No One Knows How To Cook Anymore
It's the perfect storm: everything costs more, and no one knows how to save money by cooking with basic ingredients. Thankfully, there is a way out of this mess.
Food prices have risen considerably in recent years, while wages have not done the same. This is making it harder for people to make ends meet. At the same time - I feel that there has been a cultural loss over the past few decades - such that people have lost the knowledge and skill of how to cook with basic ingredients. The result is a multiplicative effect on the cost of feeding oneself: the ingredients cost more, and the inability to make use of the more cost-effective ingredients drives people to buy more pre-made, pre-packaged, and take out foods - so the cost of feeding oneself, or a family, is becoming very hard to manage for some.
As consumers, there’s not much we can do about the price of things, aside from “voting with our feet” when possible, and not buying certain things when we think they are priced too high. But as home cooks, there’s a lot we can do - because we determine the menu. Unfortunately, I feel that people are losing their ability to do this, because from what I see people buying at grocery stores, the knowledge and skills that were common just a few generations ago, that got families through countless hardships for centuries, are becoming lost. And it’s a shame, because we have many options that those people from the past could not have imagined in their wildest dreams.
The title of this piece is provocative, and perhaps might come off as condescending - but that’s the nature of punchy titles sometimes - they have to be short even if they are not entirely accurate and run the risk of offense. Of course people know how to cook to some extent today - but I think the average homemaker from about 100 years ago would run circles around most people today. They had fewer ingredients to work with, but they knew how to use them, and how to skillfully use every implement in their kitchens.
One of the great things about being over 50 years of age is the ability to look back through time and recall shifts in one’s own culture. When I do this, I recall the potluck meals of my youth. Everybody made something - and of course some people would make the same dish every time - but they made something. Now, think of the last potluck you attended. Was everything homemade - or were some or all of the things that people brought to the event purchased, rather than having been made?
Many people will make the argument that they just don’t have the time to cook today1. This is something that everyone says, and it is perpetually reinforced whenever a new product is being advertised as the solution to that problem. Still, I am also faced with the fact that people currently (on average) spend about 4 hours a day staring into their phones, and about 2 hours on social media. It is also the case that people are more sedentary now than they used to be. This seems to be somewhat of a paradox - people say they have no time, but they waste more time than ever before, and spend more time off their feet than ever before. The only way I can make sense of this is to conclude that people have been tricked in to believing that cooking is difficult and takes a lot of time, after having been perpetually bombarded with messaging to that effect for decades.
Yesterday, I came home from work (50 minute commute) and made a healthy rice dish (lamb plov2) and a salad for dinner, for a family of four. I also threw together a loaf of bread while the rice was cooking, which I baked later in the evening after it had risen. All of that took less than an hour. I don’t do this much every day, and of course I am fortunate to have a spouse who shares the household duties, and two great teenagers who also help out a lot, but the point is that on any given work day, I can do this much, or more if needed. Not because I am special, or better than anyone else, or anything like that - but simply because I have chosen to develop and maintain the skill set that any homemaker would have had just a few generations ago. Everything I am doing would have been ordinary just a few generations ago. Yes, it was mostly women in the home full-time back then, and they did all the work in the kitchen - but I am talking about the knowledge and skills they had - which can still be applied in the kitchen today by anyone who works full-time outside of the home. I have never really understood why some people think that having a career must come at the cost of being practically useless in the kitchen.
Human beings have these marvelous things called hands. We take them for granted - but they are quite remarkable when they are skilled. Just think of any ordinary magician doing sleight-of- hand tricks. They are literally doing magic with their hands. Food preparation is no different, except that it is much easier to learn because it is a set of skills. Preparing food is a skill. Planning a meal is a skill. Working out the logistics of when to do each task is a skill. Cleaning the kitchen while you cook is a skill. Building flavor is a skill. Using a knife is a skill. Peeling vegetables is a skill. Butchering a chicken or pork shoulder is a skill. Cleaning and filleting a fish is a skill.
These skills were passed down from parent to child, generation after generation, since before the first pot was heated over a fire. Then, at some point during the 20th century, at least in my country and the United States (the only cultural contexts I can speak to with any confidence), a gradual shift occurred. People would stare into large, shiny boxes in the their living rooms - and the shiny boxes would tell them that cooking is hard, that it’s an awful chore, and that they are too busy to do it. This message would be delivered over and and over and over again in countless ways. Sometimes pre-made dinners would be offered as the solution. Sometimes partially prepared foods would be offered as the solution. Sometimes a gadget would be offered as the solution. Gradually, the grocery stores started selling more and more items that fit this narrative - and people bought them. It didn’t matter that the premade foods would cost far more than the ingredients used to make them. It didn’t matter that the pre-cut produce would cost more and was less fresh than its unprocessed alternative. It didn’t matter that 99% of the gadgets would be garbage in 5 years after all the hype died down and people realized that they lacked the versatility of more traditional cooking implements like pots, pans and knives. It’s like an entire culture was being lead into a maze that was supposed to offer a solution to a problem at the other end - but the problem really didn’t exist, and the maze went nowhere.
What is cooking? It’s about preparing food with various cutting tools, and then if necessary, applying heat to the food until it is easier to digest. With a little skill and creativity, various seasonings and techniques can be used to enhance the flavor of the food, and it can be made pleasing to the eye. That’s cooking.
The skills that mattered a hundred years ago still matter today, and may matter more than ever as people struggle to balance budgets while still needing to find ways to prepare healthy meals that taste good. Ironically, the shiny boxes that caused the problem can now be the solution, because through the internet, we can observe people all over the world preparing food in traditional ways.
I’m not talking about short clips, or stylish shows, or reality TV cooking competitions. These are all entertaining, but in reality, they little more than a kind of “food-porn”, offering a vicarious experience, and perhaps an emotional experience, but no real knowledge or substance whatsoever. Rather, I’m talking about using resources like YouTube to actually study cooking techniques, and to watch experienced people taking the time to explain every little detail of the preparation of a dish or the use of a kitchen implement. There is a ridiculous amount of content on YouTube that is not add friendly, that is not visually appealing, and may be “too long” for many people these days who’s attention spans seems only slightly more developed than that of a housefly. Still - the information is out there for those who wish to seek it.
Final Thoughts
Learning to cook is a highly visual and hands-on experience. It must be shown, and then practiced, then shown, then practiced, over and over again, until it has been mastered. As the skills become mastered, the speed follows, and eventually, cooking is no longer hard or overwhelming. Instead, it is an opportunity to practice and hone a set of skills, and make increasingly delicious meals while saving money. Seen this way, the act of cooking can be highly meditative - almost like working through the movements of tai chi or some other form of physical art. Thankfully, we all have the opportunity to master these skills because we eat a few times every day, so each meal is a potential opportunity to learn a new skill, or master an already acquired skill. That’s how I see it anyway - please let me know what you think!
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Here’s a podcast that I did years ago on why cooking skills matter for gardeners:
I’m not talking about people who are working 2 jobs, or crazy overtime, or anything like that. I’m talking about people who work regular hours.
“Plov” is simple rice dish made with meat, onions, carrots, peas, cumin, garlic and rice.