Press Release: IBM and The Institute of Culinary Education to Publish a Cookbook of Chef Watson-Inspired Recipes

NEW YORK, Jan. 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- You don't have to be a culinary genius to be a great cook. But when it comes to thinking outside the box, even the best chefs can be limited by their personal experiences, the tastes and flavor combinations they already know.

That's why IBM and the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) teamed up to explore cognitive computing and creativity in the culinary arts. The partnership led to entirely new recipes, created by ICE experts and inspired by unconventional ingredient concepts generated by Chef Watson. The new cookbook, Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson, will help cooks everywhere discover and create delicious recipes, designed by chefs working with Watson, IBM's cognitive computing system.

The cookbook is a way to help people discover the potential of cognitive computing systems, and Chef Watson represents another example of the diverse ways in which humans and technology can work together. Systems like IBM Watson can understand vast amounts of data, as well as learn from interactions with people and information in an intuitive way, to provide insights and answers. Chef Watson shows that cognitive systems can also understand compounds and food pairing theories to help us discover brand new knowledge and augment human creativity.

In Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson (ISBN 9781492625711; APRIL 14, 2015; $29.99 U.S. Cookbooks/Science; Hardcover), IBM's cognitive computing technology and ICE's culinary experts present more than 65 original recipes exploding with irresistible new flavors.

"For chefs, creativity is one of the most important elements for success. Human chefs can reason with a finite set of ingredients, or those that they have been exposed to. Using this technology, their creativity is enhanced by quintillions of possible ingredient pairings, augmenting their creativity," said Brian Aronowitz, Chief Marketing Officer at the Institute of Culinary Education. "After working with IBM for the last few years testing and refining the system, ICE chefs have developed many unique and interesting recipes along the way. The natural next step was to develop a cookbook to share the unique pairing of ICE and IBM with the rest of the world."