An interesting story by Michael Pollan about Food Network, cooking, society, and food was posted at Metafilter yesterday. It’s a good read, but long. Only true fans of food, cooking, Micheal Pollan or possibly sociology (as it relates to food and cooking) will be interested enough to finish the whole thing. I found it interesting, and I agree with many of its points, especially that people just don’t cook enough anymore.
Reading through the comments of the discussion at Metafilter, it seems a lot of people think that cooking in the modern world –real cooking, not throwing together preprocessed goods or microwaving something– is impossible to accomplish. One person called it “untenable.” We are all just too busy to do any real cooking, or so many seem to believe.
Well, it isn’t impossible or untenable, and I would say most of us aren’t too busy to do any real cooking. Even if I were working full time outside the home, we would still be eating home cooked meals of the same quality we do now. How? One word: priorities. Eating well and feeding my family well is a high priority for me.
I’m not going to tell everyone they must also make eating well and cooking real meals a top priority, but to say it’s impossible to do is merely just an excuse. Instead of saying they are “too busy” or “I’m too tired when I get home” people should just admit they don’t want to cook and would rather have someone else do it for them. There’s no shame in not wanting to cook or not knowing how to cook or just not giving a damn about what is being put into the body.
It’s a free world, so everyone can do whatever they want, but don’t make excuses for not doing it. If it was really important to someone, they would make the time and find the energy to really do some cooking. Everyone seems to find plenty of time to watch TV (including Food Network). So I miss an hour of watching TV every night, or I don’t get to do as much knitting, or maybe I have to put my shower off until just before bed or next morning.
To me, the loss or rescheduling of those things is worth it. And does anyone really think I always feel like spending an hour in the kitchen making a meal?† I assure you, I don’t. Sometimes that leads to having take-out or microwaved insta-food, but usually it leads to me spending an hour in the kitchen anyway. The meal is always worth it.
I grow tired of people saying they don’t have time or energy for this or that, like cooking, crafts, gardening, whatever. Everyone has as much time as they need for anything they truly want to do. All they have to do is make it a priority and possibly give up some time from something else they currently spend their time doing. If everyone who claims they would do more “real cooking” if they only had the time or weren’t so tired would please just fess up and admit they simply don’t want to cook, I’m cool with that. The excuses though are beginning to wear thin.
Footnotes- † And does anyone think I actually relish getting up early two or three Saturdays a month and going to the farmers market? Yeah, don’t enjoy that too much either, but the food is worth it. [↩]
Sigh. People. Food is important: garbage in, garbage out. If you eat crappy food, you will feel like crap. Now, I can’t afford organic, grass-fed, free-range blah blah blah, and I’m not sure I’d kill myself to get it even if I could (because a lot of those labels don’t really mean a whole lot at the moment — thanks FDA!), but I *do* advocate at least cooking for yourself. I don’t know why this is a difficult concept. I mean, you have to eat, right? So why not eat something with nutritional value. I’m with you: just admit it if you don’t want to cook. I mean, I still don’t get it, but don’t lie about it. There’s time.
Did you see the AskMefi question about “How do I stock a larder?” To me, it really read more like, “How do my wife and I manage to not order in or eat fast food, even though I work at home all day?” Uh, buy a crock pot and a cookbook. Done.
(And as for your last question: yes, I do enjoy farmer’s markets. I like to fondle veggies :flower: )
Even before we went on this whole eat local, organic, and fresh foods kick, I cooked all the time. Sure, sometimes it was sometimes pre-packaged noodle mixes or minute rice or canned stuff, but I still found the time to make meals as healthy as I could. A long time ago both of us were in college and working full time jobs, and still the kitchen was used more than the drive-thru. You either want to eat as well as you can or you don’t care and it isn’t a priority. No shame either way, but be honest with yourself at least, right?
No, I missed the larder question. Probably a good thing. My head would have exploded.
Oh, I enjoy the market once I get there, but the getting up early on a Saturday, after a week of getting up at 5:30 am during the week, sucks. As I keep hitting the snooze button, I start to remind myself there’s almost no meat in the freezer, and if we don’t go, I’ll have to buy meat at the grocery store. That usually gets me out of bed quickly enough. :D
And I’m a veggie fondler too. Can’t stop touching the tasty veggies!