UK on the road to culinary ignorance

I sampled my first meal out in an Indian restaurant in Maidenhead, Berkshire, aged eight. I looked on in awed silence as my father ordered 10 portions of Bombay duck ("Ten ducks!?"), gawped at the pictures of elephants and tigers on the walls, and nibbled gingerly on the bhajis, breads and curries before us. So began my enduring love affair with Asian food.

There was a time when eating out was a treat reserved for birthdays and special occasions, and regular dining out the preserve of the rich and famous. But the world has been turned on its head. Cooking and eating at home is now the exception, and grabbing meals in pubs or restaurants the norm.

According to new research by market analysts Mintel, we cash-rich, time-poor Brits are "convenience junkies", who spend more than a third more on dining out than we did five years ago. In many households, cooking has been relegated from the status of well-loved hobby to the level of chore - between our socialising and our soap operas, many of us simply don't find the time to fire up the hob or crack an egg.

Ironically, the TV-chef phenomenon, which was supposed to transform us into a nation of gastronomes, has spawned a generation of kitchen-phobics who become anxious at the very sight of a stove. After all, how can a mere mortal hope to mimic the creations of a domestic goddess or a Naked Chef MBE?

All of this is good news for the restaurateurs to whom we increasingly turn for our daily bread. But what will be the long-term effects? A nation of restaurant-goers might be good for the bottom line today, but where will future generations of chefs spring from, once we lose our collective will and ability to prepare food ourselves?

Tellingly, the biggest gainers in Mintel's report are take-away and fast-food outlets, with whom consumers now spend twice as much as they did in 1998. If this trend continues, the currency of food will be devalued and our palates terminally deadened.

This must not be allowed to happen. Restaurants must retain their element of magic, while remaining welcoming and inclusive. And they must take care to educate and inspire as they serve, so that food remains a passion and not simply a fuel.

If they do not, they may find there are not enough cooks to prepare the broth, let alone spoil it, in years to come.