Submitted by Alex Birch on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 21:19.
Many of us suffer from low self-esteem today because we have less control over our own day-to-day lives. The nanny state raises our children, the media tells us what to think, and the shelves at the supermarket are lined with more products than we could ever need. What if we started to take responsibility for our own lives again? Let's start with the basics: How many of us today know how to cook our own food? Surprisingly few. Whether it's out of sheer laziness, our fast-paced drive-thru lifestyle, or a simple lack of training, I won't speculate. But it seems to me that we can do a lot better for ourselves than China Express and Pop's Pizza.
I won't try to hide it: I enjoy cooking. It's a peaceful, practical activity that requires some planning and good tools, but once you've made the preparations, you're good to go. It's fun mixing different herbs and spices to get the right flavor on a sauce, or blending the right vegetables to get a nice salad. But what interests me the most about cooking is how, by mixing and matching a few basic ingredients, you suddenly arrive at something more complex. And with a little experimentation, you can obtain a variety of unique results, even with the same recipe. Adding a red chilli, using less water, or letting something boil 10 minutes longer than what the recipe recommends will make the dish taste completely different. In this regard, cooking resembles life: the seemingly simple choices we make every day can have big consequences. They aren't always the consequences you hoped for, but as they say, dinner always tastes better when you've cooked it yourself!
But most of you reading this aren't about to pick up a frying pan just because I happen to think cooking is fun. If you know that you belong to the category of people who rarely or never cook, congratulations! -- The first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem! As your first assignment, I've got a list of points that I'd like you to reflect upon:
- If you fail at cooking your own food, how do you manage to tie your own shoes, succeed on the job, and keep your family together? Even people who lived during the Stone Age knew how to wrap up a nice steak, but we “civilized” people can barely boil a pot of pre-packaged rice. It's pathetic. Didn't someone say we're living in the age of progress?
- When you cook your own food, you know what's in it. You don't have to worry about strange preservatives, synthetic spices, and other industrial additives or “by-products” which are added to fast food to make it look more appealing and last longer. Remember, most of the foods we buy in grocery stores today are already industrially processed, so why should we opt for food that's been processed even more, and add more strange substances to our diet than modern life already necessitates?
- It's cheaper to cook your own food, especially if you cook in large amounts and save some of it in the freezer for later use (all parents, please take note). Fast food is actually pretty expensive, especially when you consider what you're really getting for your money – crummy service and a one-way ticket to Cholesterol City!
- Home cooked food tastes better, period. This is not just a cliché! Fast food is in most cases frozen, and food always loses taste when it's been in the freezer for a long time. It also contains industrial surrogates as a substitute for real spices to make it cheaper to produce. In your own kitchen, you can use real herbs and spices and eat the food while it's still fresh. You have total control over how much of each ingredient you want to use, which gives you the ability to adapt your meals to the needs of you and your family. Makes sense, doesn't it?
- Here's maybe the most important point of all: Cooking your own food makes you feel better. Buying prepared products make us feel dull and empty inside – a craving for something more, only we can't quite figure out what that something entails. It always feels good when we can be independent and autonomous. Not only can you be personally proud of your homemade Pasta Bolognese or Taco Stew, but other people will be impressed, too. For you young, single men out there, just wait until you invite that cute new girl from work over for dinner, and serve her your own personal recipes. Having shown her you're a man who knows how to get things done, she'll beg for your hand in marriage! For you young, single women, you already know the saying, “A man's stomach is the way to his heart”!
- Cooking is not as hard and time consuming as many people like to think. In just one to one and a half hours you can prepare a very tasty dish, which is still only about a third of the time most of us spend watching television, playing computer games, or talking on the phone. What's more important: Filling your brain with mindless entertainment, or making sure that you and your family have a healthy meal on the table? Cooking can occupy the same void you would otherwise fill with games and sitcoms, only it increases your self-confidence and sense of purpose. "Alright, I may not be so good at chess or mathematics, but I do cook the best damned Italian pasta dish in this family!" Cooking is also a great way to bring people together. When was the last time you invited your friends over and cooked a real meal together, talking and laughing at all of your classic kitchen mishaps?
I know some people – mostly men with a conservative view of gender roles – are now thinking: "But cooking is for women!" ... Don't give me that lazy excuse! I'm not famous for being a liberal when it comes to gender roles, but in my opinion every man should know how to cook his own food. It's common sense. If you can't handle that, you're probably not man enough to do a lot of other things, such as fixing the car or performing home repairs. Cooking is so fundamental – secondary only to eating – that every single individual should know how to prepare simple meals. It's vital knowledge if you're starting a family, and if you already have one, it's never too late to start cooking food that will make the children grow strong and healthy, not to mention lighten the household budget. Industrially processed fast food makes us fat, unhealthy and low on confidence. It's time for us to outgrow the statistics and turn things around. Dust off your recipe books, kettles, knives and frying pans--it's time to reclaim our lives as responsible human beings, and start feeding ourselves again!
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Good stuff
That's some excellent advice. I'd add growing some of your own vegetables. Raising your own rabbits or chickens, catching your own fish or hunting would be even better.
Cooking your own food can be more efficient than even ordering a pizza. I have to eat a lot more than a normal person to maintain my weight so I often will cook something to last for several meals. I believe John Berardi (link posted by Bereft) also recommends that. For example, I'll roast two-three kilos of beef, then reheat pieces of it with various sauces and vegetables over a couple of days.
