Evidence of the Death of Cooking in the US

[prasantrin]

I read the article and though, "Oh for f***'s sake, who cares?"

There will always be people in the world who know about food (and/or cooking), and those who don't.

There will always be people in the world who can cook and those who can't.

There will always be people in the world who care about food, and those who don't.

Focus on what you're doing and what you can do (whether that includes educating others or not), and move forward. No point judging people who feel differently from you. I'm sure there are things they'd be surprised/chagrined/disappointed you don't know about, but they do.

[Chris Amirault]

I read the article and though, "Oh for f***'s sake, who cares?"

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Well, I do, for one. Even if you don't much care about the loss of foodways and cuisines across the country, you might want to care about the related loss of foodstuffs. Markets drive the availability of products, particularly below top price points; if fewer people are cooking, then fewer products for cooking will be available. You won't see that if you shop primarily in Whole Foods or Dean & Deluca -- though I think the fastest segment of even those shops are home replacement meals.

ETA: Don't take my word for it. Here's George Faison of DeBragga & Spitler weighing in on quality ingredients.

Edited August 11, 2009 by chrisamirault (log)

[prasantrin]

Well, I do, for one. Even if you don't much care about the loss of foodways and cuisines across the country, you might want to care about the related loss of foodstuffs. Markets drive the availability of products, particularly below top price points; if fewer people are cooking, then fewer products for cooking will be available. You won't see that if you shop primarily in Whole Foods or Dean & Deluca -- though I think the fastest segment of even those shops are home replacement meals.

I don't shop at Whole Foods or Dean & Deluca (and don't even have either at which to shop, even if I wanted to), and I can shop just fine. Even when I was a child, we did the bulk of our grocery shopping daily (or near daily) at an Asian grocery store, where one can get decent cuts of meats and "exotic" vegetables without paying an arm and a leg.

As I've aged, I've found more products available which promote my style of cooking (primarily Asian), and I am thankful there are more products available to me. I predict as the world gets "smaller", more and more products currently unavailable to the "common man" will become more available, not less.

ETA: Don't take my word for it. Here's George Faison of DeBragga & Spitler weighing in on quality ingredients.

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He makes valid points, but to me, he's still making a mountain out of a molehill. Good food and quality ingredients will always be and has always been available--to those who want and can afford them.

Going back further:

I stumbled. "Um, that's fire. Those are hot coals. They get hot."

"Oh," she said. "So why does it get hot?"

I realized that I was talking to kids who didn't know that heat applied to food is called "cooking." And as I did, I imagined Harry Balzer looking over my shoulder and saying, "See? That's what I'm talking about, dope. Get over it."

There must have been more to the conversation, because just from what has been reported, I don't get "she doesn't know heat applied to food is cooking" from "Why does it get hot?" Maybe she was asking how you lit the fire, or wanted to know how coals get hot and stay hot.

And regarding

Today the average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day on food preparation (another four minutes cleaning up)[.]

If there is a two-person family, and only one person is preparing dinner, that means s/he is spending 54 minutes a day on food prepation. Assume the day is simple eating--yoghurt and toast for breakfast--2 minutes prep. A tuna sandwich for lunch--5 minutes prep, 10 max if you're adding shallots and celery. That leaves 47 minutes to prep for dinner--one can easily make a quick tomato sauce and boil some spaghetti in that period of time.

Are most people eating so simply? Probably not. But I'm not going to lament the death of cooking and quality ingredients, because I know there will always be good food and quality ingredients available to me, whether I cook or not.

(As an aside, until my mother got married at 29, she spent next to 0 time in the kitchen, and therefore spent no preparation time on any given day. Does that mean she didn't know anything about food, or didn't care about it?)

[prasantrin]

A sort of related anecdote to the anecdote about not knowing heat applied to ingredients is cooking. . .

Last week I was at a large supermarket checking out the Asian food aisle. A young woman (early 20's most likely) stopped me and asked, "Excuse me, do you know what orange marmalade is or where I'd find it?"

I replied, "It would be in the jam section; it's a kind of jam."

She responded, "Oh, I thought it would be in this aisle, because I found a recipe for Oriental chicken, and it needs orange marmalade."

