It’s all Hotting up in the Kitchen

Kitchen shops like the upmarket Lakeland are suddenly reporting a surge in sales. The Windermere-based company has seen sales of baking-related products, such as icing bags, piping equipment and muffin cases, increase by a third over the past year.

It appears the nation has gone cooking crazy inspired by TV shows such as The Great British Bake-Off which are rocketing up the ratings. Old stagers like Mary Berry are once again wowing viewers with their whisks.

Quite what lies behind the new found popularity of all this fun and frolics with flour is anyone’s guess. One seriously has to question whether people actually hope to save money by cooking more at home. The folks who supply supermarkets with ready made goodies can buy ingredients and the necessary fuel much cheaper than individuals at home so the money saving argument doesn’t really stack up.

Neither can it be said that this is all part of a drive towards healthier eating since a lot of these recipes tend to revolve around the Unholy Trinity of butter, sugar and cream.

Maybe the answer lies in something far more subtle. In times of relative hardship and austerity, people understandably yearn for times when things were perceived to be simpler and generally more comfortable and predictable. The likes of Mary Berry and Delia Smith take us back to the days when rampant materialism had yet to raise its ugly head and people found pleasure in actually creating things themselves.

It’s quite clearly not just a TV phenomenon. The renowned Darts Farm food hall near Exeter in Devon is having to post “ Sold Out “ signs over its cookery demonstrations featuring such regional experts as Valentina of Pizza Regina and Victoria Cranfield, the doyenne of chutneys and preserves.

It seems that for a whole host of people, the digital age really is all about getting their hands dirty.