Posted on 08/19/2022 5:07:17 AM PDT by DoodleBob
Apparently, it’s now both regressive and elitist to do your own cooking. Taking a hobbyish pleasure in preparing a roast is not only insulting to the lower classes who can’t access the same tools, but even worse, it’s gender normative. How dare I, a woman, have opinions about protein content in flour or how many times a chicken breast should be flipped when cooked in a saucepan? It’s so housewife of me.
When a mid-sized anonymous Twitter account made the argument on Monday, concluding that the real revolution will not be in home kitchens but in restaurants, the person behind it was promptly rebuked by thousands of Twitter users from every wing of the political mansion.
Only a handful of radicals stood publicly by the tweet author. But note that even as they publicly disavow such an extreme example, an idea that home cooking is an upper-class luxury is still held in practice by many Americans.
That is especially true when it comes to farm-food culture and the backlash against it. The days of farmers’ markets being a leftist thing seem to be over. Homesteaders, homeschoolers, and the very online right (this writer included) have united behind the cause of returning to traditional diets and forms of food preparation, such as buying your meat from a local farm, growing your own vegetables, and even rendering your own fats. This has been bashed for being elitist and impossible, never mind the fact that several of these recommendations are more economical when done well—and much closer to how our grandparents lived just two generations ago, in the Great Depression.
The suggestion, of course, is that middle- and lower-class Americans can’t afford to eat healthfully, which almost always involves eating at home, and shouldn’t be expected to. So let them eat Little Debbies.
This is reflected in politics as well as pop-culture. Think about the last campaign ad you watched. If the candidate was an old-school Republican, after engaging in slow-motion tumbling with his kids on a lush green lawn, the politician likely joined his wife in the kitchen to bake homemade cookies. If she was a Democrat, meanwhile, she probably strolled into a bodega to get something premade. Joe Biden has made much of his presidential brand off ordering at an ice cream shop. These appeals to the common man imply something not just about the voter base each party has historically targeted with such ads, but the assumption present in both: homemade is an aspirational indulgence.
And indeed, as the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, compared to restaurant prices today, home cooking is a luxury. The inflationary gap between restaurants and grocery stores is now the widest it has been since the 1970s, which is why, despite labor shortages, longer wait times, and a 7.6 percent increase in prices, restaurants are faring better than grocery stores. As supermarket prices have increased 13.1 percent, and cooking your own food takes valuable time, more average Americans have found they can save money by paying someone else to do the work.
A friend of mine likes to say that every problem in the modern world can be boiled down to frozen peas. The bag of frozen peas is the epitome of our culture’s approach to food, in which efficiency, rather than health or enjoyment, is the highest good. The luxury of home cooking is not only the cost of the ingredients, which restaurants can buy in bulk and closer to the source, but also the time it takes to cook them. Our modern economy does not afford men, nor most women, the hours that good home cooking requires, since these hours must always come above and beyond those spent for pay. So instead, we eat out, or use shortcuts—frozen peas.
We should note that the people going to restaurants are solidly middle class, and they’re not just eating fast food. The Journal reports that Americans making $75,000 per year and above are choosing Chili’s over casseroles. They are eating cheap alternatives to home cooking, but they still choose a sit-down meal; this is not merely a McDonald’s drive-through phenomenon. Why does that matter? Because it suggests this decision is not about paying the lowest possible price. As long as middle-class Americans can afford to eat their dinner at a table, they will.
What is the matter with eating out more often, anyway? Taverns go back about as far as anything. But even if there weren’t differences in quality between home-cooked food and eating out—and there are—quality-of-life differences develop when the public house becomes your kitchen table. While most of us would laugh at the Twitter proposition that the real revolution is eating at Applebee's, a rejection of the home as the hub of the food economy is indeed a revolutionary idea.
*** Without fail it is less expensive to cook at home then it is to eat out. How they think home cooking is a luxury is beyond me - completely backwards.***
You’re exactly right. Most of us who lived through the 70s know this. Even a few millennials are catching on. One of my sons has learned how to cook quite well, and tries forever to teach his friends that eating out costs more moolah. It is a place to SAVE money.
I think what I’ve learned from observing this millennial generation is that most of them weren’t taught how to cook at home. Possibly because they had working mothers who didn’t want to do that chore. So none of them know HOW to cook.
