Lengyel, Ariane (2014) The impact of celebrity chefs on domestic food habits. In: CHME Annual Research Confernce 2014, 28-30 May 2014, Buxton. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

The growing interest in food and cooking in the past few decades has increased dramatically, driven in part by television, cookbooks and other printed and multi-media forms of communication. The research sought to investigate what influence the celebrity chef phenomenon exercises on domestic food habits.
The mundane nature of cooking takes place within a social and cultural context and continues to reflect clear gender roles. There is a suggestion that cooking skills are getting lost in today’s time poor society with people relying more and more on convenience food. Evidence suggests that powerful changes are occurring in today’s society, driven by changing family structures, increased female employment and other structural modifications to society within which the celebrity chef is a contributing element.
The qualitative research for this study was carried out on a cross section of employees of a West London university. The employees were chosen to reflect a scope of social attributes. Four men and eight women from a range of backgrounds were interviewed using semi-structured interviews that were recorded and analysed using Nvivo software. The findings suggest that cooking remains a significant part of people’s lives and that celebrity chefs have had some influence on food habits. However, most of the respondents view these chefs as entertainment rather than as being educational. The conclusions of the study are that whilst people are certainly aware of celebrity chefs, mainly through television and cookbooks, their influence on domestic food habits remains peripheral. Further research extending the sample size is suggested in order to supplement the findings to inform additional subjects that revolve around domestic food habits and the celebrity chef phenomenon.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Subjects:	Hospitality and tourism > Culinary arts > Food studies
Depositing User:	Ariane Lengyel
Date Deposited:	17 May 2018 09:49
Last Modified:	28 Aug 2021 07:25
URI:	https://repository.uwl.ac.uk/id/eprint/4991

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