Read Online Best Food Writing 2015 by Holly Hughes - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Holly Hughes
Ads: Link
know where it comes from, to ask how itâs produced.
Donât get me wrong, I believe everyone should know how to cook, at least some basics, but not because learning to cook is âthe most important thing an ordinary person can do to help reform the American food system,â as Michael Pollan claims, but because itâs a basic life skill. Everyone should also know how to sew on a button, use a drill, change a tire and perform CPR. I no more believe there is some larger good in cooking than I think anyone who doesnât want to should sew their wedding outfit or build their houses or never call AAA or 911.
There is tremendous arrogance, I now see, in the assumption that if people would just give cooking a try, theyâd like it enough to become more interested in food instead of getting pissed off that theyâre wasting so much time doing something they donât like. For many people cooking is like gardening for me: something theyâre only glad to have done and which they fantasize about paying someone else to take on. Wouldnât it be awesome, they think, to hire a personal chef?
About the connection between everyone cooking and a more sustainable food systemâitâs bunk. I donât see how it matters whether thelocally grown organic kale salad with a lemon dressing was made by someone in my house or not. That fried foods are easier to produce on a large-scale level than fresh tossed salads (and fresh tossed salads easier to produce on a small-scale, home kitchen level) is a hurdle to people who want to feed their families healthful food without cooking, but itâs not a roadblock. That it is a hurdle is something systemic that needs fixing, but everyone cooking their own food isnât a realistic solution. There would be a whole lot less labor abuses in the garment industry if we all sewed our own clothes, but can anyone imagine suggesting more home sewing as a first step towards changing that system, much less present it as a key component of a long-term workable solution?
Home cooking is good for the food system because it leads to or involves other things. People who cook tend to have healthier diets because of what they are cooking; thereâs no magic fairy dust released during the cooking process that makes the food better (and if there is, Iâm pretty sure it doesnât happen when the cook is bitter about stirring the pot).
People who cook are more likely to pay attention to the quality of the ingredients they use, the thinking goes, so thereâs a greater chance theyâre going to shop at a farmers market or buy organically grown foods or, at the very least, buy whole food ingredients instead of processed foods.
Yet, itâs easy to imagine how the environmental good of more communally produced food might be greater than more home cooking. A more efficient use of resources is certainly possible, both on the raw material sideâ25% to 30% of food that makes its way into U.S. homes is simply tossed outâand the auxiliary elements like water and power. Baking bread, for example, can be a satisfying activity for those who like it, but thereâs a reason bakeries took off. It takes a lot of sustained heat to bake bread, if nothing else. Having one reliably hot oven per community makes some good wood-cutting sense. Then having an oven where people can place their pots to cook up their stew or casseroles, after the bread is baked but the oven is still hot, while they tend to other things, as used to be common practice in plenty of rural villages, seems like a decently sustainable practice to the modern eye.
Somehow the food movementâs âhow can we make people who donât cook care as much as people who doâ became âwe should try toget more people to cook.â And I know how that happened: People who write about food, in general, like to cook. If you like to cook, itâs easy to say itâs easy. Itâs easy to say
Donât get me wrong, I believe everyone should know how to cook, at least some basics, but not because learning to cook is âthe most important thing an ordinary person can do to help reform the American food system,â as Michael Pollan claims, but because itâs a basic life skill. Everyone should also know how to sew on a button, use a drill, change a tire and perform CPR. I no more believe there is some larger good in cooking than I think anyone who doesnât want to should sew their wedding outfit or build their houses or never call AAA or 911.
There is tremendous arrogance, I now see, in the assumption that if people would just give cooking a try, theyâd like it enough to become more interested in food instead of getting pissed off that theyâre wasting so much time doing something they donât like. For many people cooking is like gardening for me: something theyâre only glad to have done and which they fantasize about paying someone else to take on. Wouldnât it be awesome, they think, to hire a personal chef?
About the connection between everyone cooking and a more sustainable food systemâitâs bunk. I donât see how it matters whether thelocally grown organic kale salad with a lemon dressing was made by someone in my house or not. That fried foods are easier to produce on a large-scale level than fresh tossed salads (and fresh tossed salads easier to produce on a small-scale, home kitchen level) is a hurdle to people who want to feed their families healthful food without cooking, but itâs not a roadblock. That it is a hurdle is something systemic that needs fixing, but everyone cooking their own food isnât a realistic solution. There would be a whole lot less labor abuses in the garment industry if we all sewed our own clothes, but can anyone imagine suggesting more home sewing as a first step towards changing that system, much less present it as a key component of a long-term workable solution?
Home cooking is good for the food system because it leads to or involves other things. People who cook tend to have healthier diets because of what they are cooking; thereâs no magic fairy dust released during the cooking process that makes the food better (and if there is, Iâm pretty sure it doesnât happen when the cook is bitter about stirring the pot).
People who cook are more likely to pay attention to the quality of the ingredients they use, the thinking goes, so thereâs a greater chance theyâre going to shop at a farmers market or buy organically grown foods or, at the very least, buy whole food ingredients instead of processed foods.
Yet, itâs easy to imagine how the environmental good of more communally produced food might be greater than more home cooking. A more efficient use of resources is certainly possible, both on the raw material sideâ25% to 30% of food that makes its way into U.S. homes is simply tossed outâand the auxiliary elements like water and power. Baking bread, for example, can be a satisfying activity for those who like it, but thereâs a reason bakeries took off. It takes a lot of sustained heat to bake bread, if nothing else. Having one reliably hot oven per community makes some good wood-cutting sense. Then having an oven where people can place their pots to cook up their stew or casseroles, after the bread is baked but the oven is still hot, while they tend to other things, as used to be common practice in plenty of rural villages, seems like a decently sustainable practice to the modern eye.
Somehow the food movementâs âhow can we make people who donât cook care as much as people who doâ became âwe should try toget more people to cook.â And I know how that happened: People who write about food, in general, like to cook. If you like to cook, itâs easy to say itâs easy. Itâs easy to say
Similar Books
