We love cooking!

It’s a great hobby, a chance to experiment, a way to clear your mind. And, rather conveniently, something we get to do every day. After all, we do need to eat three times a day!

And the web should be a great place for amateur cooks too. A place where we can share recipes, the preparations we’re happy about and the ones not so much.

Unfortunately, that’s not at all what the web looks like today.

Most cooking websites are fully enshittified. They’re buried under ads, stuffed with endless stories you didn’t ask for, and increasingly filled with AI-generated content that makes finding a simple recipe unnecessarily painful.

We think we can do better.

That’s why we built Cookifed.

What is Cookifed

The name Cookifed comes from the contraction of “federated cooking”. You may also see it as meaning “having been fed cookies”. Both understandings are valid, and in fact, if you find a new one, we’d be happy to hear about it, especially if it’s a pun.

Made by humans, for humans

Cookifed is not a corporate-built app that you have no say about, and where you’re left wondering what’s happening with your data.

It’s an Open Source project, built by people who love cooking and believe the tools we use should belong to the people who use them.

We’re currently a small group, but our goal is for Cookifed to be collegially governed and shaped by its community.

In other words, Cookifed is yours, to use, improve and make your own!

If you’re a computer tinkerer, all our code and documentation are fully open, and the project is released under the AGPL license. You can contribute improvements, build on the code, or even run your own Cookifed instance.

And we’re not saying this just because it’s possible. We really want you to get involved.

We’re all volunteers, and there’s plenty to do. Maybe you have a tiny improvement you’d like to make. Maybe you have an idea for a feature. Maybe you want to dive in and become a regular contributor.

Come and talk to us in our matrix space.

And you don’t need to know how to program to help. Designers, cooks, writers, testers, translators, people with ideas — all help is welcome.

Who is Cookifed for?

But let’s go back to cooking! We’re building Cookifed for everyone who likes cooking at home.

For the casual cook

Everybody eats! And, that’s scientifically proven, cooking is healthier than relying on preprocessed food. It’s also cheaper, and way more fun!

But cooking at home doesn’t mean spending hours in the kitchen. Recipes can be very simple, and quick to do, whether you’re busy with a family to feed, or because you have better things to do.

Cookifed helps you discover recipes shared by the community and plan what you’re going to cook. Whether that’s one special meal or your meals for the entire week.

And when you find something you love, you can keep track of it and easily come back to it later.

No scrolling through fifteen paragraphs about someone’s childhood before you get to the ingredients. Just cooking.

For the hobbyist

Or maybe cooking is more than just getting dinner on the table.

Maybe you love trying new things. Maybe you cook for your friends. Maybe you’re trying to recreate your grandmother’s legendary cookie recipe from a few ingredients and a vague childhood memory.

Cookifed is built for that too.

By tracking each preparation, you can experiment every time you cook a recipe, and keep track of what you changed and how it turned out.

Over time, each preparation becomes part of your own cooking history. Quite like a scientific experiment where you’re slowly working towards your perfect version of a recipe.

Social and federated

Cooking is about sharing!

Recipes on Cookifed can be made public and shared with other users. You can invite friends, follow each other, and share the recipe to the cake you brought to last Saturday’s party.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Cookifed also speaks ActivityPub, a federated protocol that allows social networks and applications to communicate with each other.

That anyone with an account on the Fediverse can follow your recipes and preparations. And you can follow their own content.

And if you decide to run your own Cookifed instance, things get even more interesting.

You can follow people on other instances, be followed by them, and even plan and track preparations of recipes hosted somewhere else.

Different communities. Different servers. One shared cooking network.

That’s the web, working as intended when it was created: free, open, connected, community-driven, and not locked in into a platform or a company.

It’s only the beginning

And honestly, we’re just getting started.

We have a lot of ideas for where Cookifed could go next, and we’re also eager to hear how we can make things better.

So, come and join us! We provide two public instances:

• Cookifed.net, primarily for English speakers
• cuisine.social, primarily for French speakers

Both instances are federated of course, so recipes can be shared between them.

Let us know what you think

And if you have questions, suggestions, want to give us a hand or just to follow what we’re doing you can do so on a few channels. We are on the fediverse/mastodon, as well as on matrix.

We have been working on Cookifed for a long time before opening it publicly.

We’re already using it daily, and are pretty happy with what we have come up. But we’re also very aware that what works for us might not work for everyone.

That’s why we’re opening the doors now. Try it out, and let us know what you think.

We’re excited to see what happens next, and we’d love to have you along for the ride.