Unlocking Cooking Attitudes across Cultures

I came across this really interesting study on Cooking Attitudes across 22 countries, conducted by a global research firm. What was interesting about the study was that they took into account 3 criteria that could potentially influence a country's attitude towards cooking:

1. Knowledge about Food & Cooking: How knowledgeable are you when it comes to things like the best time of the year to pick tomatoes, flavour/spice compatibility, the right cut for your meat?
2. Passion for Food & Cooking: How passionate are you about the Cooking Process? Do you get excited about it? Do you cook because you LOVE cooking or do you see it as a necessity?
3. Reported hours spent cooking per week: How many hours per week (approximately) are you cooking?

The following infographic highlights attitudinal differences regarding cooking between Men & Women. Understandably, women score higher points across all the 3 criteria as gender roles continue to remain traditional, when you look at all of these countries holistically.

Another infographic demonstrates the results from the Survey conducted across 23 Countries:

Interesting to note that the Overall Figure is led by only 5 countries: India, Ukraine, South Africa, Indonesia and Italy. However, we see reported differences across all the 3 criteria.

While South Africa leads in terms of knowledge related to Cooking, people in India reportedly spend the maximum amount of hours per week cooking.

In India, home-cooked food is seen as more nutritious and healthy in comparison to Street food. In traditional Indian homes, a mother prepares home-cooked meals for her family and this is just one of the many ways in which she demonstrates the depth of her love for the family.

Italians are most passionate about cooking - where their key driver for Cooking is the pursuit of enjoyment. Cooking in Italy is associated with pleasure and discovery, compared to some other countries where Cooking is seen as a necessity.

South Korea are at the bottom of the list for feeling passionate about cooking. This is possibly driven by the fact that the street food culture is very strong in South Korea, which makes Cooking at home seen as an unnecessary burden.

Another interesting finding was that the knowledge & experience one has of cooking need not positively correlate with a passion for Cooking. For example, Turkey claimed the 3rd place for cooking knowledge, however fell to 7th place (like the US) with regard to passion for cooking.

The lowest ranking countries were: Poland, Sweden, Belgium and Russia where relatively lower scores for both Passion and Knowledge for Cooking, led to lesser amount of time being spent in the Kitchen.

An important point to keep in mind is that, just because these countries are not big on cooking, it would be wrong to assume that they are not big on food in general.

Take Belgium for example, Food is an extremely important part of Belgian life and Belgians reportedly spend considerably more money on food than the Average American, devoting a lot more time and energy discussing about it, shopping for it and ultimately consuming it.

On that note, Bon Appétit, Buon Appetito,Selamat Makan*

*Enjoy your meal in French, Italian & Indonesian

Sources: gfK Research, Global Gourmet