By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/weekinreview/02bittman.html?hp

by robg • 16 years ago

63 71 16 years ago

jvdongen4• 16 years ago

I frequently read this kind of articles on the web, and every time I'm amazed by it. Preparing food yourself is the rule in my corner of the world (the Netherlands) - going out for dinner an exception. And up until a few years ago you'd be hard pressed to find a public place that actually served breakfast.

Of course, not every Dutchmen is a great cook (to say the least ;-) but I think you'd have a hard time to find a Dutch adult who doesn't have the means or is not able to prepare (much) more elaborate meals than discussed in this article. And probably this holds true for most of Europe as well. Maybe even for the rest of the world except the US?

Having said that though, I feel that the situation is slowly changing in recent years - primarily for the wealthier part of the population, but still. Kind of makes me sad if I see products in the supermarket which are 'ready made' and 4 times as expensive as the individual ingredients, while knowing that making the same dish from scratch would hardly take longer than preparing the 'ready made' variant and be healthier and cheaper to boot.

dhughes• 16 years ago

> Maybe even for the rest of the world except the US?

No, Canada is pretty bad too. I don't know anyone under the age of 30 who cooks, all they do is eat out every single day for every meal.

If they do cook at home it's a frozen pizza or a packaged pasta such as Kraft Dinner.

You're right it's very expensive, I don't know where they get the money. That $10 burger and fries could buy enough food for a few days such as rice, potatoes, pasta.

ramchip• 16 years ago

I wouldn't generalize so fast. I live in a student dorm in Quebec where everyone is under 30, and everybody I know cooks themselves. At least basic stuff like toasts or pasta. It's not really practical to eat out every meal in the first place, given the walking distance to the nearest restaurant. Every young adult (~20 years) in my family cooks and owns a set of pots and pans. YMMV.

jerf2• 16 years ago

"Having said that though, I feel that the situation is slowly changing in recent years"

You have to be careful when comparing the US to the rest of the world, because the US is the one breaking the ground of new levels of relatively-well-distributed wealth. (Put aside the question of how well for a moment, please.) For instance, it turns out that the US did not have uniquely bad dietary habits around flour and sugar, it's just that the US was the first to discover people really like to eat that crap and could afford the infrastructure to deploy it; now the bad diets and the consequences are spreading like wildfire as the requisite level of wealth is spreading. (dhughes says Canada is there too, certainly they have that level of wealth too.)

Correspondingly, it is hard to know whether the rest of the world cooks their own meals and don't eat out much because of some sort of intrinsic betterness or culture, or because they simply can't afford it yet. Once people can afford it in more places they may be more inclined to eat out. And if they do, they'll start losing the ability to cook overall. Culture may induce some lag but there's no particularly compelling reason to think that more countries won't follow along.

demallien• 16 years ago

You have to be careful when comparing the US to the rest of the world, because the US is the one breaking the ground of new levels of relatively-well-distributed wealth.

Not so much, see here: http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/mint-map-global-wealth-distr...

Most of the "western" countries are ahead of the US for distributing wealth amongst the population.

jvdongen4• 16 years ago

That definitively plays a role I think. Though that does not explain why the "bad food" seems to have won. It is easy enough to make great tasting food with high quality ingredients. Granted, that would not be cheap - but then again, we don't buy iPhones because they're cheap either.

julius_geezer• 16 years ago

My sample of the US is not large, say between 50 and 100 households in a country of 300 million persons. It tends to be skewed towards the more educated middle to upper middle class. (That is, towards more or less the NY Times demographic.) But the great majority of those households have at least one adult who cooks decently. The person I can think of who goes through the most carry-out lives the sort of frazzled suburban life where the kids have lessons, practices, etc. at frequent intervals, requiring a lot of driving.

And somebody seems to be cooking in the poorer neighborhood a short walk away. The grocery stores have fresh vegetables, meat, 10-pound bags of rice, and so on, along with the canned stuff.

I wonder whether the article isn't aimed at readers in their 20s, on their own for a little while, but not really accustomed to a settled life.

(After looking at dhughes's post: my sample is also skewed toward the baby boomers. Caveat lector.)

