From the New York Times : author Michael Pollan. An Article entitled Out of the Kitchen and Onto the Couch.
First mentioned is the fact of a television show that his mom had learned many recipes from. And tried them out on her family. The show intitled The French Chef , where Julia Child was the host. Showed housewifes and tv viewers how to cook some gormet and not so gormet meals. Housewifes could watch a show and not have to read a cook book. And Julia showed how much fun it could be to Cook. Adding a flare to the idea of cooking. The show being heartfelt made it more realistic.
A Movie had come out about Julia Childs life, in the movie a section tells a story of a writer living in Queens, who decides to do a story on Julia Childs cooking methods and the actual cooking. By writing about and cooking some 524 recipes in 365 days. It turns out to be a great article to write about and fun to do. Shows how a working girl can cook and work all at the same time.
The article blends itself into the Food Network show on television. In which some 100 million American homes and most night commands more viewers than any of the cable news channels.
Its tells of the competion between Top Chefs on telvision and how people have to know or will challenge each other to guess who will win the cooking contest. They might even try a recipe or two and challenge each other. But one thing is certain , we find ourselves watching more cooking shows and we have the convenience of Fast Foods , home-meal replacements , to name a few ,than have replaced our desire to cook at home or to follow the recipe we just seen on a TV cooking show.
Today's society, in which many woman of the household have to work, do to the economy has caused woman to find it easier to let the food industry create ways to make our work in the kitchen far easier, faster and almost to the point of not having to cook at all. We have new technology that it easier for the woman to give up long hours in the kitchen. More time for watching there favorite shows or being out in the working world.
The author speaks more about the Julia Child show and how it was alot more fun to watch her than some of the more modern cooking shows , which show only instant things. He tells of how Julia added a sprit of her own to cooking and gave to housewifes courage to actually do or try some new recipes. Cooking to Julia was gratifying, and she even broke a sweat when embarrsed by dropping something. The author compares her roll on a cooking show with others , who barely do any work at all. One book published The Feminine Mystique, showed that cooking can be a drudgery. Unlike that fun in the kitchen with Julia Child. Toss it up let it land, if you miss it . Oh well you can always make a new one or wash it and keep on cooking.
In todays society we have redifined cooking from scratch. Everything in premade packages, instant form mixes. We hardly have to lift a finger to get the meal we like to have in little as 3 minutes. Harry Balzer explained "people call things cooking" today that would cause our grandmothers to roll over in there grave.
In our fast paste world in which we live people are out to save time and money. The author states that 58 % of the people still cook evening meals, but the number is steadily dropping.
Some of the cooking shows turn into a mans world at night. Even stealing the sports watchers.
The food networks such as Iron Chef of America tend to keep the male population interested in watching televsion cooking shows. They love the competion created by these shows.
Buying not making is what cooking shows are mostly about in present day time.
Cooking shows are now causing men to be more interested in who is doing the cooking then what is being cooked. The cooking show has helped transform cooking into something you watch instead of something you do. TV dinner advertisements keep us in front of the tv wishing and wanting to go cook something but we dont want to get off the couch. So say during a commercial be great time to have a swanson tv dinner handy to pop in microwave. And we can get right back to what we where watching and it will also fill us up.
The end of cooking, is shown by the fact that us americans spend more time working than any other country in the world. So that leaves us less time for cooking and relaxing after a meal. Our industrial revaloution has though kept up with the times. Cooking shows to help us maintain the ideas of good cooking and fast food products so we can at least take some time to eat and enjoy what we are eating. Do to the fact it was so easy to prepare. We learned that cooking can be pleasureable but does not pay the rent. So its ok to eat mass produce products, its just a part of the modern world in which we live.
The Cooking Animal: In this section the author demonstrates, that Men still have a cave man animal instink about them. Cooking has come out of the kitchen and onto an outdoor grill. Something in us likes to remind us our our distant origin. In modern times cooked food takes alot less time to chew and digest than as with our ancestor. The cooked food was better for our health. Men love to cook on the grill and claim they are the great chef. Food cooked right before your eyes. Cooked food gives us more time to spend on other things beside gathering food and having to chew it for hours on end.
