Back To Basics

My previous post begged the question, do cookbooks still have a place in today's kitchen?

The problem now is not so much about cookbooks, which have never been more abundant, but more about the slow death of the home cooked meal. We can arm ourselves with all sorts of culinary information, but the truth is we're all looking for someone else to cook for us.

Women who traditionally did the mainstay of cooking are working more thus cooking less. Added to which corporate companies have made a killing with ready meals and convenience food, preying on our susceptibility to idleness where cooking is concerned.

By sheer coincidence, as I was writing my previous post, two enthusiastic young sales reps, (both young men which is somewhat telling) knocked on my door. They were representing Hello Fresh a company which provides complete meals by way of fresh, good quality ingredients measured out precisely leaving no room for error or waste. Along with the specific ingredients required for the dish, ie every spice and herb, comes a recipe card with a photo for every step. If you read my post: Shepherdess pie you'll find more information, this was a post I wrote about a very similar company and concept.

Anyway, the young men in question just couldn't conceive that I didn't need their, (albeit fabulous) food boxes. When I said I had an abundance of spices, grew herbs, bought seasonal vegetables at my local country market, meat from my butcher etc etc they were dumbfounded. It's a sad indictment of our times when a couple of young lads think they can educate a fifty something year old woman about cooking, but let's face it from the 1960's onwards we've been leaving our ovens, counter tops and cutting boards behind.

I think part of the problem, ironically, is that we have too much, too many ingredients on the supermarket shelves, many of which we don't understand, cookbooks that are either too complicated or full of ingredients we don't keep in our cupboards or fridges and recipes that are increasingly useless to us given that we aren't cooking basic recipes from scratch. For example, I barely gave a recipe for Okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake) a second glance in Jamie Oliver's cookbook until I saw it being cooked on a documentary programme.

I've had the most fabulous idea for a cookbook, well a series of cookbooks actually,  which initially, when I started writing this post, I was eager to blurt out, however, I came to the conclusion that as a barely known food writer, someone else could immediately plagiarize my idea, so I'm keeping shtum for the moment.

The problem with cookery books is that the format has become very predictable, soups, starters, salads....... a lot of chefs' cookbooks are about food as it's done in restaurants. Given that we are no longer cooking the very basics at home, these books are out of touch.

Before I get carried away and reveal my ideas, I shall love and leave you and see you in the next post.

'The problem is that there are many great chefs and many great cookbooks, but none of them work at home.'
- Daniel Boulud.

Love Donna xxxxxxxxxxx