is home cooking going into decline?

[MSM Hobbes]

Well, I can just barely squeak by. Nothing glamorous, and nothing I care for others to see me make. But it's sort of edible.

Hee. Thanks. *fingers crossed*

Don't dispair - make a game of it. As long as its edible, its good!
Seriously, start w/ basics, such as browning some burger in a pan, making some mac & cheese in another, and then mixing the two together, maybe adding some other spices to make it your own creation.

 

[Cybix]

install an iMac in the kitchen maybe that will encourage folk to cook their own food. It's just so fun!

most people see cooking as a chore, one that takes up too much TIME, then there's the cleaning up afterwards, etc...

 

[njmac]

install an iMac in the kitchen maybe that will encourage folk to cook their own food. It's just so fun!

most people see cooking as a chore, one that takes up too much TIME, then there's the cleaning up afterwards, etc...

I have to admit, I HATE the cleaning up part. We have quite a few one pot meals in my house

 

[sushi]

oh, where do I start...

I think a good way is to start off easy.

Things like macaroni and cheese, or a hamburger helper dinner. Fairly simple to do. Easy instructions. Makes it easy for the beginner to see results.

Salads can be fun too. Preparing the vegetables and such. Then you can get fancy by adding meats, seafood, cheeses, etc. to make it more adventuresome.

Soups are another fun one. So many options. Focus on broth and go from there.

Sandwiches. Another area with lots of options. Start off with simple cheese sandwiches and grow from there.

Breakfast items. Fry up some eggs in different styles. Add a small piece of steak/sausage/beacon and some toast. Or pancakes. Or get some instant oatmeal then add some fruit that you prepare. Omelets -- one of my favorite to prepare. Although I find when I am out of practice the first one is a burner! But I love making different kinds of omelets. So many different ingredients can be prepared and used.

Man, I am getting hungry just thinking about all the good food I could make right now. Arg! I really think that the best way to get started is just start out easy and then get more creative. Oh, and don't be in a rush. Start out cooking when you have time to explore and experiment.

 

[Marble]

Cooking for one can be quite a chore, so what I typically do is cook a full crock pot or casserole dish of something healthy and tasty (a good lasagna or soup, for example), freeze half of it, and then I have enough food to last a week or more. Sometimes I add shorter-term side-dishes like cooked + spiced meat, salads, guacamole with burritos, etc. to keep myself from seeing it too simply as sustenance. It works great and I rarely spend more than three or four hours total each week preparing food.

Of course, this means that a microwave is absolutely essential for me... not for prepackaged food but to quickly reheat portions without warming up everything and repeatedly damaging the texture.

Healthy too!

 

[redmeister]

i dont think so... i know me and a bunch of my friends have been cooking a lot more recently and grilling etc

fast food is all the same these days and isnt as healthy anyways (save for a few)

i actually like cooking and bein able to come up with diff meals. new "hobby" if you will, but a necessity bc youre still feeding yourself

 

[bousozoku]

I believe so.

Even when a lot of people "cook", it seems that they're generally warming something. There are so many easy things to pick from the grocery store.

I don't remember the last time I fixed lasagna from scratch. When I cook, it takes hours in preparation and mostly with western foods, hours to cook or bake.

I'm not sure some families have ever had a home-cooked meal but it would be a good thing if they even did a microwave oven meal together. The thing is, when done right, there is nothing better than the smells and anticipation of a good meal.

Being here in Floriduh, I find that most people eat out more than 1 day per week. I'm not sure how you can take a family to eat that way because the "casual dining" places are fairly expensive. The food doesn't seem worth it but the cleanup is easy.

 

[SC68Cal]

The younger generation doesn't have time to cook for themselves. They don't have the patience for it.

And old people always complain about the younger generation.

Both over-generalizations.

I cook almost every night.

 

[Cybix]

I have to admit, I HATE the cleaning up part. We have quite a few one pot meals in my house

thats funny, but not that funny, coz when I cook I attempt to use items that i can just throw in the dishwasher afterwards... also hate to clean up!

 

[kretzy]

I think it's a real shame that more people don't cook proper food at home. Here in Australia it seems that most people still cook at home a fair bit. Eating out is certainly popular but after having worked at a supermarket for a few years it appears that most people still buy a fair amount of unprocessed food.

It's really not that hard to chop up a a few veges, fry them up with a bit of meat, add a bit of sauce and cook some rice up in the microwave. 20mins later you have a nice stir-fry ready. Sure this isn't gourmet food but it sure as hell beats the frozen rubbish that you can buy. But sometimes when there isn't even 20 mins I can understand going for something pre-packaged.

