Free archives and databases

Recipes / API TheMealDBOpen, crowd-sourced recipe database with photographs and video, filed by cuisine. Searchable from this site's Recipes panel. www.themealdb.com Archive Internet Archive – Food and Culinary Arts1,350 scanned books on cooking, nutrition and food history, free to read. Searchable from this site's Archive panel. archive.org Archive Boston Public Library Cookbook CollectionHistoric cookbooks from the 19th century onward, including community and charity fundraiser books that record what people actually cooked. archive.org Archive / Transcriptions Feeding America: Historic American Cookbook ProjectMichigan State's digitised and fully transcribed core of American cookbooks, 1798 onward, with a searchable glossary of period cooking terms. d.lib.msu.edu Reference UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage – FoodInscribed culinary traditions — Washoku, the Mediterranean diet, Neapolitan pizzaiuolo, kimjang, Georgian qvevri wine — with documentation and video. ich.unesco.org Database Ark of Taste (Slow Food)A catalogue of over 6,000 endangered foods, breeds and preparations from around the world, each with a note on why it is at risk. www.fondazioneslowfood.com Reference FAO – Traditional Crops and Food SystemsThe UN Food and Agriculture Organization on the staples the industrial food system overlooked: fonio, teff, quinoa, taro, millet. www.fao.org Database Open Food FactsOpen database of packaged food from every country: ingredients, additives, nutrition, all under an open licence. world.openfoodfacts.org Scholarship Oxford Symposium on Food and CookeryThe longest-running academic food conference; decades of proceedings on the history and anthropology of eating. www.oxfordsymposium.org.uk Journal GastronomicaPeer-reviewed journal of food studies, with a substantial free archive. gastronomica.org Index OpenAlexOpen index of scholarship. Every 'Further reading' list on a place page here is drawn from it, filtered to open-access work. openalex.org Encyclopedia Cook's Info / Practically EdibleLong-running free encyclopedia of ingredients, dishes and food terms with regional detail. www.cooksinfo.com Open Media Wikimedia Commons – FoodFreely licensed photographs of dishes, markets, ingredients and techniques. commons.wikimedia.org Technique Serious Eats – The Food LabFree, rigorously tested technique writing: why a method works, not just the steps. The best free bridge between science and the stove. www.seriouseats.com Data USDA FoodData CentralPublic-domain nutrient composition for tens of thousands of foods, with an open API. fdc.nal.usda.gov Public Domain Project Gutenberg – CookeryPublic-domain cookbooks as plain text and ePub, from Apicius to Mrs Beeton. www.gutenberg.org