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.
...nobody wanted a second serving
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If I wait 20 minutes after finishing a normal plate/sides, I’m satisfied. Eating everything, including dessert and bread, within 30 minutes leaves me overstuffed and uncomfortable for the next 4-6 hours.
Are you on Diana’s ping list for the FR weekly gardening thread? Highly recommended.
... “hot school lunches” ...
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in the 50s, we had lunch ladies who cooked all morning. Biscuits and pie scents wafting in the halls were a good appetite inducement. The food was fresh, expertly prepared and we loved it.
I think lunch was $1.25/week. I took a sandwich on days I didn’t like the menu and some days only had the Dutch Cherry Pie, which was divine.
Then a McDs copycat opened senior year (1960-61) and we had off-campus privileges. 35 cents for a tiny burger, fries and a soda. I guess that was the beginning of the end.
Whole Foods is an interesting place. Yes, it's Bezos and many of their clients are masked and prolly Bidet voters.
But the meat and produce IS sourced locally. Yes it costs a lot, but so does a casket.
In addition, there are MANY employees who are libertarians who detest big agriculture and did NOT get shots. They are very helpful and knowledgeable and, if they trust you, will provide an inside scoop on supply chain problems vs The Party Line.
The local manager is very cool and has basically said the worst customers are leftist Karens who view the staff as "the little people."
The regional manager is a putz. But then he's from corporate.
I used to have a local organic store that was great. If one opens up near me, I'm back there asap.
I hear THAT, Sister!
A First World Problem, for sure! ;)
I used to find it BORING, but my Mom always served the same meals on the same days of the week, with variations for seasonal produce, meat sales, if Grandpa caught a lot of fish that week, etc. Now, it's the only way to do it!
“I pay about $10 a loaf for fresh made sourdough at the local farmer’s market here. And I pay it because it’s so good. Need to finish it in two days however or it’s hard as a brick.”
I’d pay that much for an excellent loaf of salt rising bread, which is impossible to find any more. It was a luxury when we visited family in western NYS. Toasted, and slathered with real butter. The Amish-made bread was the best.
They sell salt rising bread now, but have had to change the original recipe. Government had an issue with how it was processed, an ingredient, or something similar. Now it’s blah.
“Sorry, I will never understand how great crock pots are.”
Out of all the appliances in your kitchen, a crock pot uses the LEAST amount of electricity to cook a meal.
About 2-cents (maybe 4 now, thanks to Brandon!) worth of electricity for an all-day simmer.
I like that. Also, plenty of things don’t turn to mush if you’re not over-cooking them. It saved my bacon when I had 6 to feed 3x a day, PLUS I worked full-time.
Baldwin - I thought you’d get a kick out of this.
I hate the slimy things to this day.
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Hated them all thru childhood and had many dinner-time dramas over them.
Suddenly, at about 35, I discovered that if I barely cooked them, added a slug of cream sherry, some butter and and a tsp of brown sugar, they were wonderful. Sometimes I thicken the juice with something like UltraGel.
Am in the middle of tomato harvest right now and eat 2-4 a day, just with a salt shaker over the sink, like any juicy fruit. Will dehydrate the Romas soon. I still have lacto fermented green ones from last year, so will skip that this time.
Excellent graphic. I used to think I was the only one in the world who felt that way.
I love crafts retreats because I DON’T HAVE TO COOK OR THINK.
I love cruises, not necessarily because the food is so excellent (sometimes it is; sometimes it isn’t). I DON’T HAVE TO COOK OR THINK. Just show up.
“The info is easily available. Folks should make good use of it.”
Exactly. Instead of using their 0bamaphones to replicate stupid things on Tik-Tok, or closing a drug deal, every state has a website for their SNAP program with some awesome recipes and how-tos, shopping tips, meal plans, shopping lists, etc.
The best Hummus recipe I’ve ever found was on one of those sites. I make it to this day.
From the time I was a kid, I cleaned fish with my Grandpa. He also worked as a Butcher at the IGA after he retired - just for something to do and to get first crack at ‘the good stuff.’ My Grandma taught me how to butcher a chicken.
As a young woman I hunted (deer) so I learned to play ‘Deer CSI’ and learned to butcher venison.
I HELP when it comes to beef, but I’m not as good as Beau, so I’m more on ‘Hamburger Grinding Detail’ and clean-up! He and a friend got two cows and a bull for free a few years back. They had gone wild and the guy was selling his dairy so if they got ‘em they could have ‘em. Score! We raise a steer every year or so, but we take him to ‘the spa’ for processing. ;)
And A Pork Loin on sale makes my heart go pitter-patter! :)
You’re doing just fine, Little Mama. Been There. Done That. :)
I met a feminist once who said that “Ladies, gravy is not a beverage”, there is nothing wrong with a man having a couple of cups of gravy during a big meal.
I don’t mind raw tomatoes at all, nor tomatoes cooked in various ways, except I can’t stand whole stewed tomatoes, or big chunks thereof. Run ‘em through a colander, fine.
I’ll have to try your recipe.
“When I retire, I’m going to learn how to bake my own bread.”
Practice on this bread recipe. You will never be disappointed! You can probably add a sourdough starter to it - I’m sure there is a recipe out there, but this has really good flavor all on it’s own. You can also add fresh or dried herbs and/or shredded cheese.
https://anaffairfromtheheart.com/no-knead-crusty-dutch-oven-bread/
Even though we watch our carbs, I bake this all winter long to go with soups and strews.
Calling Julia Child....
I grew up in a VERY German household. My mom packed us liver sausage sandwiches. Every. Day.
I LOVED THEM! Nothing is more ‘comfort food’ to me than a Braunschwiger sandwich on Wonder Bread. :)
And, yes. I was poor as a kid, but I never knew it. Lots of extended family around, lots of food, lots of laughter.
And Grandma’s Mac-N-Cheese made from Free Government Cheese? To DIE for! :)
Cleanup can be minimized/delayed by putting things on to soak.
Exactly! We don’t go out often, but my Mom has decided she wants to go to as many of our FABULOUS Supper Clubs as possible before she’s no longer able. She’ll be 85 next month.
We met her and other friends and family on Sunday evening, and my first thought, too - “I don’t have to cook! Yay!”
It was so good! The Dorf House. All German. Just an excellent, authentic menu and great wine and beer choices.
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