Just because something is dying, does that mean it's worth saving? I was raised by antique book dealers, chronic flea marketers. It's in my bones to hold onto the past. In this way I was an old woman before I turned 20, mourning the loss of old traditions and razed buildings; weeping for the disappearance of community storytelling circles, paper desk calendars and Polaroid cameras. But Google calendars and digital calendars work great -- have we really lost anything at all?
Let's take home cooking. Cathy Erway, on her delightful blog Not Eating Out in New York, got me thinking about this when she posted Reason #33 (to n.e.o.i.n.y) a few weeks ago: "To Preserve a Dying Art." For me, that is reason enough. I don't want to see a world without home cooks any more than I want to see a world without hand-knit sweaters or handcrafted furniture.
Cooking for ourselves is something people did for hundreds and hundreds of years and now we don't do it. The loss of this in our culture strikes me as profound. I don't have stats to show you about why it's a loss, why it's not the same to buy prepared foods from the fancy grocer counter and plate it up as your own. I just know that cooking connects me to my food; that it is, for me, a form of grounding meditation (and a damn fine time to drink a glass of wine); that it saves me money on my lunch each day; that serving it to people connects me to them, is an expression of my affection for them; that talking with dinner guests about how I made the food and where I got the ingredients engages us all.
[n.b. as a side note: I'm cheered by Jane and Michael Stern's rebuttal to the disappearance of American food culture, and I agree with their assertion that "traditions evolve." I like evolution, just not disappearance (which is why, I suppose, I am still hopeful for the continuation of the human species, in spite of our rank stupidity)].
One more example is disappearing plants and animals (let's call it biodiversity). Should I care that there were once 14,000 varieties of apple and now I can only see about 6-10 at a farmers market, and 2-3 at a super market? I do. I can give you the ecological reason I care, and I can give you the reasons centered around taste but more simply: monoculture scares me. On an intuitive level, I like diversity.
So then, if something feels wrong in my gut, if I can intuit that it is no good, how important is it to have facts and figures to confirm that?
A good example: genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Signing onto a recent campaign against Monsanto last week got me thinking about this. The European Union has banned them, the US hasn't. Why? Well, it's complicated, but let's say the simple reason is that the US says that there is no definitive evidence yet that genetically engineered foods are bad for you. For me, as an individual, it is enough that they freak me out (putting aside the dire environmental impacts for one moment). I don't want people splicing fish genes with tomato genes and then trying to feed it to me. Call me crazy.
Another good example: pesticides. I don't want 'em. And while I can't point yet to definitive studies that indicate they will for sure kill me, I'm ooked out enough to say "no thanks."
Is this the same part of me that clings to the past? That tries to preserve old traditions simply because they're old? I know that the pro GMOers will try to paint me as anti-science, and I re-buff that. But I don't have any hard facts to back that self-assertion up. Ha.
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You are crazy. Read a bit. Listen to somebody OTHER than the Greenpeace-style radicals. There is no evidence that intellegent genetic modifications themselves are harmful to individual health directly.
The biggest dangers of genetically modified crops boil down to two problems:
1) Genetic engineering for a trait like resistance to a herbicide or pesticide encourages factory-level farmers to use bad practices Like overusing that herbicide or pesticide. Most herbicides or pesticides themselves are bad for human and wildlife health.
2) Genetically engineered crops are patented. They are designed to make the farmer dependent on the corporation that holds the patent for a constant supply of seed. The company is building their own dependant market - often even producing the herbicide or pesticide AND the seed.
Don't focus on the 'Frankenstein's Monster' part,... the real monster is the corporation not the crop.
I have been cooking regularly since I was a teen and my Mom decided my brothers and I needed to start doing some of the cooking after she started working part-time. Just the basic at first: browning meat, boiling pasta, cooking vegetables,...
I started cooking for myself regularly in grad school when I stopped living in dorms. I got a couple of cookbooks, some of Mom & Grandma's recipies that I hadn't already figured out - and have been off & running ever since.
My wife & I have cooked dinner at least 4-6 nights / week, every week, for alomst 15 years of marriage. We have done everything from the simple stuff (soups, pasta dishes, roasts,...) to some really complex stuff (my best efforts to date - a roast goose last Yule with all the trimmings, and a very tasty Cassoulet in the classic south of France style.
People who eat out every night are wasting vast amounts of money, are missing a great way to socialize, and are putting unknown crapola into thier bodies daily.
Again,... who are these people that think that 'Home Cooking' is a dying art?
Of course, that was used to be only for girls.
Every person should know how to do basic cooking and sew on a button as well as how to use basic hand tools. These are life skills. As with anything else, money shortages require decisions to be made and these programs are not top priorities.
I cook. I raise vegetables.
I have hundreds of recipes that I can lend you, if you are interested.
Cooking with gas in Texas!
I have had (at least) pot gardens since I was a grad student. I have a garden full of ripening tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and pickling cucumbers right now. The sugar snap peas are done for the year but were fairly productive through June. We always have basil, oregano, tarragon, thyme, chives and spearmint growing.
We can loan the author any number of cookbooks,... we have dozens. Cooking is art - but it is only dying for those people that have let it.
I am defending the art of cooking at home, something I do an awful lot of, even here in a city where most eat out more often than not. I am so glad to read you dissenters here--because grocery store trends (prepared foods on the rise) and fast food chain revenues (enjoying people's shrinking bank accts, for sure) seem to suggest that we are in the minority.
May it not be so...
i grew up in the country in the 60's and 70's, garden, apple trees, plums, pears, mirabellen, cherries, straw berries with real straw berry flavour.
my children listen to me like i am telling fairy tales.
Take a 25 pound bag of flour and, for 60 cents a loaf, enjoy fresh baked bread as easily as boiling a pot of water. Jacques Pepin busts the myth of baking bread wide open.
A pound of mung beans produces 5 to 6 pounds of bean sprouts with little more than the time it takes to rinse a glass out each day.
An investment of less than $20 lets one enjoy lettuce and herbs year round. Flourescent lights do indeed substitute for the sun.
That's ridiculous. Plpenty of people cook from scratch...like me. I even (gasp) grow some of my own food!!! It's healthy, tasty and FUN.
I mean seriously? Is it that you don't know how to cook it or that you would rather not take the time and will take the chance that the extra chemicals they've put in that nice oven ready post roast won't slowly kill you?
Oh yea, and take my word for it, if you (learn to) cook it yourself it will tast sooooooo much better.