Create• 16 years ago

In the U.S.A. entire generations have given up on cooking (mainly for apparent comfort), and therefore have forgotten about it. Literally. Even worse, they are therefore incapable of passing on this cultural "rule" either. These kinds of articles are weak window-dressing attempts. Processed food lobby is far more powerful[1,2] (though I suspect Dutch know about industrialized food), so the NYT article is somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jamie_oliver.html

And the tragedy is, that Jamie Oliver has failed to bring in change in schools in in the U.K., so he went off for a larger market (U.S.A.). It is a niche area.

[1] http://www.foodincmovie.com/

[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/panorama/2010/12/supermarkets_wha...

jemfinch• 16 years ago

> In the U.S.A. entire generations have given up on cooking (mainly for apparent comfort), and therefore have forgotten about it. Literally. Even worse, they are therefore incapable of passing on this cultural "rule" either.

This is exactly it. The marketing power behind processed foods has kept generations of Americans from realizing that they're even able to do things that every household did itself when our great-grandparents were alive.

In our home, I bake our sandwich bread. Even my grandmother marvels that I do so, but with a KitchenAid it takes me hardly any time, costs practically nothing ($0.44/loaf) and produces far better bread than any I've found in a store. When my kids begin to need lunchmeat, I'll roast our own turkey and beef: it'll be cheaper, it'll taste better, it won't have preservatives, and my kids will learn from me what I never learned from my own family: that we can feed ourselves.

tptacek11• 16 years ago

You know, this sounds truthy, but as much packaged food as the supermarket does sell, just by store volume, it seems like most people are still cooking. The meat section at my local Safeway-affiliate is, for instance, larger than the frozen meal section.

araneae• 16 years ago

I guess it's partially ignorance. For years I was making "instant" pudding, which was a packet combined with milk.

It turns out that you can make homemade chocolate pudding with only one extra ingredient; cocoa powder, cornstarch, and milk. (A pinch of salt usually improves it, though.)

I still buy rice pudding, though. I've tried making it and it always turns out awfully.

oiuytyuioiuy3• 16 years ago

Stovetop rice pudding is easier than a can.

One cup arborio rice

3 cups milk (or one cup cream/half-half and 2 milk)

Teaspoon of vanilla if you like

Put in non-stick pan

Bring to boil

Turn down to lowest setting for 25mins

When it's done (depends how sticky you like it) Stir in a spoon of sugar and a spoon of butter if you're feeling decadent - or jam or maple syrup or whatever

jules4• 16 years ago

Ah, that reminds me that nowadays "homemade fries" are frozen fries put into your own fryer ;)

> I still buy rice pudding, though. I've tried making it and it always turns out awfully.

Here's grandma's recipe how to make rice pudding.

Ingredients: 1 liter of milk, 1 or 2 eggs, about half a cup of dessert rice, half to a whole cup of sugar, cinnamon, salt.

Bring the milk to a boil. Put in rice and sugar and a pinch of salt and cook with a lid for about 20 minutes (or whatever the package says). Make sure it doesn't char. In the meantime split the egg yolks from the egg white. Add some sugar to the egg white and whip until creamy with a fork or with a mixer. Add some sugar to the egg yolks and stir until white and creamy. When the rice is ready put out the stove, and add some of the milk to the egg yolks and stir. Then slowly add the egg yolks to the pan while stirring. You need to stir really well otherwise you get bits of solidified egg yolk in your pudding. Next add the egg white and stir. Put in a bowl, cover it with cinnamon and then sugar. Let it cool down for a couple of hours.

My grandma used to say it tastes as if an angel is peeing on your tongue. I can guarantee that it tastes so much better than rice pudding from the supermarket.

Many dishes have a kernel, the essential thing that makes that dish that dish. For puddings it's stirred egg yolk and whipped egg white. Next time you make instant pudding use a little bit less of the instant pudding powder, and add egg yolk stirred with sugar and egg white whipped with sugar in the same way as for the rice pudding. This will improve the flavor and change the texture from a gelatiny pudding to something more like a real custard.

Like chocolate pudding, caramel pudding is just a small variation. Put sugar and a little bit of water in a pan, and heat until brown (not black!). Then add milk or water and dissolve the caramel, and add this to the pudding. Nice with whipped cream.

bambax2• 16 years ago

Yes, absolutely. I live in France, I'm 40, and I don't think I've ever met anyone since I was born, who doesn't know how to do basic cooking.

Over here people invite their friends for dinner all the time, and it would be beyond unacceptable to serve anything not prepared by the host/hostess.

