an illustration of Prince’s fridge in 2011, click here to find out what was inside
You come home from work, hungry; you scan the contents of your fridge and pull your phone out of your pocket to search for a recipe. This is a common pattern repeated in households all over the world on a daily basis. A quick online recipe search is the most obvious information seeking activity undertaken by the information community of home cooks, but it is far from the only one.
Americans’ feelings about the pursuit of home cooking run the gamut, from overwhelmingly positive, to very negative. Stebbins’ (2009) idea of a “nonwork obligation” would seem to apply to those who view cooking as a daily drudgery that must be suffered through. I believe, that the principle of least effort would explain the information behaviors of these cooks; they bridge their information gap as quickly and easily as possible in order to fix the problem, “what’s for dinner?” For others, cooking becomes a consuming life-long passion, and therefore should be analyzed according to the theory of serious leisure. Stebbins would consider passionate home cooking a “making and tinkering hobby” (2009, p. 623) with the act of cooking as the core activity; however, the need for information extends far past this active phase of the hobby.
To this date, Hartel has done the bulk of the LIS research analyzing the information needs, and behaviors of home cooks. She further refines the group she studies as hobbyist cooks, “someone who loves to experience food and cooking, and practices this passion on a regular basis as a favorite activity through hands-on practice and mediated experiences (2002, p.548)”. In one study (2006), Hartel visited 20 hobbyist cooks in their kitchens, interviewing them about information activities, and needs; and then photographing, and analyzing their cooking spaces, and PCLs (personal culinary libraries).
This study produced Hartel’s theory of the three temporal arcs of the hobby of gourmet cooking (2010), which I found fascinating, and as a passionate home cook myself, very accurate. The longest arc is the career arc, which spans the entirety of the individual’s interest in the hobby of cooking. This lasts for years, often decades, and relates to Stebbins’s idea of a serious leisure career (2009); it has a beginning, development, establishment, maintenance, and decline. This is the meandering path to learning and involves the slow and methodical information activities of collecting cookbooks, cataloging a personal collection of recipes, and perhaps writing a culinary memoire. I would also argue that this is the time frame that a cook could be seen as developing embodied knowledge; over time cooks learn to use their senses to tell them when the garlic is done frying, or that a loaf of bread has adequately risen.
Next, Hartel describes the subject arc, usually weeks or months when a cook deep dives into a particular subject matter (e.g. sourdough baking). During this phase the cook would take part in information activities such as reading a cookbook about sourdough baking (but not while cooking), taking a class about sourdough baking, going to a market that sells baking ingredients, going to eat at bakery to sample different types of sourdough breads, or going onto a baker’s online forum to read general advice or to learn techniques. As Hartel notes (2010, p.7), this arc is interesting in regard to the use of cookbooks; although they are technically reference books (used to look-up a recipe), they are aren’t used as such during this inspiration arc, they are often read cover-to-cover.
Hartel’s final time frame is the episode arc, the execution of a cooking project (over the course of minutes, hours, or days), and the core activity in the hobby of gourmet cooking. Hartel uses a 9-step cycle to explain the flow of information activities during an episodic arc (2006), which I will frame using Hektor’s classification of the types of “ELIS Information Activities” (2003):
exploring-looking for inspiration not specific information; information activities could include browsing cookbooks, websites, magazines, or collections of personal recipes; having conversations with other cooks, or visiting a farmers’ market to see what’s in season. This step could be viewed within Hektor’s framework as a browsing and/or monitoring activity.
planning-directed searching for a recipe or information to bridge a knowledge gap; information activities could include writing a shopping list, writing out a timeline for a complicated meal, sometimes seeking multiple versions of the same recipe in order to analyze, compare, and sometimes combine into the cook’s unique version; or asking other cooks for advice. This step could be viewed within Hektor’s framework, as a search and retrieve, and/or unfolding activity. The back and forth discussions between cooks could be considered an information exchange activity. The creation of a new recipe based on several others could be considered a publishing activity.
provisioning– necessary ingredients and tools are obtained in order to execute the cooking project; information activities could include online shopping or other ways of sourcing ingredients. I would also consider this a search and retrieve activity.
prepping– getting the ingredients ready to cook; information activities could include consulting the recipe, and/or cooking timelines. I would consider this stage an unfolding activity as a cook moves towards the full comprehension needed to prepare a recipe.
assembling/cooking– the main event; information activities could include consulting the recipe, and/or the cook’s timeline, and drawing from the cook’s embodied knowledge of the cooking process. I believe this continues in the unfolding stage.
serving– plating and presenting the meal to others; information activities could include referencing pictures of the finished dish in a cookbook for ideas about presentation. This is a continuation of the unfolding stage.
eating– my favorite part; information activities include using the 5 senses. This one gives me a little pause in Hektor’s framework, but it could be considered publishing if we view the finished dish as information itself (Buckland, 1991).
evaluating -after eating, the cook evaluates the success or failure of the cooking episode; information activities could include using the cook’s embodied knowledge of flavor, comparing the dish to food eaten in restaurants (or past attempts at same recipe), and conversations with others at the table about the dish. It is often during this phase that a cook shares their experiences in a food blog, or in conversations with other cooks, or perhaps records the episode in a personal culinary journal. I believe that this information creation and sharing could be viewed as a dressing, instructing and/or publishing activity according to Hektor.
As you can see from the above evidence, home cooks have a variety of information needs which differ widely dependent on which temporal arc of their hobby career they are engaged in. The passion for cooking renders them into active, enthusiastic consumers, and creators of information. In her LIS study of home cooks, Knopp (2011), notes that while home cooks do prefer information that’s easy to access; “they are more dedicated in their information seeking because their passion usually outweighs any time or resource constraints (p.42)”. Passionate home cooks often spend a lifetime seeking information that fulfills their ever-shifting needs and interests.
References
Buckland, M. K. (1991). Information as thing. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42(5), 351–360. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199106)42:5<351::AID-ASI5>3.0.CO;2-3
Hartel, J. (2002). Appetite for information in the hobby of cooking. Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 39(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/meet.14503901105
Hartel, J. (2006). Information activities and resources in an episode of gourmet cooking. Information Research, 12(1). http://informationr.net/ir/12-1/paper282.html
Hartel, J. (2010) Time as a framework for information science: insights from the hobby of gourmet cooking. Information Research, 15(4). http://informationr.net/ir/15-4/colis715.html
Hektor, A. (2003). Information activities on the internet in everyday life. The New Review of Information Behaviour Research, 4(1), 127–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/14716310310001631480
Knopp, M. (2011). Information needs, preferences, and behaviors of home cooks. Library and Information Research, 35(109), 40–54. https://doi.org/10.29173/lirg465
Stebbins, R. A. (2009). Leisure and its relationship to library and information science: Bridging the gap. Library Trends, 57(4), 618–631. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.0.0064