Mini-review: Yummly is your meta guide to the world of online recipes

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You've got to love a service that aims to handle content from dozens of sources and yet present a standard interface, all beautifully presented in 'app' form. And Yummly delivers on the whole (well, not to your door, that's takeaway and the opposite to cooking, etc....!), with glossy photos that will have you both tapping the 'Yum' social button and also salivating from the word 'go'.

From the Store description:

Yummly puts every recipe in the world in your pocket. The most powerful recipe search, the recipe sites you love, your digital recipe box, recipe recommendations just for you, and one-hour grocery delivery - all with you wherever you go. Experience what millions are already enjoying on the web, now free on your Windows Phone.

The most powerful way to search the recipe sites you love. Why waste time sifting through the wrong recipes? Our unique search filters allow you to find the perfect recipes by holiday, cuisine, taste, diet, nutrition, allergy, cook time, technique, and more – so the recipes you find first are the right ones. No need to worry, we have all of your favorite recipes from your top recipe sites (AllRecipes, Epicurious, Food52, etc.) and from the best food blogs (Chow, Serious Eats, Steamy Kitchen, etc.) You can now also track the nutrition and servings of what you ate with Yummly's seamless integration with Health App.

Discover recipe recommendations, just for you. Set up your taste preferences and we’ll only serve up recipes that match. As you use Yummly, like magic, it learns about you like (and don’t like). Yummly will provide you with recipe recommendations every day that you are sure to love. In a bit of a food rut? Let Yummly help you out with a cornucopia of tasty suggestions. The more you Yum, the better it gets!

So all very 'meta', bridging you to the world of online recipes with minimal effort. Here's Yummly in action:

Screenshot, YummlyScreenshot, Yummly

Yummly is part meta search engine, part social network, with taps on the 'Yumm' buttons adding to item popularity and helping grade the search results and suggestions. In theory, the food suggested will then be customised to your tastes (the new suggestions come streaming in from a server, so there's definitely some central algorithm at work), but I wasn't that impressed by the choices for me. Still, me and food are just weird, so....(!)

Screenshot, YummlyScreenshot, Yummly

There's not much that the hamburger menu is needed for, thankfully - though you can at least look at what you've set as favourites (with a 'Yumm') and de-yumm it (can't believe I've just written that but....)

Screenshot, YummlyScreenshot, Yummly

Searching by keyword works brilliantly, and, as with all the recipes here, each match is accompanied by a gorgeous and mouth-watering photo; tapping through (right) produces an ingredient list (get shopping) and nutrition information.

Screenshot, YummlyScreenshot, Yummly

There - I told you you'd start feeling hungry....! Here showing a search result and (right) diving into a typical recipe. The latter is via a frame on the app page in which the original web site content can be scrolled - tapping the 'full screen' icon gets rid of the other screen furniture and makes thr recipe itself the only content, happily.

Screenshot, YummlyScreenshot, Yummly

There's a comprehensive system of dietary requirements and allergies (or just say if you don't like something). It's all well thought out and the originating web sites presumably get enough passing and follow-up interest that they're happy to provide provisioning information for their recipes for Yummly to draw in and index. Plus you, the consumer (literally, in this case!) win too - so it's smiles all round.

A terrific little tool if you need recipes for a special meal, if you fancy something different or if you just like looking at food(!) You can grab Yummly for free here.

Source / Credit: Windows Phone Store