Rachel Martin

Project #3

English Composition

5 May 2023

Let’s Taco ‘Bout Cooking

What is your favorite meal? I bet it is something tasty like home cooked mac n’ cheese. Or perhaps something comforting like your mother’s famous lasagna. Or maybe even something simple like homemade chicken noodle soup. Whatever it may be, I am sure it is important and sentimental. In “Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch” by Michael Pollan, Pollan discusses the changes in cooking, especially within cooking shows. I believe that as cooking shows progress and changes into entertainment rather than education, society loses more and more motivation to cook or bake. 

Everybody perceives cooking differently. Some define it as mixing ingredients and heating the recipe until the chemical composition is changed. Some define it as simply putting any ingredients together. Cooking as defined by Oxford Languages is “the practice or skill of preparing food by combining, mixing, and heating ingredients.” In my opinion, I agree with everybody. I see cooking as simply making something new using other ingredients. I see it this way because it is changing each ingredient as a whole. By mixing or combining two or more ingredients, the flavor is changed. Changing the flavor is going to result in something entirely different. This could mean that steak and potatoes, beef stew, and even sandwiches would be categorized as cooking. Everyone perceives everything differently, and not everyone is going to agree with the same definition. Most of society can be persuaded very easily by many factors such as celebrities, television, and social media. 

Cooking shows were not always flashy and hectic. Julia Child’s cooking show “The French Chef” changed many households for the better, including Michael Pollan’s. Pollan states that “Julia Child had improved the quality of life around our house” (Pollan 1). That era of television cooking shows was more informative and educational rather than flashy competitions for the entertainment of the viewer. Julia Child was able to educate her viewers and teach people how to make proper household meals. Families and homes are more comforting when you know that there will be a warm meal waiting for you when you get back. Julia did more than educate, she became a staple of comfort in houses nationwide. Her show was filmed with no cuts or edits “so it had a vérité feel completely unlike anything you might see today on the Food Network,” (Pollan 2). From here, cooking shows started to change. Pollan noticed this as he said, “The Food Network has figured out that we care much less about what’s cooking than who’s cooking” (Pollan 11). Society started to stop caring about home cooking. Most people saw it as inconvenient and expensive, so they stopped trying. The Food Network picked up on this societal shift and decided to take the opportunity to profit from it. They created shows such as “Chopped” and “Top Chef”. Cooking became competitions and large sums of prize money. Cooking should be more than that. Cooking has a deeper meaning than entertainment. From the Food for Thought archives, Brooke Parks said “Aside from just eating it, I am able to have a meal that we are all expected to sit down and talk” (Parks 2019). Brooke was just explaining how her favorite meal is her mother’s spicy pot roast. She talked about how this meal was an opportunity to talk with her family and connect with them.

Cooking is a connection. It is traditions, bonds, and relationships. Sunday mornings are the best. After a wonderful night of extra rest, I am pleasantly awoken by the sound of my family’s chatter and the smell of freshly cooked bacon. I know that my dad is downstairs, making the four of us our usual Sunday breakfast. I scamper down to sit at the table with my mom, dad, and brother. By now, we all talk to one another and enjoy each other’s company until my dad finishes up. On the menu, we have pancakes with assorted fruit and toppings, bacon, baked beans, and tater tots. My dad brings out the orange juice from the fridge and pours some into each of our glasses. The blend of aromas comforts me and is the perfect way to start my day. We continue to enjoy breakfast and joke around with each other. The home cooked meal that my dad made for us is a tradition that has shaped our weekend plans. For as long as I can remember we have always done Sunday breakfast. Thinking back to this tradition makes me wonder. If cooking sparks this much joy, why do people not do it more? Pollan stated that cooking programs are experiencing a “historical drift” “from a genuine interest in producing food yourself to the spectacle of merely consuming it – surely owes a lot to the decline of cooking in our culture” (Pollan 11). We are becoming more interested in being entertained rather than entertaining the idea of cooking at home. Millions of people watch the Food Network, yet what percentage of those people make home cooked meals? As Michael Pollan puts it, “How is it that we are so eager to watch other people browning beef cubes on screen but so much less eager to brown them ourselves?” (Pollan 3). 

Is it more than just issues with motivation? The cost could be deterring people from wanting to replicate these intricate meals that they see on television and online. The more recent cooking programs also show professionally trained chefs using expensive ingredients and techniques that most people would not be able to replicate. This is more than likely causing the decline in motivation. However, home cooked meals can be more cost-effective and healthier than eating out at restaurants, fast food, and TV dinners. Most meals are also not as difficult as what is shown on TV. These unrealistic examples that we watch delude people from the truth: cooking is not as hard as it is made out to be. 

Are we as a society able to turn this shift back around? Have we permanently lost the meaning of cooking, not the definition, but the meaning? We need to be reminded of authenticity and traditions. Just as David Foster Wallace directed his readers’ attention to the potential sentience of crustaceans in “Consider the Lobster”, we need to direct attention to the recent lack of passion in the culinary world. Looking through the Food for Thought archives once again, I noticed almost all of them talked about how important their meals are due to their family’s values and memories. Now, I understand that the prompt was to talk about their favorite meals and their importance, but one student explained this perfectly. Angel Fendiana said in her essay, “It made my mom think of her childhood moments where she would have chicken curries at family gatherings. It also made me think of all kinds of bonds that were connected by the spicy chicken curry.” (Fendiana 2019)

 Returning back to the original theme of the Favorite Meal essays, food has a deeper importance than just what is on the surface. It is sustenance, memories, happiness, and contentment. All of that is being lost from a lack of motivation and a false reality that the more recent Food Network has instilled into us. We can bring this life-long heritage that we have started to lose. All it takes is a recipe, simple ingredients, and the passion to be able to cook something and return the traditions that may have been forgotten.