I seem to running against the grain according to Michael Pollan's latest article in the NYT Magazine. Evidently fewer and fewer people are actually cooking nowadays. It is age of prepared, take out, frozen. Even though more and more people are watching cooking related shows on the Food Network and such there is actually fewer and fewer people actually getting off the couch and cooking.
Part of it has come from the change in what cooking means over the years. It used to mean getting a bunch of basic ingredients together and making a meal. What we would call 'scratch' cooking today. Now taking the meal out of the freezer and heating it up is considered cooking. If someone can make a box of mac and cheese they consider themselves cooks.
Michael talks a lot about Julia Child and her revolutionary show. I too, cut my teeth on Julia and followed her religiously from her debut in 1963. I own all her books and use them regularly and I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to the new movie with Meryl Streep. I guess because my introduction to cooking was through Julia and my grandmother who also was a 'scratch' cook I still cook that way today. I wouldn't get nearly the satisfaction of preparing a meal if it merely involved mixes and pre-cut veges.
As Michael points out at the end of the article. The American food industry has made it simple for us to enjoy the equivalent of a 'Sunday dinner' everyday without much or any work or all. Part of what cooking does is delay instant gratification, you have to work to to put a big heavy meal on the table. Part of the problem today is that you can eat like a king(or a hog) without having to invest any sweat or energy, just money and it is showing in our health and waist lines.
updated to correct spelling error
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