I recently read this article about the cost of cooking versus the cost of fast food. The current idea is that cooking costs less than fast food, but in actuality those numbers only take into account the price of labor when it is outsourced (e.g., fast food). When you factor in the potential labor costs for cooking at home, the price more than triples and makes the convenience of fast food seem worth the extra couple bucks.
I have mixed feelings about the idea of introducing the labor costs to home-cooked meals. First off, unless you are a chef, you don't get paid to cook. Secondly, unless you'd otherwise be working every waking minute, you won't be out a portion of your paycheck either. On the other hand, many people do find cooking to be a lot of effort and not a lot of fun, so it may sort of seem like working without getting paid, so it is something to consider.
To that end, the author proposes we place a greater emphasis on the joys of cooking, and I couldn't agree more. I love being able to provide a gift so intimate as nourishment to my friends and family and being able to share that sense of community with them. I also like having total control over the things I put in my body, and I sleep easily knowing so much more about what I ate and where it came from. I like trying new things and seeing if I can make my food even better through little tweaks here and there, and I absolutely love the sense of accomplishment I feel when I've pulled off a truly successful meal. Not enough people know these joys, and it's such a shame.
The problem is, as Michael Pollan also pointed out, nobody really knows how to cook anymore. Who is going to teach us the joys of cooking if no one can cook? Sure, some people know how to cook, but upper-middle-class white people have a bit of an edge over inner-city African-Americans, in that they don't live in food deserts and can afford to take a class or two if they're so inclined.
The author suggested that the public school system take on the task, to which I scoff and say, "Good luck with that!" With the egregious budget cuts the entire education system is taking, there's no way anyone's gonna convince schools to re-instate home economics classes. I was lucky enough to take two sessions of home economics while in middle school and I can tell you right now I learned little to nothing about cooking and barely any more about sewing. This from a predominantly white mid-size town with excellent facilities (5-6 full kitchen work stations and about 30 sewing machines).
While I think utilizing the school system has the potential to be highly effective if done right (with a focus on money management and food preparation), I don't think this is feasible unless we find a magic money tree somewhere. Instead, we need to focus on what we can do and what we can teach. Everyone knows how to cook something, even if it's just a grilled cheese sandwich. Start there. Teach your kids how to make the best grilled cheese sandwich there ever was. Then send them to their aunt or their neighbor or their church to learn something new. Provide opportunities to learn whenever possible and try to learn with them. Help them to associate cooking with their sense of community and to take pride in their endeavors.
On the other side of this, we need to make infrastructure changes to eliminate food deserts and make healthy foods an affordable alternative through subsidies and education.
But a lot of these ideas are long-term goals. What can we do right now to make dining in more affordable? My answer: Cook in bulk. Last Tuesday I made about 12 servings of lasagna and 7 servings of pancakes and put most of them in the freezer. Sure, it was a lot of work on Tuesday, but over a week later I have severely cut down my cooking time and I have something I can grab'n'go when I'm rushing between work and school. If your freezer is big enough, cook a few different things all at once so you have options instead of eating lasagna every day (not that I'm complaining!). Cooking 12 servings of lasagna instead of 2 servings probably took an extra 10 minutes and I got an extra 10 meals out of the work. Same goes for the pancakes: A double batch will take 10 extra minutes but will double your servings at the end. Furthermore, it will save money in addition to time because you can buy food in bulk instead of buying single-serving containers.
Tada! Look at me try and solve the world's problems like I think they're easy. Or at least hand out a couple crutches to get by on.
Showing posts with label articles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label articles. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
TV Cooking/Home Cooking
A while back I found this really great Michael Pollan essay about cooking shows. It's pretty long, but basically he makes a point about how incredibly odd it is that people are cooking less and less, yet they are watching more and more food and cooking shows. Pollan suggests that this infatuation stems from a conflict between a general fear of cooking (e.g., the unknown) and a general love of food. Cooking shows allow people to become familiar with cooking from a safe distance and zero chance of failure. A great analogy Pollan gave was that cooking shows are like sporting matches: A lot of people watch them, but few actually do it themselves.
I never really understood cooking shows. When I was little, before the Internet was as far-reaching as it is today, I didn't know how people could possibly keep up with the likes of Martha Stewart and Paula Deen. Why would people watch these cooking shows if they can't make the food? Now, with the Internet, they can preview the show and pick out their favorite recipes online, so it makes a little more sense.
But then we get to cooking competition shows. I can't taste the foods they're making, so how do I know if it's any good?! This was the question I always asked with these shows. Other competition shows, like American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, and Project Runway have results that I can see and hear, so I know if the winner is actually good or not. And yes, presentation is important (and so I can get down with cake decorating and other art-based food competitions), but bottom line is that it can look horrible and actually be pretty tasty, or it can look beautiful and taste like plastic.
Last summer, a couple of my friends were really into Top Chef, so we got together each week to watch it and have dinner. I didn't really care that much about the show (Most of the good parts were the bits of "drama" between the contestants), but I liked that we'd each take turns cooking dinner and eating together before the show. Since then, our group shifted and merged into another group and now we do Movie Night instead. Each week we watch two movies that are related somehow and make a dinner that fits with the week's theme (i.e., The Hunt for Red October, Red Dawn, and Russian cuisine). It's pretty fun and forces us to get creative sometimes and try making new things, like syrniki.
However, Pollan fears that actual, legitimate cooking may be lost forever. With the far-reaching availability of pre-packaged, processed, and fully-cooked "food," who needs to cook anymore? Further, who even knows how to cook? Does heating up a can of soup or making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich count? It shouldn't, but it does.