I laughed a little when I told my mother the story, but I was also impressed with the woman. Just judging from her ethnicity (and her likely socioeconomic position) and the rest of the stuff in her cart, she didn't cook much, but here she was trying a recipe out of her comfort zone, using ingredients she didn't even know. Props to her for trying, and for teaching her child (she had a young daughter) to try new things.

What's my point? As many people as there are who don't cook, there will always be people who do, at least once in a while.

[HungryC]

Why are we so focused on the time we spend in the kitchen, as though it's the sole measure of quality eating? So many factors affect this: growing up, my father or mother made breakfast damn near every day--bacon, toast, eggs, waffles, pancakes. Fast forward 30 or so years, and I choose, for health reasons, not to consume such a heavy meal for breakfast. It takes just a brief time to wash a piece of fruit, spoon out some yogurt, or grab a handful of nuts. Ergo, I spend far fewer hours in the kitchen. Food culture changes, and all of the changes aren't driven by food manufacturers, nor do they indicate the downfall of civilization.

Back up a few generations in my lineage, and you'll find people (men & women)who didn't have time to spend in the kitchen, due to farm or work responsibilities. Food was cooked in large quantities (on woodstoves!), and eaten over several days....cold biscuits, cold baked sweet potatoes, leftover cornbread, a slice of pie: leftovers requiring no refrigeration were prized, and a sign of good household management. And even in the "good old" days, some people didn't cook--as is evidenced by the boarding house, where you received meals along with your housing.

[Alcuin]

As I've aged, I've found more products available which promote my style of cooking (primarily Asian), and I am thankful there are more products available to me.  I predict as the world gets "smaller", more and more products currently unavailable to the "common man" will become more available, not less. 

I'd have to say that even though, according to some, our food culture is slipping precipitously away, I've only seen plenty unusual (to some) ingredients in local grocery stores. Baby artichokes and banana leaves are not self explanatory, but they're sold in supermarkets where I live.

I think the idea that "recreational" cooking spells doom for traditional foodways is a bit off the mark. We do have to face the fact that for most people, hunting is not about subsistence. Neither is curing your own meat or even cutting up your own chicken that you bought dead and plucked from the store. When I cure meat, it's for fun since I don't have to do it.

But I guess I'm just optimistic: I just don't see the importance of real food disappearing. It's very common for people to look at the past as a golden age and see the present as corrupt and decadent (from Homer to Marx and beyond) but it's never really turned out that way. In many ways, thanks to things like eGullet and other internet resources, the information needed to cook something new is that much more accessible. If anything, instead of decrying the emergence of "recreational" cooking, it might be better to take advantage of the flood of information available to get people back in the kitchen. But cooking will always have to compete with other things--it certainly does for me, but I choose to cook.

[Florida]

Unfortunately, I haven't the time to summarize this, but here is a link to a feminist article concerning Pollan:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/featur...ollan_on_child/

As you'll note, there are some people who take offense to the notion we should be cooking at all...

[Chris Amirault]

ETA: Don't take my word for it. Here's George Faison of DeBragga & Spitler weighing in on quality ingredients.

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He makes valid points, but to me, he's still making a mountain out of a molehill.

Well, George Faison runs the organization that supplies beef to many of the best restaurants in the northeast, so instead of calling him chicken little I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he knows more than I do about it.

I stumbled. "Um, that's fire. Those are hot coals. They get hot."

"Oh," she said. "So why does it get hot?"

I realized that I was talking to kids who didn't know that heat applied to food is called "cooking." And as I did, I imagined Harry Balzer looking over my shoulder and saying, "See? That's what I'm talking about, dope. Get over it."

There must have been more to the conversation, because just from what has been reported, I don't get "she doesn't know heat applied to food is cooking" from "Why does it get hot?" Maybe she was asking how you lit the fire, or wanted to know how coals get hot and stay hot.

Guess you'll have to trust me on this one. She didn't know why I was using heat to make food.

Why are we so focused on the time we spend in the kitchen, as though it's the sole measure of quality eating? ...  Food culture changes, and all of the changes aren't driven by food manufacturers, nor do they indicate the downfall of civilization.

