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I guess I’m crazy, but I enjoy the forced break from modern life that the ancient ritual of cooking dinner brings. That’s not to say that I’m always stoked to c

I guess I’m crazy, but I enjoy the forced break from modern life that the ancient ritual of cooking dinner brings. That’s not to say that I’m always stoked to cook, but I don’t dislike it and am almost always happy with the results. I’m all for new ingenious things, but I also like to be in touch with age old traditions. Heh, I use vim too tho, so go figure.

FussyZeus 7y ago
I wonder how much of this is due to the proliferation of ridiculous recipes from the 70's and 80's. Like so much of that stuff is unhealthy as hell, takes FOREVER to make and involves a list of ingredients longer than my leg. Meanwhile I can bang out a rosemary chicken that's low calorie and delicious in like 10 minutes of actual work and a half an hour playing games on my couch, and steam up some vegetables to go with it with 5 minutes on the microwave. Cooking is not even remotely hard but if you tell my mom that she'll flip, but that's because she has whole cookbooks full of this stuff where the prep time is measured in HOURS. And it's just like, why are you making this so hard on yourself?
- shantly 7y ago
  Throw in all those Food Network chefs whose recipe books are full of ingredients you're, realistically, only ever gonna use for that one recipe, and the leftovers of which'll—let's face it—just end up sitting around cluttering your pantry or fridge until they go bad.
  - FussyZeus 7y ago
    That can go either way. The ones during the prime time hours like Alton Brown tend to be more practical recipes. It's the ones during like the 10am slot that do the complicated shit (which kinda makes sense since the people most likely to be watching those shows at that time are stay-at-home-moms).
- porknubbins 7y ago
  Well modern America has no real food culture. Most countries combine the same 5 local staples like rice, vegetables meat, local seasonings etc so they always have it on hand and know how to easily make something. Here check an Nytimes recipe and it will have you doing hours of prep and ridiculous steps like getting one pan out and dirty just to slightly toast something to make it restaurant quality presentation. Don’t get me wrong I love that detailed stuff because cooking is an escape and relaxing for me but there is no easy first step for most people to acquire a few simple recipes and techniques that they can execute quickly here so they go for instant gratification frozen food boxes.
  - shantly 7y ago
    > Well modern America has no real food culture. Most countries combine the same 5 local staples like rice, vegetables meat, local seasonings etc so they always have it on hand and know how to easily make something. Glad you threw in "modern". We do have regional food cultures but they're too boring for most people, especially if you do it right and shift the menu with the season ("Stew and cornbread? Again?" well yes, it's Winter, want a side of hardy greens to go with it? "ew, catfish! Gross!" yes, that's... what's around. What, you want mahi mahi?). We want more variety and to eat all kinds of produce year-round. You can just pick any "ethnic" cuisine (especially if it has a similar climate to the one you're in) and get like results, but people in the US don't do that either, mostly, probably for the same reasons: that they'd start to find it too dull, or would prefer not to eat so many of the dishes for one reason or another that they'd have to sub in others from other cuisines to make up for it.
  - opportune 7y ago
    I guess there isn’t an absolute default culturally, but it’s not that hard to get started making basic food. I think most people are just lazy / get anxiety about things they don’t know how to start. When I first started cooking I mostly just baked or pan fried meat, microwaves or sautéed vegetables, and made slow cooker chili / other soups. Maybe that doesn’t fit most people’s definition of cooking but IMO there is nothing wrong with a dinner of (seasoned) baked chicken thighs with some microwaved frozen broccoli. It takes like 5 minutes of actual work too.

FussyZeus 7y ago

I wonder how much of this is due to the proliferation of ridiculous recipes from the 70's and 80's. Like so much of that stuff is unhealthy as hell, takes FOREVER to make and involves a list of ingredients longer than my leg. Meanwhile I can bang out a rosemary chicken that's low calorie and delicious in like 10 minutes of actual work and a half an hour playing games on my couch, and steam up some vegetables to go with it with 5 minutes on the microwave. Cooking is not even remotely hard but if you tell my mom that she'll flip, but that's because she has whole cookbooks full of this stuff where the prep time is measured in HOURS. And it's just like, why are you making this so hard on yourself?

shantly 7y ago
Throw in all those Food Network chefs whose recipe books are full of ingredients you're, realistically, only ever gonna use for that one recipe, and the leftovers of which'll—let's face it—just end up sitting around cluttering your pantry or fridge until they go bad.
- FussyZeus 7y ago
  That can go either way. The ones during the prime time hours like Alton Brown tend to be more practical recipes. It's the ones during like the 10am slot that do the complicated shit (which kinda makes sense since the people most likely to be watching those shows at that time are stay-at-home-moms).
porknubbins 7y ago
Well modern America has no real food culture. Most countries combine the same 5 local staples like rice, vegetables meat, local seasonings etc so they always have it on hand and know how to easily make something. Here check an Nytimes recipe and it will have you doing hours of prep and ridiculous steps like getting one pan out and dirty just to slightly toast something to make it restaurant quality presentation. Don’t get me wrong I love that detailed stuff because cooking is an escape and relaxing for me but there is no easy first step for most people to acquire a few simple recipes and techniques that they can execute quickly here so they go for instant gratification frozen food boxes.
- shantly 7y ago
  > Well modern America has no real food culture. Most countries combine the same 5 local staples like rice, vegetables meat, local seasonings etc so they always have it on hand and know how to easily make something. Glad you threw in "modern". We do have regional food cultures but they're too boring for most people, especially if you do it right and shift the menu with the season ("Stew and cornbread? Again?" well yes, it's Winter, want a side of hardy greens to go with it? "ew, catfish! Gross!" yes, that's... what's around. What, you want mahi mahi?). We want more variety and to eat all kinds of produce year-round. You can just pick any "ethnic" cuisine (especially if it has a similar climate to the one you're in) and get like results, but people in the US don't do that either, mostly, probably for the same reasons: that they'd start to find it too dull, or would prefer not to eat so many of the dishes for one reason or another that they'd have to sub in others from other cuisines to make up for it.
- opportune 7y ago
  I guess there isn’t an absolute default culturally, but it’s not that hard to get started making basic food. I think most people are just lazy / get anxiety about things they don’t know how to start. When I first started cooking I mostly just baked or pan fried meat, microwaves or sautéed vegetables, and made slow cooker chili / other soups. Maybe that doesn’t fit most people’s definition of cooking but IMO there is nothing wrong with a dinner of (seasoned) baked chicken thighs with some microwaved frozen broccoli. It takes like 5 minutes of actual work too.