Where the heart and best cooks are

Ly, a host in Shanghai. [Photo provided to China Daily]

It is too much hassle to cook at home and take food to work with her, she says, and the mildly flavored and healthy meals she has had from Home Cooked contrast sharply with the greasy fare loaded with sugar and flavoring agents in restaurants.

In addition, because the quantity of dishes that cook-at-home chefs prepare is limited, she believes the ingredients they use are similar to those that would be used in normal family cooking.

"After all, no one uses digouyou (gutter oil) to cook their own meal."

Li Sha, 27, of Beijing, who comes from Hanzhong, Shaanxi province, says the home kitchen apps offer her a wide variety of choice, and she has even found food typical of her hometown through one.

Since moving to Beijing 10 years ago to attend university, she had been unable to find authentic rice noodles common in her hometown, even though there are a few Shaanxi-style restaurants in the capital, she says.

She recently struck gold on Home Cooked, discovering an amateur from Hanzhong, and now she is a regular customer.

"It is great to eat authentic hometown food and to be able to talk in my own dialect."

A lot of what is being offered on Home Cooked seems to be reasonably priced, presumably because chefs are not burdened with heavy outlays, such as for rent, she says.

The kitchen owner is a fulltime housewife who says she sells her dishes not only to make money, but also to get a feeling of being appreciated by people beyond her family.

Qiao Biyun, 56, a Beijing retiree, says she signed up with Home Cooked in April after seeing a promotional leaflet. Before that, she says, she killed time by attending classes on cooking.

Home Cooked has given her group training with other home chefs, and helped her set up her online kitchen, she says, and she is now one of the platform's most sought-after chefs.

For her a typical day starts about 7 am, when she gets up to buy vegetables, meat and sometimes seafood. Then, as orders flood in, she cooks. She cooks lunches only and takes up to 15 orders a day, she says.

"I would be lying if I said I don't care about making money. Of course I do, but for me the main thing is having something to do. I don't want to get tired, but I don't want to be useless to others, either."

Most of the Home Cooked chefs she has got to know are, like her, retirees, she says, and the rest are full-time homemakers or people who want to work part time.

Zhou Tong, operations director of Home Cooked, says home kitchen platforms are yet another example of the sharing economy and of how to use resources that once went to waste.

Home Cooked has regulations and safeguards on food safety, and will not tolerate anyone who seriously breaches them, he says.