YummySoup vs Connoisseur
Awhile back, I reviewed Connoisseur as a more fully-featured alternative to Measuring Cup for organizing and using recipes on your Mac. While the program had every feature I was looking for, its developers, The Little App Factory, apparently no longer offer support or answer e-mails.
Based on a recommendation in the comments I’ve tried out YummySoup as an alternative. YummySoup, shares many of the same features as Connoisseur. It comes with a fair library of recipes sorted into categories and rated by taste and difficulty, and gives you access to a small database of recipes from various websites.
Like Connoisseur it has a grocery list feature, though instead of automatically listing every ingredient from any recipe you want to use, it allows you to choose only the ingredients you need and enter them manually. I was actually a little off-put by that, but probably only because I’m impatient and we’re usually low on everything in our cupboards whenever I want to bake.
The rating system for difficulty and taste is simple and very easy to navigate. Green is easy, yellow is moderately difficult, and red means you might want to try it a few times before offering it to a guest. You can change the difficulty rating of a recipe simply by clicking inside the bar — left is easy, right is hard. The change is instant. You can also sort recipes according to difficulty or by rating out of five stars.
If that’s not enough for you, the Wine & Spirits option allows you to create a database of drinks to serve with any meal, sorted by Region, type, style, where you can buy it and how much it costs. You can also add a picture so you can recognize the bottle; it’s a simple matter of drag and drop or copy and paste. Recipes can be imported or exported pretty easily. This program can open Connoisseur or MacGourmet files, which is convenient if you’re switching over. On the other hand, importing recipes from the web is not quite as fast or simple as it is in Connoisseur, though The AnySite Web Importer is very straightforward; paste the URL of a recipe into the bottom of the screen and hit enter.
The page loads inside the Web Importer. By highlighting sections of the recipe on-screen and then hitting any of the options at the top you create a recipe file. Highlight the title, hit “title”, and poof! your recipe has a title. The same goes for description, origin, prep and cooking time, inactive prep time, yield, ingredients, and directions. Once you’ve done that, each item remains highlighted in a particular colour so you know what you’ve already included. And of course you can drag a picture of the finished product into the top right. Click on the screenshot below for a close-up.
hile the AnySite Web Importer is very simple and direct, it’s not as fast or as easy as Connoisseur’s web import, mainly because you have to tell it which part of the recipe is what. After trying Measuring Cup, Connoisseur, and Yummy Soup, I’d say Connoisseur has the best features and the most intuitive interface, but you run the risk of having a problem and not getting any support from the developers.
Measuring Cup is free but doesn’t have half the features of either of it’s competitors. YummySoup is a solid competitor for Connoisseur in that its features and interface are fairly competitive, running close to Connoisseur but not quite meeting it. On the other hand, the site is active, updates are available automatically, and support seems to be excellent based on reviews.
YummySoup 1.6.3 is available from Hungry Seacow Software. The trial run is free and fully-featured for 15 days before requiring a $20 license.
How is dragging and dropping a recipe URL “not quite as fast or simple”? That’s all there is to importing a recipe from any of the supported sites. Compare that to how Connoisseur does it:
“Open your web browser to the recipe you wish to import.
Select the text pertaining to the recipe (the less extraneous the text selected the more accurate it will be).
Select “Services” from your browser menu then “Import Recipe into Connoisseur”.
If this option is not available you will need to log in to your user account again as the “Services” menu needs to discover Connoisseur. The Connoisseur service can be used from any application, not just web browsers.”
YummySoup is way easier.
Also, to add all the ingredients of a recipe to your shopping list just right click on the recipe, select Add to Grocery List and then chose to either create a new list or use one that you’ve already started. It adds ALL the ingredients. You can also add individual ingredients as well.
To be fair, I haven’t tried Connoisseur. But I don’t see how importing could be easier than YummySoup. For supported sites, you just drag the URL into the YummySoup window. Done. For other sites, the AnySite Importer is basically flawless (since you tell it what’s what).
And also, yeah, adding a recipe’s ingredients to your grocery list is as Joe said.
Sounds like there’s some sequencing bias at work, understandably.
I’m on the ‘Soup trial, and plan on buying when the trial runs out in a few days. And I’m looking forward to them rolling out Apple Remote (!!!) and speech support (!!!) for Leopard soon.
Emily, you need to give YummySoup! another try. Your review says YummySoup! “gives you access to a small database of recipes from various websites.” How can the full database of Gourmet and Bon Appetit from Epicurious, and the similarly full database of Cooking Light, Southern Living, Sunset, Coastal Living, Cottage Living and Health ever be considered a “small database”? And that is without even considering the celebrity chefs on foodnetwork.com. Recipes from all these sources can be entered into YummySoup! with a mere drag ‘n’ drop of the URL. All the fields are automatically filled with no further effort.
I have spent literally years trying (and paying for) all the alternatives in Mac recipe software, including using free-form notebook applications such as Mori, and I have finally found the ideal application for my needs in YummySoup!
Granted, not everyone has the same needs, but when you consider that Connoisseur seems to have evaporated, and VersionTracker and MacUpdate both give YummySoup! a full 5 stars, it seems the answer is quite clear.