Young adults like me learned very little about cooking from their parents. I can work my way around the kitchen, but I can guarantee you that I was offered nowhere near the same expertise from my mother that she had from her mother. My mom gave me a few favorite family recipes and showed me the basics for cooking, but most of what I cook now I learned from the Internet, cookbooks, other cooks, or from having the courage to try something new.
My husband is the same way, though he doesn't have quite as much enthusiasm for trying new things as I do. His father doesn't know how to cook anything more than making a sandwich or heating up leftovers in the microwave. I've often wondered what he ate for the ten years that he lived alone before he met his wife, but I'm too shy to ask. Or I'm afraid to hear the answer. But anyway, as a result of my father-in-law's complete and utter lack of cooking knowledge, my mother-in-law forced my husband and his brother to learn how to cook, though I think his little brother may have gotten off a little easier because I'm not sure I've actually seen him cook real food on his own, but I could be wrong.
So I guess we're two people that give a sliver of hope to future cooks, but I know way too many people that rely heavily on pre-packaged, processed food that requires little more than water and heat. The sad thing is that their kids won't know the difference because no one's mom or dad will actually cook from scratch. Hell, they might even think boxed cake mix is cooking from scratch, rather than just buying a pre-made one from the store. What's even worse is the stigma associated with cooking from scratch. It seems to be fading somewhat, but there was definitely a time in my life where it was kind of uncool to have your parents cook from scratch. When you had a birthday, you wanted Pizza Hut and store-bought cake for your party, not a homemade three-course meal with Grandma's red velvet cake. You wanted to go to McDonald's for dinner, not Mom's goulash. Homemade food seemed so...simple. If you could afford the luxury of already prepared food, why should you bother cooking? You could have your food now, instead of having to go to the trouble of making it over the next hour.
Pollan's advice is simple: Cook more. Eat whatever you want, as long as you cook it yourself. When you do, it's fresher, healthier, and hopefully tastier (though who knows what your cooking capabilities are). It's also cheaper and, if you shop wisely, better for your local economy and the environment. So that's what I'm trying to do. I'm not perfect, but I'm getting better.
I never really understood cooking shows. When I was little, before the Internet was as far-reaching as it is today, I didn't know how people could possibly keep up with the likes of Martha Stewart and Paula Deen. Why would people watch these cooking shows if they can't make the food? Now, with the Internet, they can preview the show and pick out their favorite recipes online, so it makes a little more sense.
But then we get to cooking competition shows. I can't taste the foods they're making, so how do I know if it's any good?! This was the question I always asked with these shows. Other competition shows, like American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, and Project Runway have results that I can see and hear, so I know if the winner is actually good or not. And yes, presentation is important (and so I can get down with cake decorating and other art-based food competitions), but bottom line is that it can look horrible and actually be pretty tasty, or it can look beautiful and taste like plastic.
Last summer, a couple of my friends were really into Top Chef, so we got together each week to watch it and have dinner. I didn't really care that much about the show (Most of the good parts were the bits of "drama" between the contestants), but I liked that we'd each take turns cooking dinner and eating together before the show. Since then, our group shifted and merged into another group and now we do Movie Night instead. Each week we watch two movies that are related somehow and make a dinner that fits with the week's theme (i.e., The Hunt for Red October, Red Dawn, and Russian cuisine). It's pretty fun and forces us to get creative sometimes and try making new things, like syrniki.
However, Pollan fears that actual, legitimate cooking may be lost forever. With the far-reaching availability of pre-packaged, processed, and fully-cooked "food," who needs to cook anymore? Further, who even knows how to cook? Does heating up a can of soup or making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich count? It shouldn't, but it does.
Young adults like me learned very little about cooking from their parents. I can work my way around the kitchen, but I can guarantee you that I was offered nowhere near the same expertise from my mother that she had from her mother. My mom gave me a few favorite family recipes and showed me the basics for cooking, but most of what I cook now I learned from the Internet, cookbooks, other cooks, or from having the courage to try something new.
My husband is the same way, though he doesn't have quite as much enthusiasm for trying new things as I do. His father doesn't know how to cook anything more than making a sandwich or heating up leftovers in the microwave. I've often wondered what he ate for the ten years that he lived alone before he met his wife, but I'm too shy to ask. Or I'm afraid to hear the answer. But anyway, as a result of my father-in-law's complete and utter lack of cooking knowledge, my mother-in-law forced my husband and his brother to learn how to cook, though I think his little brother may have gotten off a little easier because I'm not sure I've actually seen him cook real food on his own, but I could be wrong.
So I guess we're two people that give a sliver of hope to future cooks, but I know way too many people that rely heavily on pre-packaged, processed food that requires little more than water and heat. The sad thing is that their kids won't know the difference because no one's mom or dad will actually cook from scratch. Hell, they might even think boxed cake mix is cooking from scratch, rather than just buying a pre-made one from the store. What's even worse is the stigma associated with cooking from scratch. It seems to be fading somewhat, but there was definitely a time in my life where it was kind of uncool to have your parents cook from scratch. When you had a birthday, you wanted Pizza Hut and store-bought cake for your party, not a homemade three-course meal with Grandma's red velvet cake. You wanted to go to McDonald's for dinner, not Mom's goulash. Homemade food seemed so...simple. If you could afford the luxury of already prepared food, why should you bother cooking? You could have your food now, instead of having to go to the trouble of making it over the next hour.
Pollan's advice is simple: Cook more. Eat whatever you want, as long as you cook it yourself. When you do, it's fresher, healthier, and hopefully tastier (though who knows what your cooking capabilities are). It's also cheaper and, if you shop wisely, better for your local economy and the environment. So that's what I'm trying to do. I'm not perfect, but I'm getting better.
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