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January 2013 - Food

 

A survey of 2,000 people by Italian food company Sacla has revealed that nearly half of the cookbooks bought as Christmas presents this year will never be read or used.

While the typical British adult owns 10 cookbooks, on average four of these will never have been used – some of the main reasons for this are that people are being put off by expensive ingredients and complicated recipes in many cookbooks.

In total, the research found two-thirds (67%) of respondents said they find cookbooks intimidating, 35% said they were deterred by the cost of ingredients needed, and 29% claimed they found the recipes too complicated.

Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay were particularly singled out for their complicated cooking, while in contrast Jamie Oliver and Delia Smith were praised for their simplicity.

The study further discovered that Britons increasingly prefer to find the perfect recipes online rather than wading through a glossy cookbook.

More than a quarter (27%) of the respondents said that hard-to-find ingredients stopped them using cookbooks and over half (53%) claimed they now find recipes online to suit what they have in stock at home.

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