Cooking also gave us the practice of eating together at a certain time. Backyard babecue weekends. Creating socialism, such as we do now a days as we gather as service stations to grab a quick bite to eat. Pop whatever fast food we find in a microwave and eat on the run.
The fact that food is so easily prepared has caused us to eat more often. Its so convenient to just eat something already prepared. We do it more often than perhaps we notice. According to some statitics the number of meals americans eat in one day has climbed to eating a half of meal more per day than in 1977. Yes it for sure has taken its course in causing some Americans to become obeast.The Journal of the American Dietetic association found that poor woman who routinely cooked were more likely toeat a more healthful diet than well to do woman who did not.
So cooking does matter, very much so. When co-operations do the cooking, our health can be effected in an adverse way if we are not carefull. They tend to add sugar,fat and salt which our bodies get hard wired to crave. They use these ingredients because they are inexpensive for them to purchase. And can cause us to be addditive to simply by the chemical makeup in our bodies.
Will it be possible to reverse this effect of the large food companies, and return to good old home cooked meals. Only if we all come to realize just how much the food industry has turned our life's into an all most human machine. Just oil it or feed it fuel and it will work. People are generally cheap and Lazy so it will be hard to reboot our system of fast food back to basics. One way is some of the grocery stores have delivery service. (PeaPod) You shop online and food is deliverd. Though not totally a method that we have to prepare the food, or grow or cook it. But at least its not cooked out of the home.
Who will teach the next generation to cook. They will be living in a world of a whole new style of food and cooking. Instant world will be what they live in. Programing cpts to create food will be the next generation. I personally do not see us returning to hunting for our food. Or long hours in the kitchen. Americans have grown use to fast,convenient, simple ways to cook. Yes now and then we try to follow some gormet cook on televisions receipe. But we rather have had someone else do it and we just pop it in a microwave or oven to heat and eat.
The author ends with just cook it yourself no matter what it is. But I do not see that happening anytime soon.
The Cooking Animal: In this section the author demonstrates, that Men still have a cave man animal instink about them. Cooking has come out of the kitchen and onto an outdoor grill. Something in us likes to remind us our our distant origin. In modern times cooked food takes alot less time to chew and digest than as with our ancestor. The cooked food was better for our health. Men love to cook on the grill and claim they are the great chef. Food cooked right before your eyes. Cooked food gives us more time to spend on other things beside gathering food and having to chew it for hours on end.
Cooking also gave us the practice of eating together at a certain time. Backyard babecue weekends. Creating socialism, such as we do now a days as we gather as service stations to grab a quick bite to eat. Pop whatever fast food we find in a microwave and eat on the run.
The fact that food is so easily prepared has caused us to eat more often. Its so convenient to just eat something already prepared. We do it more often than perhaps we notice. According to some statitics the number of meals americans eat in one day has climbed to eating a half of meal more per day than in 1977. Yes it for sure has taken its course in causing some Americans to become obeast.The Journal of the American Dietetic association found that poor woman who routinely cooked were more likely toeat a more healthful diet than well to do woman who did not.
So cooking does matter, very much so. When co-operations do the cooking, our health can be effected in an adverse way if we are not carefull. They tend to add sugar,fat and salt which our bodies get hard wired to crave. They use these ingredients because they are inexpensive for them to purchase. And can cause us to be addditive to simply by the chemical makeup in our bodies.
Will it be possible to reverse this effect of the large food companies, and return to good old home cooked meals. Only if we all come to realize just how much the food industry has turned our life's into an all most human machine. Just oil it or feed it fuel and it will work. People are generally cheap and Lazy so it will be hard to reboot our system of fast food back to basics. One way is some of the grocery stores have delivery service. (PeaPod) You shop online and food is deliverd. Though not totally a method that we have to prepare the food, or grow or cook it. But at least its not cooked out of the home.
Who will teach the next generation to cook. They will be living in a world of a whole new style of food and cooking. Instant world will be what they live in. Programing cpts to create food will be the next generation. I personally do not see us returning to hunting for our food. Or long hours in the kitchen. Americans have grown use to fast,convenient, simple ways to cook. Yes now and then we try to follow some gormet cook on televisions receipe. But we rather have had someone else do it and we just pop it in a microwave or oven to heat and eat.
The author ends with just cook it yourself no matter what it is. But I do not see that happening anytime soon.
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