There will come a day when computers cook our supper.

A restaurant in Germany already has a fully computerised ordering and delivery system and this week Selfridges Food Hall welcomes Mr Asahi, a life-size robot who is able to speak English - an improvement on many of London's bar staff - while he opens bottles and pours free samples of Japanese beer.

Meanwhile, online food shopping and organic vegetable box delivery schemes are already second nature to many consumers. Thanks to faster broadband, internet shopping is growing at the fastest rate in six years. The number of online shoppers rose 24.7 per cent to 22.6 million last year and food and groceries top the virtual shopping basket, along with electrical goods.

Ingredients’ lists for a particular dish can be downloaded to a mobile phone in the supermarket aisle and video recipes followed on laptops in the kitchen. The latest in-car satellite-navigation system even steers hungry drivers to more than 3,000 places to eat in the UK recommended by Harden’s restaurant guides (£9.95; roadtour.co.uk).

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Hands-free devices are, er, handy when you're driving, and ditto in the kitchen. Nintendo’s new kitchen gadget is a pocket-sized talking digital cookbook that guides users step-by-step through recipes. The Japanese-made gizmo contains 250 classic recipes from around the world searchable by country and by individual ingredients (useful for that ailing aubergine at the back of the fridge). It can make calculations to adjust portions and has a calorie counter.

Preparation tips and and the how-to videos, including filleting sardines by hand, cleaning rainbow trout and chopping onions, are basic but useful. Alas, there is no search by season and no wine-matching facility.

Touch the image of an aubergine on the screen and the device returns ten mainly summery recipes including Sicilian caponata, Japanese tempura and a simple Greek dip. But for broad beans there's a lone North African sesame and broad bean croquette, no entry for courgettes and the recipes for apricots, pineapples and cherries use tinned fruits.

The images and range of dishes are a bit old-school cookbook (chilli con carne made with Frankfurter sausages anyone?), lacking any of the gastropub flair that we have grown accustomed to in dishes this decade. And it's a bit fiddly to interact manually with the credit-card sized screen, especially when your hands are covered in fish innards.

On the other hand, the recipes originate from the Tsuji Cooking academy in Japan so the device is strong on Asian cuisine and condiments.

Verdict: don't consign your well thumbed copies of Jamie and Delia to the recycling bin just yet.

Nintendo Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What to Eat? (£29.99)

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