So, my ears perk up whenever I hear Michael Pollan’s name on the news or radio. After reading two of his books, Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, I pulled into this world of eating, cooking and buying local. In defense of myself, I already believed cooking for oneself is the healthiest (and cheapest) way to enjoy food, but his books, articles, and talks made me feel less isolated. Tonight he spoke on NPR about his recent article in the New York Times Magazine , where he states people watch people cook longer than they do actually cooking:“Today the average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day on food preparation (another four minutes cleaning up)”
Really??? Am I an anomaly? I spend about 1-2 hours cooking, then about 20 minutes cleaning. I cook almost every night, and maybe go out 1 or 2 meals a week. Most of the time our dinner turns into next day’s lunch because I cook for four (we are only two) and use the leftovers for lunch, unless we have expected or unexpected guests. I love cooking…it’s one of my only consistent creative outlets each day, which is why I relate to Pollan’s assessment of Child’s view on cooking:
“Child was less interested in making it fast or easy than making it right, because cooking for her was so much more than a means to a meal. It was a gratifying, even ennobling sort of work, engaging both the mind and the muscles. You didn’t do it to please a husband or impress guests; you did it to please yourself.”
Is America degenerating that fast that we cannot enjoy cooking anymore? Although the media shows idiotic and stupid people quoting reality TV shows, does that really express us as a whole? Pollan even states, “Erica Gruen, the cable executive often credited with putting the Food Network on the map in the late ’90s, recognized early on that, as she told a journalist, “people don’t watch television to learn things.” I use television to learn things. I am an avid Saturday PBS cooking show viewer, from the obnoxious to the usable. I finally learned how to cut an onion fast enough so I wouldn’t cry.
Most people state they don’t have time to cook, e.g. they are too tired. I am discouraged when I hear why people cannot cook, and even more discouraged when I see the OBESE (sick people walking or not walking around). Even with a biology degree, most people could see how they are chronically ill and wonder how they get the food that makes them so sick? Why do we choose to live this way? I have a difficult time believing that marketing experts deserve our scorn for this chronic disease, although they excel at their profession.
Can we endure with less money to have more time to look for ingredients, cook and live life? I don’t think we need to go completely back to chopping off our own chicken heads (and plucking feathers, etc.) but I do think we need to get back into the kitchen and off the couch.
