The evolution of Brazilian cuisine books and its relationship with contemporary cooking habits

Abstract

Introduction: Culinary publications are sources of research materials whose evaluation allows identifying culinary habits and studying cultural, biological, economic, social, and commensal aspects of a people. Objective: In order to understand when and why contemporary Brazilian society gradually lost the habit of cooking its meals, this subject of study was adopted under the food and nutrition perspective. Seven relevant authors from the history of Brazilian cuisine were selected, covering the period from 1840 to 2019. Method: The study covered technical reading, which observed visual and textual elements, general content and presentation of culinary recipes; in the general analysis, we identified the proposal and target audience of each book to contextualize the socioeconomic and cultural aspects of each era; and in the content analysis, we studied ingredients, details of preparation techniques, utensils used, and observed the changes in culinary habits from the nutritional perspective. Results: It was observed that the older works had less visual elements, recipes were less detailed, and there was less use of industrialized products and household appliances and a greater amount of recipes per page. The comparison of the contents between the oldest and most recent works, together with the pertinent literature, suggests a reduction in the habit of cooking, which can be noticed by the greater detail of recipes and greater use of visual resources, showing an attempt to simplify recipes. Important changes were also noted in the population's dietary pattern, resulting from the progressive loss of the cooking habit and increased consumption of ready-to-eat meals produced by the industry.