Cooking Apps, A New Way To Reach Foodies

Christmas Cooking Apps - A New Way To Reach Foodies

It's a bold statement but in 2011 chefs are beginning to wise up to the fact that most of their younger followers are not famed for carrying books and flicking through well-thumbed pages for anything, let alone a recipe for Duck a l'Orange.

Cookery books usually have their own lttle area in our kitchens, dog-eared, stained and well-thumbed from many a cookery 'experiment'. Could that all be over?

November saw launch of the Kindle Fire as the latest 'tablet' and it is hot on the heels of many other new and innovative ways to enable people to keep their media all in one place. It is due for release in the UK early in 2012.

It won't be long before we have no need of CD racks or DVD and book shelves - we can fit it all in our backpack or on our coffee table.

The app is quickly taking over as the chosen medium for many people and cookery, recipes, chefs tips and tricks and food facts are already establishing a foothold in the app marketplace.

So Can Smartphones Be Used Like Cookery Books?

Well, I've already described cookery books in my kitchen as dog-eared and stained and that is what gives me problems really.

I have a Samsung Galaxy smartphone and the screen is only about 3.1 square inches. I already wear glasses so I think I would struggle to read a recipe or even watch a cooking method shown as a video stream whilst I was preparing to cook.

Surely, this is the crux here - we love our cookery books because they have wonderful, full-colour photographs and we can see exactly what we're cooking is supposed to look like when we've finished.

And how can you flick over the page on your smartphone or tablet if your fingers are covered in pastry dough or icing sugar or mackerel tartar?

As Jay Rayner says in an article in the Guardian on the subject of cooking apps, " A stained cookery-book page is a mark of commitment; a stained smartphone is a trip back to the shop,"

Co-Existence - Books And Apps Live Happily (together) Ever After

So will 2011 see the exodus of cookery books as Christmas gifts? I hope not, its become a tradition for me to send at least one or two to my relatives every year.

I love new technology - I have a few apps (games mainly), I wish I could afford an ipad but I can't. Cookery, of course, has its own technology; every year new and innovative ways of preparing, slicing, dicing, broiling and decorating food are available to keen foodies.

Jay Rayner has suggested there is a place for both books and apps to co-exist side by side but this relies on chefs jumping on the bandwagon quickly.

Christmas remains one of the most lucrative times of year, no matter what you are trying to sell.

Many chefs release their books just in time for the Christmas sales; Jamie Oliver's 'Jamie's Great Britain' is released this month in hardback in spite of Jamie Oliver being one of the UK's first chefs to release a paid app.

The wonderful thing about app technology is that it is open to lesser-known chefs as well as the classic ones. If I had the technical know-how, I could create my own cookery app and get it onto Android's marketplace. Offering a series of recipes or cooking tips can still be big business if you offer them for 49p a time. You only need 10,000 people to buy the app and you've made £4,900.

It's passive income - it might go viral through word of mouth and you're getting richer for work you did two years ago.

So if some chefs don't wake up and smell the cupcakes - they're crazy!

Top 10 Android Apps for Cookery (in no particular order) - some are free, some you need to pay for!

Allrecipes

Epicurius

Campbell's Kitchen

Mobile Rush-Hour Recipes

Digital Recipe Sidekick

My Cookbook

CookingCapsules

Revathi Recipes

MyKitchen

Patrik's Easy Cooking Recipes

Top 10 Apple Apps For Cooking

Iphone Apps

1. Jamie Oliver's 20 Minute Meals
2. How To Cook Everything
3. Vegan Yum Yum Mobile
4. Cookmate
5. More Breakfast
6. Weber's On the Grill
7. Mario Batali Cooks
8. Epicurious
9. Cookit
10. The Betty Crocker Mobile Cookbook

Nice to see Jamie and Betty on this list but where are the others?

It is well worth looking on You Tube for some examples of apps that are either being advertised by the company or are being reviews by users.

Still like the feel of a new, shiny, colourful cookbook?

Here are some other cookery book hubs you might like.....and a few of the hot titles of the moment.

Best New Cookery Books For Christmas 2011

Classic Christmas Books To Read

Learn to Cook Cookery Books

Best Cookbooks UK

If new technology is your thing- then I say "go for it". If, like me, you're sentimental about cookbooks and family recipes, then you can stick to paper copies and save money! With the speed of technology, soon books will be classed as 'old' media but people will always prefer the printed word when they've got their aprons on and the oven is pre-heating!

Happy Cooking - however you do it.