Feminism
I also blame feminism: women today are now "equal cohabiting partners" and thus cooking a family meal is seen as "patriarchal" and degrading.
Men, being men, will just eat whatever meat-laden product is available, and women sit around fixing hot pockets for their kids and Weight Watcher TV dinners for themselves, so now nobody cooks.
Great column, cooking is one
Great column, cooking is one of my hobbies! Something about it.. Feels like meditation. I like to take my time when cooking, I can work fast and just chop the vegetables. But if I have the time over, I slowly prepare the meal. Being a real perfectionist.
One thing I can say about fast-food is that I would rather spoil myself with "real" food everyday then buying hamburgers for dinner. I don't know why, but I don't like burgers that much. Pizza on the other hand is much better. That's something that I could buy now & then when I feel lazy. Somedays you are entitled to be lazy on. hah.
sad...
...that today's people figure they don't have time for family meals anymore. food is a HUGE part of culture and life, but all we see are commercials from KFC to buy a "box of food", or your local supermarket to buy a "boxed" dinner with turkey and everything else already cooked and inside for you (why cook, the holidays are the same if you just eat with no work associated with it, right??).
people are so busy running around working, etc. that they "simply dont' have time" to cook and sit down to a family meal. i consider myself lucky in that my mother, who did work part time, always made it a point to cook every night . she's not a boring suburban housewife; in fact she's quite intelligent, decisive, and a passionate person in general about life - but she also enjoys the niceties like being a great hostess in her house, getting anyone whatever they want while seated at her table, cooking great meals for people, and having her home open to all those related to her and anyone else that happens by who's a friend of the family. it's a great way of life and in our household, growing up, food was a huge part of that; she made such good meals. as soon as i started living on my own, i insisted she write down some of her recipes so i could keep some of the family traditions alive in my house - her marinara sauce, her tortellini soup, the way she cooks a pork roast, and her holiday cookies. being on my own has prevented me from taking advantage of that lifestyle and instead adopted it for my own, even if it includes such tough tasks as cleaning up after oneself in the kitchen or waiting for food to be done once it goes in the oven :)
we went to McD's occasionally like every american family, but not often, and having been more exposed to food from my cultural background (italian), i much more appreciate penne a la vodka over anything a fast food joint has to offer!
And for the more ethnically inclined
Here's a link to recipes by ethnic origin, enjoy!
http://fooddownunder.com/
excellent article
I find a great sense of self reliance when I cook my own meals. I can relate it to the same feeling I have when I fix my vehicles or build something in my workshop. It's actually kind of fun and possibly even a form of entertainment gathering what you need at the grocer and altering recipes/methods to make them your own. Not to mention how nutritious/tasty you can make your food with a little knowledge and creativity.
When I was in college I had two roommates who were also young men. I cooked all of my own food and was dumb founded at how they didn't know how to cook anything. One even had me show him how to make a grilled cheese sandwich on a George Foreman grill. Thank goodness for microwaves or today's man would starve!
Agreed
Nice article - here are a few sites I've got bookmarked:
http://www.eatdrinkordie.com/
http://whfoods.org/
And for the more athletically inclined...
http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nutrition/index.htm
My skills suck, but they're improving, slowly.
Good sites. I also recommend
Good sites. I also recommend the Weston A. Price Foundation, which promotes traditional diets. They talk about modern foods and how they create physical degeneration. For example, traditional societies were much more kind to grains, allowing them to sprout, drastically reducing the amount of phytic acid (which blocks mineral absorption).
Haha, great work
I've been in an advanced culinary arts class for the past two years and am shocked in the complete lack of knowledge many people have in regards to food. It seems it's over everyones' head when you begin cooking something without the additives of breading, fatty oils, and the ever-so-infamous deep fryer.
It's great to have a class that acts as an outlet for creativity and helps expand your cultural knowledge.
Fantastic!
Great column, thank you. I had to share this one with my partner, because one of the things that drew me to him immediately was that he could *gasp* cook real, not prepackaged, food. It is a lot of fun preparing meals together. I agree that you most definitely feel better cooking your own food as it reinforces independence and autonomy; I also find it to be quite relaxing after a long day at work - great way to unwind. For those people out there who use the time constraint excuse - take an hour out of your gaming/tv/whatever time and do some prep work in the kitchen to be stored for use later on during the week. You'd be surprised how much time you save in the long run.
cookin: true that!!!!
store-bought peirogis are crap compared to my homemade. as far as finding other slavonic ethnic food in a supermarket, forget it. i've yet to see any place outside of the local polish deli serve out a good borcsh or golabki.
as far as "gender roles" haha. i dont feel like less of a man because i can cook, clean, and sew. i might sound like an asshole sayin this, but if i was flexible enough to suck my own cock, or if it was anywhere close to physically possible to fuck myself, what would i need a woman for?
Planning
Your observation of the simple task of planning is the key to this entire article, in my opinion. Making food absolutely requires foresight on the part of the cook. If one cannot plan the most basic act of sustaining vital bodily function aside from going through the drive-thru or heating up a pre-packaged "meal", then what does that say to the current state of humanity? I suppose one could argue that by placing the concept of sustenance on the back-burner (pun most definitely intended), humans now have time to attend to more pressing matters like working overtime to pay off the credit card bill racked up by buying frivolities. A poor, biased example, I know, but it's disconcerting when eating healthy food is so overlooked in lieu of convenience.