Recipe - Recipes On TV and The Internet

Recipes On TV and The Internet

By the mid 20th century, there were thousands of cookery and recipe books available. The next revolution came with the introduction of the TV cooks. The first TV cook in England was Fanny Craddock who had her show on the BBC, later followed by chefs such as Julia Child and Graham Kerr (known as the Galloping Gourmet). These TV cookery programs brought the recipes of these cooks to a new audience who were keen to try out new ways of cooking. In the early days, the recipes were available by post from the BBC and later with the introduction of the CEEFAX text on screen system, they became available on the television. The new companies of Channel 4 and S4C also brought recipes to the television with their own text system called ORACLE.

In the early 21st century, there has been a renewed focus on cooking at home due to the late-2000s recession. Television networks such as the Food Network and magazines are still a major source of recipe information, with international cooks and chefs such as Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Nigella Lawson and Rachael Ray having prime-time shows and backing them up with Internet websites giving the details of all their recipes. Internet sites such as AllRecipe.Me, Epicurious and Food Network have become extremely popular destinations to find recipe information, as well as mobile applications. Even reality TV shows such as Top Chef or Iron Chef challenged the idea of culinary arts by having chefs compete against each other in culinary challenges. Internet sites are a free source of many recipes.

Recipes - for the most part - missed the Web 2.0 innovation spurt, possibly a lingering effect from early food web failures such as Webvan. By 2010, with a renewed sense of innovation and optimism in the technology world, there were a new crop of recipe sites that were using semantic, social, and communal principles to advance the category online.

Today, despite the Internet, cookery books are as popular as they have ever been (if not more so).