Where everything started...

In the early 90's, two students in an engineering school in Paris are more interested in working on the next issue of the school paper and the scripts of their next theatre play than working on their computing lessons. Olivier is fond of music and acting, while Christophe loves to write. Both like to invite lots of friends over and cook for them.

In 1995, on entering one of the best web agencies in France, Christophe calls Olivier to re-activate their team, and they end up designing web sites for various big companies. However, they also want to work on something different, a project of their own that will involve something they love. The answer is obvious: cooking.

Hungry for recipes

The first version of their web site is published in January 1999. Its name is Marmiton.org. But why '.org'? Because the main idea of their project is to help people take advantage of the Internet through communicating, sharing their know-how's, their hints and tips, their family recipes... and in France, people really see food as an art!

By word-of mouth, the site's traffic grows quickly. Meanwhile, their friend Anne-laure shows interest in the project: as a mother of three children (now 4!), she longs for ways to provide her family with meals that would be tastier, unique and...efficient! She falls in love with the whole idea and joins the team.

A community is born

As time goes by, traffic increases steadily. In 2000, the site grows tremendously and requires a more formal organization. Along with Jean-Bernard, who began working on the first recipe database, each team member makes a financial contribution and a company is formed. Another friend, Peggy, a talented graphical designer, works on a new design. Giving credit to the team, its new design and added functions, Marmiton.org's traffic increases even more and the site receives its first web award ('Net d'Or').

The community is active: each week sees more and more people submitting new recipes and adding new comments to the database, soon making it the web's biggest recipe source in French. By 2003, Marmiton.org is the most visited cooking web site in French. It also collects awards for its content and design (two prizes at 'Clics d'Or', French equivalent to the Webby awards).

As people try the recipes, they add their own, make comments, share their ideas and hints on the forum... and they start organizing informal community meetings! By early 2005, more than 20 such meetings have already taken place all around France, Belgium and Switzerland. Each event providing an opportunity to meet friendly people, and discover their specialities and talents!

What people want...

As the community expanded, it also featured recipes from all over the World. For a lot of French expatriates, Marmiton.org was great but, since the site was only in French, they could'nt share its contents with their English speaking friends. So the team did what they usually do when many visitors ask for something... they built it.

However, there was little interest in translating the whole database since many food recipes were already available on other cooking sites. So we decided to focus on French cooking, while using the very recipe that made our success in France: quick access to easy and tasty recipes!

To this end, we asked Elan Schmitt, an American journalist as well as a food and wine lover, to join the team as a project manager. Her knowledge of French culture and her energy were crucial to the project's success.

A growth with ethics in mind

While building and managing web sites on food and cooking, we've kept in mind our first aim of sharing and providing access to culinary traditions, helping people to find ways to cook healthier, tastier and more diversified meals. In two words, helping and respecting people. We do our best to provide our visitors with the best service, for free.

So what is our aim today? To keep on sharing more and more tasty recipes with more and more people! Hope you'll enjoy...