Writing Guide

Thanks for helping create the largest and most comprehensive cooking encyclopdia in the world! Here are some thoughts on how to best write for Foodista. We recognize that there are many different styles and approaches to writing about food and recipes; this guide is intended to help create consistency and accuracy within Foodista. This writing guide applies to recipes you add to Foodista and recipes you find written by others that you can edit.

Avoid using first person references.

Avoid personal references. Replace “I, me, my, mine, we, our or us” with "you or your". Since your contributions may be read and edited by many people, "Cumin adds a nice flavor" works better than, "I like to add cumin because it adds flavor."

Be precise with ingredients in recipes

We're building software to analyze recipes and eventually provide additional information, such as nutritional analysis. So please try to be exact and don't use ranges, like 1-2 pounds of chicken: computers don't handle ambiguity well. Instead, say 1.5 pounds of chicken or 1 chicken. Also, just include a single ingredient per line in your recipes rather than suggesting a substitute. If halibut can be substituted for cod , then we'd love to have you edit the cod page to reflect substitution options. Another option is to describe optional ingredients in the 'About' section of your recipe.

Avoid using brand names, if possible.

If any canned tuna fish will do then there's no need to call out the brand; however, if your recipe is for "Bisquik's Impossibly Easy Cheeseburger Pie" then go for it: we just won't be able to link it to an ingredient page. Also, keep in mind that brands tend to be somewhat regional, whereas we are building Foodista for cooks everywhere.

If you do use a brand name...

If you're using packaged ingredients as a way of simplifing the recipe, we recommend including "Easy" or "Quick" in the name of your recipe. For example, "Easy Dirty Rice."

I want to write about a Kitchen Tool, Cooking Technique, Food, or Recipe, but I don't have a photo.

That's okay. Someone else might! Go ahead and write your description and the photo will follow.

I don't want anyone to edit my recipe. Is that possible?

Yes: when you add a recipe you can set it to "Personal Recipe - Only I Can Edit" before you click "Save." You can only do this before you publish it for the first time, though you can always change from Personal to Public. Please note, Foodista staff may edit your recipe or change it to Public if we find that a common dish has been added as a Personal recipe. Personal recipes are intended only for your own creations and unique twists on well-known dishes. Generally, we believe it's valuable for all content to be editable by everyone and have found that recipes remain fundamentally unchanged when they have been edited. Most edits are only minor tweaks, such as spelling corrections, adding other names, formatting for consistency, etc. Please note that while only you can edit a Personal recipe, others can still view it.