In that Norman Rockwell vision of holidays past, people held a kitchen mitt or maybe a cocktail in one hand while they basted the turkey with the other. This year, thanks to the steadily growing number of food and recipe apps, you're just as likely to see an iPhone or an iPad enter the beloved holiday picture. And for the food app companies looking to convert holiday recipe searchers into year-round food-obsessed users, it's game time.
One of the fastest-growing is Foodily. Reasoning that searching Google for a recipe can be a less-than-social process, Andrea Cutright launched Foodily in late 2011. Beyond just searching for recipes (which it does), the startup offers a social network that encourages food fanatics to share and chat about recipes on its website or newly updated iOS app. "There's no place to have a conversation about food online," argues Cutright. Twitter happens in short bursts, and isn't well-suited for back-and-forth conversation. Pinterest is all about images, she says, not how you managed to make something look so good. And not all your Facebook friends want to know you are having trouble with getting your gravy to thicken.
Think of Foodily as Quora for food, a place where your personal friends and "tastemakers" – expert chefs, nutritionists, and food bloggers – can answer complex cooking questions and give recipe suggestions. The site and mobile app pulls in links to recipes from blogs and food websites, indexed by the Foodily staff. You can save favorite recipes for later, share them with your friends, or ask questions like, "What type of salad goes best with this basil garlic vinaigrette?"
Former Good Morning America anchor, and now Foodily tastemaker, Lisa McRee posts recipes on her personal health food blog and on Facebook, but prefers having conversations about those recipes on the Foodily app. "When I post a recipe on Facebook, I get a lot of questions, but I purposely don't allow my subscribers to write on my wall," she says. Instead of responding to every food question she receives on Facebook like she used to, she says she prefers to turn to Foodily to open up a more inclusive conversation with a group of like-minded people that care about food.
Foodily hopes that the communities and conversations that McRee and other users are fostering become the source for all your food and entertaining questions; from party planning with friends in real-time, to finding holiday meal recipes that fit your sister-in-law's new paleo diet, and solving those tough cooking emergencies. It's the Butterball Turkey Talk line for the smartphone generation, where your urgent questions and turkey-related crises are answered by culinary experts and cooking-inclined friends.
Foodily is also keeping a close eye on which recipes are trending and the types of questions users are asking this time of year. While it's not banking any revenue yet, Foodily's intention is to use that data and the insight it brings to sell targeted advertising. "For example, with a recipe for Chia Muffins, we could show you offers from chia-seed sellers," says Cutright.
It may not have cracked its business model, but Foodily may have already cracked the favorite side dishes for Thanksgiving 2012. According to data gathered from the app, the top two are mashed potatoes, followed in third place by cauliflower mock mashed potatoes, then green beans and Brussels sprouts. The only logical explanation that Brussels sprouts beat out stuffing and cranberry sauce is that both those holiday standbys are non-negotiable, minor main dishes if you will. Some things, even in the age of the smartphone holidays, are sacred after all.
