What's the point of cooking at home anymore?

what even is the point of cooking at home this has been a non question for most humans because for most of human history the only person who was gonna turn this into this into this was you I prepare food because I want to eat that's been all of the reasoning that most humans who've ever lived have ever needed from our hunter-gatherer life to our agrarian life and even into much of our industrial life the only person who was gonna feed you was most likely gonna be you or someone in your immediate social group but now for people like me living and highly developed post-industrial economies because I want to eat is probably one of the weakest reasons for cooking in my opinion we live in a world where this chicken costs about the same as this chicken from the same store and in this world I think it really pays to interrogate why we would buy this one field trip to Oxford and not that Oxford Oxford Georgia where dr. Derek Shannon is a sociology professor at Oxford College of Emory University he specializes in things like political economy and teaches a course here that's quite relevant to our discussion the sociology of food course that I designed is a part of what Oxford College calls our theory practice service-learning program part of what my students do is work here on Oxford's organic farm look at this place even in the middle of February it's beautiful the apple trees over here are blooming they've got all these garlic and onions and cabbage going but anyway if you ask dr. Shannon what's the point of cooking at home these days the first thing he says is because it's an enjoyable and desirable activity some people like cooking just like some people like knitting when you can go buy a sweater for cheaper than the materials that it might take indeed the first good reason for cooking at home is because it's fun this is in my view an unassailable reason for doing anything that isn't particularly harmful to others or particularly harmful to your long-term fun having capacity I recently put out a recipe for French macaroons in which I encourage people to loosen their expectations about how these things should look if you just care about how they taste and leave the cosmetics up to fate they become as easy to make as they are delicious but you derive pleasure from working to create cosmetically perfect macaroons I think that's great you have my blessing not that you asked for it my argument is only this if it's making you miserable to try to create perfectly round smooth domes with perfect little ruffled feet then stop make the ugly ones or buy the beautiful ones also maybe try to think a little bit more critically about whether the things that you do really do make you happy this is something I try really hard to do especially with regard to my creative work am i struggling to make this thing because I enjoy the challenge good reason am i struggling to make this thing because I'll learn something valuable from the struggle good reason part of the reason I've spent so much time and effort trying to recreate the New York style pizza from my youth was pure curiosity I wanted to understand on a tactile level what makes that stuff taste the way it does am i working to make this thing because the end product will give me joy good reason I think this chicken tastes way better than this chicken am I going through hell to make this thing because someone will give me money for it at the end you got to get paid son am i slaving over this thing because it will make someone else happy really good reason maybe the best reason am i killing myself on this thing because I think it will impress someone not such a good reason in my opinion look this is a conversation about the meaning of life were having here so reasonable people are gonna disagree but in my view cooking should be about nourishing and nurturing people including yourself it should be about giving people pleasure including yourself and while you might be able to make yourself happy by dazzling people with your skills I would question whether that's in the interest of your long-term happiness or maybe your deeper and more meaningful happiness and I would definitely wonder if it might be pleasure that you're taking at someone else's expense this phenomenon was brilliantly crystallized in the 2010 South Park episode cream fridge I can't play too much of it for you without angering the copyright gods but you should go watch it the Hulu link is in the description every time you watch cooking shows you stay up all night trying to copy what they made well I'm sorry if there's something wrong with me helping out with the cooking can I have a pop-tart so in this instance the harm is relatively mild right Randy's family is annoyed that he is flexing on them rather than providing them with the food they actually want to eat and they're annoyed that he is filling the house with misery and stress and dirty dishes in the process mild harm I do think that there's some more serious or pernicious harm associated with this phenomenon one of the things that sociologists of food study is how a range of relations of inequality are embedded in our food supply chain and that's not just buying it also includes preparing cooking and so on and it's not very difficult to find differentials in who has to cook and who gets to cook and win who gets prestige in the act of cooking and who doesn't and so on right who is a chef who is a cook and who is a food service worker and is the difference between those people really as stark as their different social and economic statuses would indicate I don't think it necessarily is and I think that when we cook to display our prowess we maybe reinforce the social attitudes that contribute toward that inequity at the very least we look like total tools oh by the way I want to acknowledge that I am guilty of everything I'm decrying right here I am hardly without sin and I am throwing stones I'm throwing them right at myself but anyway if we're going to talk about potential harm to others there's way more concrete material we can cover right like just cooking at home do more or less to damage or deplete our planet's biosphere and the people who live in it there's an argument you could make that buying prepared foods from a store or from a restaurant is less taxing on the world's resources simply because of the economies of scale the efficiency of mass production well I mean there's a few counter arguments one you know economists oftentimes view economic models as if humans are these sort of rational utility maximizing machines and in which case then you know of course it's going to be cheaper to buy something off of the dollar menu in terms of both money and time than to buy an organic spread that you go home cook right you know but but what if we talked about cooking some set of processed foods that are super soy heavy right the the cost of cooking that is going to be quite different in energy then the cost of cooking say something that was organically grown on on this farm right here those calculations that are going to look quite different it may be better for me to go buy an organic meal than to cook at home a meal of processed goods with you know a whole lot of mono crap mono cropped