Fifth of British adults still call home for cooking advice

More than half of us credit our mothers for our culinary skills

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Just how much of a grown-up are you?

Whilst we might be adult enough to pay our phone bills, own a house plant and get on the property ladder (pah, who are we kidding?), when it comes to culinary wizardry, some of us still rely on mum and dad.

One in five of Brits under the age of 34 calls home to check a recipe or ask for advice on what to eat for dinner, new research by Co-op food has found.

More than half of those surveyed credit their mothers for their kitchen skills, with seven per cent citing their dads as cooking role models.

Cooking eggs seems to be a particularly contentious issue, stifling the nation in its complexities.

It’s an egg-ceptionally confusing process, with three varieties of egg-making appearing in the top 10 recipes that people need most help with.

Scrambled, poached, boiled… who knows?

Not us, apparently.

A roast dinner was the number one cause for concern, followed by curry and lasagne.

Even rice and soup made it into the list.

Another five per cent of us call home for advice on kitchen utensils (knives, forks, spoons... it's a minefield) whilst another four per cent check to see if it's safe to cook something past its sell-by date.

52 per cent cited Mary Berry as their foodie role model, followed by Delia, Nigella and Isabella Beeton.

“While the likes of Mary Berry and Delia Smith may spring to mind when we think of female foodie influencers, actually culinary heroines are all around us from within our families, to our local farmers, growers and producers – cheese-makers, chocolatiers, bakers and brewers,” said Breige Donaghy, director of Delicious Food at Co-op.

Top 10 recipes we need help with:

1. Roast Dinner 
2. Curry
3. Lasagne
4. Scrambled eggs
5. Poached eggs
6. Birthday cake
7. Spaghetti Bolognese 
8. Boiled egg 
9. Rice 
10. Soup