A Cookbook For the Blind

by Maud Largeaud , AdForum

“Dark kitchens” is a recent term describing kitchens that aren’t attached to restaurants – they only make takeaway dishes for food delivery brands. But every kitchen is dark for the blind and visually impaired. With six million people facing this challenge in Brazil, Maggi and Publicis created a cookbook called “Cooking Blindly”. The multi-sensorial publication includes touchable compositions of dishes in relief, QR codes that trigger audio recipes (for those who don’t read Braille), and even a selection of food odours. It’s divided into three parts: cooking basics, recipes, and a small selection of adapted cooking tools embedded in the back cover. While it’s not clear how widely the book will be distributed, the website says it can be consulted at the headquarters of the Dorina Norwill Foundation for the Blind, Maggi’s partner on the project. The audio recipes – in Portuguese – are fully accessible on the site. In Brazil, kitchens have just become less dark.