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October, 2002 Epicurious.com - the good, the bad, and the yummy 
It is no secret that there is tons of information about food on-line.
But what the cooks want is not just quantity, but quality of information.
The culinary on-line world has been through quite a journey since the early
days of the web. It started out with disorganized untested recipes from
questionable sources. At that time, the web was no more useful than
a bad cookbook. Today it provides a wealth of culinary resources that
can be browsed and searched, as well as a medium for discussion and
exchange of ideas. Epicurious.com
is a great example of this evolution.
This site provides a tremendous body of food and wine resources, and makes
them extremely accessible to cooks. It also created a completely new
way of communicating about the food by allowing readers of the site
to contribute to its content. It changes the way we cook and think
about food.
Are you trying to find a recipe for Butternut Squash Lasagne, Curried Sweet Potato Latkes, or Upside-Down Pear Tart? No matter how basic or exotic your request is, chances are that during the past 10 years either Bon Appetit or Gourmet magazine published it or a similar recipe. There is no need to look through old magazines or save the recipe clippings. All these recipes are in the searchable Epicurious.com database. Often you'll get a large number of results. For example, I get 20 results for "waffles". My way to narrow down the list is to read the reviews of other Epicurious visitors who made these recipes. Epicurious visitors can write a review and give the recipe a 1-4 fork rating (4 being the best). It is very important to read the full review and not just look at the forks. Many reviewers are adventurous cooks who will improvise on the theme of the recipe and fix fatal flaws yet still give 4 forks. Out of the 20 waffle recipes that I found, one that caught my attention was Power Waffles with Yogurt, Bananas and Almonds from the March 1999 issue of Bon Appetite. The beauty of finding this recipe on Epicurious.com and not in a magazine is that I could learn from the wisdom of 8 other cooks who made this recipe. I learned from the reviewers that I should whip the egg whites before adding them to the batter. The recipe said to add them unwhipped. Whipping egg whites creates waffles that are light and fluffy inside and crisp outside. Otherwise they come out dense and cardboard tasting. It was indeed a fantastic recipe with this small but important correction. When I come across a recipe that sounds promising, I add it to "my recipe box". This way, I can find it easily when it's time to make it. There is much more than recipes and great reviews on Epicurious. This site opened windows to many cuisines I had not explored before. I used to be reluctant to try recipes from unfamiliar cuisines since I did not know where to get the right ingredients. I also did not know what different ingredients tasted like and could not easily figure out if it would be a dish I would enjoy. These barriers to other cuisines were knocked down when I started exploring the "Learn" menu on Epicurious and found the Food Dictionary. If you come across an unfamiliar ingredient in a recipe, just search for it, and you'll learn what it is, what it tastes like, where to buy it, how to store it and use it. Now that you'll start exploring the world cuisines armed with Epicurious as your guide, don't forget the wine--that wonderful companion to food. If you want to learn more about it, check out the wine dictionary. You can look up wine producing regions, grape varietals, wine producers, and wine tasting vocabulary. It will not only help you sound like a wine snob at wine tasting parties, but also make you a pro at making sense of European wine labels. Like any site, Epicurious is not without some flaws. Since the recipe reviews are unmonitored, they sometimes turn into flame wars. It is quite amusing how even the most innocent recipes can be considered controversial, but for a really good laugh, check out reviews of Beef Wellington or Lobster Salad. My other pet peeve is that my recipe box is not searchable. When I only had a few recipes, I could just glance through them, but as the recipe box has grown, it has become difficult to find recipes. Since there are frequent improvements to the site, hopefully recipe box search and other nice features await us in the future. Will a site like Epicurious make magazines and cookbooks obsolete? I don't think so. I still buy cookbooks when I am looking for a body of knowledge on a particular subject like Bread Baking, Russian Cuisine, etc. I also subscribe to Gourmet because I enjoy the experience of curling up with a magazine. But I no longer save magazine clippings, and I have a much higher success rate with the recipes I make since I can learn from the knowledge of Epicurious reviewers. I am also not bounded by my cookbook collection. If I have a craving for Beef Sate with Peanut Sauce, I get the recipe immediately and run to the store to buy the ingredients. Epicurious, that's what's for dinner! Bon Appetit! |
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