Draft #1
Brandon Healy
English Comp
Professor Miller
10-14-19
Project #2
I really enjoyed reading this article because it talked on the laziness of America when it comes to cooking. People spend more time watching images of cooking on a television than actually cooking the meal. Back in the time of Julia Child she would cook in front of the camera and it would be broadcast to the people of America. At the time it was most mothers trying to cook a new elaborate meal for their families.
On page 4, When Michael Pollan asked his mother why Julia Child was so endeared to her heart, she responded with “for so many of us she took the fear out of cooking”. This just goes to show the importance that Julia Child has on cooking in America. She paved the way for cooking in America and the reason why cooking has spread beyond public or cable television to broadcast networks. But somehow it has gone from spending the entire cooking session with Julia Child, a step by step tutorial to reality television with Gordan Ramse. Don’t get me wrong I find Gordon Ramse hilarious when he uses his utterly vulgar language to demean the upcoming chiefs. I just find it interesting how the way food television has changed. She said to the people watching her, “When you flip anything, you have to have the courage of your convictions.”, page 5 paragraph one.
Julia taught people the importance of having the courage to to cook, if you weren’t confident in your ability to cook it would affect the dish. I again find it interesting the way Gordan Ramse the exact opposite, he tries to make people crack under the pressure. This is just another way the food television has changed. Julia Child empowered women and showed them a way to value themselves. She showed them that the real importance of making the meal was not the meal itself but the gratification of completely the task at hand. “Child was less interested in making it fast and easy than making it right, because cooking for her was so much more than a means to a meal.”, page 6 bottom of first paragraph. Processed food has taken over in America, it is all in the name of convenience.
This relates back to the laziness of America, we are no longer making things from scratch and now rely on ingredients that are premade for us. The natural process of consuming food has been changed. A hundred years ago if you wanted a chicken dinner, you had to go out, hunt down a chicken, kill it, defeather it, guck it, and then finally cook it. Now Americans on average spend less than a half hour cooking a day. How is it that we have come to this point and how can fix the way we treat food in America?
The most important advancement in civilization was fire. Fire kept our ancestors from freezing to death, protected them from predators, and cooked their food. If it weren’t for the advancement of fire, human beings would still be at the bottom of the food chain. In today’s day and age, fire is still very important to our culture, but in a different way. We do not use fire as a way to bring people together, in the aspect of cooking. Home cooking brings people together and creates memories that last a lifetime. But reality television cooking brings people apart. People who would rather watch somebody who can cook a meal of food on a broadcasting network rather than help their mother cook it or even do it themselves. At the end of John’s first paragraph of his Favorite Meal Essay, that is not as understood as it should be in today’s time “If not for eating, then meals would be an excuse to interact with others on a deeper level in everyday life.”(Meuse 1). People do not understand the importance of sitting down and talking to people, sharing your memories of the day, as a way to relieve stress.. The type of reality cooking on television is making people lazy and takes the importance of cooking and sharing a meal out of life.
The laziness is also leading to unhealthy eating habits because people are spending less time on cooking and more time television. Processed foods are being in today’s world more than ever and the defects of it are showings. People are more unhealthy than they ever were. That is why cooking from scratch is very important because it combines the two things you need in life human interaction and healthy food options.
In all the food essays being used they all talked about the deeper meaning of food. The culture background, traditions, memories, and the societal impact of each of them. Food was always more than just nutritional value to them, it was a way to grow as a person and interact with people you care about. In today’s society food and cooking needs to be treated with more respect because all these reality food broadcasting networks, who bring in over 100 million viewers, are taking away from the core values of food.