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No one is arguing that they indicate the downfall of civilization. Harry Balzer would argue that it's precisely the opposite: the advance of civilization. He uses market research about what people actually eat and spend their food money on, and -- like many other, far more progressive foodies -- comes to the conclusion that industrial food won a long time ago.

His definition of "civilization" may be different from yours, of course. Given what I see and read, food-focused people like myself are increasingly the exception, and not the rule, just as Balzer's (and Pollan's, and...) research indicates.

[Alcuin]

His definition of "civilization" may be different from yours, of course. Given what I see and read, food-focused people like myself are increasingly the exception, and not the rule, just as Balzer's (and Pollan's, and...) research indicates.

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I think there's some confusion between being "food-focused" and having to cook as a necessity. My great Grandmother cooked as a matter of course (she had chickens, goats, a gigantic garden, etc.): that's what she knew, having struggled through the Depression. But she wasn't a great cook and wasn't food-focused, she was a subsistence cook. I'd like to see some evidence that 100 years ago people were in fact more food-focused, because I'm skeptical about that.

On the other hand, the effects of the turn toward more processed food are real: an increase in obesity as a result of these things is real and the decline of the centrality of the dinner table in the home has consequences. Civilization has always been about technology: the origin of the word come out of the city, not the country. Civilization will, I'd wager, always seek to provide the best comforts at the cheapest material expense. This kind of progress is often blind to the intangible expenses being paid, because these fall within the realm of traditional culture (foodways being an example). I guess I'm optimistic though because I don't see culture being completely destroyed by civilization and I don't imagine a time when everybody participated equally in keeping traditional food alive. I just think that the real thing in this case will always have some kind of privileged status and that people will be attracted to it. Some people, like you and I perhaps, will be bitten by the bug when that happens, others will not.

[Chris Amirault]

Though I wasn't trying to equate cooking and being food-focused, that all makes a lot of sense to me.

[MomOfLittleFoodies]

Working long hours does have a lot to do with why people choose convenience over a nice, made from scratch meal.

As a working mother of 4 kids, my mother often resorted to convenience foods on weeknights. She worked a job that required a lot of standing, so the last thing she wanted to do when she got home was spend another hour standing in the kitchen. Things like Tuna Helper, Kraft Mac N Cheese (with hot dogs or ham), beans and franks and spaghetti using jarred sauce were frequently on the menu on weeknights. Quick cooking Japanese style foods made up the bulk of the rest of weeknight meals.

On weekends though, she'd make more elaborate, from scratch meals like lasagna, sukiyaki, chicken enchiladas... like me she collects cookbooks and would occasionally designate a weekend to try out new recipes.

Dad would cook too, but he made things like from scratch tuna noodle salad (shell pasta, canned tuna, mayo, sweet pickle relish, onion and hard boiled egg), meat loaf, or crazy things like chili with poached eggs. Normally he would only cook if Mom was sick or had to work late into the night.

I tend to have the same attitude as my mom... too busy to enjoy cooking during the week, but on the weekends, I get to actually enjoy it because I have more leisure time. During the week it's all about getting my kids fed before bedtime, and cooking something I know they'll eat without the "Do I have to eat the vegetables? I don't like that meat!".

[Meanderer]

I have an impression that, in a general sense, people are moving toward the poles in their eating habits. At the one pole are families which primarily eat foods that they had no hand in preparing other than, perhaps, turning on a microwave. The fast food outlets, carryouts, and sit down restaurants are far more common now than they were when I was a tot. The expansion of the frozen food aisles in supermarkets, largely because of the demand for heat and serve items, is further evidence that a large segment of the population doesn't cook, or cook very often.

On the other hand, a large segment of the population must be gravitating to the other pole, the one where cooking is an important part of the day. Otherwise, the produce departments in the supermarkets would not have expanded as they seem to have done over the past 20 years, the success and growth of farmers' markets could not have happened, and fresh seafood would not be as readily available as it is now.

I think the shrinking cohort contains families such as the one in which I grew up. Several nights a week in our house the meals consisted of cheap cuts of meat prepared simply, baked or mashed potatoes, frozen or canned vegetables, and non-home baked bread(and then casseroles made from the leftover meat). I expect June Cleaver was very familiar with this kind of cooking but there are far fewer June Cleavers in the world now.