Reading the great Tony Bourdain I learned that what happened in the US happened after WWII; before that time the US was a pretty "normal" country, food-wise.

jvdongen4• 16 years ago

Interesting data point - discussing this over dinner made us arrive at France as the only suspected exception in Europe, but apparently it's not.

Did Tony indicate what initiated the change?

oiuytyuioiuy3• 16 years ago

Although to be fair the Dutch diet is not exactly the most extravagantly adventurous in europe - you pretty much only need to be able to cook 3 things

ry0ohki• 16 years ago

Given the prices I see for eating out in Europe (I remember a chain pizza place in London was like 20 pounds for a single pizza), it's probably more out of necessity, we also have lost most of the cultural trappings of a slow meal.

In America there are tons of places offering instant meals for a dollar. Fine cuisine and the time honored art of dining (as they experience in France on every meal) is lost. Food is fuel, and you can get a salty, satisfying meal for only a few bucks here which leaves more time to go watch TV, play WoW etc...

hysterix• 16 years ago

I just got back from Holland about a month ago and this is something I very much disliked about your country. There pretty much is no such thing as breakfast.

Breakfast in America is something of a tradition to eat a large one. I walked around many mornings looking for something to eat, and the best I could find most of the time was a sandwich.

tgflynn• 16 years ago

I'd rather build one than become one.

http://www.willowgarage.com/blog/2010/10/21/tum-rosie-and-pr...

mitko2• 16 years ago

An year ago I could hardly cook anything except omelet - badly. During the last year I've learned a bunch of recipes - enough to feel confident in the kitchen. Looking back, I think the factors that made it easiest to me to develop the habit of cooking were:

- A decent kitchen. I've tried cooking before but the lack of kitchen appliances was just demotivating.

- A need to save some money. Bringing food with me to classes was supposed to be cheaper.

- A bet with a friend of mine on who can make 6-pack abs first. I wanted to eat healthy and tasty at the same time, so I had to control the food.

jules4• 16 years ago

Which kitchen appliances did you miss? The one thing I miss when cooking at other people's places is a sharp knife. It is really irritating (and dangerous) to cook with a blunt knife.

Did you win the bet? ;)

mitko2• 16 years ago

I guess I just wasn't comfortable cooking in a dorm kitchen and there were multiple appliances that I was missing.

But, yes, Jules, a big sharp knife is definitely necessary.

We didn't compare, nor we set a wager, but I got my 6packs and learned to control my weight, which I count as a win.

dylan62• 16 years ago

I eat lots of supermarket 'ready meals'. There seems to be an assumption that this is worse for my health that if I prepared and cooked the ingredients myself. Can someone point me to some concrete scientific evidence that that is true, or at least some convincing theories on why it might be true? (Ready meals are really convenient - if I'm going to motivate myself to give them up, I need some concrete evidence that they really are bad for me)

orlandu63• 16 years ago

Pre-made meals aren't intrinsically bad for you; it's the preservatives and other questionable ingredients (and quantity of) that the manufacturers may add that is detrimental to your health.

wtallis• 16 years ago

To give a specific example: many preservatives and industrial techniques can alter the flavor of a dish in unpleasant ways, so industrialized food just covers up those flavors with salt. The worst examples would be the "flavor packet" that comes with ramen noodles: some of these deliver a full gram of sodium. But most frozen meals have unreasonably high levels of sodium as well. If you prepare your food from raw ingredients, you at least have the option of using less salt, to the betterment of your blood pressure.

techsupporter• 16 years ago

I believe the parent post is referring to the "Meals For Two" that some grocery stores are offering these days. In my area, two chains--Market Street and Central Market, for reference--have hot food restaurants/delis in the store. They use the same stock that is sold in the store and prepare lunch and dinner servings prior to the store opening and then throughout the day. Those are then packaged in containers, placed into a paper bag, stapled closed and put into a refrigerated display case.

