nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

What! I do not cook like my Grandma(rest her soul)! I wish I could though.

grant

Everyone needs to read this and let this guy know he does not know what he is talking about. We are trying to change things people!

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21569381-idea-innovation-and-new-technology-have-stopped-driving-growth-getting-increasing

"The third argument is the simplest: the evidence of your senses. The recent rate of progress seems slow compared with that of the early and mid-20th century. Take kitchens. In 1900 kitchens in even the poshest of households were primitive things. Perishables were kept cool in ice boxes, fed by blocks of ice delivered on horse-drawn wagons. Most households lacked electric lighting and running water. Fast forward to 1970 and middle-class kitchens in America and Europe feature gas and electric hobs and ovens, fridges, food processors, microwaves and dishwashers. Move forward another 40 years, though, and things scarcely change. The gizmos are more numerous and digital displays ubiquitous, but cooking is done much as it was by grandma."

Find more posts tagged with

Everything Else

Comments

seijoed

TL;DR... But - yes I think Silicon Valley is in an intellectual stagnation as it is too easy to create a facebook add on and get a smaller 3 time vesting. If you actually look behind those numbers that compare all invention coming from the US vs the rest of the world, I think we are doing fine. Michigan contrary to census data actually is one of the hottest job markets you can find, they are doing just fine with pharma, electronics and engineering. The last 2-3 years have been some of the hottest ever in the software industry.

As for cooking the what grandma cooks seems to be an American trait, we always talk about "authentic" and "soul" and "whatnot else" - I think that is a young nation looking for roots, since there is nothing really authentic.

Mason_Perry_34060

I hate to say it but I think dumb people are out breeding smart people.... Watch the intro to the movie Idiocracy It's a gigantic satire but it's not far from reality.

It was an interesting article, but failed examples, They said speed was an argument and that we have been "coasting since the 1970's" speed of what? I can share photos across the globe from a PHONE when 20 years ago I was using a disposable camera and mailing physical copys of photos... and cell phones didn't exist for regular people...

it's all relative, when I had a dial up modem at 14.4k and I could go on the "internet" it was amazing, what will the next 10 years bring? I don't think innovation is gone, I think it left the US. We are no longer a business friendly country, and out education system stifles creativity, what do we expect?

As for the cooking, I don't cook like my grandma. She had 2 ways of getting heat into food, an oven, and a burner ontop of that oven. She didn't know what a microwave was until the 90's and she never used it to cook a recipe. She had no timers, no thermometers, no pressure cookers, she didn't even have a toaster, no blender, no electric rice cooker, no stand mixer, no immersion blender, no chamber vac, no immersion circulator, no molecular gastronomy wizardy, no digital scale. I would say things have come a long way from my grandmas kitchen.

seijoed

@Mason Perry, Internet here in the US is wonderfully underachieving compared to say Sweden.

Size of country plays a role here but mostly it is the fact that Telcos used the fibre money to finance loss and cell phone networks.

What I do see here as an immigrant is a lack of American kids where I work.

Every single startup I go I see a bunch of yourropeans, asians and perhaps one Amurrican manager.

You see the same problem in MIT, JPL and so on, it doesn't seem it is worth it when it comes to edjumacation.

Chris_Young_80640

So this is a fascinating article; and there is much that I agree with. But I think it cherry picks an unusual example about the technological state of our kitchen today. There is no doubt in my mind that the era around the WWI was a paradigm shift as far as domestic culinary technology. This was when wide-scale adoption of the refrigerator, the freezer, and the range—with its thermostatically controlled oven and hot plates—occurred. How and what we cooked totally changed. Pot-roasting over coals became the oven-braise and ingredients could be preserved without resorting to salting, curing, pickling, or fermenting for example.

Nearly all cooking technologies since that time have improved convenience, but none have altered how we cook. Even the microwave is mostly used as a tool of convenience. No one is cooking things in an entirely new way just because they have a microwave.

What has changed since the turn of the 20th Century is what we cook. The era following WWII was the heyday of food science and the creation of a reliable cold-chain that allowed us to enjoy fresh foods from around the world, or bake a cake straight out of a box. An enormous amount of innovation in areas as diverse as agriculture, food science, transportation, and even financial services were required to make this possible. But this golden era of culinary innovation has pretty much tapered off since the early 1980s.

Since then, one of the biggest technological and societal changes is whether we cook at all! Sometime earlier this century, Americans started spending more than 50% of their food dollars outside the home. Most Westernized countries have followed suit since then. And a lot of innovation has occurred to make this possible—fewer dollars buy more food, adjusted for inflation, every year. And this has been true for more than 100 years. But, from my perspective, this aspect of our food culture has also become stagnant.

But I believe there is a lot of room for culinary innovation, and possibly even full-scale invention.

So why don't we cook? And I know this group DOES like to cook, so that might be a bit of a strange question to ask here. I think a big part of the answer comes down to time. Preparing a meal takes a lot of time. So we have a some choices: cook from scratch, if we have the time and inclination; cook a prepared meal, which is not always delicious and choices are limited; eat out, but this is relatively costly and perhaps too easy to overeat; or hire a private chef if you can afford one, and good ones can be hard to find.