I think that may be one of the intrinsic values that came out of my being a stay at home mom. The kids saw me pore through cookbooks trying to come up with new and interesting (and healthy!) foods while they were young. When they wanted to help in the kitchen, I let them. We made a game out of it and called them “little chef” when it was their turn.
All three of our kids are excellent chefs. The oldest is particularly good at the grill. The middle and the youngest have both been good at most everything else in the kitchen.
Moral is to teach your kids how to cook, parents! These kids need to know this skill!
Sounds excellent with the browned sweet potato slices.
Jamie Oliver’s lemon milk chicken is another one that’s simple and foolproof. Weird sounding but delicious:
https://www.thekitchn.com/jamie-oliver-chicken-in-milk-best-chicken-recipe-all-time-80388
Bingo Step right up, get yer cricket cracker here...
Mrs DoodleBob can cook up a storm and it has to be done right.
I'm an Eagle Scout who learned to cook on camping trips where a little dirt or sand never killed anyone.
I do the dishes. And our crock pot has a liner that separates from the heating source that cleans up perfectly in the dishwasher.
That optimized range of skill sets, equipment, and comparative advantages - combined with a Deplorable attitude that likes local farmers and money more than a waiter that has an Antifa button for flair - can lead to weeks of home cooking and no eating out.
I don't count eating a bag of carrots and organic ham and cheese from the grocery store while driving to be eating out. Go figya.
THAT SAID, local diners (it's a Northeast thing - imagine a menu with burgers, fries, soup, sandwiches, pork chops, Greek salad, lobster tail, and everything you'd want for breakfast served 24/7) and fast food joints have their place. When I lived in North Jersey we had a Chinese Food takeout place with a DRIVE THRU WINDOW...if you ever had toddlers, you know the most virtuous Conservative is no match for little whippers who won't stop crying. That place got a LOT of DoodleBob family business.
What is missing from this article, is the changed food landscape from the pandemic. If people voluntarily get shots or mask up, that's all well and good; I don't know what health issues lurk behind my fellow man's public image. But some restaurants and or towns that imposed mandates won't get my dollars. Similarly, some grocery stores that went above local municipality guidance and treated me like a war criminal if wasn't bubble wrapped are now off-limits. Meanwhile, local farmers opened their doors wide open, didn't take my terpertaure to gain entrance, and helped America deal with scarcity and supply chain etc problems at the store.
If the hidden message is that it is your Civic Duty to get a shot and wear a mask while you eat at Fauci's Tavern, while dining with your unclean family at home is an act of selfishness, then I failed civics.
Generally speaking I only cook meat in the crockpot or on the pellet grill. A crock cannot be beat for dealing with the tough or dry cheap cuts.
I also use the stoneware crocks for making large salads for potlucks and for making my own fermented veggies. Crockpot cakes are stupid easy and stunningly good.
Always get the kind with the removable crock for easier cleaning and use liners for potlucks or holiday gatherings.
You can’t beat a chili n chowder crockfest in the dark of winter.
The best fries I ever had were from a local Caribbean restaurant. The worst meal I ever ate was at the Hard Rock Cafe in London.
That’s a really good idea. Makes perfect sense.
I almost gag at the lunch menu when it is read on the radio!! Junk food just like you wrote.
I also grew up with a lunch box with a sandwich and thermos of milk! I can still smell the sandwiches slathered with miracle whip! Our school lunches were 25-35 cents. Meatloaf, chicken fried steak, fried chicken, smothered steak and fish on Fridays. Vegetables and either cake or dumplings.
We were only three blocks from school so we walked home for lunch, ate with mother and walked back to school almost everyday.
...It is an art, not a science, and a lot of people simply can’t do it....
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No disrespect intended, but the women I know with a Dietetics or Nutrition or Home EC degree do eat out more often than those of us who are simple homemakers.
Been cooking forever, making meals for others for 60 years. Timing is a science, the management of one’s time may be something of an art, IDK.
I always shop for specific menus chosen for compatible cook times/methods.
You usually have a few hours while the main course cooks. During that time you make cold sides first, then warm sides near the end. Many whole meat cuts require a standing time which is enough for heating warm sides. Something simple, like a steak, means cold sides made first, any warm sides made while coals are getting to the right stage and then 8 minutes for the meat at the end.
If you batch cook, it takes less time for the frozen extra meals to heat than you spend in a restaurant.
