Day-to-day home cooking-declared dead even more frequently than the worn-efts movement-is not only alive but on the upswing. The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board recently surveyed Midwestern families and found that 78.3 percent eat a homemade dinner together more than twice a week, while 48.4 percent sit down at the table together every day. Better Homes and Gardens polled a sample of its 7 million subscribers and reported similar findings. Even baking is still with us. According to a national survey conducted by Procter & Gamble (makers of Crisco), 88 percent of consumers say they baked at least once in a three-month period (mostly cake and cookies), and 70 percent baked from scratch. The others may be using one of the new baking mixes on the market-325 have been introduced this year, including bagel mix, pizza-dough mix and organic brownie mix.
Meanwhile, our kitchens have been getting bigger. “If you look at new homes today, the percentage of square footage that goes into the kitchen is much greater than it was 20 or 30 years ago,” says Peter Connolly, marketing director for Ikea U.S., the home-furnishings chain. “People want center islands and lots of counter space.” No wonder: they need space for all their new equipment, especially bread machines; about 10.5 million of them have been sold since 1988. Unlike food processors and pasta makers, bread machines–which do all the mixing, kneading and baking–first became popular among ordinary home cooks; culinary sophisticates scorned them. But those grass roots have given the machines a lot more staying power than espresso makers ever had. “I’ve been referred to as the culinary equivalent of ‘Bridges of Madison County’,” says Lora Brody, author of three bread-machine cookbooks. Next fall, Brody and the bread machine will be featured on Julia Child’s new TV series on baking, which ought to break the gourmet barrier. Another humble device ignored by chic cooks is the Crock-Pot, or slow cooker, a ’70s favorite that may be on the way back. Black & Decker recently surveyed newly-weds and found that more of them had received slow cookers than any other appliance. Speaking of blasts from the past (literally), the pressure cooker is also enjoying a revival, in part because the latest models no longer send dinner to the ceiling.
This isn’t to say that America is reverting to a giant Norman Rockwell painting: family dinner is often little more than pasta with a bottled marinara sauce and a salad-bar salad. But it’s dinner at home, and Americans are clinging to it. “Home is one of the few warm places we can go in a high-tech society,” says Maggie Mah, vice president of Mattson & Co., which develops products for the food industry. “There’s a real desire to come together over the kitchen table. That’s why microwaved meals didn’t make it–there’s nothing warm or cozy about a microwave oven.”
As for the bottled pasta sauce, many women would like to get beyond it, but they’re just plain confused. “There are lots of women who want to cook, who want to be responsible for the family meal, but they’ve been brainwashed into thinking it’s terribly difficult,” says Sarah food editor at The isville, Ky. “I hear from women who ‘We don’t have lemon verbena, for God’s sake. What can I do to get dinner on the table tonight?’”
That’s exactly why certain cookbooks sell like crazy. “People want to cook, but they don’t want to feel threatened by their cookbook,” says Susan Friedland, senior editor at HarperCollins. “Nobody is buying books that indicate four or five hours in the kitchen.” So they buy “Great Recipes for Good Health” or “One Dish Meals the Easy Way,” both published by the Reader’s Digest after extensive market research. Neither is high style, neither was plugged on the “Today” show, but each has more than a million copies in print.
Predictable, nonthreatening food is precisely what’s on the average dinner table–not tacos, not stir-fries, but tuna casserole made with canned soup, topped with potato chips. “Campbell’s soup is the fourth most widely used ingredient to prepare dinner in this country every night,” says Kevin Lowery, of Campbell. “It’s right after meat/poultry, seasoning/spices and pasta/rice.” According to Campbell’s research, more than a million cans of cream-of-mushroom soup are used in dinner recipes every day. “America has a fear of failure when it comes to cooking,” says Lowery. “To be frank, that’s why we’ve been successful.”
Even those cooks who would choke on a canned-soup sauce are starting to return home. “I am very suspicious about gourmet cooking,” says Christopher Kimball, publisher of Cook’s Illustrated, which is devoted to the how-tos of classic American cooking–foolproof birthday cake or soft-shelled crabs. “Making dinner is about a lot more than getting food on the table,” says Kimball. “It’s getting your hands dirty, it’s doing something with your family. People are rediscovering that.” And some people never forgot it. Earlier this year Susan Kirby of Tipton, Ind., sent a recipe for pineapple gelatin salad (lemon gelatin, cream cheese, Cool Whip and crushed pineapple) to Taste of Home. “My family enjoys this lovely layered salad in the summer,” she wrote. “Although I haven’t used the recipe long, it’s quickly become a favorite. A good friend shared it with me, and every time I make it, I think of her.”