[...] as Connoisseur. It comes with a fair library of recipes sorted into categories and source: YummySoup vs Connoisseur, MacApper | Mac Apps, Reviews, Previews, Interviews, and [...]
Yeah, bad review. You really need to take another look at YummySoup, which is streaks ahead of Connoisseur.
Like the other folks, I tried all the recipe programs and settled on YummySoup as the best of the best. Even before the “import from anywhere” feature was added, it still had the best combination of simple-to-grasp UI and practical utility. Other recipe programs have niche specialties (dieting, etc.), but YummySoup is an all-around champ. Consistent progress, too. I look very forward to future version of YummySoup and will not only pay to upgrade, but also purchase copies for my mom and my mother in law! Yes! It’s THAT easy to use!
[...] Note: We have also reviewed YummySoup, Connoisseur, and Measuring Cup recently. Check out the [...]
I have to chime in on this one…having used MacGourmet and others for a long time. A few days ago I switched to YummySoup! and actually tried to find a reason to dislike it so I could stay with MacGourmet. I simply could find nothing wrong with YummySoup! and felt it was miles ahead of MG, if for no other reason it’s ten times easier and faster to use. MG is loaded with extraneous information (what pan did you use, what did you stir it with, what sub-sub-sub region of lower Slobavia did the recipe emanate from).
YS! is truly a Mac app…not just an app that works on a Mac. Its interface smacks of familiarity and the folder tree structure is fully configurable if you want to change it.
I would guess that those who are anti-YS! simply don’t want to shell out for another product, having paid for an alternative already. And BTW, I just noticed you can purchase YS! for only $12 ($8 off) at MacZot. I don’t know anything about MacZot, having never purchased there before…but if you’re on the fence…it seems like a good deal.
LarryMcJ
[...] Recently at MacApper, Emily did a comparison of YummySoup! and Connoisseur. Since HungrySeacow Software has given us three licenses to giveaway, I thought I would outline a few of my favorite things in YummySoup! with a video tribute. [...]
A guy from Cookbook mentions in this post (user name: phillryu) http://www.macheist.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=7476
that YummySoup is joining the Cookbook development team. If this is true, I doubt YS’s future is long.
Found this at YS forum which YS developer says that YS will continue to coexist with CookBook.
http://hungryseacow.com/forum/forum.php?req=thread&id=224
former user of Connoisseur. when TLAF stopped updating the product and became unresponsive to support emails i went searching for another recipe app. tried YummySoup! but settled on MacGourmet as the latter fit my style better.
Connoisseur used to be a great recipe application but now i wouldn’t recommend it to anybody. test drive YummySoup! or MacGourmet instead.
Can someone poelase tell me how to transfer my Connoisseur recipes/database, which I cannot find, to YummySoup? I’ve read on this blog that YS can open Connoisseur recipes, but how?
Thanks.
Steve Jones,
I don’t have Connoisseur, but I do have YummySoup! and it looks pretty straightforward. First, export your recipes FROM Connoisseur, then in YummySoup! go to File | Open Export File | Connoisseur Recipe Files.
Larry,
Thanks, but Connoisseur asks me to choose an export format: Entourage, HTML, iPod, Connoisseur, Mail, Recipe or Text. (I’m waiting to hear back from YS’s developer, too.)
That’s easy…YS is looking for a “Connoisseur” file. So export to a native Connoisseur file.
Larry
There is a new version of Connoisseur available as of April 20, 2009. I just downloaded it and haven’t tried it yet, but a new review might be in order.
Unfortunately, there’s still a problem with the contact page. It shows up as blank, but view source does show a contact form. The new developer is Concept Development. I haven’t found a way to get in contact with them.
Too little, too late for me. I finally gave up on Connoisseur and migrated to YummySoup months ago. Its developer is very good at communicating with his customers and updating the app. He’s even working on an iPhone version to sync with the desktop app. After using it for a few months, I found that YS has an edge over Connoisseur anyway.
That’s good to know. I just dl’d the trial version of YS to try it for myself and compare them.
Version 3 of YS, which is supposed to come out soon, is supposed to be loaded with many new features, too.
Oops! Sorry, I meant version 2 (not 3).
YummySoup is the best out there. I’m lucky to have a mac. I wish they had it for the PC too since a lot of my friends would want it. I paid once for it, and its developer updates the application all the time, making it better and better and offering it for free. I can’t wait for the iPhone version to sync with the desktop application.
I compared all of them before deciding on YummySoup.
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I hate being ‘taken’. I try and support shareware and registered Connoisseur. I recieved an email message teling me that all restrictions were now removed and ‘let ‘er rip’. The program immediately stopped functioning. OK, I said, I’ll contact the company and see what’s wrong. When I clicked on the “contact” link my browser hung, so since I program websites for a living, I inspected the element and found that the “contact” was not a “contact” after all, it just had the word ‘contact’ in the place where the link should be. Twenty dollars isn’t a kings ransom, but boy does it irritate me to get taken by such a shoddy operation. Stay AWAY from connoisseur.
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