Ever since the internet came on the scene, we have used our cookbooks less and less. It is so much more convenient and functional to use the web to search for recipes, ingredients, techniques, and everything else we want to know. Who knows what's in all those cookbooks we have! While we still enjoy dipping into them for inspiration, they feel far less functional (i.e. searchable) than our trusted food resources online.
But what if your cookbooks were indexed and searchable online? What if you had a virtual bookshelf with all your cookbooks, searchable and cross-referenced by ingredient and keywords? Well, that changes everything. Meet Eat Your Books.
The idea behind Eat Your Books (EYB) is simple. The site has a library of over 15,000 cookbooks, of which they have completely indexed about 900. They do not reproduce the actual recipes or text on the site, but they have created an enormous library of metadata about these cookbooks. You can search, for instance, for chicken recipes and they will show the titles of cookbooks and the names of recipes in those cookbooks that include chicken. Click on a recipe and you'll see a full ingredient list (which you can use to create a shopping list).
Users of EYB pick the cookbooks they own personally out of the huge library of indexed cookbooks and put them on their own virtual bookshelf. Then they can search among just the books they own.
Overall, this is an amazing service to cooks — especially cooks who own a lot of cookbooks. There are treasures in those books that aren't replicated online, and we think that this indexing service can help us get a lot more out of our own books.
The design of the site is lovely and clean, and fairly easy to navigate. There are some things we wish were a little more clear (a big "Add a new cookbook" button would be helpful). The process of finding and adding books to our own bookshelf isn't as intuitive as we think it could be.
Minor quibbles aside, though, the amount of data contained in EYB is staggering, and their site is a true gift to many cooks. Using the service will cost you $25 per year, or you can buy a lifetime membership for $50. Pretty cheap, we think, for a perpetual index of all our cookbooks.
Have you visited Eat Your Books yet?
• Check it out! Eat Your Books
Correction: We initially stated that EYB has indexed 15,000 books. This is not correct. EYB has a library of 15,000 books, but they have actually indexed about 900 of these. They are steadily adding more books and hope to eventually index all 15,000 of those titles (and all 3.6 million recipes!).
Related: Kitchen Tech: Organize Recipes Using Google Reader
(Images: Eat Your Books)
A very interesting idea—especially good for those of us who have our cookbooks at home, but decide what to make for dinner while at work. Having that shopping list is key!
I only wish more recent cookbooks were indexed—those are the ones I want to cook from!
view maggie (p/c)'s profile
I've just tried this a little. Its a great idea and seems to work well. Except when they don't have your book indexed. What's the point if you can't search ALL your cookbooks at once? There are also some of mine Canadian cookbooks they don't have listed at all (i.e. most Canadian Living books). Because of this, I likely won't subscribe after my free trial is up.
view katrinabroughton's profile
Yes, yes, a thousand times YES! I do most meal-planning from my office and am constantly having to lug cookbooks from home to work, remember to look at something at night (which rarely happens), or give up and find recipes online. This would dramatically increase my ability to use and enjoy my lovely cooking library.
view magmae's profile
I find the concept intriguing, but I looked on the Quick Tour and didn't see a time category for each recipe.
Like maggie, I often decide what to make for dinner by searching for recipes online from work, and I definitely need to know how long a recipe will take. Therefore, I need to know the recipe methodology or the given time requirement.
view heather77's profile
This is great. Sometimes I'll want to make sometihng "using tangerines" but I don't have the patience to look through all my books.
view sygyzy's profile
I just signed up for the 30 day trial, and I like it so far. What I'd really love is the list of ingredients and amounts, and then be able to print up a list for the grocery store. But from what I've seen so far, I am def. considering the $50 lifetime membership.
view thesamanthafiles's profile
Thank you all for your great comments about EYB. I thought I should respond to your points.
You can request that we index any of your cookbooks that have not yet been done. We cannot guarantee that every cookbook will be indexed - the more requests it gets, the higher up the list it goes. And we will soon be adding a feature that will allow you to add any cookbook to the EYB Library (and so to your Bookshelf).
On the timings for recipes - only a minority of cookbook authors actually put that information in their books. It would be hard for us to estimate that for every recipe. But on our wish list is the ability for members to enter their own timing in comments so we can get a consensus view on how long it takes.
We haven't added amounts of ingredients for two reasons. We don't know what fraction or multiple of a recipe you might be making. And also we intend EYB to be international and the US and rest-of-the world measurements are completely different.
I am happy to answer more comments here or you can contact me directly through the website. Thank you so much for your interest in EYB.
view JaneEYB's profile
I just use Evenote. I scanned all my cookbooks to Evernote, and it indexed all of them so they are searchable. I have a notebook in Evenote with all my recipes, from both online sources and from cookbooks and I can search all of them at once! It's also nice as I can access all my recipes on my iPhone in the kitchen! Best of all, it's free!
evernote.com
view tdreyer1's profile