What I find really scary is some of the "recipes" you find on the internet, that are essentially a combination of several pre-packaged products eg:

Pumpkin Pie:
1 Pie Crust
1 Can pumpkin filling
1 Can Cool Whip

I'm sorry, but that to me is NOT A RECIPE, but then I love cooking so I guess not everyone will agree.

 

[SMM]

oh, where do I start...

I am trying to educate parents in my neighborhood on how to cook. I give cooking lessons and I'm astonished at what complete crap people feed their kids.

We have all of these convenient products that are suppose to make our lives easier and free up our time. They do. But what are we doing with all of the free time that was once spent on cooking and sitting down to a family meal? We work more and spend LESS time with our families. Once upon a time, we use to prepare meals out of real ingredients and a lot of times we were spending time with family to prepare the meals, and sit and eat together.

EDIT:I'm also working on a cooking website. Hopefully it will be ready in a few weeks, it will be CookingHacks.com but I'm so bad at altering wordpress themes, I may just put my site up with a standard template.

Good for you. I learned to cook, as did all of my siblings, at a very early age. Mom did not shoo you from the kitchen, she put you to work. By the time I was 10, I knew most of the basics of cooking.

Nowadays, many people think that pulling something from the freezer and reheating it is cooking. The same is true with all of the pre-fabricated meals. Most are better than MacJunk food. However, I think that there is a declining population in urban America (at least) of people who actually can cook from scratch. Too bad really. I love cooking, especially for others.

 

[Abstract]

Well, I can just barely squeak by. Nothing glamorous, and nothing I care for others to see me make. But it's sort of edible.

I can cook a fantastic take-out.


Otherwise, I'm the pasta-masta!

 

[Father Jack]

Unfortunately yes.


We are lucky enough here to have Mrs Doyle to do the cooking.

FJ

 

[bousozoku]

And old people always complain about the younger generation.

Both over-generalizations.

I cook almost every night.

Okay, I'll bite. What do you cook when you cook?

 

[SC68Cal]

Well, tonight I just did a quick recipe. Chicken with a Thai Red Curry Sauce + Rice.

Other famous dishes include meat lasagna, steak with beans & rice, and a Turkey with onions and mushrooms in a white wine sauce. I have a huge cook book that I keep forgetting to bring with me to the super market to actually buy the needed ingredients, so I end up making one of those recipes :-\

I'm quite proud of myself. I've been getting home from work at 8:30 PM and still decide to cook. I'm glad that I'm going to be able to go back to a regular schedule, returning home around 5:30 pm. Barely enough time for anything when you get home at close to 9

 

[bousozoku]

Well, tonight I just did a quick recipe. Chicken with a Thai Red Curry Sauce + Rice.

Other famous dishes include meat lasagna, steak with beans & rice, and a Turkey with onions and mushrooms in a white wine sauce. I have a huge cook book that I keep forgetting to bring with me to the super market to actually buy the needed ingredients, so I end up making one of those recipes :-\

I'm quite proud of myself. I've been getting home from work at 8:30 PM and still decide to cook. I'm glad that I'm going to be able to go back to a regular schedule, returning home around 5:30 pm. Barely enough time for anything when you get home at close to 9

That's great.

When I lived around Philly, I was more apt to grocery shop every day and cook fresh meals. A lot of people felt the same way because the grocery stores were always packed. It's also somewhat odd because Philly has some great restaurants.

When I go to the grocery store here around 6 - 7 p.m., people have deli food or doughnuts or beer.

 

[MentalFabric]

With an American dad and having spent a lot of time there other than growing up in the UK I could see how it could be a lot 'harder' to cook in the states than in the UK, in that it's quite a lot harder to buy foods that haven't been tampered with before you start using them (most frequently adding salt/sugar to absolutely everything) but I suppose in the end that's just down to consumer preference and it gets more and more like that here every year with products like those sausages on a stick wrapped in chocolate chip pancakes that jon stewart mentioned being released more regularly

I cook about 75% of my meals from scratch but the rest of the time premade pasta sauces are too tempting. I think there must be an end to the vastly scaling obesety rates, and when that comes people will learn to enjoy cooking again, strangly enough

 

[floriflee]

The younger generation doesn't have time to cook for themselves. They don't have the patience for it.

Seems to be the case.

Cooking a nice meal takes time and effort. Easier and quicker to just purchase something they can nuke or to go out.

I don't completely agree. Yes, it is more convenient to go out to eat because someone else is doing all the work while you sit there and relax or whatever, but it's not necessarily a time saver when you take into consideration the time in transit, the time you wait for a table (if you're eating at a restaurant rather than getting fast food), the time to look through the menu/order, the time for the meal to be prepared, etc. In the long run the time it takes to actually go somewhere and eat you could have already eaten, done the dishes, and moved on for a fraction of the cost. There are plenty of delicious and quick meals that can be made, and lots of little tricks to minimize the amount of time spent in the kitchen (i.e. crockpots, freezing leftovers, plan-ahead meal places like Let's Dish, etc). To use the excuse that today's generation doesn't have the time or patience for it is a bit of a cop out IMHO. There is always time to make something good/healthy/filling. Cooking is like exercising. Everyone has time for it, but most people opt to take that time and fill it with some other form of recreation (and sometimes work).

