Internet's Influence on Cooking and Recipes

Nowadays, the Internet can be in everything from our stoves or fridges to sitting in our pockets all day, but at the end of the day, we all still look around in our kitchen for something tasty to eat. Now though, it seems the scrapbooks, church cookbooks, and recipe cards of yesteryear are long but forgotten, but are they? Everyone has a memory of going to a potluck, family outing, or dinner someplace away from home and trying a dish that just captivates the taste buds and you just must get the recipe from whoever made it. Now though, the experience of potlucks and dinner at friends’ houses is uncommon and many home-cooked delicacies are lost to time, but in their place, the Internet has taken over. With millions of websites and sources, the Internet offers a vast variety of websites bursting with recipes, and home cooks have risen to fame on YouTube showing off recipes with ‘how to’ and ‘let’s try’ videos taking center stage in the YouTube cooking scene. The recipes on the Internet, unlike those at the potluck, will live on with people sharing and posting them freely with little effort. So, how has the Internet changed how people share, cook, and enjoy recipes and restaurants with their friends and family?

Methods

The first focus group (of which Participants 1 and 2 were apart of) was held in the commons on floor three in Hodges Library at the University of Tennessee, and participants were invited to come to eat some food and have a round table discussion of questions. Pizza and water were provided to the participants during the discussion. The rest of the participants were asked beforehand and then given an online form to answer the study questions. Participants 1, 2 and 3 were currently attending the University of Tennessee at the time of the study, and Participants 4 and 5 had previously attended college but were currently working and not going to school. Participants 1 and 3 live on campus in dorms while Participant 2 lives in an apartment close to the UT campus. Participant 4 lives at home with his parents and Participant 5 currently lives in an apartment in Florida while doing ministry work.

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The participants were chosen from people that I knew from class, or before college. Participant specific methods used were questions and answer with discussion between participants during the meeting. Questions were asked such as ‘Previously before the Internet, a lot of recipe sharing came from magazines, church cookbooks, and friends and family. Do you or your parents still get recipes from other people directly?’, and so on.

Findings/ Results

My findings, data, and observations came from interview questions that were answered by my focus group. Due to scheduling conflicts, 3 of the 5 interviews were conducted using an online form with the previous discussion being done in person, and the other 2 interviews were performed in person with an audio recording. I then listened to the audio recording and transcribed the questions and answers that best fit my research question. I focused mainly on the answers received during asking the questions and also used the electronic responses from the other 3 participants to group the data into 3 main categories based on where they fit best.

The first category is for students who the Internet had little to no effect on their cooking and eating habits. This category is populated by Participants 1 and 4. The first question asked during the home-cooked line of questioning, was 'Who is the main cook in your home?', to which he responded: “My dad. Even though mom can cook, dad loves cooking. In response to being asked how his father mainly got recipes before vs. after the adoption of the Internet, he replied: “Not much has changed with him. Before he would go to used book stores and look through the cookbook section, and if he found one, he liked, he would buy it and try some recipes. Now, he will mainly do his regular Internet browsing, but if he sees a cookbook he likes, he will buy it and then use the cookbook itself, not the Internet to make recipes”. Participant 1 also stated during his time on campus, he rarely bases his restaurant choices on the Internet stating that he mainly just tries what he likes on campus, and will look up different restaurants if necessary. Participant 4, like Participant 1 has also not experienced much effect from the Internet in regards to cooking and making recipes. He states that most of his family's recipes came from his mother’s previous job, which was a pampered chef saleswoman. As a result, they have not needed to get many recipes from other sources.

The second category is for students who the Internet had some effect on their cooking and eating habits. Included in this category are Participants 2 and 3. In focus group, Participant 2, when asked if their parents mainly got recipes off the Internet, responded: “My mom, just like she like actually looks on the Internet to make sure the recipes are right. Yeah. Sometimes like she'll also do it just to see what to make”. This went along with the other responses from Participant 2 who also mentioned that they would still get recipes from other families, but now it was a rare occurrence. Participant 3 also stated that he and his parents got recipes off the Internet responding, “Yes since there are plenty of recipes and instructions out there. Reviews and feedback help in finding good recipes and guides”, although he did state that his mom, who is the main cook in his house, still got recipes regularly from his grandmother. When asked about choosing restaurants, both Participants 2 and 3 stated that they used the Internet regularly to make choices about what to eat, but Participant 2 stipulated that his restaurant choices varied based on what he was feeling like eating. Both participants stated that they checked the reviews of restaurants if they had never been before. Together, both Participant 2 and Participant 3 have been impacted moderately by the Internet in their food choices.

Finally, the third category is for students who the Internet had a significant effect on their cooking and eating habits. Participant 5 is the only person in this category due to the heavy effect that the Internet has on his cooking. When asked where He and his family got the majority of their recipes, he responded that they used to get a lot of recipes from family and friends, but since he moved, he and his mother regularly share recipes through Pinterest as a way of staying in touch. He also stated that Pinterest is a helpful tool in finding recipes since he is on a tight budget since moving away from home. He also stated that he loves to watch cooking videos online to find recipe ideas as well. In conclusion, Participant 5 mentioned that he would not be able to cook very well for himself if not for the “tons of recipes online that I find” and that “it helps to find poor man’s meals when you are working with a tight budget”.

Discussion

Concluding the study, my findings lead me to believe that even though family dynamic has had a lot to do with the adoption of the Internet in the home and when dining out, the Internet has received a major adoption into finding recipes, cooking meals, and deciding what to cook or where to eat. Looking at home life, Participant 1's household seemed to have been affected the east by the Internet as his household mainly used cookbooks before the Internet and continues to mainly use cookbooks in preparation of meals at home. Participant 2's household, on the other hand, received a moderate impact as they found new recipes on the Internet, but only used them to modify existing recipes or learn new cooking techniques. Participant 3, on the other hand, stated that their family used a lot of Internet recipes a lot with Participant 5, but not as significantly. Looking at restaurant choices, all participants stated that they had looked at reviews of restaurants and found them helpful in deciding what, and where to eat, but Participant 2 was an outlier stating that he likes to go too low scoring restaurants for fun. My findings also surprised me in that I had previously believed that the Internet had changed everyone's life significantly in regards to recipe/meal choice and also restaurant choice, but the reality was that the Internet has had a more subtle and creeping effect on the choices the participants made. The participants also seemed to downplay a lot of the dynamics that the Internet had changed such as recipe sharing and restaurant choice, but I believe this was mainly due to the age and demographics of the people I chose for my study.