Browsing by Author "Kyyrä, Justiina"

Aims. Economical cookery has several aspects and can be determined in different ways. Especially food cooked during the week is hoped be economical in terms of affordability, health, taste and easiness. In media one can find many kinds of advices of how one should cook to be economical. At the same time there has been plenty of discussion if the lower society class is able to even make healthy food. According to the previous studies, home economics skills are still important to success in economical cooking even though the content has changed over the time period. In this study, economical cooking is handled through cookbooks and the advices they give. Cookbooks as well as the goals for economical cookery, which they transmit, change within the society change. The purpose of this study was to examine how economical cooking is described in cookbooks related to budget food and homely fare. In addition, this study figured out, how have food purchasing and cooking changed during the decades in terms of economy. Methods. This study is qualitative and the data consisted of ten cookbooks, which were published in Finland. Five of the books were from the beginning of 20th century and five from 21st century. The data was analysed by using theoretical content analysis and thematising. Results and conclusions. Economy in cooking was to be seen in policies favouring money or time saving. The cookbooks concentrated on giving advices, which helped in purchasing food and in cooking economically. The quality of food was seen as important. The biggest changes between 20th and 21st century were in the meaning of home economics skills, food culture and existence of responsibility. The results of this study are similar to previous studies. They show that the focus in economical food seems to be in quality, affordability, effortlessness and cultural character of food. To be able to cook economically one needs skills to plan, purchase food from right places, cook in reasonable time and organize. According to this study attention should be paid to these skills as they are important in staying healthy and living ones' everyday life.