I used to think it was dangerous believing food comes from a grocery store. Now it seems something even more perilous is afoot - we shouldn’t have to spend any time preparing food (3.5 minutes is the limit before oppressed “cooks” start dialing their lawyers). We truly have lost our communal and spiritual connection to our sustenance. Pass me a hot pocket and a coke!
I knew our civilization was doomed when Uncrustables hit the market.
When people find a peanut butter and jelly sandwich - LITERALLY THE EASIEST THING TO MAKE, I was adept at making PB&J's by age five, including cutting off the crusts - to be just Too Much Work, that is a sign that we are living in the end times.
This idea that only 16% of American grown-ups consider themselves to be "capable cooks" took me so aback that I almost let the milk I was scalding to make my weekly batch of yogurt boil over. "It's nuts!" I thought to myself as I turned off the flame under the pot of milk, slicing carrots while sauteing the garlic and ginger in another to make the base for the curry. And that's what kept me from writing my reaction to this until today.
There are a few things going on here: One, the disposability consumer culture that this essay focuses on. There's also American individualism/anti-sociality: one key advantage of single-serve to-go meals is that you never have to worry about what, or when, anyone else is eating. 21st century Americans seem to have converted the social ritual of eating into a purely practical act of self-nourishment.
But another thing that I think is going on with the collapse of American home cooking is a collapse in focus. Much has been written about the declining modern attention span, the victim of social media pings hacking brain pathways. I'm no chef, but being even a competent home cook requires enough focus for me to whisk with one hand and pour with another. It also requires me to keep paying attention even when something is boring for whole seconds or minutes at a time: I need to keep watching the thermometer in the pot of milk; I need to keep stirring the roux until it turns caramel-brown, and I can't just check in on Instagram real quick if I'm bored while I'm stirring. Can real social media addicts do that, I wonder?
Anyway, I thought I'd add my two cents to this discussion while eating my cup-o-noodles at my desk at work.
More educated Americans tend to eat at nice restaurants more often which contributes to feelings of insecurity in the kitchen our grandmothers would never have exhibited…
And so much perfectionism! I think that consumer culture will do that to you, though: you're "paying for this," so it must be perfect, and then the standards for perfection ratchet to increasingly impossible levels. I think this is also worsened by the anti-social culture of the USA: if you're not getting the social joy out of your dinner, the only thing to think about is the rank hedonism of how amazing this food tastes in this moment--itself an evanescent, impossible to focus on phenomenon.
Then, because comparison is a ravenous monster (heheh, see what I did there?), your own home cooking is never good enough--it can't compare to the hedonic experience of the more expensive (and probably more calorie-rich) restaurant food.
Anyway, gotta run because Wednesday is when the grocery boat comes to our tiny island, and I need to restock. What will they have today? Who knows, leftovers from the bigger islands like always, plus whatever the farmers and fishermen haven't already sold to the resorts on the big islands. The berries, if there are any, will be moldy, and the cereal might have bugs, and I will be grateful--and happier than an American at Delmonico's.
I used to think it was dangerous believing food comes from a grocery store. Now it seems something even more perilous is afoot - we shouldn’t have to spend any time preparing food (3.5 minutes is the limit before oppressed “cooks” start dialing their lawyers). We truly have lost our communal and spiritual connection to our sustenance. Pass me a hot pocket and a coke!
I knew our civilization was doomed when Uncrustables hit the market.
When people find a peanut butter and jelly sandwich - LITERALLY THE EASIEST THING TO MAKE, I was adept at making PB&J's by age five, including cutting off the crusts - to be just Too Much Work, that is a sign that we are living in the end times.
indeed...It's the part of a Brave New World that Aldous Huxley could not have possibly foreseen...
This idea that only 16% of American grown-ups consider themselves to be "capable cooks" took me so aback that I almost let the milk I was scalding to make my weekly batch of yogurt boil over. "It's nuts!" I thought to myself as I turned off the flame under the pot of milk, slicing carrots while sauteing the garlic and ginger in another to make the base for the curry. And that's what kept me from writing my reaction to this until today.
There are a few things going on here: One, the disposability consumer culture that this essay focuses on. There's also American individualism/anti-sociality: one key advantage of single-serve to-go meals is that you never have to worry about what, or when, anyone else is eating. 21st century Americans seem to have converted the social ritual of eating into a purely practical act of self-nourishment.
But another thing that I think is going on with the collapse of American home cooking is a collapse in focus. Much has been written about the declining modern attention span, the victim of social media pings hacking brain pathways. I'm no chef, but being even a competent home cook requires enough focus for me to whisk with one hand and pour with another. It also requires me to keep paying attention even when something is boring for whole seconds or minutes at a time: I need to keep watching the thermometer in the pot of milk; I need to keep stirring the roux until it turns caramel-brown, and I can't just check in on Instagram real quick if I'm bored while I'm stirring. Can real social media addicts do that, I wonder?
Anyway, I thought I'd add my two cents to this discussion while eating my cup-o-noodles at my desk at work.
More educated Americans tend to eat at nice restaurants more often which contributes to feelings of insecurity in the kitchen our grandmothers would never have exhibited…
And so much perfectionism! I think that consumer culture will do that to you, though: you're "paying for this," so it must be perfect, and then the standards for perfection ratchet to increasingly impossible levels. I think this is also worsened by the anti-social culture of the USA: if you're not getting the social joy out of your dinner, the only thing to think about is the rank hedonism of how amazing this food tastes in this moment--itself an evanescent, impossible to focus on phenomenon.
Then, because comparison is a ravenous monster (heheh, see what I did there?), your own home cooking is never good enough--it can't compare to the hedonic experience of the more expensive (and probably more calorie-rich) restaurant food.
Anyway, gotta run because Wednesday is when the grocery boat comes to our tiny island, and I need to restock. What will they have today? Who knows, leftovers from the bigger islands like always, plus whatever the farmers and fishermen haven't already sold to the resorts on the big islands. The berries, if there are any, will be moldy, and the cereal might have bugs, and I will be grateful--and happier than an American at Delmonico's.