The grocery translator for home cooks
Cook the taste of home β from the store down the street.
Can't find scotch bonnets, gochugaru or makrut lime leaves? Culturize scans the grocery stores near you and rebuilds your recipe with the closest-tasting swaps β aisle, price and flavor match included. Search any dish, or paste a link to any recipe online.
Smart swap Β· 92% match
Scotch bonnet peppers
Habanero peppers
π¬ Walmart Β· Produce Β· 0.8 mi
β Authentic find
Gochugaru
π₯’ H Mart Β· International Β· 1.2 mi
How it works
Your home kitchen, translated for American aisles.
Most diaspora cooks know the feeling: the recipe is in your heart, but half the ingredients are an ocean away. Culturize closes that gap with a flavor knowledge base built from how families actually cook abroad.
- π²
STEP 01
Tell us the dish
Pick from our kitchen library β jollof, phα», mole, mansaf and more β or paste your family's handwritten recipe.
- π
STEP 02
We scan stores near you
From your ZIP we map nearby supermarkets and international markets, and what each one typically stocks.
- β¨
STEP 03
Cook with smart swaps
Get the recipe rewritten around flavor-matched substitutes, with a store-by-store list, aisles and prices.
The Swap Library
202 hard-to-find ingredients, decoded.
Nigerian Β· Ghanaian
Scotch bonnet peppers
Habanero peppers
π Any supermarket
Thai Β· Indonesian
Makrut (kaffir) lime leaves
Lime zest + bay leaf
π Any supermarket
Indian Β· Pakistani
Paneer
Queso blanco (frying cheese)
π Any supermarket
Korean
Gochugaru (Korean chili flakes)
Aleppo pepper
π Natural grocers Β· Middle Eastern markets
Cuban Β· Puerto Rican
Sour orange (naranja agria)
Orange juice + lime juice
π Any supermarket
Indonesian Β· Malaysian
Kecap manis (sweet soy sauce)
Soy sauce + brown sugar, simmered
π Any supermarket
Venezuelan Β· Colombian
Masarepa (P.A.N. precooked corn flour)
Masa harina (Maseca)
π Any supermarket
Jordanian Β· Palestinian
Jameed (dried fermented yogurt)
Greek yogurt + feta + cornstarch
π Any supermarket
A world of home cooking
No fixed menu. Bring the dish you're actually craving.
Search a dish name, ingredient, regional spelling or paste a recipe link. Culturize checks its recipe library, global cookbooks and the open web β then matches hard-to-find ingredients to stores near you.
202
curated ingredients β plus open-ended food search
243
flavor-matched substitutes
β
dishes β search by name or paste any recipe link
0
recipes in the community cookbook
Made for
Everyone cooking far from home
The homesick student
First semester away and craving your mom's egusi? We'll get you most of the way there with the Walmart by campus.
The new parent
Pass your culture down one meal at a time β without a two-hour drive to the nearest international market.
The second-gen cook
Translate Grandma's handwritten recipe into a shopping list for the store you actually go to.
Your grandmother's recipe.
Your neighborhood store.
Paste the recipe exactly as your family writes it. We'll find every ingredient β or its closest match β within a few miles of you.