The home-cooking revival

Downturn drives Americans back to the kitchen

By Gabriella Boston (Contact) | Wednesday, November 12, 2008

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As stock market indexes fall, sales of prepared foods, kitchenware and cooking classes rise. In short, Americans are cooking at home instead of going out in these pocketbook-anemic times.

"Virtually all types of the restaurants are seeing drops," says Marcia Mogelonsky, senior analyst with the market research group Mintel International in Chicago. "From upscale to casual. They're all feeling the squeeze as Americans increasingly are cooking and eating at home."

A recent survey of 1,500 consumers by Mintel and the National Association for Specialty Food Trade shows 57 percent of respondents saying they are dining out less.

In the meantime, outfits including Sur la Table, purveyor of upscale kitchenware and cooking classes, are seeing sales increase in top-notch kitchenware and classes such as Everyday Kitchen Essentials.

"Some of our students say they spend at least $250 a month eating out. So, why not use some of that money to learn how to cook better at home?" says Edward Hamann, culinary program coordinator for Sur la Table at Pentagon Row. "You can give someone a fish to eat, or you can teach them how to fish, and that will feed them for a lifetime."

At Epicurious.com, a food site with more than 35,000 professionally tested recipes, editors have noticed increased Web traffic, attributed largely to Americans increasingly cooking at home.

"We have seen an increase in traffic for many reasons, but the economy is certainly one of the main reasons," says Tanya Steel, editor in chief of the site, which gets at least 5 million unique visits a month. "One of our more popular sections is our new Dinner Rush, which plans out a week's worth of dinners, provides a shopping list and uses ingredients from earlier in the week for later in the week," Ms. Steel adds.

The advanced planning and reuse of ingredients are aimed at saving money.

Other popular Epicurious.com destinations are Budget Boosters and a section in the Thanksgiving package that offers up a six-dish, eight-person Thanksgiving menu for $79.99.

So, with this great return to the kitchen, what is cooking on American stoves?

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