FOOD FOR THOUGHT: The Corporate Assault on Cooking

Television commercials and magazine advertisements have always annoyed me, particularly those that send a negative message about food and cooking. One such commercial I saw the other day instructed the viewer to take a vacation this summer, and to "have fun." Well, the vacation they spoke of was not a literal one, but one from your kitchen. Basically they were telling their audience not to cook for themselves, but to eat their crappy pre-fabricated food.

This got me thinking, and it reminded me of an advertisement that I saw some time ago in a food-related magazine, one that affected me greatly. I saved it for a while and even tacked it to the wall in my office, and every so often I think of the social vulgarity of this particular ad.

In this ad was a picture of an "average-looking man" standing next to a stack of cookbooks that was taller than he was, and he was smiling this bazaar smile and holding a package of fully cooked chicken breasts. The text in the ad espoused the virtues of the busy American using this convenience food product.

This in itself isn't what bothered me, I understand living in a busy household and the need for a certain amount of convenience products. What really disturbed me, though, was how it also stated that they have "taken all of the adventure out of cooking," and that their chicken breasts were delicious even "without all of the fun of starting from scratch." And this, I thought to myself, is supposed to be a good thing? It was written in such a way that the words "fun" and "adventure," when connected to cooking, were used in a negative manner.

Cooking, of course, can be extremely fun and adventuresome. Like most advertisements, this was telling the reader to buy their products, but they were also trying to convey the message that cooking was a chore, that it was a nuisance in our hectic lives, and that it was no longer even necessary. In this author's opinion a person should cook as often as they can, but that's easy to say coming from someone who does it for a living.

There are, of course, many reasons a person chooses to cook. Some cook simply to supply themselves with their daily meals, and some cook purely for enjoyment, as a hobby. There are also those who get paid to cook professionally. Obviously some of these reasons meld together and are not entirely distinct. A person, for example, may cook because they need to, but also because it brings them joy and satisfaction.

Though what is truly sad to me is that some people cook very little, or worse yet, not at all. It is, after all, one of the most basic skills in life. When a person cooks they supply themselves with a meal, and also act upon a primal instinct -- the ability to cook foods is one of the distinctions that separates man from beast.

The unfortunate truth is that in this age one needn't have these skills to survive, since a non-cook has endless options for their meals. Cooking is no longer a skill that is passed from one generation to the next. The abundance of restaurants and grocery stores that offer prepared foods is enough to make a person shun the task all together, not to mention the almost infinite heat-and-serve foods that are readily available.

Some choose not to cook because they may view it as drudgery (I've actually met a few "professional" cooks who, believe it or not, don't like to cook), while others, I'm told, find it somewhat intimidating. It's sort of a paradox, actually -- less people cook at home than ever before yet at the same time cookbooks are best sellers, the Food Network never stops, and some American chefs have become veritable celebrities. If you think about it, though, this is actually not that surprising. Many American families have dual incomes, which leaves little time for making dinner (I read a report somewhere -- and I can't remember where -- but it made the prediction that by the year 2025 some new homes will actually be built without kitchens, that they will be an option).