Here’s an interesting read from Michael Pollan on the transformation of cooking from meal preparation to spectator sport. Writing for The New York Times, Pollan says the average American spends 27 minutes daily on food preparation and another four minutes cleaning up — “less than half the time it takes to watch a single episode of “Top Chef” or “Chopped” or “The Next Food Network Star.”
Adds Pollan: “What this suggests is that a great many Americans are spending considerably more time watching images of cooking on television than they are cooking themselves — an increasingly archaic activity they will tell you they no longer have the time for. What is wrong with this picture?”
Plenty, says Pollan, whose piece touches favorably on Julia Child and less so on the rise to dominance of industrially prepared “food” and “cooking” that consists largely of opening packages. He also brings up Erica Gruen, the cable exec who shifted the Food Network’s target audience from people who like to cook to people who like to eat — to wit, men. Hence the rise of gastronomic gladiator shows like “Iron Chef.”
“People don’t watch television to learn things,” Pollan quotes her as having told a journalist. Truer words, etc.
Part of the problem, of course, is that we’re all working more — since 1967, Pollan says, Americans have added “the equivalent of a month’s full-time labor” to the total amount of time we spend at work each year.
“Not surprisingly,” he adds, “in those countries where people still take cooking seriously, they also have more time to devote to it.”
And don’t expect an American gastronomic renaissance anytime soon, if food-marketing researcher Harry Balzer’s pessimistic view of our culinary future is accurate. Discussing the dream of Americans returning to their own drab kitchens from their glitzy televised counterparts, he tells Pollan:
“Not going to happen. Why? Because we’re basically cheap and lazy. And besides, the skills are already lost. Who is going to teach the next generation to cook? I don’t see it.
“We’re all looking for someone else to cook for us. The next American cook is going to be the supermarket. Takeout from the supermarket, that’s the future. All we need now is the drive-through supermarket.”
Now, before you bellow, “That’s bullshit! I cook!”, take a look around you. Sure, you cook, and so do I. But the only thing eating into McDonalds’ profits is unfavorable currency trading — it’s considered bad news that the burger giant’s same-store sales rose only 2.6 percent from June 2008 to June 2009. Analysts had expected twice that.
Mad Blog Media 
Good then…that means those people will be the first to die when all we know and hold dear goes into the shitcan of history.
As a colleague I know has said on more than one occasion: beans, boots, and bullets.
Dammit, the last time I went to Burgur King was 1998. I built a lasagna last night that’ll grow your hair back. And my daughter just sent me a new curry recipe that I’m gonna try this weekend!
Four minutes cleaning up? I guess that’s just tossing the wrappers and cartons into the garbage can.
I don’t get any of the Iron Chef type shows. They don’t give you one hint as to how anything was made, and solely focus on the supposed drama going on amongst the contestants. It’s all about humiliating the losers and not figuring out how to make anything.
Confession: I do go through the Good Time’s drive thru from time to time … after a vet appointment, i’ll get my kids a couple of those mini burger things. But even that once-every-six-month trip leaves me feeling like a sailor sneaking back to the boat after a night out with the local pay-by-the-hour girls.
I think there’s little doubt that eating fast food type stuff does something to the human taste mechanism. It gets “dumbed down” to the point it recognizes and enjoys only salt, sugar and fat. All subtle flavors, those produced by actually COOKING real food no longer register. The whole deal is designed to make you think you don’t have time to cook so you get it over with quickly, either by driving through some edible feces place or nuking up some frozen crap you bought weeks ago. All so you can get seated in front of the idiot box sooner! And of course IT will tell you more about the wonderful stuff you can buy intead of making it! Notice who advertises on the all the cooking shows? It’s not about cooking! The ads are for chain eateries and other culinary disasters. Join SlowFood and work against these bastards!
My beans and rice recipe takes 5 hours to cook. Almost no prep time though.
I wish I’d learned my way around the kitchen as a younger dog. Christ, for years I ate like what Jim Harrison has called “a nitwit bent over a trough.” Sure, I’d hit the occasional classy restaurant when I had corraled a stray buck or two, but at home it was sooo-eeey, pig.
I’m a workmanlike cook now, in my dotage, but not a great one. Mostly I follow recipes. Happily, I’ve found some good ones. My latest favorites come from Martha Rose Shulman, who writes the “Recipes for Health” column at The New York Times (the online version, at least).
I’ve even adapted a few of my childhood faves using organic ingredients, which is fun — meat loaf, chile con carne, that sort of thing. What the hipsters call “comfort food,” meaning that Mom made it while you sat on your ass.
The interesting thing is that the Food Network actually pushed me further along the road toward doing more cooking. When we still had TV (satellite in Weirdcliffe), I watched quite a bit of that stuff and came away with some interesting dishes as a result. I still like cooking Emeril’s chicken cacciatore, though I doctor it a bit, using whole-wheat flour instead of all-purpose, red wine instead of white and skipping the wings (thighs and drumsticks only).
Maybe you can learn something from TV.
If you want to learn things watch whatever Alton Brown is doing, the dude can’t help but teach cooking any time they throw the camera on him, even when he dumped his Beemer doing the X-country food fest called Feasting on Asphalt. Broken collarbone and he still managed to teach cooking, after he ran out of pain pills.
I’ll admit to wanting to cook more, but part of the reason I don’t is I am 99% of the time cooking for myself. Hard to do at times when most foodstuffs at the local store are packaged for at least 2 people. Maybe that’s why I resemble the Ol’ Guy a bit too much??
I’ll also admit to the occasional after ride stop at In & Out. Simple rule is that I have to EARN it. Of course, being an Ol’ Guy who maintains his fat year round, the definition of “earning it” can be stretched sometimes. But honestly it is rather infrequent that I make that stop. In fact, a few times I have passed it up entirely. Still the calling of an Animal-style Double-Double can be too great from time to time.
Oh, to be like Julia Child and have the time to cook….I’d love it!
Cooking for one is not much fun so invite some folks over, then make a LOT of whatever you’re making so you’ll have some left for other meals. And for Italian food, here’s a cookbook suggestion–CUCINA AMORE by Nick Stellino. ISBN 0385478321 He had a show on PBS awhile back. Most of these recipes are easy enough for bike mechanics like me to make them and they don’t require hours of standing at the stove. The trick with genuine Italian food (I’m not talking spaghetti and meatballs)is to start with high-quality ingredients, then don’t mess them up!