Everybody Does It! (Part 2)

Perhaps the feeling that not cooking is “bad” is subconsciously tied to the inherent belief that cooking is an act of love, an act of sharing, a way of demonstrating that you care for someone else. Is the inverse that if you just nuke and serve, you love your family less than a “real” cook? Was Julia Child the new archetype for love, or perhaps Martha Stewart? Somehow, regardless of the success achieved by both, it’s hard to picture Julia or Martha as usurping Aphrodite.

That home cooking is inextricably bound to concepts of love is demonstrated through our most precious rituals – the holidays. It is true that we equate homecooked meals with love. Why else is food so bound up with our holiday rituals? We have laboriously prepared dinners on the holidays that we eat at no other time of the year – stuffed roasted turkeys at Thanksgiving, Roast Prime Ribs of Beef and Smoked Hams at Christmas, (or even a goose!), and fresh hams at Easter. We swoon over family favorites, dishes that Moms have served for generations. We gush and coo over new dishes provided by our family members, while at the same time surreptitiously reaching under the table to slip Rover the items we can’t stand.

Nonetheless, whether homecooked meals equal love or not, the truth is that North Americans are consuming vastly ever-increasing amounts of prepared meals, arriving at a love-hate relationship with the TV Dinner.

Given our zeitgeist about the stuff, it’s amazing that frozen dinners aren’t sold in plain brown wrappers.