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times don't add up plus some ranting
Aug. 3rd, 2009 01:22 pmI'm generally a fan of writer Michael Pollen, but I think in this case (from an article in yesterday's NYT magazine) he's making up statistics:
>>Today the average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day on food preparation (another four minutes cleaning up); that’s less than half the time that we spent cooking and cleaning up when Julia [Child] arrived on our television screens. It’s also less than half the time it takes to watch a single episode of “Top Chef” or “Chopped” or “The Next Food Network Star.”<<
First of all, what's an average American? If there are two adults and a child in a household,
does that make the household total be 81 minutes on food prep? You could pour milk onto cereal, add nuts and a banana and a hot beverage, pack a lunch bag, and still have an hour allotted to make supper at that rate. I don't think my mother spent that much time cooking in 1963, when Julia Child first hit the airwaves. Could a three person household really clean up from a day's food in 12 minutes? I don't have much personal experience with dishwashers, but that seems pretty unlikely to me, especially if you include dusting crumbs off the table and wiping down the counter tops and taking out the compost (or whatever people do who don't have a compost bin).
It's a long article, and I found it interesting, but I disagree with a lot of it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02cooking-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
I keep being irritated by people who talk about what "our grandmothers" did or didn't do. I'm boomer age. Grandmothers of boomers would have been mid-50s or older when the big waves of instant rice and canned stuff and box mixes and TV dinners hit. Many of them would have been cooking for decades at that time and I'd bet at least some large percentage of those women were happy to grab any cooking substitute they could find. Many people really don't enjoy food preparation. I cook almost every day but it's because I have to do so in order to eat food that's vegetarian/fresh/local/etc. I don't buy fast food except for pizza, but it's mostly because fast food tends not to resemble food, and I really like to eat. I don't buy pre-sliced vegetables, for the most part, but one of the many good things about buying organic produce is that you don't need to peel it. Any slicing, peeling, or chopping that can be avoided is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. (until Arthur complained about it a couple of years ago, my opinion was that steaming whole leaves of Kale without removing the stems or shredding up the leaves was the best way to deal with them - the fact that it's awkward to use your fork in that case is irrelevant).
A quotation I liked, although I'm not convinced it's true:
“Easy. You want Americans to eat less? I have the diet for you. It’s short, and it’s simple. Here’s my diet plan: Cook it yourself. That’s it. Eat anything you want — just as long as you’re willing to cook it yourself.” - Food marketing researcher Harry Balzer
I am planning to see "Julie and Julia" when it hits theaters next weekend, even though I don't care for most French food.
>>Today the average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day on food preparation (another four minutes cleaning up); that’s less than half the time that we spent cooking and cleaning up when Julia [Child] arrived on our television screens. It’s also less than half the time it takes to watch a single episode of “Top Chef” or “Chopped” or “The Next Food Network Star.”<<
First of all, what's an average American? If there are two adults and a child in a household,
does that make the household total be 81 minutes on food prep? You could pour milk onto cereal, add nuts and a banana and a hot beverage, pack a lunch bag, and still have an hour allotted to make supper at that rate. I don't think my mother spent that much time cooking in 1963, when Julia Child first hit the airwaves. Could a three person household really clean up from a day's food in 12 minutes? I don't have much personal experience with dishwashers, but that seems pretty unlikely to me, especially if you include dusting crumbs off the table and wiping down the counter tops and taking out the compost (or whatever people do who don't have a compost bin).
It's a long article, and I found it interesting, but I disagree with a lot of it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02cooking-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
I keep being irritated by people who talk about what "our grandmothers" did or didn't do. I'm boomer age. Grandmothers of boomers would have been mid-50s or older when the big waves of instant rice and canned stuff and box mixes and TV dinners hit. Many of them would have been cooking for decades at that time and I'd bet at least some large percentage of those women were happy to grab any cooking substitute they could find. Many people really don't enjoy food preparation. I cook almost every day but it's because I have to do so in order to eat food that's vegetarian/fresh/local/etc. I don't buy fast food except for pizza, but it's mostly because fast food tends not to resemble food, and I really like to eat. I don't buy pre-sliced vegetables, for the most part, but one of the many good things about buying organic produce is that you don't need to peel it. Any slicing, peeling, or chopping that can be avoided is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. (until Arthur complained about it a couple of years ago, my opinion was that steaming whole leaves of Kale without removing the stems or shredding up the leaves was the best way to deal with them - the fact that it's awkward to use your fork in that case is irrelevant).
A quotation I liked, although I'm not convinced it's true:
“Easy. You want Americans to eat less? I have the diet for you. It’s short, and it’s simple. Here’s my diet plan: Cook it yourself. That’s it. Eat anything you want — just as long as you’re willing to cook it yourself.” - Food marketing researcher Harry Balzer
I am planning to see "Julie and Julia" when it hits theaters next weekend, even though I don't care for most French food.
