‘One of the most disgusting meals I’ve ever eaten’: AI recipes tested

Teresa J Blair has a handful of cookbooks to her name. Each has a snappy, catchy title: The Ultimate Crockpot Cookbook for Beginners: A Comprehensive Guide to Slow Cooking Success for Novice Chefs, Featuring Mouthwatering Recipes, Time-Saving Tips, and Essential Techniques is a great example. Teresa has written about canning and preserving, the Mediterranean diet and anti-inflammatory recipes. Well done, Teresa. But don’t expect this cookery writer to turn up to any book signings or appear on Saturday Kitchen. It’s not that Teresa is a diva; it’s that she’s not a real person. She’s an AI.

In the past couple of years, something disconcerting has been happening in the cookbook marketplace. Entire books are springing up, written by AI. In just over a week, between 2 and 14 December 2023, Teresa managed to publish four books – which means Nigel Slater will need to speed up his whisking significantly. She has a rival, as well: in January, the fictional Lillian D Stewart published five recipe books on pasta, gout food, lectin food, Mediterranean food and the dash diet. At first glance, Teresa’s books look plausible. Some people may be fooled by them. But can AI actually emulate human chefs?

In 2023, Joanne Lee Molinaro noticed that, among the infuriating rip-offs of her Korean Vegan Cookbook, there was one culprit that looked almost identical to her book. Written by one “Rachael Issy”, this Korean vegan cookbook had a cover so similar that it appeared to be actually trying to deceive readers. “I knew that AI could also be used to exploit the work of others,” Molinaro wrote on her website, “that its growing utility threatened human thought and labor with their obsolescence. But it never occurred to me that ChapGPT could cut so close to my bones. And man … it hurt.”