At The Culinary Exchange, we’re firmly in the camp that eating should be fun – food should be delicious and interesting and eating should be a social affair. Otherwise, where’s the fun? But it doesn’t stop there. With the range of food-related technology and apps, the tech world can make eating and cooking even more entertaining. With that said, here are five food apps that make eating into an informative, interactive, and – of course – fun affair.
Kitchen Stories
What do you get when you mix quality images, step-by-step instructions, and unique recipes? Kitchen Stories is a great app that lets you explore new recipes and enjoy everyone’s favorite part of food online – great (and tasty looking) food pics. They even offer helpful how-to videos to make food prep a breeze.
Yummly
Yummly combines the benefit of sorting through curated recipes by ingredient, holiday, techniques, and nutrition along with instantly created grocery lists and automated grocery delivery (through a partnership with delivery app Instacart). They curate recipes from common sites like Food 52, Epicurious, Chow, Serious Eats, and All Recipes, and let you easily save recipes that are your favorites. It’s a great tool for finding and planning recipes and meals, and makes grocery shopping as easy as possible.
Wine Glass
If you’ve ever been out to eat and struggled with what type of wine to pair with your meal, you’ll see the immediate benefit of this app. Wine Glass lets you scan the wine list on your restaurant menu, and creates an interactive wine guide that helps you choose the best pairing for your meal. Even more, it gives you ratings, reviews, pricing, and traditional food pairings for each item. They even offer crowdsourced tasting notes from CellarTracker – another wine app that lets users rate individual wines.
Mode Stories
Part of the fun of cooking (and eating!) is understanding the history behind the food or type of cuisine you’re enjoying. The Mode Stories (formerly Foodie.TV) app curates stories, interesting tidbits and interviews with chefs and other pertinent foodies to offer interesting content about the food we create and eat. They actually curate a range of story topics, but have a wealth of food-related content.
Substitutions
Any home chef knows that the worst thing that can happen in the middle of cooking a meal is realizing that you’re out of a necessary ingredient. The Substitutions app aims to minimize that panic by offering substitutes for a wide range of ingredients with everything from meat, vegetables, and spices. For instance, if you’re out of pumpkin pie spice, Substitutions will help you whip up a combination of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and cardamom.
What are YOUR favorite food apps? Which food tech helps you stay organized in the kitchen? Let us know in the comments!
