I heard author Michael Pollan on NPR this week, and my reaction was mixed. He was discussing his article in Sunday’s NY Times Magazine, “Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch.” I respect Mr. Pollan’s views, what I’ve heard of them, so I wasn’t biased against him going into the interview. Then he says Food Network shows like Rachael Ray’s 30 Minute Meals and Sandra Lee’s Semi-Homemade just have “dump and stir” recipes from which no one learns a thing. He says The Food Network claims people do download their recipes, but he asks can you call that cooking?
Come on, now. That’s a bit harsh. Does this look like dump and stir?
Pollan went on to trash event shows like Iron Chef, and though I enjoy that show and learn about food from it, I don’t learn how to cook, so his point remains. Shows like Wedding Cake Challenge are tiresome. But as he went on to dismiss the hassle of making home fries and say that marketers tell him no one cooks anymore, I have to wonder if he and his people live in a culture entirely different from mine.
Houston blogger Katherine Shillcut asks in Pollan’s critique applies to her city where farmers markets are packed and the obesity rate is high. Pollan contends that one can mark the rise in obesity by the decline in cooking at home. I don’t think it’s that simple.
Perhaps, like I said, there’s a cultural blindness in play here (probably on both sides). I can’t see how so many chefs, food bloggers, and recipe makers are sustained by the mere interest in vicarious cooking. As a rebuttal, Frank Wilson points out “The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectuals” and another article suggesting food critics are about as partisan as politicians.
I grew up in N Idaho on a farm. (Very small, 20 acres.) I hoed the beans, milked the cows, and played with the chicken. As an adult, I have been on the lower end of the economic scale and have to say, when we’ve been at the mercy of public largess, all the handouts seem to assume people don’t know diddly about cooking and the economy of doing it at home, from scratch.
I do think that culinary critics create their own rarified atmosphere that has little to do with the real world, as you said, like politicians.
From Facebook, a friend named Perry who knows a bit about this topic, said this: “Several points about this (this will take several posts):
1. I think the problem is that we see farmer’s markets, et all as being crowded partially because they are small. If a farmer’s market the size of a Wal-mart were crowded, then may Katherine Shilcut’s remarks would remain. As it stands, most farmer’s markets (even the big ones) are the size of a convenience store and so in a metropolis the size of Houston, a few crowded farmer’s markets, while they are thrilling and exhilarating and supporting some wonderful people who are working the land, they wouldn’t have an effect on the obesity rate of the city (the rest (bulk) of the population is still shopping at Wal-Mart).”
From Perry: “2. As for food network critique, the problem is that many, many people sit around and watch the food network and eat pre-made, pre-packaged junk. I can’t tell you how many of my friends are total foodies, love watching Giada (or whomever their personal favorite is) and they do cook occasionally glamorous, once-a-month, I-spent-my-whole-paycheck-on-the-ingredients recipes from the Food Network. The problem is that the rest of the time they’re eating gourmet pre-made food (either Whole Foods take-out or Annie’s organic frozen dinners, etc…). This occasional, expensive version of high-class cooking is not a sustainable lifestyle of making and consuming one’s own food. I love eating out and cooking extravagant meals, but that can’t be one’s whole food consumption.
3. I agree that Pollan is getting a little preachy recently. One of the things I like about his two books about food (Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food) is that they are generally more observational than preachy. I think that a real change in food culture is going to have to happen as people discover on their own what we’ve lost as we’ve adopted a fast-paced, eat-out culture. Preaching at people only makes them resentful (though, I would point out, that I agree wholeheartedly with the content of Pollan’s arguments).”
Perry’s second point hits hard. I know several people who cook at home. Maybe they use prepared food more often than not, but I don’t assume they do. Because that’s my perspective, it’s difficult to hear Pollan say no one cooks anymore.
The other article linked above and the second one Frank links to have stronger critiques of Pollan’s statements. I’d like to know what the sustainable food model looks like, if there is one. Is New York City supposed to live mostly off the food produced in New England? Is that remotely possible?