Airbnb Now Lets You Cook With Locals Around The World

When you travel, one of the hardest things to figure out is whether you're actually experiencing what locals experience, or whether you're falling for tourist traps. Airbnb Cooking Experiences help you answer that question once and for all — at least, for one or two of your meals. Now, you'll be able to specialize your experience in any given area of the world a little bit more, through one of the most important sensory experiences a person can have.

According to its press release, Airbnb Cooking Experiences will allow people to book cooking experiences in over 70 countries around the world. From farmers, to pastry chefs, to local families, you'll now have the option of experiencing the type of cuisine special to a region in a particularly authentic way: through the people who know this cuisine best.

Brian Chesky, Airbnb's CEO and Co-Founder, said in a press release,

Ever since the very first guests travelled with Airbnb, we have realized that sharing a meal is the key that unlocks culture and fosters connection. Through Airbnb Cooking Experiences, we want to bring back the tradition of people coming together to make and share meals, and through this help preserve unique recipes that are shared within family kitchens around the world.

Airbnb cooking isn't just about making authentic recipes more accessible to travelers, though. It's also ensuring that local foods, recipes, and traditions are preserved properly, via a partnership with Slow Food, a grass-roots organization that seeks to prevent the disappearance of local foods and traditions.

According to Airbnb, every single booking option on its Airbnb cooking feature is thoroughly vetted by Slow Food, in order to ensure that the "local" and the "recipe" in question are, in fact, authentic and accurate representations of a given region. What's more, the organization will also work with the company to make sure that these cooking experiences are working under the highest possible guidelines of food sustainability and biodiversity protection.

In other words, the partnership will ensure that these cooking experiences utilize recipes and ingredients that are sustainable and accessible in the region. You can learn more about Slow Food's efforts towards food sustainability and biodiversity protection here.

On the Airbnb Cooking Experiences page, you'll find a wide array of options to choose from including "rolling pasta with an Italian grandma," and "prepping Portuguese with a drag queen." Of course, what you cook (and with whom) will depend heavily on what country you're visiting, or where you live (nothing says you can't book a cooking experience in your own city!). Per the site, there are already over 1,900 cooking experiences available for booking. There are also "pop-up" opportunities with "local celebrities," which is one great reason to check in on the site from time to time.

In terms of price, the cost of an Airbnb cooking experience will vary. This probably has to do with all the variables at play: cooking experiences can range by hours of commitment, and they also are conducted by a wide range of people, from locals to professional chefs. To put it into perspective, the cost of making soba noodles in a traditional home in Japan for two hours will run you $53 a person, while learning how to cook like a "Provençal chef" in France for five hours will cost $171 a person.

Either way, it's all but inevitable that checking out the Airbnb cooking page will make your mouth water. Foodies across the globe, take note.