The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate
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The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate
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Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate
#2I really enjoy cooking and think that it lets me unleash my creativity in a way. Cooking from raw ingredients at home is not only easier on the pocket but helps make sure that you eat healthier. I started cooking only in grad school and YouTube and a variety of recipe websites were a blessing to ensure I knew what I was doing.
Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate
#3Why cooking is viewed as difficult thing to do in US ? I see many people get surprised when I say we cook daily .
Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate
#4Why cooking is viewed as difficult thing to do in US ? I see many people get surprised when I say we cook daily .
The article gives you a big hint:
My mother is a fantastic cook, but she worked full time and in the rush to get dinner on the table by 7, she often relied on semi-prepared foods, like pre-marinated meats or curry mixes. From where I sat, cooking seemed like a drag, something that took time and effort in the midst of an already overcrowded schedule.
It also notes that these "meal-kit" companies started in Europe and were highly popular there.
Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate
#5Why cooking is viewed as difficult thing to do in US ? I see many people get surprised when I say we cook daily .
Going a step further, I cook multiple times a day. Although now that I'm going to the office, I mealprep so I cook meals in advance. But I'm still cooking at least once a day.
If I had to guess, I'd say the reason Americans think cooking is hard is because they leave home at 7am so they can be at work by 9am. Then work until 5pm, and make it home by 7pm. And cooking, while not hard, does take time. Not much time in that schedule.
They also hold this weird notion that you can't have dinner at 9pm, which is when I usually have it at.
But really what matters most is that they just don't value it as much.
Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate
#6Why cooking is viewed as difficult thing to do in US ? I see many people get surprised when I say we cook daily .
This is true but many people think cooking every day is too much of a chore cause they try to duplicate what you get at a restaurant but restaurants, specifically nicer sit down places, make food special and have a system in place to deliver that same food in a way to attract you. It's more difficult to do the same thing at home unless you want to eat the same food every day.
By this I mean, a home cooked meal should be meat and potatoes and it shouldn't be expected to be boeuf bourguignon. That you get at a restaurant.
Expectations are also a problem. People think gourmet cooking is just too much but, if you take the time to actually read recipes, you'll find that it's not hard at all. There may be technique involve, and there may be ingredients you don't normally keep, but if you love that previously mentioned boeuf, you'll enjoy making it every week, so those ingredients won't go to waste.
Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate
#7Oh for f's sake. Life isn't all about work, fast food, meal kits, (or burritos...mmm...burritos) are a stop gap. Making decent meals doesn't take a lot of time in the aggregate, it is just like planning out any other project. Prepare when you have time on the weekend, or a spare moment during the week.
Soups and stews, lasagne, salads, even meat dishes can be prepared ahead of time and enjoyed over the course of days (or if you use a freezer) a week or two.
Someone "married" and especially if children are involved, would do well to learn basics and do food prep and rudiments of cooking. Work is not everything.
For me, the kitchen is zen. I'm probably the other extreme, but my coding breaks when I need to just relax and let go, I cook. That said, making dishes for my wife and I during the week don't take that much time (in the aggregate).
Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate
#8I can't imagine this service helping me. It would easily double my ingredients' costs, and I enjoy planning and cooking meals myself.
However, one related problem I have is the accumulation of ingredients. Something I cooked yesterday called for mustard, apple cider vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce. Now I have enough of each to last a decade, and as a college student in NYC, space is at a premium. I wonder if there is room for innovation here.
Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate
#9Why cooking is viewed as difficult thing to do in US ? I see many people get surprised when I say we cook daily .
Going a step further, I cook multiple times a day. Although now that I'm going to the office, I mealprep so I cook meals in advance. But I'm still cooking at least once a day. If I had to guess, I'd say the reason Americans think cooking is hard is because they leave home at 7am so they can be at work by 9am. Then work until 5pm, and make it home by 7pm. And cooking, while not hard, does take time. Not much time in t…
I agree, mealprepping really helps a lot and I do it too.
I think, as you and justwannasing already mentioned, part of the problem is really a lack of time. We went from spending a large part of our time sourcing food (hunting), to growing it (agriculture), then dramatically reduced this when we moved to mass produced and widely available food in supermarkets.
What's this led to? More free time to...work. But if work becomes more decentralized and people work from home then it could lead to more of us cooking.
Re: The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate
#10Why cooking is viewed as difficult thing to do in US ? I see many people get surprised when I say we cook daily .
Going a step further, I cook multiple times a day. Although now that I'm going to the office, I mealprep so I cook meals in advance. But I'm still cooking at least once a day. If I had to guess, I'd say the reason Americans think cooking is hard is because they leave home at 7am so they can be at work by 9am. Then work until 5pm, and make it home by 7pm. And cooking, while not hard, does take time. Not much time in t…
Even with my relatively slacker-ish schedule of up at 7, work by 730, leave at 430, pick up son at daycare, home by 515, it can be fairly challenging to cook some days. Especially if you haven't planned things out in advance.
That said, it's crazy expensive to eat out all the time. We probably cut our yearly budget by a healthy $2500 just by cutting down on takeout. And there is some true joy that comes from knowing that you are the reason your wife and child have smiles on their faces at the dinner table. Even if you did it with a meal kit rather than shopping for ingredients yourself, who am I to pooh pooh that.