And since I'm now, you know, a serious food blogger and sh*t ;-)...
Plainly, this is the most interesting, sane, simple yet-oh-so-true, and especially closer to my own perspective and thought process conversation I've heard read on food for a long, long time.
The presentation on Grist.org is enticing enough: It's unanimous these days: Cooking food from scratch at
home is one of the best ways to eat sustainably without
breaking the bank. It also enables eaters to easily support food
producers who use environmentally sound, ethical, and humane practices. But most
Americans can't pull this off regularly. We recently invited Kurt Michael Friese
and Tamar Adler -- two people who have strong feelings about the importance of
home cooking -- to have a conversation for Grist. Adler is a chef, cooking
teacher, and the author of the new book An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and
Grace; Friese is a chef, the editor of Edible Iowa River
Valley, and the author of two books, including A Cook's Journey: Slow Food in the Heartland and
Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots on the Chile Trail
"I think Americans have been sold a bill of goods: I think they've been coerced
into believing that cooking is a chore akin to washing windows, something to be
avoided if possible and then done as quickly and grudgingly as they can manage.
Too many people believe they don't have the time. That's the most common excuse
anyway. And of course they do -- it's all a matter of priorities".
"We have a very skewed relationship to the act of cooking. The thing about priorities is that if we don't know what cooking actually
means -- that is, the kind of cooking that makes deep sense in our
lives -- then of course we don't have time, or money. It takes a very long time to cook in a way that isn't sustainable, and it's
very expensive. And it makes sense to feel bullied by being told to make
something that takes a long time and costs a lot of money a priority. But of
course, that's not what we're saying. It just takes a lot of explaining and
careful guidance to show the whole picture of cooking, and how much it can give
you, if you do it with a certain mindset."
"The means of producing our food has been meanly wrested from our hands, and we
need it back. It sounds like a great communist exercise when I put it like that,
but it's fundamental to our sovereignty to have the means to feed ourselves."
Monday, January 9, 2012
Since food is always on my mind...
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3 comment(s):
The whole thing about how you approach cooking is so true. When I was a student I cooked a ton, and really enjoyed it, and went out of my way to learn how to make stupidly fancy things for dinner parties we were always throwing and whatnot. Then when I started working, that kind of cooking was clearly not possible, and I fell into the habit of letting O cook, cause I just didn't think I had the time. (But he always managed to throw together lovely meals with the same amount of no-time after work, which just goes to show how irrational this kind of thinking is.) In the last last 18 months of living mostly alone I'd fallen into a bad habit of having takeouts or other 'ready' meals much more often than I intended, which have been extensive and fattening. :/ Now that unemployment nears, I've started cooking again for myself after work, and rediscovered the joy of creating something wholesome, delicious and nourishing from a few ingredients. *This* is the kind of attitude to cooking that needs to be more widespread. It doesn't have to be Masterchef or Great British Bake Off fancy, but it a creative act, not a chore. At leas, this is the thinking that gets me stoveside. :)
YES.
:-)
Oh, I love this.
And I can't tell you how badly I want that "An Everlasting Meal" cookbook. (Not that I need another cookbook...)
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