Functionally, these are no different from preparing food at home. They are naturally more expensive than cooking the food yourself, but I can't tell a big difference. There are even services around here now that prepare, freeze, and deliver fresh-cooked meals from a nearby commercial kitchen on a weekly basis.

spenrose• 16 years ago

(1) Healthfulness of food is a continuum, not a boolean. (2) "Ready made" meals covers almost the full spectrum. (3) Achilles heel of the best (really, all) frozen meals (say, Gardenburger with side of broccoli, or vegetable-centric Amy's) is high sodium. (4) If you cook healthfully (say a reasonably faithful version of the Indian or Italian traditions), your meals will have a much better balance of nutrients and especially more micronutrients than the median frozen prepared meal. (5) Plain frozen vegetables (as opposed to frozen prepared dishes/"meals") are excellent food. (6) See Michael Pollan for more.

tptacek11• 16 years ago

Does sodium actually matter to most people? My understanding was, no, not even a little.

marze2• 16 years ago

The author leaves out one advantage of not eating out so much, cost.

It is difficult to spend more on ingredients for a home cooked meal than a nice restaurant meal would cost, and not hard to spend a lot less.

The downside is time, but the upside of is a fun cooking hobby.

tptacek11• 16 years ago

It is definitely not harder to spend more cooking at home than eating out. You just have to geek out, just a little bit, and not shop at supermarkets.

Note also that if you eat meat but won't eat Tyson chicken or Swift pork, your meal cost is automatically higher than most midrange restaurant meals --- but then again, those restaurants are probably serving you wholesale chicken & pork from the same crappy sources.

marze2• 16 years ago

If you consider a "nice restaurant meal" to cost $25 or more, I assert it is hard to spend $25 on ingredients for one home cooked meal.

It is fairly easy to spend more than a "dollar menu fast food meal".

marquis• 16 years ago

I often spend far more on a home-cooked dinner than eating out, due to finding amazing ingredients I want to try, such as an expensive imported cheese that goes well with an artisan chutney and then you need a good wine with that.. I wouldn't try these foods outside of an expensive restaurant, which I only go to rarely in anycase. The best cuts of fish or red meat will put you back a little also, though it's worth it certainly when you have guests, for the flavour quality. But certainly, I would say it's less expensive to eat well at home.

elptacek4• 16 years ago

We don't cook because our parents didn't. Prepackaged convenience foods have always been something of a status item. This whole "return to cooking" is something of an amusing rebellion to me, since it was something of a stigma in my childhood. If your parents had money, your lunch was filled with tasty items sealed in plastic from a factory.

I used to bake bread in my dorm kitchen. My floormates thought it astounding. This is how I learned that nobody's parents had taught them how to cook. As an only child of a single parent, the responsibility for the evening meal fell to me (as well as my own meals throughout the day). Eventually I set upon the family collection of cookbooks and was allowed to make pretty much anything. Even a recipe from a Campbell's Soup cookbook for oatmeal cookies containing a can of tomato soup (as disgusting as it sounds).

Perhaps it's worth noting that my kids generally prefer prepackaged foods over our cooking. So maybe it's a cyclical thing, in some subset of each generation. But I'm hoping that teaching them to cook will change that.

wdewind• 16 years ago

The last thing you said is what I came in here to write. Everything in the NYTimes article is correct (about how easy it is to cook those 3 basic meals etc), but it misses one thing: there is no way that someone goes from eating burgers and prepackaged foods to salads and lentils instantly, and it's not because it's difficult or time consuming to cook (it's not really for most things).

Restaurant food has a major convenience factor, but the NYTimes article completely disregards that it also just plain tastes better than a salad to most people.

As someone who hates healthy food, lives in NYC where I can literally order delivery off the internet, and is trying to cook a lot more, you can't force two things on people at once: healthy eating AND cooking. I'm beginning to really like cooking, but only because I'm making things that aren't super healthy. My mother is a librarian and highly encourages her kids to read comics because to her they are a) totally valid reading material and b) are sometimes a gateway drug to much more reading. It's the same with cooking: teach someone to cook a butter burger and fry up some potatoes first (they'll still probably be knocking a few hundred calories off a restaurant version of the same meal anyway) and get them hooked on it. Maybe they'll transition to healthier stuff, worst case you at least have them eating SLIGHTLY healthier, and far closer to the source.

TLDR: Make a man a salad and he will order delivery for a night, teach a man to make salad and he will order deliver for a lifetime.

chipsy• 16 years ago

You seem to possess a dogmatised notion of "healthy food." Burgers, even the over-processed fast-food kind, stack up pretty well as these things go. It's the fries and Coke that'll destroy you. And if a salad gets you down, it may benefit with more oil or cheese. Understanding the relationships between carbs, fats, salt, and spices is most of what you need to make something taste good.

