igella and Jamie must be waking up to their worst nightmare this morning after new research found that 64 per cent of the average mum’s current repertoire of meals are those inherited from their own mothers, rather than found in cook books.
It seems British Mums are also shunning online cooking resources like Pinterest and Instagram in favour of traditional recipes handed down from their mothers, according to a new study by Red Tractor Lamb.
So why is this happening? Parents today literally have every recipe in the history of humanity right at their fingertips and can probably have all the ingredients drone delivered in an hour.
We takes a look at the factors that might be influencing this generation of mothers to stick to the classics.
Modern times
As someone living in the 21st century, isn’t it all a bit too much? You can find hundreds of versions of the same recipe online and who is to say which one is best?
Everything is bad for you
Nowadays, everything can lead to health issues, is it really a surprise that people want to stick to what they know? If people see their parents happy and relativity healthy in their 70’s it’s probably just good smarts to stick to their diet than the trend of the month that we see pushed out online.
Timing is key
The recipes handed down through families have stood the test of time for a reason, typically, regardless of budget as well as major time allowance and usually utilise widely available ingredients. Newer recipes tend to be more complicated, use more ingredients and cost a lot more? Does the average mum really have time to hunt down an ostrich egg and marinate the meat for 5 days in the rainforest?
Mixing it up is better than starting from scratch
Before someone gets on their soapbox about modern Mums being lazy it is important to point out that the research also found that two thirds of today’s Mums admit that while the dishes don’t change, every now and then they give an old school meal a makeover, adding slightly different ingredients. It is good to change things up and perhaps revamping a dish is better than mastering a new dish from scratch.
Mastering a new recipe is hard
I don’t care how written for dummies the recipe is, mastering a new dish is hard work especially when you have multiple ingredients that all need cooking in different ways and for different amounts of time. Six in ten cooks say they’ll pass recipes they learned from their parents on down to their children, and the average age they’d teach their kids to cook is a tender 10 years. If kids are being taught from the age of ten, then they are going to be significantly more confidant in these past time favourites than newer recipes.
The idea of keeping cultural traditions alive is strong
Ingredients, cost, and preparation time aside, you can’t deny that there is something heart warming about feeding your kids the same dishes your Mum or even Nan made for you. Keeping traditions alive gives us culture. Seven in 10 respondents say there is an element of comfort in using the recipe they remember their parents using, and are likely to hand them down to their own children.
Ultimately the research did find that Despite such a reliance on old favourite dishes, we still need reminders from time to time. 63 per cent of Brits occasionally dip into a recipe book for a refresher on a method, and we own an average of a huge six cookbooks each.
The truth is, in the modern world we can have the best of both worlds, Mums can stick to their old school recipes and also have the option of easily being able to research new ones when they feel the time has come to try something new.
Ultimately it is reassuring that today’s parents exercise caution and feed their kids trailed and tested dishes rather than the flavour of the moment diets and recipes.