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Somebody has to stand up and speak up! And since I see no one coming to the fore, it falls to me, alas to carry the message that we, chefs of the land, are being abused and derided. We must speak up and demand the justice that we are entitled to, lest future generations think we laid down and gave up without a fight. Our very digestive evolution is at stake!
Well, now that you are properly awakened to the seriousness of this post, let me relax a bit and set the stage.
I was a baby of the 50’s and so forth. It was in those dark ages of the past that certain greedy business types yearned to make money off the backs of American labor by instituting what they called “helps,” for women mostly. This took the expression in the past of things like vacuum cleaners, iceboxes, electric stoves and motorized washing machines. All pretty heady stuff.
But they had to go to food. What do women want? Less time in the kitchen! Perhaps they should have stuck to things like microwaves and appliances, dish washers, and cleaning materials, but no, they had to address food itself.
And of course they did. Today, any trip to the grocery store finds that around the perimeter of said building one finds food, identifiable as such, and the rest of the place is filled with boxed and frozen things that purport to be food. Whether we are compromised health wise is a big question, but not one we are addressing today.
No, we are addressing the unconscionable practice of equating boxed food with “creating a meal.” And I’m not prepared to let them get away with it any longer. The manufacturers, abetted by the ad agencies, have conspired to give people the impression that serving boxed food at a table with silverware constitutes “meal preparation.”
NO! “I OBJECT.” Point of order Mr. Parliamentarian.
Recently, I’ve noticed a few examples of this lie. Just the other day, someone reported that in a recent survey by some organization, that some 60% of households reported that “family” meals were eaten (not fast food) 4-5 times a week. I say BULL!
If it’s anything like what I see on TV commercials about “family meals” than it is nothing more than opening boxes and heating, wetting, or otherwise mixing up prepackaged stuff and calling it food.
A commercial the other day is a case in point. One is taken to Italy, and shopping for the ripest most perfect tomatoes, the perfect onions. Said material is sauteed and stirred on the stoves for some hours and then poured over lovely pasta. Except that the point of the ad is that one can achieve the same perfection by opening up this frozen package, microwaving, draining and combining two separate packets. One then is getting the same as the home made Italian sauce.
WHO ARE YOU KIDDING? The way to eat wholesome homemade food is to buy it in a frozen box and heat it up? I don’t think so.
Another case in point. A frazzled family. Mom and Dad are busy and the kids are busy. They realize the need for family meals. They gather together in the kitchen and “cook” together. There is sharing and bonding. There is STOUFFER’S LASAGNA! Heat that up mom and see the squeals of delight at the “home cooked” meal you prepared!
Home cooked my eye. You can’t push this crap off on me as food.
Okay, okay, so it is food of a sort. And yes, I too have imbibed such fare from time to time. I don’t think it’s wrong to eat such fare from now and again, when time is negligible and we have to move along. But let’s not claim it’s home cooked food. I mean this separates from “fast food” exactly how?
I spend more time in the kitchen that is required to put a box in the oven. I create pasta sauce. I create salsa. I create heavenly biscuits from scratch, lovely brownies from real chocolate. I know the inside of a can of baking powder and have touched real flour. I want recognition for my efforts! I create home made food, and if you don’t then I am better than you!
Well, maybe we don’t need to go that far. I’m not necessarily better, but maybe a little? Actually the problem here is not being acknowledged by the hubby. When the commercials make it so dang “simple,” then my efforts are not rewarded. The Contrarian sees no need to offer to wash dishes so much, or take me out to eat, when he sees this “home made meal” so easy to concoct on the screen.
It’s hard slavish work this cooking and I want my kudos damn it! I’m working my little nubbins to the bone in that there kitchen and I have the mess to prove it. Don’t wipe out all my efforts by showing the career mother with seventeen kids and pets spinning off a four course delight hardly breaking a sweat! It makes me look bad. It makes my efforts look silly and prissy.
I want my recognition, and I want it now!
Existential Ennui 