"Healthy" just means that the food is beneficial and doesn't harm you. To know with some real certainty that something is or isn't harmful you have to run your own tests: The effects of sesame oil vs. olive oil, more butter vs. more sugar, etc. Given the speed at which dietary guidelines change, the facts and hard rules should be given less weight than your own feelings and behavior post-consumption.

michaelchisari5• 16 years ago

I wholeheartedly agree with the point that homecooked meals from raw ingredients, are, by design, healthier than fast food or restaurant meals. I grew up eating homecooked meals, but by no means health food, and my family was all in generally good health.

bobf• 16 years ago

In the same vein.. if you want a delicious salad, try making this: an over-easy egg served on top of chunks of crispy bacon over baby spinach greens, with a dressing of a mixture of a decent balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

elptacek4• 16 years ago

This is not too far from what I originally intended to reply to the article itself, too, until I read the other comments. My three would probably be soup, pizza and sweet potato fries. This would give you a kick start on sauces (soup base), breads (pizza dough) and deep frying.

I should also point out that we lived in a small organic farm, giving me the advantage of an abundant source of vegetables, fruits, eggs and dairy.

HeyLaughingBoy• 16 years ago

As an only child of a single parent, the responsibility for the evening meal fell to me

Same here. Mom couldn't afford much convenience food, so I learned to go to the butcher down the street -- 25 years ago in Brooklyn, NY there were still neighborhood butchers. Wonder if they're still there -- and get chicken/ground beef/etc, season it and either cook it following her instructions or wait until she came home to finish the meal. Learning basic cooking techniques from an early age (I started baking around age 9 and I'm bringing my son up the same way) means they became second nature without me even realizing it. I think it's that automatic response that is most important to learn; "I'm hungry" means I start thinking about what ingredients are on hand that I can cook quickly, not what boxed meal I can microwave.

I still remember being amazed post-college at how helpless my roommate was (Burger King every night or detailed instructions from his gf on how to make cinnamon sugar toast!).

marcinw• 16 years ago

"Perhaps it's worth noting that my kids generally prefer prepackaged foods over our cooking. So maybe it's a cyclical thing, in some subset of each generation. But I'm hoping that teaching them to cook will change that."

Trust me, as they each grow older, they will appreciate your cooking more and more. I myself was a hamburgers, hotdogs, chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese kid growing up, but going home to my parents to eat Mom's cooking is priceless now.

chrisaycock• 16 years ago

"Why I Don't Cook at Home" from The Oatmeal:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cook_home

(I myself do cook, but I also go out when I need a break from my own cooking.)

tptacek11• 16 years ago

"I don't cook because I don't decide what to eat until I am so hungry that a Chinese take-out leaflet is appealing, and when I tried to make bison casserole with an empty fridge instead of ordering Chinese, it didn't work out for me". Got it, Oatmeal.

Sorry, did I kill the frog?

kd0amg• 16 years ago

That summary looks about right to me. Though there is probably some value in pointing out that a lot of people who try to get into cooking really don't know where to start and end up looking in exactly the wrong place, e.g. a recipe dependent on a large number of specialty items (I'm certainly not going to start my brother on something like that).

nazgulnarsil• 16 years ago

I began eating red beans and rice (plus peppers, onions, and garlic, never ever gets old) a year ago as a staple and the improvement in my health has been noticeable. I have put on 25 pounds of 90% muscle and have stabilized near my ideal "fighting weight" again.

spacemanaki• 16 years ago

It made me smile to see this note at the bottom of pg's essay on ramen-profitability:

http://www.paulgraham.com/ramenprofitable.html#f1n

pamelafox• 16 years ago

Growing up, I only knew how to cook spaghetti and chocolate chip cookies. I figured everything else was in the realm of gourmets, and then I went to work for Google, and I never really needed to cook.

