The site you refer to - the Taste Network at www.taste.co.uk - was a joint venture of Carlton Communications, a leading British broadcaster, and J Sainsbury, a leading grocery company in Britain and the United States. Shockingly, the two companies (or their shareholders) decided that they needed to make money and disbanded the service in September 2001.

Carlton, which had run the Carlton Food Network television channel, appears to have dropped out of the food world entirely. Sainsbury took over the online assets of the joint venture, but is clearly not making any effort to forge ahead in online food publishing. There are 6,000 recipes at its web site, but that appears to be all that remains of a once innovative and rich online service.

Guess other food sites will just have to step into the breach and hope over time to attain some level of brilliance.