In defence of cookbooks: why TikTok recipes just don't measure up - News + Articles

Aug 14, 2025

Quiet, children. Gen X is speaking.

So, apparently cookbooks are over now. According to a recent survey by e-commerce agency Publicis Commerce, around three-quarters of Generation Z uses social media as their main source of inspiration for meal planning, with only around 30 percent of 18 to 27-year-olds turning to cookbooks. Even more depressing – Gen-Zedders prefer the cooking content of influencers over celebrity chefs and cooking channels. Because who needs years of experience when you can deep-fry some Spam to a funky backing track?

Of course, these findings were met with the kind of enthusiastic but poorly written endorsement you’d expect from a generation that has never managed to put its phone down for long enough to realise that ‘ur’ isn’t actually a word.

So outraged was I to hear of all of this, once I managed to hoist myself out of my comfy chair to find my reading glasses (they were on my head), I resolved to pen a scathing retort on behalf of cookbook-lovers everywhere. And I wasn’t even going to use AI to do it.

The viral feta baked pasta racked up millions of views and likes for online content creators.

Now or forever: social media vs. cookbooks

The average TikTok or Instagram cooking video is usually around 30-60 seconds in length. That’s not a lot of time to do much more than throw in a few alluring edits of the final dish, interspersed with shots of you looking cute yet knowledgeable in the kitchen. This is great for a bit of ‘food porn’-style entertainment, but where are the instructions? There’s no time to explain whether your eggs or meat needs to be at room temperature, and why; at which points you should be whisking vigorously, or stirring gently; whether you should have your pan over medium-high heat or medium-low; exactly how to create perfectly flaky pastry or irresistibly crispy potatoes.

Yes, I’m aware that there is the option to provide brief instructions in the caption, but no one reads those. I should know. It’s sometimes my job to write them.

A cookbook not only provides all the instructions and information you need, it doesn’t disappear after 60 seconds, and it never needs charging. You just prop it open at the page you need, and get to work, without becoming distracted by elaborate song and dance numbers like this one, which I totally only chose because there’s a dog in it.

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A post shared by Daniel Rankin (@mancancooknz)

Our Food Director and recipe developer Lucy Nunes prefers a written recipe when in the kitchen, finding social media videos more useful for general inspiration than for actual cooking.

“Social media videos are more often a teaser,” she says. “They skip steps, and don’t give you amounts.

“I love a cookbook. I love holding a book in my hands. Touching a screen with greasy fingers, or constantly having to refresh the screen or re-enter my password drives me crazy.”

Cookbooks bring memories, meaning and more

But the permanence of cookbooks goes further than just paper and ink. Our most beloved and most-used cookbooks bear the marks of countless meals of yore – splashes of memory and smudges of history that tell their own unique tale; the tale that is your cooking journey – your triumphs and your failures. Family celebrations and gatherings with friends. Birthdays and break-ups. Health kicks and holiday indulgences. From the simple home-cooked meal to that time you decided to try making souffle, your cookbooks have been there by your side, guiding you every step of the way.

As a friend pointed out to me, a cookbook can also offer more than just recipes; it can become a personal project and learning experience. “If you want to cook and learn about a particular type of food, or food of a different country, a cookbook offers you a whole adventure,” she says.

A cookbook is also a more trustworthy source of information than a video. A decent cooking video can be done in a day. It can take months, or even years for someone to write, test, edit, style and shoot a cookbook. That’s a lot of love, sweat and tears. All of this ends up making the end result more authentic to you, the home cook.

“You trust in the reputation of the cookbook author,” my friend tells me. ‘And usually, the cook provides some kind of history behind each recipe, which makes it more meaningful for me.”

Nunes agrees: “A good cookbook is not just a collection of recipes,” she says. “It tells a story; it has a voice of its own.”

Cookbooks are a timeless gift

The greatest cookbooks can become more than just trusty kitchen companions. They can also become family heirlooms. Just as recipes have been passed down through generations for millennia, so too are classic cookbooks passed on from parent to child. I have a copy of my mother’s old Commonsense Cookery Book, first published all the way back in 1914, on my bookshelf. Many a copy of The Silver Spoon, Larousse Gastronomique or Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking has made its way from one generation to the next, and will no doubt continue to do so, long after matcha lattes, scrambled pancakes, pasta chips and chickles have faded into obscurity, scrolled past and forgotten.