Silicon Valley’s See Food App Is Actually Made by Pinterest
Pinterest has introduced a new feature that lets you find a recipe with a click of your smartphone’s camera: Food Recognition.
Back in February, Pinterest introduced Lens , a visual search tool currently in beta that uses their “new experimental technology” from the Pinterest mobile app. Food recognition is an extension of this tool and technology.
Imitation of life art?
This feature is new to Pinterest, but it looks like a fictional app whose name is verified in HBO’s Silicon Valley Season 4. The app is called See Food on the show and is positioned as “Shazam for food.” Pinterest does not officially recognize the fake app or link to its Shazam tagline. In fact, the platform told The Verge that any similarities are “separate and completely coincidental.”
How to use the new feature
To use, open the app and select the magnifying glass icon at the bottom. Then click the camera icon in the upper right corner to open the camera in the Pinterest app.
When you point your smartphone camera at food and take a photo by touching the screen, Pinterest will give you words related to what you are looking at. In the center of the screen will be the photo you took, surrounded by little text bubbles with similar terms that pop up. For example, when photographing an apple, terms such as “red apple”, “apples”, “healthy food” and “pomegranates” arise.
Then, if you scroll below, the platform recommends new recipes using similar ingredients. If you select the text bubble (say, you select apples), a more carefully curated search result appears.
You can also use images saved in Camera Roll.
Have a request for a prescription in hindsight? The app can help here as well.
After clicking on the camera icon and navigating to the “Lens” page, the landscape icon appears in the upper right corner. By clicking on it, you can download an image from the camera. After you select a photo, the app will display the related terms and recipes.
Is it worth it?
There is room for error in an application’s ability to find the right keywords. For example, a bowl of poke — a salad of raw fish served on top of rice — contains unrelated words such as “shrimp” and “cauliflower.” Likewise, the aerial view of an acai bowl topped with banana slices, mango slices, and coconut flakes prompted words like “pasta,” “lettuce,” and “cheese.”
This level of confusion is not entirely unexpected. In all fairness, the mango cubes in the picture (see above) can pass for cheddar cheese.
Despite the imperfect search results, the app’s new feature is useful for people who want to recreate a favorite meal in a restaurant or want inspiration for recipes based on what they’ve tasted or an ingredient they stumble upon. This is especially useful when you know nothing about a dish and only have visual cues. Also, if you have a very specific recipe (like a poke), you can always resort to typing words to search for.