[Lisa Shock]

I have been thinking about this article for several days now, and realized that the Pillsbury Bake-Off has evolved along similar lines. Back when I was a kid, you could enter a recipe as long as it contained a cup of AP flour and winners had developed exciting recipes like cheese bread and chiffon pie. Now, it's all about combining various frozen, boxed, canned and refrigerator-case food products in as little time as possible. -And the winning entries aren't anything that I'd want to serve.

For anyone interested in the topic, I highly recommend Something From the Oven by Laura Shapiro.

[Darienne]

Now, it's all about combining various frozen, boxed, canned and refrigerator-case food products in as little time as possible. -And the winning entries aren't anything that I'd want to serve.

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Speaking of such like issues...I receive the monthly Kraft what's cooking magazine, thanks to a misguided friend.

One fancy dessert after another with lovely seasonal fruits...and Jello Instant Pudding or Jell-O jelly powder and to top it all off: yes! Cool Whip! Aarrgghh. Is there anything that tastes more of Crisco than Cool Whip? Sugared Crisco, that is.

At least, go buy some real whipping cream I want to shriek!!!

Edited August 14, 2009 by Darienne (log)

[David A. Goldfarb]

Now, it's all about combining various frozen, boxed, canned and refrigerator-case food products in as little time as possible. -And the winning entries aren't anything that I'd want to serve.

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A friend once told me that his mother liked entering bake-offs at her county fair and won many ribbons, including "Best Cake Altered from a Mix." I think this would have been the 1970s, when convenience foods were so modern.

[Moopheus]

I have been thinking about this article for several days now, and realized that the Pillsbury Bake-Off has evolved along similar lines. Back when I was a kid, you could enter a recipe as long as it contained a cup of AP flour and winners had developed exciting recipes like cheese bread and chiffon pie.

I haven't checked in a while, but I seem to recall that they changed the rules back to once again allow recipes with flour as the qualifying ingredient.

For anyone interested in the topic, I highly recommend Something From the Oven by Laura Shapiro.

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Her other book, Perfection Salad, is also good. Similar theme in earlier time period.

[Darienne]

For anyone interested in the topic, I highly recommend Something From the Oven by Laura Shapiro.

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I looked up this title on Amazon and must read it. Memories came flooding back...my Mother who hated to cook getting a huge freezer with the 'freezer' plan. Tubs of really awful ice cream...which explains my lack of interest in ice cream...until this summer and my Cuisinart machine. Frozen peas and carrots. Yech. Dried out meat every night. My Mother-in-Law who had not so subtle or silent contempt for my Mother because my M-i-L cooked everything from scratch for 'her' family, including puff pastry and mayonnaise. She was the Good Mother. My Mother was the Bad Mother. And so on. I shake my head to recall it all.

I couldn't cook anything when I got married...not anything. My DH taught me how to cook. And then until a couple of years ago I spent as little time as possible cooking much of anything. We ate in a fairly healthy fashion, but not interesting at all. Of course, now my world has exploded and I love this new world with a passion.

[Lisa Shock]

I have been thinking about this article for several days now, and realized that the Pillsbury Bake-Off has evolved along similar lines. Back when I was a kid, you could enter a recipe as long as it contained a cup of AP flour and winners had developed exciting recipes like cheese bread and chiffon pie.

I haven't checked in a while, but I seem to recall that they changed the rules back to once again allow recipes with flour as the qualifying ingredient.

For anyone interested in the topic, I highly recommend Something From the Oven by Laura Shapiro.

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Her other book, Perfection Salad, is also good. Similar theme in earlier time period.

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I have a copy of Perfection Salad, and also enjoyed it.

You are correct about theBake-Off -a cup of flour is one choice of two required items to enter. The last time I looked into entering there were close to 50 qualifying ingredients that were processed food products, including a line of Mexican-style canned goods, but no plain flour. It's heartening to see that they have returned to some basic baking ingredients like eggs, butter, chocolate, cocoa and nuts.

[teagal]

I do agree that the poles are getting farther and farther apart- the people that cook vs the non cooks.

