As a friend of mine recently said, "We're all spoiled--very spoiled." We continually expect more and more convenience from the foods we buy. I've mentioned before that everybody feels so busy these days--working mothers, etc.—so no one feels they have the time to do much cooking. (And worse, look at the lines of cars in the drive-thru of the nearest fast-food place at dinner time: Call Hubby on the cell phone: "Pick up some KFC," or McDonald's, or Pizza Hut for dinner. Not good nutrition; that's one reason why Americans are so fat.)
When bagged salads first came out, I was practically outraged. You're paying up to $10 a pound for lettuce that should cost a fraction of that much—just to be saved the trouble of washing the lettuce and cutting (or tearing) it up. But I have to admit that now I buy it myself, probably 95% of the time. (I only eat organic lettuce, and I can more easily get organic bagged salad. But when I do see organic lettuce and it seems reasonably priced, I buy it and wash it, and save some money!)
Ditto for mashed potatoes. I've never bought the stuff that comes in a little tub in the supermarket. I'd have to agree that peeling potatoes, boiling them and then mashing them takes time and effort, and I've done it very few times in my life. So for potatoes, I'll use the instant, flake kind of mashed potatoes, or—better yet—I might just boil some little red potatoes: you don't even have to peel them. Takes 15 minutes.
You can get almost anything ready made these days, it seems, even things that are very easy to make yourself. Our grandmothers would be amazed, and probably horrified. You can get little pouches of tuna salad (you could just buy tuna and stir in a little mayonnaise, you really don't need much more than that). There are little packages of pasta dishes--just heat and eat. Even ready-made sandwiches in the food store, or peanut butter and crackers. Gad, we're too lazy to spread something on a slice of bread or a cracker!
I can make a lot of things from scratch, like brownies and pancakes—yet I buy a mix instead. (I buy a relatively healthy pancake mix and then doctor it by adding oat bran--adds fiber, cuts the sodium--and cinnamon, or blueberries if they're on hand.) I've never used the pancakes you get in the refrigerator counter or freezer of the supermarket. I buy frozen waffles, but my excuse there is that I don't own a waffle iron.
So I'm guilty, too. But we should all keep in mind that, when and if we have the time, it's better—more nutritious and typically a lot cheaper—if we make something from scratch or even a mix.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
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I agree that a mix is a good compromise between from-scratch and ready-made. My last client was a foodservice company that introduced me to the concept of "convenience scratch" cooking. Restaurant chefs (except in the really expensive places) will sometimes start with a commercial sauce base and customize it with their own ingredients and seasonings instead of spending 3 hours simmering stock. I know how to make pot roast from scratch but find that a sauce mix tastes just as good and is a lot less work. You won't find me getting ready-made mashed potatoes or tuna salad, but the ready-made hollandaise sauce at Trader Joe's is perfect for eggs benedict.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, Jim. I make eggs Benedict, too--my version, that is, with Egg Beaters cooked in a microwave egg poacher (unfortunately I can't find veggie "Canadian bacon" anymore); but I have to admit I don't like the Hollandaise at Trader Joe's, even though it's probably a relatively healthy version.
ReplyDeleteAnother slant on all this is that, not only do people (cooks, homemakers) not have the time or inclination to do much cooking; nobody knows how to cook anything anymore. Every generation, since my grandmother's, cooks less and less; but I thought it was just in my family that every generation also knows less and less about cooking. But today I saw a link on AOL to a video on "how to make delicious iced coffee." Thinking that there might be something special about this recipe, some ingredient I never thought to put in, I viewed the video. Nope, just "coffee, ice, sugar (if desired)." I can't believe people need directions to do that when it's not only simple, it's pretty much obvious. To me at least. I must really be in a minority.
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