Achiote
Open-source MCP server

Find the smallest taste that brings it back.

Someone remembers a dish they haven't eaten in years. A smell, a nickname, a texture — not a recipe. Achiote turns those fragments into the one bite that proves you found it.

Install Achiote See how it works

Illustrative demo — try a memory fragment

Type something half-remembered and our AI will walk you through the full reconstruction pipeline.

Open the food memory detective

Food memories don't start with a recipe.

A person may only remember a smell, a texture, a nickname, or the person who made it. Achiote organizes those fragments into research instead of guessing.

1

The name may be wrong

Misspellings, phonetic fragments, family nicknames, and borrowed-language names are normal inputs — not failures.

2

The trigger may be tiny

The thing that matters may be one browned edge, one spice bloom, one sour note, one chewy bite, or one table ritual.

3

Guesses stay labeled

What someone remembers, what research found, what the AI guessed, and what nobody knows — kept separate so nothing pretends to be certain.

From memory fragment to the taste that proves it.

Your AI does the searching. Achiote keeps the work honest and organized.

1

Collect the memory

Capture rough names, region clues, ingredients, sensory details, and the gaps in what someone remembers — then ask gentle follow-up questions.

2

Research before guessing

Turn clues into hypotheses, facts to verify, and the right questions to ask family members before committing to a dish.

3

Keep the picture honest

What someone said, what research found, what the AI guessed, and what's still unknown — all labeled, all visible.

4

Find the smallest taste that proves it

A single bite, sip, or aroma using ingredients from any grocery store — before anyone shops for something obscure or commits to a full recipe.

5

Help them find it nearby

Once a cue works, suggest where to find the real ingredients near where they live now — and what to substitute if something isn't available.

The starting point is food science, not a better recipe search.

Fat carries aroma.1
Many aromatic compounds are fat-soluble. A small amount of oil, butter, or rendered fat can release the spice profile you're looking for — though too much fat traps those same aromatics.
Browning creates the compounds that stick.2,7
Roasting, charring, and frying produce hundreds of flavor molecules (pyrazines, thiophenes, furans) that raw ingredients cannot mimic. These are among the strongest olfactory triggers for food memory.
Acid brightens richness.3
Vinegar, citrus, and fermentation provide perceptual contrast to fat — stimulating salivation and activating a different taste pathway. Often the missing "that's it" signal.
Starch is a texture system.4
Rice, bread, potato, masa, yuca, and plantain each create distinct mouthfeels through gelatinization and retrogradation. They carry sauce, not just calories.
Sugar rounds sharpness.5
A small amount of sweetness can balance chile heat, acidity, and bitterness without making the dish taste like dessert.
Contrast matters.6,7
Crisp/soft, hot/cool, creamy/spicy, chewy/tender — texture contrast activates reward pathways and is one of the strongest drivers of how a bite gets remembered.

Sources

  1. Shahidi & Hossain (2022). “Role of Lipids in Food Flavor Generation.” Molecules 27(15): 5014. doi:10.3390/molecules27155014
  2. Liu et al. (2022). “Insights into flavor and key influencing factors of Maillard reaction products.” Frontiers in Nutrition 9: 973677. doi:10.3389/fnut.2022.973677
  3. Peyrot des Gachons et al. (2012). “Opponency of astringent and fat sensations.” Current Biology 22(19): R829–R830. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2012.08.017
  4. Le Thanh-Blicharz & Lewandowicz (2020). “Functionality of Native Starches in Food Systems: Cluster Analysis Grouping of Rheological Properties in Different Product Matrices.” Foods 9(8): 1073. doi:10.3390/foods9081073
  5. Mao et al. (2025). “Dynamic interaction of sweet and sour taste perceptions based on sucrose and citric acid.” npj Science of Food 9: 152. doi:10.1038/s41538-025-00507-7
  6. Yamamoto et al. (2025). “Pleasantness emotions and neural activity induced by the multimodal crispiness of monaka ice cream.” Frontiers in Nutrition 12. doi:10.3389/fnut.2025.1681999
  7. Reid et al. (2023). “Food-evoked nostalgia.” Cognition and Emotion 37(1): 34–48. doi:10.1080/02699931.2022.2142525
{
  "title": "Minimum viable composed-bite cue",
  "format": "bite",
  "effortMinutes": 15,
  "accessibilityPrinciples": [
    "use grocery-store carriers and proteins first",
    "test in one or two bites",
    "use pantry aromatics before specialty sourcing"
  ],
  "substituteLogic": [
    "Proteins and fats carry Maillard notes and fat-soluble aromatics.",
    "Starches control texture and sauce absorption.",
    "Acid, sugar, and salt move the bite toward the remembered balance."
  ],
  "followUpIfItWorks": [
    "Ask which part hit first: smell, texture, sauce, fat, spice, or sweetness.",
    "Use source_ingredients to help the user find items near where they live."
  ]
}

Real inputs. Not recipe searches.

Each one follows the same path: gather what someone remembers, research, find the sensory trigger, test it with one bite, then help them find ingredients nearby.

Sound-alike name"My mom said my abuela made something that sounded like pass-teh-lay. Maybe plantains or pork?"
Match phonetic fragments against Puerto Rican wrapped-masa family. Test one bite of plantain with a spice bloom. Then find a shop that sells banana leaves near Orlando.
Place + ingredient"A soup my aunt made. Sour, pale, lots of dill, maybe dairy, but nobody remembers the name."
Separate the acid source, herb aroma, fat body, and serving temperature. Test a one-cup aroma sip. Find Eastern European or Central Asian shops nearby.
Sensory plate"I ate shark one time in Trinidad. Fried, in some kind of bread, with a green sauce."
Isolate the fried crunch, the bread carrier, the herb-chile condiment. Test two bites with cod and store-bought flatbread. Find a Caribbean market near Long Beach.

Add it to your AI agent

Achiote runs as a stdio MCP server. Build it, point your agent at the output, and it's ready.

Read the docsArchitecture
# Install dependencies and build
npm ci
npm run build

# Claude Code (.mcp.json)
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "achiote": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/achiote/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

# Codex (~/.codex/config.toml)
[mcp_servers.achiote]
command = "node"
args = ["/path/to/achiote/dist/index.js"]
enabled = true
startup_timeout_sec = 10

Honesty is part of the experience.

Achiote makes your AI more useful by making uncertainty visible and the next test smaller.

  • Your AI does the live research. Achiote structures it.
  • What someone remembers, what research found, what the AI guessed, and what's unknown — all labeled.
  • One bite before a full recipe. One grocery-store ingredient before specialty sourcing.
  • After the cue works, help them find the real ingredients near where they live now.
  • Food-memory work can be deeply meaningful. It is not a medical claim.