Steven Imbrenda
Eng-110G
Professor Jesse Miller
20th March 2019
To cook, or not to cook?
Most Americans are getting really lazy when it comes to their meals. Before all our ‘modernized’ ways of getting food, eating food played a much more impactful part in everyone’s day to day life. It was uncommon to not have dinner with your family every night, especially a home cooked one. Nowadays we have so much junk food to enjoy and the luxuries of delivery to bring food right to the doorstep of your house. All you have to do is go on your phone to place an order through an app or simply make a phone call. Cooking in your own house seems to be a dying art in American households due to our laziness and ease of access of a way to get food without even having to get off your couch. I would hate for our culture to lose the ability to cook at least three times a week because of how much diversity there is in American cooking. This country was founded by immigrants from all around the world who all brought there methods of preparing meals to this land. If we just throw away home cooking then we lose one of the most influential parts of our development as a country. Even on TV we view or stream food related shows more than we do News channels. “The Food Network can now be seen in nearly 100 million American homes and on most nights commands more viewers than any of the cable news channels.” (Pollan 3) If watching people cook food on TV is one of the most highly viewed TV channels then why are we seeing such a large decrease in home cooked meals?
I must draw the conclusion that America is getting lazier as a whole. How could we possibly have TV shows based on cooking and preparing meals as some of the most popular channels in America but not want to cook in our own houses nearly as much as we used to. “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) There are even celebrities that we praise such as Gordon Ramsay, Rachel Ray, Julia Child, etc. These are public figures that set examples of how to make beautiful and delicious homemade meals but, we as an American society just prefer to watch this instead of recreating it ourselves. Cooking is how some people have shaped their lives even though it was just an everyday thing most people used to do but is now found few and far between households.
Julia Child is the perfect example of someone that has shaped their life around cooking. She aired her very own TV show in 1963 helping families by providing live step by step instructions for homemade meals. And most critics on the topic will say she is the “Liberated figure that many women have followed on television.”(Pollan 6) There is no comparable woman or man that has expressed their true love and dedication to cooking the way Julia Child had. Cooking is literally how Julia Child made a living, and, even better she made money doing something she loved. “Cooking saved her life, giving her a project and, eventually, a path to literary success.” (Pollan 3) It seems weird to think about now but truly cooking was the sole reason Julia Child found success and passion in her life. She realized this after she settled down with her husband in Paris and began to become bored with life. She needed a project, a life project. Thinking of things she liked to do best, she determined that eating was her number one. Leading to her progression of becoming one of the world’s best known cooks.