wait what did he say there mono what you know a whole lot of mono crap sorry I just think mono crap is a pretty funny Freudian slip because there's an argument that says a lot of the cheap prepared foods we buy are not cheap because they are economically or environmentally efficient to produce they're cheap because they're government subsidized like corn corn is hugely subsidized here in the United States and while there may be legitimate policy motives behind those subsidies or totally craven political motives it is also true that corn and similar crops are heavy on calories but light on other nutrition and yeah they're also the big mono crops I mean crops mono crop means that you're trying to grow a single crop and you know that form of farming is is designed in such a way to to kill anything that can get in the way of growing this single cash crop that leads them to losses and biodiversity and things like that so yeah the environmental calculation is tough and science shows us how reality can often be very different from what you would intuitively expect such as the case with the sponsor of this video hello fresh America's number one meal kit whom I'll now take a minute to think you might suspect that all this packaging recycled and recyclable though much of it is would give meal kits a bigger carbon footprint than cooking the same meal from a grocery store but that is not true according to a 20-19 study out of the University of Michigan this is not industry funded research it was paid for by the National Science Foundation looking at the overall supply chain researchers found that meal kits create less greenhouse gas because the pre-portioned ingredients result in less food waste and food waste is the big culprit am I being paid to say that to you right now yes ads pay for content so that we don't have to but it is also the case that what I just said to you is true according to this independent scholarship from one of the world's top research universities hellofresh obviates a lot of the arguments against home cooking the easy step-by-step instructions and pre-portioned ingredients take a ton of the stress and worry out of shopping and cooking especially if you're not super confident in the kitchen yet also it's a kit and I always find kits fun to do hello fresh is flexible you can change your meal plan whenever you want we're still on calorie smart and in 30 minutes I've got this super tasty plate of lean protein and veggies get you some at hellofresh com use code Avenue goosey at 10 for 10 free meals including free shipping that's hello fresh com enter Adam more goosey at 10 for 10 free meals that's all down in the description thank you hello fresh that whole issue of food waste leads to the next good reason to cook at home it is cheaper is it cheaper it absolutely can be cheaper but it depends on what you're cooking and it depends on how much of it you're cooking and it depends on whether or not you're minimizing waste take coq au vin chicken stewed and wine one of the great peasant stews of French cuisine it's a meal born of rural poverty not of courtly opulence as is the case with lots of other French classics you can totally cook this at home for less money than you would pay at your local Bistro but not if you're just trying to make one or two portions efficiency is achieved with scale in a restaurant they achieve scale by making a few different dishes for a whole ton of people every night in your kitchen you achieve scale by making a big batch of one thing and eating many meals from it especially if you're just feeding yourself or a small family or maybe you achieve scale by buying a lot of one ingredient and then making a bunch of slightly different meals from it regardless you can't expect the same level of variety that you would get if you were eating out at a restaurant for every meal and you certainly can't expect to follow every single recipe to the letter if you want to eat cheaply like Coco van is cheap to make but not if you buy the six dollar bottle of herbs de Provence that the recipe calls for and then push it to the back of cabinet and never cook with it again you got to get comfortable with using the fresh rosemary you do have instead of the herbs de Provence you don't have or if you do get the herbs de Provence you got to get used to the idea of down the road using it in that recipe that calls for poultry seasoning substitutions minimize waste and minimizing waste saves you money that's why good recipes don't just tell you what to do they tell you why thus empowering you to think for yourself and you can be like oh I don't have that but I've got this other thing that could potentially perform the same function that's what's really gonna help you to cook efficiently and to save money by cooking at home end of home ekklesia let's go back to sociology class the final and perhaps most important reason to cook your own food is to forge and maintain social bonds some people use the term commence ality for for people cooking and eating together food is related integrally to our sense of community and in some cases our sense of identity which might be another reason why people would choose to cook I can cook X thing in a way and it expresses a sense of who I am and it fits the sense of taste that I was raised to develop right take me for example I am half third-generation Italian American half General issue euro-american much that's my mom's side I live a thousand miles from my parents and my brother and everyone I grew up with thanks to technological change I live my life very differently from how my grandparents lived theirs and compared to their grandparents I might as well be a freakin Martian what keeps me clinging to the tattered shreds of a cross-generational cultural identity I have left is food it's cooking it's a things my dad taught me to cook it's the things I will teach my boys to cook the stove is the shrine where I convene with my ancestors laughs if you want to but a big sloppy italian-american red sauce is the continuity of my life me my forbearers and my descendants were all meatballs swimming in that sauce the sauce makes me feel not so bad about being at the statistical midpoint of my life the sauce is tangible evidence something of my grandparents life lives on and that something of my life will live on yes it will change it will mutate it will hybridize it will adapt as it should hopefully it'll get better but it will go on cooking gives us those connections to say nothing of the connections that it helps us forge with other people's cultures that's why I cook at home tell me why you do

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 1,284,751

Keywords: home cooking, sociology, sociology of food, oxford college, oxford college of emory university, deric shannon, sociologist, commensalism, commensality, cooking at home, is home cooking, is home cooking healthy, is cooking at home cheaper than eating out, is home cooking better for the environment, is home cooked food cheaper, why is cooking good, history of cooking, whats the point of cooking, south park creme fraiche, south park creme fraiche randy, creme fraiche south park

Id: UNHtj7QtCdk

Length: 13min 43sec (823 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 17 2020