Amidst growing concern about both nutrition and food safety, anxiety about a loss of everyday cookingudskills is a common part of public discourse. Within both the media and academia, it is widely perceivedudthat there has been an erosion of the skills held by previous generations with the development ofudconvenience foods and kitchen technologies cited as culpable in 'deskilling' current and future generations.udThese discourses are paralleled in policy concerns, where the incidence of indigenous food-borne diseaseudin the UK has led to the emergence of an understanding of consumer behaviour, within the food industryudand among food scientists, based on assumptions about consumer 'ignorance' and poor food hygieneudknowledge and cooking skills. These assumptions are accompanied by perceptions of a loss of `commonsenseud´ understandings about the spoilage and storage characteristics of food, supposedly characteristic ofudearlier generations. The complexity of cooking skills immediately invites closer attention to discourses ofudtheir assumed decline. This paper draws upon early findings from a current qualitative research projectudwhich focuses on patterns of continuity and change in families' domestic kitchen practices across threeudgenerations. Drawing mainly upon two family case studies, the data presented problematise assumptionsudthat earlier generations were paragons of virtue in the context of both food hygiene and cooking. In taking audbroader, life-course perspective, we highlight the absence of linearity in participants' engagement withudcooking as they move between different transitional points throughout the life-course.
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