There is room here for another option. What about a custom tailored meal, designed by you or someone else, but not prepared by you. The components of the meal are delivered to your door tomorrow, or perhaps tonight. You simply finish preparing the meal. Pulling this off requires changes to how food is sourced, manufactured, and delivered. It also requires a rethink of how we ask people to shop for a meal. And technologies like sous vide would need to play a role. But I don't see any reason that it's not possible to make this a reality.

There are other opportunities too. How we create, use, and share recipes hasn't really changed. Given the success of Facebook, Google, and so on, this is actually pretty surprising. Why, for example, aren't recipes intelligent?

Various groups have tried, including the MIT Media Lab about ten years ago. I think that the few attempts that I'm aware of failed for several reasons, but the overriding reason seems to be that no one has yet put together the right team of innovators to make it a reality. Think about what it would take to do: you need to be able to create great software, you need to really understand how to cook, and you need to understand how food and cooking work, and then all of these skills need to meld in just the right way. Oh, and money would help too.

Clearly, no one has gotten this right yet, but it will happen eventually. Some pretty interesting things would probably happen in the kitchen when recipes become intelligent and easy to modify to suit your needs. Coupled with changes in how we receive ingredients for preparing a meal, you could imagine some pretty radical changes occurring to how we, as a society, interact with food and meals.

seijoed

Man, you can write

seijoed

So why don't we cook? - I think that is the best question.

michaelnatkin

I'd say we (societally) don't cook because we don't value it. It isn't exactly that we don't have time, we prioritize other things. If it felt important to us, we'd make time for it. So, why doesn't it seem important anymore to so many people? I can think of a couple of reasons:

- a downward spiral of quality. I wouldn't want to cook either if I thought all there was to work with was the relatively crappy foods found in 90% of grocery stores, and all there was to make was the relatively crappy food served on the average dinner table. It would be too discouraging.

- and on the flipside of that, I think a lot of people feet intimidated and discouraged by the cooking they see on TV. It either looks like crap, or it looks like too much bother, and requires too much knowledge and skill. Most TV celebrity chefs are either in the "hey, just microwave it and dump a bottle of ranch dressing on it" camp (see previous bullet point) or the "you could never do this at home, so just watch me" camp.

I think part of what the ChefSteps community can do is to show people how they can be making much more delicious food at home with a reasonable investment of time. Not 30 minute meals, but also not making it seem like you are a failure if you aren't producing a 27 course tasting menu for your next dinner party.

grant

I have thought about this a lot over the years. I truly feel that in the age of convenience, most people cannot be bothered to spend time doing things that do not either a)interest them or b)generate money that they can spend on things that interest them.

The idea of doing things just to get the job done, don't apply anymore. You used to HAVE to make dinner, you did not have a choice. Now, most people have to enjoy cooking in order to bring themselves to make dinner.

I wish things were different, but I guess that means that at least for now, that when people cook, it's because they love it.

seijoed

I'm gonna go with the complete different .2

I hunt, I have a daughter born in 2002.

She does breakfast, she does salads, she does plating.

She wants to be the first animal neurosurgeon in space. (It is a lofty goal).

She also makes her bed, cleans her room, does her own laundry, is set on a timer for the homework.

We "aspire" to A, (I personally could not care less) A is about memorizing.

To get homework done

To get tasks done

To help in community (I put effort here as an Atheist)

That all sounds like punishment to most people I talk to.

All we ever said is that we want her to use her time to learn, right now we are studying large animal butchering, how to re-load game cartridges and knife sharpening.

On the other side we are also exploring Julia and Mandelbrot constellations.

seijoed

Okay - So here is what I do to try and change this

When we did the larger dinner, the kids were at our place.
We put my daughter Annica that is 11 in charge of food, so she did her fried taters, a rotisserie chickun' and the dipping sauce she likes.

The chicken was a regular store bought one, but she peels, slices, and fries the taters to her liking, we are still working on uniform cuts.
As I got home rather late all I had left was a few taters

Her sauce that she also likes with chikun' fingers and burgers is -

A table spoon of mayo, a hearty squeeze of Katsup, some dollops of Dijon, salt, pepper, a little relish and then just mix (It is basically a Micky Dee dressing).

And, no we didn't leave them alone; Abuelita was dictating the show. The cool part though is that an 11 year old served a fairly healthy meal on her own, with her own knives, left the kitchen clean and was extremely excited about it.

The next things we will be working on is eggs, bacon - in the oven as well as in a pan, how to always use a towel, how to avoid splatter, she really wants to do her own fried eggs. (She already does a fair scramble)

Brendan_Lee_56950

I also think that there is an overwhelming majority of the population that has absolutely no clue what a truly good piece of veg or quality product tastes like when prepared properly. A perfect example is my wife. She refused to eat eggs ever since she was 5 years old when her nanny used to force her and her sister to eat overcooked stinky eggs for breakfast every day. I could subside on eggs and rice alone so it has always been a struggle for us to come to a balance when eggs are involved (namely she won't eat them so I have to either make two dishes or suck it up and not eat them). BUT then I discovered the 63C/55min egg, I persuaded her with a lot of scientific talk about sulphuric compounds and the temperatures at which they form and then finally she took a dip of the yolk with some sourdough bread and she's sold, a convert on her first bite.