No way restaurant meals are cheaper. The time factor is bogus if you count travel & wait time. Cleanup is separate and something you pay for in a restaurant. Depends on number of guests. I always clean up the prep tools as I go, a holdover from the time when I learned and had no space and few pans/utensils. Has served me well now, in retirement, when I am back to limited space & have downsized my tools.
My BIL maintains he saves money by ordering a pre-cooked Thanksgiving dinner. Perhaps, but when I cook for Thanksgiving I can make sure everyone gets their favorite side and I have leftovers for days, if not months when I freeze them. If invited out for that sort of feast, I will still come home and make one anyway, just to have the leftovers. I usually make some requested sides in a double batch, one to bring along and one waiting for us at home or portioned for later & frozen. The turkey just cooks while I do whatever else I want and as a bonus, I have the pan juices/carcass for another 4 meals of great soup.
Prep takes time, but you pay for that in the salary of the sous chef.
Just my 2 cents. Everyone will decide for themselves at any given time. I do always order out or eat in a restaurant when I want fried chicken, as the clean up is beyond me these days. With frozen batches, I can get dinner on the table in 15 minutes, the time it takes to make a salad.
I do dread the day when I am no longer able to cook for myself & others. OTOH, I have less appetite and so less need to cook daily.
YUMMMMM! Got a neighboring property for sale??!!!
Way to go! We’re just beginning the gardening hobby and we are excited about it and all that you do we want to do someday soon!
They have it exactly backwards
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Brought to you by the same folks, with the same rational, who tell people a bowl of commercial breakfast cereal is more nutritious than beef.
...don’t freeze potatoes...add them fresh.
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I feel the same about carrots. They get rubbery if frozen.
I don’t know whether the quality has dropped in restaurants but they seem more expensive and less yummy now. I think I’ve just gotten past it. We did just eat some fried chicken from our local favorite grocery store to reward me for finally doing our 2021 taxes. But that local store - there’s only the one, family owned and lots of great produce. The hoity totie “healthy food” groceries suck. We just pick and choose.
...the idea that standard ration food should be delivered to us in an effort towards “equity”.
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You may be on to something, only it won’t be delivery. They will add chemicals to keep it shelf stable, give you permission to buy 7 a week and there will be only a microwave in your pod, no stove.
Gotta save energy, ya know.
...how great crock pots are...
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They are great for things like shredded beef where (in my recipe) the cooking liquid is essential for my beef-barley-veggie soup. Only one pot to clean up, less energy and no need to check for reduction.
Another great tool is the vacuum pot. Make chili, soup, pasta sauce and instead of 2-6 hours to cook without reduction, eliminate some liquid and let it cook by its own heat in the vacuum (thermal) pot. Also can go along for a potluck, camping, or other road trip.
The info is easily available. Folks should make good use of it.
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Necessity is a mother, so as the tyrants plan how to starve us while they profit from our need to eat, people will learn. Tons of YT videos and blogging sites there for the accessing.
...gravies unknown today...
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I come from two lines of Eastern European immigrants. The secret of those gravies is to save/freeze every scrap of meat fat, including the stuff that solidifies on the top of pan juices, along with all those pan juices and you have the true gold of cooking.
If you have those, you need some flour, seasoning (not much as the drippings are intense) and ANY liquid (Red Eye Gravy is just using coffee instead of broth for gravy).
A bag for bones and a bag for vegetable scraps and you now can make soups and stews with more flavor than any MSG-enhanced commercial product.
They will hold a nice edge.
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And learn to use a honing stone. Those *knife sharpener* appliances ruin the edge.
...tons of storage!
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Moved from one of those to 1000+ sq feet. Crockpot/thermal pot/dehydrator fit under a side table. Convection oven/air fryer is on the end of the large table used for prep and everything else. Meat slicer fits on the top shelf over the cupboards. Kitchen Aid has a place in a closet repurposed as a storage pantry. Large utensils/knives in a stoneware crock. ONE drawer for tools & one for eating utensils. Strainers in small stoneware crock tucked beside microwave and colander stacked with pots/bowls in lower cupboard. Hand mixer in cupboard. Microwave on side counter, ditto food processor. Blender/toaster on one side of sink counter, coffee maker on other. Cutting boards fit against wall on sink counter. Kitchen is about 12’ x 15’, maybe a tad larger. Hard at first, now I can manage ok.
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