Back in the day you had cooking shows like Julia Child, the Galloping Gourmet, Justin "The Cajun Cook" Wilson, Jeff "The Frugal Gourmet" Smith and a few more. How has the internet changed cooking?
The first obvious answer is that it has made recipes more accessible to the world. If you did not know how to make something you either did not make it or you called your grandmother for the recipe. Then publishing took over the world and anyone who spent time in the kitchen needed the latest and greatest cookbook with all the new secret recipes. Chef's were getting rich off of publishing their own recipe books. Today a recipe found across the world is one google search away by computer, an Ipad or even a cellphone. Sometimes you might try a recipe of something you saw on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. Some of those outstanding images come with recipes waiting for you to try them. This has not stopped the publishing of cookbooks but you don't need to go to your local bookstore or library to get the recipe.
Cooking shows have taken over the airways and if you missed a recipe during a broadcast you can be sure to get it from their website of Facebook page. Once you hit these sites they can steer you to other recipes, other chefs or products. Getting people to visit these sites is important so they can obviously make money but it helps them measure a few things. It is possible to measure visitors so you can determine the amount of exposure, certain kinds of foods/recipes might be more popular than others and the show may want to focus on that segmentation of recipes and in cases of the Food Network you can see which shows are more or less popular which could determine future support of that show. Some say it is even more important to feed visitors to the website from Facebook or social media sites. the reason being is that these visitors bring demographic measures which can help in attracting advertisers.
Live shows can see instant feedback on Twitter and Facebook to help show producers determine whether to extend or shorten a segment.
The internet has made the average person much more educated about food and related topics. You now have an average guy cooking gourmet dishes at home for a date, serving it on bone china and pairing it with a Napa Valley wine. This same guy 20 years ago would have been serving Hungry-man tv dinners with a couple of forty ounce beers or possibly some Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers.
Restaurant goers have moved from eating at Mel's diner to touring Chicago steakhouses or visiting every restaurant in the Hour magazine in Detroit. Because these eaters are more educated they are harder to please. A whopper and fries no longer satisfies when you know you can get a medium rare USDA Prime Filet Mignon covered in zip sauce with Portobello mushrooms and Tiger prawns. It is because of the internet that these consumers are not only educated about food but restaurants around the world where they can consume them. It doesn't only have to be gourmet food but shows like Diners, Drive-ins and Dives is an excellent example in which a show uses input from its viewers to determine what diner or dive should be showcased on the show. I can pretty much guarantee that each of the locations on that show has gained more customers and fans nationwide than it would have without the internet.
Whether you are at home cooking some asian zing chicken wings for the game or at top rated restaurant eating a Wagyu Kobe beef steak the internet had something to do with dish or recipe being made available to you.
Great post!
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