A Family Recipe App That Keeps the Original Card

Why family recipes are not a recipe-management problem

Nearly every recipe app is built around importing a URL or typing a recipe in. Both assume the recipe already exists as text somewhere. A handwritten card breaks that assumption in four ways at once.

• The quantities are frequently unclear, and sometimes genuinely ambiguous even to a careful human reader.
• The measures are archaic — teacups, "a moderate oven", butter sized by egg.
• The marginalia carry real information, and they are not part of the recipe proper.
• The original object has value in itself. Nobody wants a transcription of their grandmother’s card *instead of* the card.

That last point is the one most software gets wrong. If the app treats the photograph as a temporary input to be discarded once text is extracted, it has thrown away the part of the recipe the family actually cares about.

What to look for, whichever app you choose

These are the questions worth asking of any product in this category, including ours. They are ordered by how much they hurt when the answer is bad.

1. Does it keep the original image, permanently?

   Not as a temporary upload — attached to the recipe, viewable forever, at full resolution. If the photograph is discarded after processing, the app is a transcription tool, not an archive.

2. Can you correct the transcription, and does correcting cost anything?

   Every system misreads handwriting. What matters is whether fixing it is free and unlimited, or whether it burns the same credits as the original scan.

3. What happens to your recipes if you stop paying?

   The answer should be "nothing". Recipes you have already saved being hidden behind a lapsed subscription is the failure mode that turns an heirloom into a hostage.

4. Can you export, and in what format?

   Ask specifically whether you get the original images out as well as the text. Text-only export is not a copy of your archive.

5. Can relatives contribute without an account each?

   Family collections are collaborative by nature, and the relatives with the best cards are usually the least willing to install anything.

How Tradish answers those, including where it falls short

Taking our own questions in order, with the limitations named in the same breath rather than in a footnote.

• The original photograph stays attached to the recipe permanently and can be viewed at full size next to the transcription. It is not deleted after extraction.
• Extraction produces a draft you review, and it will misread some handwriting — cursive, faded pencil and unusual abbreviations are the common failures. Correcting is free and unmetered.
• Running out of scans never hides recipes you already have. Saved recipes stay readable and exportable regardless of what you have or have not bought.
• Export gives you your recipes and the original images.
• Sharing works by link, so a relative can see a collection without installing anything.

What Tradish is not for

Saying this plainly is more useful than a feature list, and it saves you the install if you are in the wrong place.

• Meal planning and weekly shopping lists. There is nothing here for that.
• Nutrition and macro tracking. Not modelled at all.
• Importing recipes from TikTok, Instagram or recipe sites. It is built for paper.
• Building a large library of web recipes. If your collection lives on the internet already, a general recipe manager will serve you better.

Tradish is for a box of cards in someone’s handwriting, and the narrowness is deliberate.