Read Online Best Food Writing 2015 by Holly Hughes - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Holly Hughes
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someone in the house cooks this magical meal. And herein lies the problem.
When people who write about food for a living tell everyone else how easy it is to make dinner (and Iâm including myself here), a suspiciouseyebrow should be raised and the obvious question asked: Isnât that like an accountant saying that doing your own taxes is easy?
Look, Iâm all about family dinner. We all have to eat. My mom cooked family dinner most nights. So do I. I like to cookâitâs part of the reason I write about food instead of, say, the competitive pétanque circuit or the kinship relations of a tribe in Papua New Guinea.
If Iâd only ever put dinner on the table while working as a freelance writer, Iâd probably still be beating on the âeveryone cookâ drum kit I used to have. But for awhile there I had a staff job that required a commute. If I left before 7 and drove like my mother, I could make it door-to-door in 27 minutes. When I let up on the lead foot, it took at least 45 minutes, and I quickly saw the problem with family dinner.
Itâs a beast. A beast that needs to be fed. Every single night. Whether itâs easy or not.
I could no longer honestly concur, as I once had, with Laurie Davidâs assessment that âTo not be cooking in your own home is to be missing one of the best parts of the day.â
It was a humbling glimpse into the lives of people who donât like to cook, because the lack of time and the fact that as a food writer and recipe developer Iâd already spent most of the day cooking turned me into someone who no longer looked forward to making dinner.
Suddenly I understood in a visceral way the trajectory of humanityâthe minute people get any money they tend to pay people to do three things: clean their house, watch their kids and cook their dinner. As my husband and I checked in to confirm who was picking up the kid and what dinner might be, I came to understand why so many housewives used to have a âpork chops on Tuesdayâ weekly rotation: at least the menu didnât need to be reinvented every night.
What had once been a real creative and satisfyingly productive outlet during my day became a dirge. I saw why feminists used to commonly lump cooking in with the rest of housework as mind-numbing, endlessly repetitive labor, the fruits of which were tied primarily to other peopleâs appreciation of it. âThe validity of the cookâs work is to be found only in the mouths of those at her table,â Simone de Beauvoir wrote. âShe needs their approbation, demands that they appreciate her dishes and call for second helpings; she is upset if they are not hungry,to the point that one wonders whether the fried potatoes are for her husband or her husband for the fried potatoes.â
So where I once stood out front twirling a baton in a the-world-would-be-a-better-place-if-everyone-cooked parade, I stopped telling people they should at least try cooking. I no longer pontificated about how easy it was to make a homemade dinner on a regular basis. I started to see the call to whisks and the homage paid to homemade bread that have become part-and-parcel of the food movement as what they are for anyone who doesnât feel like cooking: oppressive bullshit.
First, itâs worth noting the obvious: Responsibility for getting dinner on the table still falls disproportionately on womenâs shoulders. Itâs changing, for sure, and I know plenty of men who cook for their families. But at this moment in time, calling for people to cook more for their families, without specifically calling out dudes, is asking women to do it.
Equally important, when you tell grown-ups who have a decent sense of what they like and donât like that they have to do the latter, they tend to do one of two things: the healthy tune out, the neurotic feel guilty. Neither of those outcomes gets people to engage more deeply with their food, to
When people who write about food for a living tell everyone else how easy it is to make dinner (and Iâm including myself here), a suspiciouseyebrow should be raised and the obvious question asked: Isnât that like an accountant saying that doing your own taxes is easy?
Look, Iâm all about family dinner. We all have to eat. My mom cooked family dinner most nights. So do I. I like to cookâitâs part of the reason I write about food instead of, say, the competitive pétanque circuit or the kinship relations of a tribe in Papua New Guinea.
If Iâd only ever put dinner on the table while working as a freelance writer, Iâd probably still be beating on the âeveryone cookâ drum kit I used to have. But for awhile there I had a staff job that required a commute. If I left before 7 and drove like my mother, I could make it door-to-door in 27 minutes. When I let up on the lead foot, it took at least 45 minutes, and I quickly saw the problem with family dinner.
Itâs a beast. A beast that needs to be fed. Every single night. Whether itâs easy or not.
I could no longer honestly concur, as I once had, with Laurie Davidâs assessment that âTo not be cooking in your own home is to be missing one of the best parts of the day.â
It was a humbling glimpse into the lives of people who donât like to cook, because the lack of time and the fact that as a food writer and recipe developer Iâd already spent most of the day cooking turned me into someone who no longer looked forward to making dinner.
Suddenly I understood in a visceral way the trajectory of humanityâthe minute people get any money they tend to pay people to do three things: clean their house, watch their kids and cook their dinner. As my husband and I checked in to confirm who was picking up the kid and what dinner might be, I came to understand why so many housewives used to have a âpork chops on Tuesdayâ weekly rotation: at least the menu didnât need to be reinvented every night.
What had once been a real creative and satisfyingly productive outlet during my day became a dirge. I saw why feminists used to commonly lump cooking in with the rest of housework as mind-numbing, endlessly repetitive labor, the fruits of which were tied primarily to other peopleâs appreciation of it. âThe validity of the cookâs work is to be found only in the mouths of those at her table,â Simone de Beauvoir wrote. âShe needs their approbation, demands that they appreciate her dishes and call for second helpings; she is upset if they are not hungry,to the point that one wonders whether the fried potatoes are for her husband or her husband for the fried potatoes.â
So where I once stood out front twirling a baton in a the-world-would-be-a-better-place-if-everyone-cooked parade, I stopped telling people they should at least try cooking. I no longer pontificated about how easy it was to make a homemade dinner on a regular basis. I started to see the call to whisks and the homage paid to homemade bread that have become part-and-parcel of the food movement as what they are for anyone who doesnât feel like cooking: oppressive bullshit.
First, itâs worth noting the obvious: Responsibility for getting dinner on the table still falls disproportionately on womenâs shoulders. Itâs changing, for sure, and I know plenty of men who cook for their families. But at this moment in time, calling for people to cook more for their families, without specifically calling out dudes, is asking women to do it.
Equally important, when you tell grown-ups who have a decent sense of what they like and donât like that they have to do the latter, they tend to do one of two things: the healthy tune out, the neurotic feel guilty. Neither of those outcomes gets people to engage more deeply with their food, to
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