But lately I got interested in cooking again and discovered that its surprisingly easy to cook delicious meals. Here are my staples: - Beef & veggie stir-fry (http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/beef-recipes/beef-and-veg... - substitute "cauliflower rice" for noodles for lower carbs) - Pan-fried salmon w/asparagus or green beans (cooked in butter, garlic, and salt)

I wish someone had shown me the joys of a frying pan and sea salt before. It's brilliant. I feel so gourmet now. ;)

shadowpwner• 16 years ago

As a side note, the website is Jamie Oliver, a major player in convincing people on eating healthy. If you haven't seen his TED Talk, I would encourage you to: http://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_oliver.html. He also starred in a reality-esque (not sure of the proper term, don't watch TV) TV-show called Food Revolution, attempting to bring healthy food to elementary schools.

michaelchisari5• 16 years ago

I grew up with a pretty strong culinary tradition (Sicilian-American), and it was only when I left home around 17/18 that I realized how privileged I was to have a grown up with a father and grandfather that were extraordinary cooks. My grandfather was master baker at Gonnella for decades, a genius in many ways, and my father is easily following in his footsteps.

My family was not rich, but I would not have traded their cooking skills to have grown up eating in the most expensive restaurants.

It was not unusual growing up to have homemade bread around.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs887.snc4/72084... (From my dad's fb)

My father bakes pastries as a hobby, at one point, he made three large bins full of different types of cookies because work was slow and he needed to keep busy.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs124.snc1/5331_...

While my grandfather was more traditionally Sicilian in his style, my father is more Chicago. His deep dish pizza will knock your socks off, and sausage and peppers with fresh baked Italian bread is the stuff of champions.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v1976/129/117/510... (Arancini, Octopus salad, Pasta salad, and Caponata)

I always took it for granted. When I moved out, I missed it. As I got older, I praised it. When my grandfather died, and I realized that I had spent a solid week talking about food, even the Priest talked about it, I realized that I need to get serious about doing it. When my father passes, it's up to me and my brothers to keep things going. Without it, all I have is the name.

So I'm a big advocate of building and rebuilding a culinary culture. It's easy for me, because mine never disappeared, but I understand it's more difficult for others whose families immigrated earlier, or whose cultures were purposely stamped out, to build that. And I think, for most people it's about enjoying cooking, and understanding the ingredients, for me, a culinary culture can't just be about assembly. It's about everything from philosophy to ideology, sex and love, family, emotion and science. And so much a person's personality and memory is wrapped up in how and what they cook. This Christmas, the first Christmas without my grandfather, my father made a traditional Christmas dinner, and it was heaven. One of the dishes was called Scacciata, a salty bread with tuma cheese that's just incredible. It was wonderful, but it was uniquely my father's creation, and I realized that I would never have it exactly the way my grandfather made it ever again.

I love America, but to be completely honest, the only thing I've ever considered emigrating over is the food culture. I get so envious of other countries that if I ever I do decide to leave (doubtful), that will be the reason.

This was long and somewhat meandering, but I'll leave you with this final scene from The Big Night, one of my favorite movies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oerP7FRMWa8

tptacek11• 16 years ago

Big Night: also a great startup movie.

I might take issue with the (implied) assertion that Chicago lacks a food culture, or that the average citizen of (say) Rome is necessarily steeped in one.

michaelchisari5• 16 years ago

Chicago has a restaurant culture, a particularly fantastic one (in my opinion the best in the U.S.), but I don't know if I consider that the same as a food culture. While there are some pretty good open markets, it's nothing like you'd get in Rome or Paris, and the idea of taking a three hours for lunch would get you laughed out of the workplace.

tomkinstinch• 16 years ago

I find it appalling that there are adults who are unable to prepare food for themselves.

I'm a college student. I cook every day by choice, not for financial reasons (though it is less expensive). For me, cooking has manifold appeal. Through cooking it is possible to:

* Cook meals that taste better than those that come from a restaurant or out of a box. This takes quality ingredients and some skill. Those just getting started with cooking may not make anything that rivals food from a fine restaurant, but with practice it's possible. I can adjust recipes to my own tastes, or invent my own recipes by combining ingredients in ways that I think will work well. Recipes are simply lists of instructions that consistently yield good food, and are not unlike programs. The ingredients are the parameters, and recipe steps are functions. Execute the program correctly, and quality food will be returned. Functions are modular, and learned techniques can be adapted to new foods. It's about "understanding" ingredients and styles of cooking. Think of a cookbook as lessons on culinary design patterns.

