Domestic cooking practices and cooking skills: findings from an English study

This paper reports on a study that came about in response to a rising interest in and concern about the increased availability and use of preprepared foods in Britain and the effect this might have on people's cooking abilities, their health, family relationships and well-being, and the food industry. The qualitative study of 30 domestic cooks living in England, aimed to examine the nature of cooking skills and cooking practices and the beliefs, values and opinions of domestic cooks. It did so in order to establish a theoretical and empirically based ‘way of thinking’ about domestic cooking and cooking skills that could be used to develop current academic and popular discourses about cooking and inform policy makers and researchers. The findings revealed a complexity that has not previously been clearly acknowledged. It was found that cooking skills can be seen as either task-centred or as person-centred and contextual (and hence as specifically ‘domestic’ or ‘professional’) and as consisting of perceptual, conceptual and organizational skills as well as practical, mechanical skills and academic knowledge. Not only was the highly individual nature of approaches to cooking revealed but also an intricate and shared ‘domestic cooking culture’. Further, it was found that there is no simple, clear cut relationship between the domestic cooks’ skills and knowledge and their domestic cooking practices and food choices (frequency of cooking, techniques applied, use of preprepared and fresh, raw foods and so on).