I think just like in science, shifting paradigms of thought isn't just about facts, it's about the mindset of the majority and it takes a lot of persuading to make that change. Thomas Kuhn's book "the structure of scientific revolutions" is a good read and talks a lot about this type of shifting in thought and I think that it could really be useful in promoting and advancing the idea of home cookery.

seijoed

I have the same with onions.... I took the subversive route, she just has no idea how much onion she actually eats....

Mason_Perry_34060

I'm breaking my wife in to mushrooms....

james.denissen

@Chris there is a company here in Dallas that does something similar to what you mentioned. They have several different meal options to choose from, and they deliver the ingredients to your door the day of or the day before you plan to cook. They provide a recipe and suggestions, and they tend to source sustainable and organic products.

If time is the biggest hurdle to cooking (I'm not sure it is, I tend to think people make time for the things they enjoy or need) then it's at least getting some more people cooking and saving them the shopping time it previously required.

Another option. Why can't I have my groceries packed up and ready for me when I go to the store? I guess it takes all the fun out of going to the store and picking out the exact piece of fish I want, but that would be a 20 minute time saver right there. I'm sure this exists somewhere, but we should be able to pick out the 10-15 items we want off the grocers website, pay online and just walk into the store and grab my bag of groceries from a refrigerated section and leave.

Mason_Perry_34060

In Japan my aunt shopped every single day on her way home from work, often times she would not know what she was making until she saw what fresh fish, meat or produce was being offered. I know this doesn't happen where I live since I am not in a metropolitan area, but it's amazing because we were able to enjoy some of the best food I have ever had, and it had 90% to do with the freshness of the ingredients. It's obvious that this would only appeal to a very small percentage of American's and not the masses. I agree with you that people would make time for what they think is important, and it's obvious for most American's that cooking is not as important as food. A psychology professor in college told us the marketing strategy behind how supermarkets are laid out. He said circle the store on the outside IE produce, butcher, bakery and avoid the aisles, if you think about it the outer ring is fresh and tends to be healthier food, the aisles contained mass produced, processed food, it's a marketing trap. I don't forsee home cooking making a comeback in a country of "why do it if I can pay someone to do it" I know people who would use the service you speak of @James_the_original_James they would rather open a pouch and basically heat the meal than take time to shop or cook (sounds like the Dallas program is more about compiling ingredients, which is great if it's getting more people to cook) I think it's sad that we have moved in this direction, I am often branded as "weird" or people find it odd that I "actually" enjoy cooking. That's just what our culture has come to, order pizza to eat on your sofa, drive through to eat in your car, eat out so you don't have to cook or clean, I am sure if you invented a pill to sustain homeostasis it would be a huge seller since people now seem to veiw food as "what's the easiest way I can get fuel into my body" instead of I would like to enjoy food.

Your thoughts on groceries brought 2 things to mind. 1. I know some grocerie stores that will deliver to your front door orders that you place online, I have seen it, it's interesteing and I could see it working if it was streamlined, picking specific items would be the problem, and unfortunately there is a fee involved, I myself still prefer the farmers market as it's fresher, normally cheaper, and supports local business. The second thing I was thinking of was a discussion with my father about why we even have stores. If a company like Walmart started a home delivery system where people could order anything walmart sells from groceries to housewares to automotive to you name it instead of supplying and stocking stores with goods and having overhead they could have daily delivery trucks that drop your items at a local depot within 24 hours of ordering and then a local delivery truck that drops your parcel at your door.They already have the distribution network and the means to do so, why not take it one step further, people have already proven that they would rather sit at home and watch TV, why not cater to their needs. Walmart would have a monopoly and there would be no need for any other stores.... I think the main reason for this not happening yet is the human need to interact since we are a social animal, however from what I see from kids these days and their willingness to text anything and inability to even make a polite phone call screams that times may be changing, in my short life I went from rotary phones to smartphones, who knows what will happen in my son's life....

Jack_Mayer_85396

@James what's the name of the company you're referring to?

seijoed

I'd rather take off 20 minutes early so I can look at and feel produce and foods - from there I like to decide what I want to eat.

Mason_Perry_34060

^ Same here, even if I have a meal in mind I may like the way sweet onions look or are priced compared to brown or white, it's just more control that I would rather not relenquish.

james.denissen

@Jack it's called Fullosophie. I've never used it, not endorsing it or anything. Just a concept I read about and found interesting.

Mason_Perry_34060

@James_the_original_James I am looking to start something similar in my local area but featuring pretty much fully prepared meals, delivered on an almost daily basis.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Harris Teeter, a southern grocery chain here on the east coast has big huge fridges in the entrances to the store where you can pick up your groceries that you ordered online and prepay for. I've never done it myself but it seems to be pretty popular. I also know that the grocery chain Giant has a Peapod service that delivers groceries to your door.

Jack_Mayer_85396

@James Thanks!

james.denissen

@Mason fully prepared meals is another option they offer