Airbnb launches search for world's best home cooks

Do you fancy yourself as one of the world's 100 best home cooks? Is food your favourite part of travelling? Do you want to combine the two?

Travel app Airbnb has launched a global search for the greatest undiscovered cooks to mark the launch of Airbnb Cooking Experiences, which allows travellers to learn from everyday amateurs - and professionals - no matter where they are in the world.

The competition is led by famed Momofuku chef David Chang, and will send 100 home cooks to Italy for five days, where they will study with experts from the University of Gastronomic Sciences, and refine their own family recipe, which will be included in Airbnb's first cookbook, set to be released in 2020.

Fantastic foodies and eligible Airbnb users can nominate themselves, or their favourite home cook, to be in the running.

Airbnb has pinpointed food as a growth area in travel, reporting its Airbnb Food & Drink bookings have grown 160 per cent since 2018. The newly branded Cooking Experiences will bring together over 3000 hands-on experiences from 75 countries, hosted by farmers, families and professionals, who will share their recipes - and the personal significance behind them - for a fee.

Experiences on offer range from the star-studded, like cooking lunch with Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith in London or a maize workshop in Mexico City's with Enrique Olvera, who appeared in an episode of Netflix's Chef's Table, through to making handmade pasta with "Grandma" in Rome and Uzbek home-cooking.

Each experience has been vetted against the guidelines inspired by Slow Food, an organisation that aims to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and conditions.

"Airbnb Cooking Experiences represent a great opportunity to spread our urgent call for sustainability standards and food biodiversity protection across the globe, reaching new audiences and inspiring change in the entire food and tourism sector," Paolo Di Croce, Slow Food secretary general, said in a statement.