As the BBC’s Masterchef returns for another series, a study of 2,000 people’s cooking habits reveals men are more enthusiastic in the kitchen, with their partners admitting they get ‘no enjoyment’ from the process at all.

Around 44 per cent of men say they enjoy cooking and the vast majority said they can conjur up a decent meal, and it seems their partners agree, with only 12 per cent of women admitting their man’s cooking is ‘poor’.

However, although the women surveyed rate their cooking – three quarters insist their food is good and just three per cent say their cooking skills are ‘poor’ – two thirds say they consider cooking nothing more than a chore.

And of the women surveyed in the study by Ross Burgers, one in six don’t ever cook at home because they don’t know how.

The real cooking enthusiasts were revealed to be men aged 55 and over, with half saying they ‘love spending time in the kitchen’, and eight in ten rating their food as good or very good.

York came out as the cooking capital of Britain, with six out of ten residents actively enjoying cooking and eight out of ten rating their food as ‘very good’. In comparison, Liverpool has the least confident cooks, with one in ten of them confessing their food is poor.