Two of my neices (15 and 16 years old) came for a visit. We spent a morning getting food ready for our lunch. One had never cut up veg before and wasn't sure about slicing cucumbers. The other had never used a blender and was amazed at how easy it was to make homemade hummus.

I was amazed at their lack of basic kitchen knowledge. And then I was amazed when I told a friend at work this and her reply was "what will they do when they get married?"

I guess anything we can do to promote kitchen and cooking knowledge is extremely important.

[Margo]

I met my first-year (college) students yesterday for the first time. As they shared facts about themselves in an icebreaker, one volunteered that she made great mini-cheesecakes, another two that they loved to cook (and one offered to cook for anyone if they got tired of cafeteria food), and a fourth that he was living in a fraternity house and taking advantage of having a kitchen by experimenting with cooking. Four out of 15--I found this information extremely encouraging.

[Reignking]

One fancy dessert after another with lovely seasonal fruits...and Jello Instant Pudding or Jell-O jelly powder and to top it all off: yes! Cool Whip!  Aarrgghh.  Is there anything that tastes more of Crisco than Cool Whip?  Sugared Crisco, that is. 

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Probably fat-free or sugar-free or low-fat Cool Whip.

I was amazed at their lack of basic kitchen knowledge.  And then I was amazed when I told a friend at work this and her reply was "what will they do when they get married?"

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Because the woman is supposed to do all of the cooking? Marry a man that cooks, I suppose.

Edited August 31, 2009 by Reignking (log)

[Ocean's Edge]

He makes valid points, but to me, he's still making a mountain out of a molehill.  Good food and quality ingredients will always be and has always been available--to those who want and can afford them.

And there in lies a large crux of the problem - those that can afford them...

I grew up cooking, from a long family of good cooks with a passion for food, but as a single parent for many years - we relied heavily on mac and cheese and chicken weiners for dinner at least once if not twice a week - because it was good food? Heck no. Good for us? Heck no. But I could feed four of us a meal for $1.50. And a jar of tarragon was $3.00

It is a sad thing that our basic economy structure has changed - good food, quality ingredients, fresh fruits and vegetables are expensive. Eating healthy, eating well, is a pricey endeavour. Even now that I can afford them, and am living in an area with a strong contingent of market gardens - it's still pricey. And yet for the most part farmers aren't paid what their product is actually worth in terms of labour. The rise of cheap fast food, has given rise to the factory farm, and yes there is a social change evolving as we speak. But don't necessarily blame people for not wanting better - sometimes it really is not affording better. We have as a society continued to pursue the mass consumption / reduced prices market - which in the end has lowered wages (comparatively speaking) which drives even more people to constantly seek the cheapest option.

Can we change it? Can we reverse it? I don't know. I do know that I'm continually pulling further and further back from such thinking, and from such a society, and learning more and more about sustenance living - without sacrificing lifestyle (no hair shirts here please). I've been lucky, I have the option to do that now - there was a time I didn't - and many still who don't.

[Moopheus]

-a cup of flour is one choice of two required items to enter. ...It's heartening to see that they have returned to some basic baking ingredients like eggs, butter, chocolate, cocoa and nuts.

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I see what they've done now--one Pillsbury product, plus one other product from another sponsor and/or corporate sibling.

From the FAQ:

"Eligible products are selected for each Pillsbury Bake-Off® Contest, based on consumer trends and marketing plans, so some products that were eligible in the last contest are not included and new ones are added. "

Presumably "marketing plans" means "sponsor willing to cough up some dough (ha, ha)". But it does mean you can get in with flour, butter, eggs, etc., as long you specify the brand in the recipe.

[Darienne]

Our health food store gives out a magazine, alive. This issue features a new book: The Slow Food Story: Politics and Pleasure by Geoff Andrews, McGill-Queen's University Press, about the Slow Food association founded in Italy in 1986. Well worth reading I think.

One statistic from the book: American expenditures on fast food rose from US $6 million dollars in 1970 to $110 BILLION in 2001.

Edited September 30, 2009 by Darienne (log)

[Chris Amirault]

I think that first number starts with a "b" too: see, for example, this Reuters article citing a RW Johnson study that cites an eighteen-fold increase from 1970 -- not an eighteenthousand-fold increase.