousands of other peoples' recipes is ballsy, clever, but makes me a bit queasy. But, I'm not sure how useful it is in this packaging.…
tptacek on HN
Alternatives named
The Flavor Bible
From 2 comments
So, what you really want is _The Flavor Bible_ (you can get it on your Kindle), which is an intensely well curated, expert-driven dictionary of flavor pairings. For instance,…
tptacek on HNIt's interesting. Wholesale scraping of thousands of other peoples' recipes is ballsy, clever, but makes me a bit queasy. But, I'm not sure how useful it is in this packaging.…
tptacek on HN
Foodily
From 1 comment
There's a related but different recipe tool in the UK: http://www.foodily.com/
mattslight on HN
Recipe Puppy
From 1 comment
http://www.recipepuppy.com/ is what I made to search for recipes that use ingredients you already have. It lacks the shopping list functionality though.
kbrower on HN
Ingredient Pairings
From 1 comment
Thanks for your feedback. I realize this won't ever work perfectly for every type of dish. But the dishes I have tried using the given ratios have all come out much better then…
kbrower on HN