What's the story with money-saving cookbooks, asks Conor Pope
BUDGET COOK BOOKS will be big this year. The Frugal Cook, The Kitchen Revolutionand (the gloriously titled) How to Feed Your Whole Family a Healthy, Balanced Diet with Very Little Money and Hardly Any Time, Even If You Have a Tiny Kitchen, Only Three Saucepans (One With an Ill-fitting Lid) and No Fancy Gadgets – Unless You Count the Garlic Crusherare just three of the big-selling cookery books currently attracting interest from cash conscious consumers who like to eat good food.
Even the doyenne of English cooking, Delia Smith – who last spring published a book of cheats detailing a raft of labour-saving recipes which included pre-chopped onions and pre-mashed potatoes, among other costly ingredients – is now watching the pennies with her latest offering, Delia's Frugal Food.
In the coming months, a second wave of money-saving food books will be published, with Kate Colquhoun's The Thrifty Cookbook: 478 Ways To Eat Well And Waste Lessand Caroline Marson's Love Food, Hate Waste: A Cookbook To Help You Munch Through The Crunchpromising to teach people how to do wonders with leftovers and to significantly reduce food waste.
These books are more Mrs Beaton than Mr Ramsey and are jam-packed with tips on how to eat well for peanuts. And we could certainly do with the help. Countless studies from all over the world show that when times get hard, many people fall back on cheap, nutritionally poor foods and takeaways instead of cooking on the cheap.
OF THE AFOREMENTIONED books, The Kitchen Revolution, written by Rosie Sykes, Polly Russell and Zoe Heron, is the most substantial and, if followed even half-heartedly, will go a long way towards helping people cut back the amount of food waste they generate – Irish households throw away almost €1,000 worth of food every year.
Its premise is pleasingly simple – it divides itself into 52 weekly sections, which are further segmented into seven days. It advises readers to cook one “Big Meal from Scratch” – “a delicious, filling meal for the whole family”; “Something for Nothing” – “two easy meals that use leftovers in a tasty and inspiring way”; a “Seasonal Supper” – “a quick, simple supper made from seasonal ingredients”; a “Larder Feast” – “for when the fridge is bare, a whole meal just from store cupboard ingredients”; and a “Two-for-one Meal” – “a comforting meal that freezes well so that you can eat half immediately and store half in the freezer”.
There are hundreds of recipes and food tips contained within The Kitchen Revolution. One of the authors lived by the book for a year and, spending between £50 and £60 a week, was able to feed a family of four on largely organic meat and vegetables.
Even allowing for the special Irish shopper penalty of about 30 per cent that most retailers charge when selling groceries in the Republic, feeding a family of four good quality, interesting food for less than €100 a week is not at all bad.
Pricewatch has not been using the book for a full year, but has given it a whirl over the past couple of weeks and can report that it does actually work. The authors have also set up a website and a blog, reflecting how many people are now getting their information about good food.
They are not the only ones taking advantage of the web to spread the word of cheap eats. Closer to home, www.cheapeats.ie was launched last month with a focus on good value, good quality food. It was set up by Jean O'Brien, a web designer, and freelance journalist Peter McGuire, and contains an already sizeable amount of information on everything from the best bargains in supermarkets and ethnic food shops to how to cope when you can't cook at all.
“We both love food and want to make sure we get the best value for our money. We also appreciate good value when eating out, and saw that there was no dedicated resource for this information,” says O’Brien.
The site has tips for effective shopping, including real-time pointers towards the latest bargains and special offers in big and small shops, “cheap and cheerful” restaurant reviews as well as good value recipes. “As part of this, we’re also keen to highlight bad value, rip-offs, or outright cons where we see them. We want to start a conversation, and our readers are already offering their own tips and comments on the site,” she adds.
O’BRIEN BELIEVES PEOPLE will eat out less and will be more price-conscious while food shopping during the downturn, “but home cooking will increase. We may see the night in with food becoming an alternative to the night out at the pub, and CheapEats will have suggestions for sample menus to do with friends. We’ve done potluck dinners, where one person cooks a main meal and everyone else brings sides and desserts, and it works out really well – it’s good fun and a fraction of the cost of eating in a restaurant.”
Next week, Irish broadcaster and journalist Mary Mulvihill publishes her excellent eco-conscious money-saving book Drive Like a Woman, Shop Like a Man. The book contains hundreds of smart ways to save money and stresses the need for people to shop smart when it comes to food.
“I’d say that if you’re spending a lot of money on food, then chances are you are buying expensive ‘convenience’ foods, eating more meat than you need to, and probably buying more food than you need,” she says. “Buy a ‘ready meal’, and you’re paying someone else to cook, package, chill and transport it for you. Make it yourself, and you can save half the price.”
SHE BELIEVES IRISH shoppers need to learn from the professionals. “Chefs and restaurants will plan the week’s menu in advance, shop accordingly, and use it all – leftovers end up in soups and stews. Otherwise, they’d go out of business.”
She included a number of recipes in the book to show people how easy and cheap it is to cook good quality food for half nothing. “People forget that if you can buy expensive, ‘home-made’ lemonade, for instance, then you can also make it at home, and in just a few minutes, and for the price of a lemon.” She has also included porridge recipes “to remind people that porridge is not just salty gruel, it can be a delicious, gourmet, comfort food”.
She believes many Irish people could shop more cleverly than they currently do. “A lot of shoppers succumb to ‘buy one, get one free’ or Bogof deals – although, I think ‘buy one, bin one’ (Bobo) is a much better description. These mean the supermarkets dictate what you buy and eat. Better to say no, and reclaim control of your diet and your budget.
“We need to rediscover the wisdom of our mothers and grandmothers. Most of us have lost those skills – people now buy too much, and throw away the leftovers. For many households, a fridge today is somewhere cold to keep food until they throw it away!”
