A fresh food rant.

I was just reading Michael Ruhlman's post about Americans being too stupid to cook, which is a reflection of this article from the NY Times about appliances that are appearing with one touch buttons (ie; expanding the idea of the "popcorn" button on microwaves to other kinds of foods). Michael implies that it is insulting to the average American for appliance people to put these features into play.

Sadly, I have to say that more and more I am confronted with people who don't even possess basic cooking skills like emulsifying a basic salad dressing, or making a properly cooked piece of meat. Baking cookies from scratch seems to be a passe activity anymore with the plague of cut and bake, preservative laden dough in the supermarkets. Personally, I am appalled, and until I started throwing dinner parties, thought that everyone at least possessed basic skills. One touch appliances are hardly surprising, albeit completely disheartening.

Unfortunately society at large is consumed with fast foods, both outside and inside the home. Now, I won't lie and say that I never ever grab fast food, but 95% of the time I cook at home and fast food is never as satisfying as the experience of "real" food. So many times I see people's idea of cooking as how many cans and boxes of whatever they can combine to make a thing, using ingredients that keep food shelf stable and come in mass quantities, consistently forgoing quality for quantity. There is a total disconnect between where the food comes from and how it gets to your table. Most times people don't know where the food was even farmed, or the quality of life your meat had before it landed in your shopping cart. I've seen sad situations where I have offered a delicious, from scratch meal with real terroir to someone, and had it turned down in favor of boxed, canned, high-preservative food. It is saddening to know that pasteurized, dumbed down, canned, and boxed "no-think" food is more popular than cooking from scratch in this country. Frankly, when you taste the difference between freshly grated Parmesan, and the stuff in the green container, it really makes you wonder how you could not put in a touch of extra effort to grate the real stuff for yourself instead. The list goes on.

This is a crime.

Forget about health care reforms. Let's go back to our roots, so to speak. Ditch the boxes, the cans, and the injected meat. Take funding away from the meat factories, and give it to the local farmers. Spend money teaching people how to eat and cook real food. Forget cooking with one finger, and learn to cook for real.