Google Arts & Culture is the search giant’s hub where you can find high-resolution scans of works of art and cultural artifacts from museums and archives around the world. Like the rest of the company, this ambitious platform doesn’t shy away from experimenting with artificial intelligence and has launched a up-to-date tool that aims to generate a fusion recipe combining two different types of cuisines.
Why an AI would generate an untested combination of, say, Mexican and Chinese dishes, rather than looking for a recipe from a real chef who can taste the food, but for the curious: Food Mood tool is here to show you what the bot thinks you should cook for dinner.
Food Mood combines recipes from two different styles of cuisine
Eating mood is a Google AI experiment created by artists from the Google Arts & Culture Lab. This is billed as a fun fusion recipe generator that can combine elements from two different cuisines and generate a up-to-date dish. (Yes, I double-checked and this is not the company’s annual April Fool’s Day prank.)
What real chefs learn through years of education, inspiration, and sweating and swearing in the kitchen, Food Mood does through the generative power of artificial intelligence. The experiment, created by artists Emmanuel Durgoni and Gaël Hugo, uses Google Gemini 1.0 Pro via Vertex AI.
The online tool is effortless to employ and quite intuitive. Tell the AI what type of dish you’re looking for (starter, main course, or soup), how many people you want to serve, and what types of cuisines you want to mix (from the two columns of available options – the list of countries is quite extensive).
Click Let’s cook button to generate a recipe (although you can also generate random recipes).
I tested it by choosing an appetizer for two, mixing influences from South Korea and India. (In my tests, it turned out that the resulting recipes are not too complicated and should be suitable for preparation at home).
Food Mood offers several options for customizing the recipe. Click the slider icon on the home page to display modifiers and tell the AI whether you prefer a vegan, vegetarian or gluten-free meal, for example. You can also add your own ingredient list – there’s an auto-suggestion menu that lets you choose up to three.
Source: Screenshot by Saikata Basu
Whether the end result is a recipe for something you actually want to eat, the recipe page is a remarkable showcase of Google’s advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. It creates a neat layout with a trendy name, step-by-step instructions, cooking times and professional tips on one page. There’s even an AI-generated photo of what the dish will (?) look like.
Source: Screenshot by Saikata Basu
Please note the disclaimer attached to each recipe:
This experiment uses artificial intelligence to inspire your creativity in the kitchen. The recipes were not developed in kitchens or by chefs. Operate your best judgment and always make food safety a priority.
AI cookbooks are here
Everyone used the Internet to look for recipes and similar websites AllRecipes AND Food combination, has already enabled you to search for recipes that combine ingredients you have on hand. Food Mood goes a step further and makes up a recipe for you if one doesn’t exist (with the caveat that it may not taste good). Realistically, this isn’t a challenge for trained chefs, and at least you’ll go into the process knowing you’re asking the AI to cook for you. It’s better than buying a cookbook you didn’t know was AI-generated.
