4 ms·
As someone who likes to cook but generally doesn't, I feel the problem is how this scales per mouths to feed. Cooking for 1 or cooking for 5 doesn't involve mu
by Lawtonfogle 12y ago
As someone who likes to cook but generally doesn't, I feel the problem is how this scales per mouths to feed.
Cooking for 1 or cooking for 5 doesn't involve much increase in the total time (5 sets of eating dishes instead of 1 and slightly larger cookware to clean) and has a slight decrease in price per mouth (buying food items in bulk is cheaper). Now I could cook big meals for just myself to eat 5 times along with buying in bulk, but this means a significant loss in freshness and variety (eating the same meal 5 times a week, 4 of those reheated, and bulk items mean the same core ingredients for multiple weeks). Finally top this off with the notion that more mouths to feed tend to mean more bodies to help cook/clean, and I personally find that this tips the scales to making cooking far less worthwhile when you are doing it by yourself for yourself.
- eldavido 12y agogirlfriend and joke how despite being "modern" people we still have pretty traditional division of labor: she cooks, i manage money. it works for us. i agree that it's much better when you have a few people doing the scale-invariant tasks for each other.
- contingencies 12y agoThis is how I look at it too. The shopping and transport overhead for ingredients, plus the overhead of time paying bills and stocking a kitchen in the first place is nontrivial also. Basically you need 2 people to make it work nicely, unless you're a foodie or are so used to cooking that you enjoy the shop/cart/unpack/retrieve/prepare/cook/clean cycle as meditation. Three or more is better.
- mollysmith 12y agoYou could freeze part of your leftovers or if you have friends/family/neighbors who cook, you could trade leftovers with them. It's still reheated, but at least you get more variety.