With that said, the hubby and I are currently eating out once a week, maybe twice if we're meeting up with friends or something. I make lunches for him to take to work four days a week--the fifth day he goes out with work buddies or grabs something while running errands. I also usually make my own lunch each day. Every couple of weeks or so my sister-in-law will come over and we'll go out somewhere.

Before we got married we ate out a lot more--partly out of laziness and partly out of just not wanting to cook for 1 or 2 people and have tons of leftovers we'd never get through. After we got married we decided the money spent going out could be better used elsewhere and we got smarter with our cooking--weekly meal-planning, halfing recipes, using our crockpot and using cookbooks with recipes made for two people. Our schedules don't feel any more crowded than before and our bank account is happier.

 

[MultiM]

My wife and I have home made dinner every night. We seldom eat out mainly because we are lazy. The meals we prepare aren't necessarily the best quality, but they fill the hole. We do try to eat lots of veggies and less pasta now though. Gettin' old, doncha know.

We can cook up an amazing feast when we have friends or family over. I grill a mean steak and she makes a wicked roast beef and yorkshire pudding.

 

[arkitect]

As long as I can get the ingredients I'll not stop cooking.
Saturday at the Farmers Market - get a fat chicken... fresh veg... tasty in front of the fireplace in winter. Gives us time to talk and just enjoy each other's company.

Not that we don't eat out — but a decent restaurant is a very different animal from a fast-food place...

But nothing beats cooking at home. And best of all you know what goes into it. No preservatives. No mystery meats. And lotsa love

 

[Lau]

It's interesting. I love cooking and cooking from scratch, but it is noticably more difficult to buy the ingredients to do so. I currently live within walking distance of two Tesco Express/Metro or whatever they are (small "city" supermarkets) aand they're worse than useless for ingredients and things you can cook with. There's two Scotmids nearby, and they're slightly better, but not much.

I've discovered the best way to get decent ingredients is to pop out to the nice greengrocer in my lunch break (as it's shut by the time I leave work) and then walk a slight detour home past other greengrocers, the Chinese supermarket, Polish delis and so on.

This works really well for me, but it is more of a hassle, and if it's raining it's very easy to say sod it and leg it home past the Tesco. Which is evil, and has no food on the effing shelves, and always pisses me off because it's so busy, and I have to wait ages to buy food that I don't really want to eat, and certainly can't be arsed to buy. But because it is so busy, it's obvious that's easier and quicker for everyone else too, and that's kind of sad. Partly because a walk home with the iPod on and a bit of chat with the guys in the shops is nice, but also because anyone who's trying to learn how to cook in the centre of a city is going to get frustrated as hell using the crappy little supermarkets. Buying a ready made meal which is cheaper, quicker and probably tastes better than something they've managed to make out of the meagre choice at the supermarket isn't going to tempt them towards cooking. Which is a great shame.

 

[kainjow]

I would definitely say cooking is declining in the US, where advertisers slam "on the go" foods in your face every day. Gogurt?

I don't eat frozen dinners, but I do prepare meals. Not raw, like bake the bread and churn the butter, but I do make sandwiches often (mm fried bologna), and do simple/basic cooking from boxed stuff. Nothing fancy though.

 

[nbs2]

The younger generation doesn't have time to cook for themselves. They don't have the patience for it.

Wrong. Right.

24 hours is the same 24 hours it was 10, 20, 40, 80 years ago (ignoring slight changes to the rotational speed of the planet). It's just an issue of priorities. Watching <fill in TV show> is more important than taking the time to cook and eat as a family, forcing convenient foods that don't require watching. I admit that Lori and I have degenerated to eating on the couch instead of at the table, but we are trying to go back.

 

[SC68Cal]

My family always ate together, even when both my sister and I had sports and we'd come home a little later.

No TV, no music, no telephone calls.

It really was great to have that reliability, and the chance to connect with one another.

Even though we drove each other nuts.

 

[macOSX-tastic]

i am a 19 y/o student....and i beleive cooking is fantaastic, especially good healthy tasty stuff......there isnt anything better than good quality food. i have had my share of readymeals and takeaways, which kind of goes without saying because of my "busy student life" but i aim to cook as much as possible...i enjoy it too. there's just something about preparing your own food, like the self satisfaction you get.

its also great to eat out at restaurants occasionally

S