The Proof is in the Pudding: Using Automated Theorem Proving to Generate Cooking Recipes

Abstract: This paper presents FASTFOOD, a rule-based Natural Language Generation Program for cooking recipes. Recipes are generated by using an Automated Theorem Proving procedure to select the ingredients and instructions, with ingredients corresponding to axioms and instructions to implications. FASTFOOD also contains a temporal optimization module which can rearrange the recipe to make it more time-efficient for the user, e.g. the recipe specifies to chop the vegetables while the rice is boiling. The system is described in detail, using a framework which divides Natural Language Generation into 4 phases: content production, content selection, content organisation and content realisation. A comparison is then made with similar existing systems and techniques.