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.
We like to eat out for a treat but mostly cook at home. Its a chore sometimes but so much healthier.
LOL - You’re right. With Swissmar Borner’s German steel blades it’ll slice your finger as easily as it slices a carrot. So use the ‘pusher’... and ‘knife’ gloves if your slicing a lot of stuff.
Definitely NOT made in China...
In our house we consider frozen peas AS homecooked. I’m a working mother of 4 and so a family of 6, eating out is not an option. And we would probably be considered upper middle class. We eat a lot of semi-home made. Frozen veggie side next to broiled or bbq chicken drumsticks. A Costco entree (street tacos or enchiladas) once or twice a week seems healthier than take out but maybe I’m kidding myself. I mean, someone made it (just not me:). Box of pasta with ground beef and jar sauce. Is this “home made?” Frozen chicken cutlets from Tyson with a salad and side of rice? The reality is, walking in the door at 6pm, with a bunch of kids, while the other is shuttling other kids to some team sport... I need stuff I can put on the table in about 30 mins. We will cook something “real” on Sundays usually. Like a huge pot of soup that we will get two meals out of.
Eat at fast food restaurants home of the best cooking in America!
or not.
When we grew our own vegetables, rendered our own fat, and bought sides of beef at a local farm, the mother of the family did not work 40 hours a week and spend an additional 10 hours commuting to and from work. She stayed home and managed the house, kids, vegetable garden and meals. Her mom may have made her own soap.
Times have changed. Home cooked meals are still cheaper than prepared foods and significantly cheaper than restaurant meals but available preparation times are diminished. I still cook, but the meals are those that can be prepared quickly. I don’t have time to bake a chicken, much less kill, gut, pluck and bake a chicken as my mother did when I was very young.
One gets sick of crock pot chuck roast very quickly. Steaks are too expensive even cooked at home, so it’s burgers, dogs, pork chops, salads and pasta with sauce from a jar.
Additionally, I can’t make a burrito as good or as cheaply as Caesar’s Taco Truck at my local gas station parking lot.
When I didn’t have a microwave, I was cooking TV dinners in the oven.
However, your tenants sound like by former roommate, who only ate McDonalds, take out pizza, and take out sandwiches. He thought his body handled any food well, because he didn’t get the big tummy effect most do from too much bad food.
However, he wound up with an important body part that no longer functioned without Viagra in his late 30s, so what was happening was that he was embedding crud in his arteries and vessels at an alarming rate.
But I guess that means your body won’t make you look fat, at least!
I didn’t read the article!!!...but here is a comment!!!
We found that institutional food packing corporations LOVE to feed kids on our quarter. Our local school provided free breakfast and lunch for all children, due to flooding of the area three years ago. EVEN though, the area was back running normally, except for a trailer park awaiting insurance and FEMA $$$,$$$,$$$. SO, they wanted to also provide DINNER for children!!!! There was to be an 18-wheeler from the city come once a week with styrofoam boxes of dinners for each day!! We protested with petitions and defeated this unbrilliant idea. The poor kids would never learn to eat except from what others give them for free...all the time having a food budget from Lone Star cards and WIC. Plus we have a local food bank that provides meat from a meat market!!—I buy my own, thanks be to God. It is disgusting to see what they buy with these cards and then what they purchase with their cash- many times for their pet food.
Just go to the local second hand store and pick up a older Forschner or Dexter knife. Quality stuff.Made in Germany,Switzerland,or Japan. A six inch boning knife will do. They will hold a nice edge. Anything made now,no matter what the cost,just can not compare to the older blades.
Just not a gadget person. At 78...I’m lucky my kids let me use a knife.
“ The Colonel’s Wife has said a number of times recently, as we’re leaving a restaurant after paying a $60-$70 tab, “We could have cooked a better meal ourselves at home for a LOT less money and been more comfortable!”
I do the cooking at our house, and have made the same lament to the Mrs whenever we go out for a meal. I’ve gotten where I’ll only go out for things I would rather not, or can’t cook at home.
I’m with you on that. I’m not a great meal planner, never was.
Always wondered about the first person to eat a lobster.
I imagine it was like the old Life cereal commercial:
“You try it”
“No, YOU try it”
“Give it to Mikey - he’ll eat anything”
“A brave man it was who first an oyster et”
When we bought our house (a couple of decades ago) my wife had only one requirement—a huge kitchen with tons of storage.
I got to choose from a subset of those houses.
So—we live way out in the boonies with lots of land and privacy in an unremarkable modest house—but with a huge kitchen with tons of storage!
I’m guessing a drunken bet at a toga party in ancient Rome.
Sounds great. Mr. Mercat and I buy a 1/4 cow at a time. We also buy half a hog, and lamb and chicken when we can find them. In the spring summer and fall I grow most of our vegetables. We stock up on every thing else from Costco. Oh, and our best friends give us eggs, chicken and duck.
Just yesterday, I cooked cast iron chicken with garlic, mushrooms and onions. Oven grilled corn on cob (bought from a local farm) and a sweet potato. That was about 45 minutes.
Going to a sit-down restaurant would be way more inefficient with regard to time (never mind money). It would be two hours minimum to even go to a local restaurant and get back home again.
Some time ago I did a wee study comparing my homemade breakfast (a zucchini frittata and irish breakfast tea) with an Egg McMuffin meal and an omelette and tea from a breakfast place. I went to First Watch.
Including grocery shopping time and commute time to restaurants, the homemade frittata and tea was way more efficient timewise(things cook/heat while I change), significantly cheaper (and I use the fancy grocery store eggs) and I like the taste/texture better.
It still costs me less than $1 for my tea, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup zucchini, and tablespoon of olive oil. Once I have to pay for zucchini again, that might change. I don’t need to go out of my way to get to a restaurant or wait for anyone else, like waitstaff. Nor do I get additional calorie laden items I don’t need but will eat anyway (McDonald’s hashbrowns).
I think First Watch cost me an extra 40 minutes in time and at least $10 more per visit. Their tea selection is awful.
It has taken me time to develop skills and learn some good tips/tricks. Learning to love leafy greens and ignore the frozen dinner section is a huge money saver.
My latest go to has been cold cucumber soup. I make my own chicken stock and freeze it. I take about two cups and seeded, cut up cucumber (1 large or 2 smaller) and throw it in the blender. I add any herbs on hand. If I want some fat, cream, yogurt, sour cream, etc can be added. It takes all of 3 minutes to make three to four servings for about $1 and is very nutritious.
That lasts me for a few weekday lunches, so there are days I don’t need those minutes.
As far as I know, my wife has never had to really CLEAN our crockpot. They make plastic liners that go in the crockpot so the food cooks inside the liner. Then when you're done, drain out any residual juices and throw the liner away. Wipe out the crockpot with a paper towel and you're done.
Last time I checked the liners were about 20 cents a piece.
And preparing a meal does not take hours.
Not even if you throw in shopping time.
And frozen peas are not some sort of compromise with flavor and taste for convenience but because fresh peas LOSE flavor and quality quickly. Unless you are buying one that were picked this morning, which would be available for only a couple of weeks a year, the frozen will be higher quality and taste better.
This entire article is kind of strange.
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