* Eat healty fare. By cooking, I can prepare meals with balanced levels of nutrients. For me, that means hitting the major food groups, with reduced levels of refined carbohydrates and salt. Unlike packaged food, what I cook for myself has low levels of preservatives, no synthetic flavors, and no artificial colorants. Once you start to cook for yourself, food from chain restaurants and prepackaged food begin to taste like cardboard. I also have anaphylactic allergy to certain foods, so for me it is also a way to ensure that meals are safe.

* Save time. Cooking can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few days, depending on the meal. I can prepare food in bulk, and either eat for the week or freeze food for the future. I regularly have homemade chicken stock on hand and frozen in the freezer. It has less salt and more flavor than store bought stock, and costs nearly nothing to produce.

* Relax and enjoy myself. I have other hobbies, but I cook for leisure. For me, spending an hour or two to prepare food is better sitting in front of a video game or television. I can move around a kitchen, experience a variety of smells, sights, and sounds--without leaving the house. It gives me great pleasure to cook with others, and to share good food with friends. Unlike alcohol or other staples of revelry, food is life-sustaining--we have to eat.

* Be a responsible consumer. Sustainability has become a buzzword these days, but cooking is one surefire way to reduce our environmental impact. Food I prepare myself does not depend on a factory system for production, packaging, or marketing. Where I live, in Rochester, NY, we are fortunate to have a fantastic farmer's market. I go to the market each Saturday and buy enough food for a week for less than the cost of a single meal at a mid-range independent restaurant. I don't usually go with specific recipes in mind. I typically buy vegetables that are in season, or those that look particularly fresh. I can talk to the men and women who grow the food. In an economy dominated by corporations, monetary voting is one of the most important actions we can take. I cast my ballot for local food. It supports the regional economy, and local food does not need to be trucked in. Local food it is allowed to truly ripen, and it does not lose nutrients on cross-country journeys.

* Experience aspects of other cultures. I have roommates of European, Hispanic, Russian, and Indian heritage, and we each approach food differently. The cabinets in my house are stocked with all kinds of spices, for different kinds of traditional meals. I've experienced new flavors, and truly learned which ones I enjoy. I've come to revelations that some recipes from my German grandmother may, just maybe, taste better with a little dhal or mole.

I consider myself fortunate to have parents who, while modest cooks, instilled in me the importance of knowing how to cook. Cooking is traditionally something passed down within families. By forgetting to cook, we lose that part of our heritage.

---

Cooking is a perfect hacker activity, in my opinion. It is systematic, affords many of the same challenges as a chemical experiment, and has countless variations.

When I cook, I think about how salt, temperature, pressure, and humidity can each help me in the kitchen. Knowing about vapor pressure, osmotic balance, chemistry, and biology can only contribute toward good meals.

I enjoy knowing what happens when I deglaze a pan with wine, sear meat, use a pressure cooker, and I enjoy when I sneak a vacuum pump into the kitchen to help with marinades or sauce reduction.

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So you want to cook, you say? What gear do you need? I’m sure others here would be able to offer better advice, but I'd suggest a heavy sauce pan (I prefer cast iron or stainless steel, though I use a non-stick pan for omlets), an 8-10" chef knife (with something to sharpen it, like a sharpening steel or an upside-down ceramic coffee mug), a large stock pot (with cover), a large cutting board, wooden spatulas, a whisk, a roasting pan, mixing bowls, measuring spoons and cups (and/or a scale), tongs, and a strainer. There are countless other implements, but the aforementioned will get you 80% there. A thermometer can be handy if you're cautious or curious.

Evgeny• 16 years ago

a stir-fry, a chopped salad, and the basic combination of rice and lentils, all of which are easy enough to learn in one lesson

Well, fried eggs with bacon or whatever else you want them with are quite easy to learn and quick to cook.

Also, I've learned to cook steaks recently, it's actually super easy - just heat the pan, cook 1 side for two minutes, turn over and cook the other side for two minutes!

tptacek11• 16 years ago

Or get a cheap-o RC880 rice cooker and a $120 Auber PID controller and some ziploc bags, and you can make absolutely foolproof steaks, pork chops, chicken breasts, duck legs, rabbit, beaver tail, and what-have-you just by pushing a couple buttons.

It blows my mind that more hackers don't cook sous-vide.

patrickgzill• 16 years ago

I saw a sous-vide being advertised for about $300 from Costco; so surely more people are becoming aware of it!

By becoming a cook, you can leave processed foods behind

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