I yell about food
While I often like Mark Bittman, like a lot of the recent generation of food writers (and, all too often, environmental writers more broadly), he talks down to the poor. As someone who doesn’t work two jobs, who doesn’t have to search under the couch pillows for change to buy their kids meals, and who lives a life of leisure and high-quality food, it’s real easy for Bittman to tell the poor to cook more.
… But cooking for a big family is hard work. It’s not fun for everyone. Food writers (Michael Pollan does this as well) romanticize a past of family meals. But those meals were not easy to make. They were almost always created by women who stayed at home and toiled away at running a household. Even if that situation were desirable today, and many of us would say it is not, it’s not realistic. Most families cannot survive without two incomes and even working two jobs. That doesn’t even take into account single parents.
… Bittman dismisses the idea that we don’t have time to cook because we spend an average of 90 minutes today watching TV. But if you are working 2 jobs or are depressed or are stressed out by your troubles, watching some TV after a long, hard day is simply more enjoyable than cooking. Even after I get home from the office, and my job is far less difficult than blue-collar or service labor, I usually don’t want to spend 90 minutes cooking. I want a quick meal, a beer, and a baseball game.
Plus, what do the kitchens of the poor look like? Do they have decent pots and pans? Do they have functioning stoves? Have they paid the gas bill? Are their kitchens infested with cockroaches? Not infrequently, the answers to these questions are depressing.
Bullshit. The point is valid, but the criticism is spurious. Bittman isn’t some froo-froo Whole-Foods-french-cuisine asshole or a local food fetishist like Michael Pollan — we’re talking about the most popular (and populist) cookbook author in the COUNTRY, a guy who specifically teaches people how to make simple-ass meals and has dedicated his life to the premise of “Hey, with $5 and 15 minutes you can make something fucking awesome and healthy.”
You know what’s talking down to poor people? Saying “The poor HAVE to eat shitty food, because THEY CAN’T DO ANY BETTER. They’re too poor and tired and down-trodden to possibly not eat POISON! To suggest otherwise is ELITIST!!” Bullshit. You know what ISN’T talking down to poor people? Publishing a wildly-popular article showing how cooking a simple — underline simple, I’ve made both and they took twenty fucking minutes each — meal for a large family is fucking CHEAPER than buying a sack of McDonald’s swill, thus demolishing in a single chop half of the shitty, condescending arguments that pricks like you use to justify the status quo. I expect Bittman to take on “the poor are too busy” next week, but this fuck will probably have a problem with it because it doesn’t address how, I don’t know, the poor are a noble race and Type 2 diabetes is a part of their traditional culture or some bullshit.
I mean, honestly, “watching some TV after a long, hard day is simply more enjoyable than cooking”? What the FUCK, asshole? “Plus, what do the kitchens of the poor look like? Do they have decent pots and pans?” I don’t know, dude, you’re right, the fucking lack of ninety cent PANS is the problem here. Bittman’s a fucking monster because, oh shit, he forgot about the PANS. If this guy’s going to throw shit from the sidelines he can at least suck my dick while he does it.
The problem isn’t time or money — people were busy and lazy twenty years ago too, but they also managed to be healthier. The problem is education and awareness. We need a consumer education campaign in this country to undo the decades of ruinous marketing by food companies that have specifically and methodically promulgated the myth that the only way to feed your family is by shoveling execrable garbage down their throats. And that’s what the guy you’re taking pot-shots at is trying to build, partially by yelling, “HEY, IT WOULD BE GREAT IF PEOPLE COOKED MORE” as often as he can. If the nutrition and obesity crisis is ever solved in this country, it will be because of strenuous and tireless educators like Bittman, not snarky “I’m-more-hip-to-the-poor-than-you,-gotcha!” retrograde bloggers like whoever the fuck this asshole is. Dude is doing the lord’s work and shut the fuck up if you don’t like it. Sorry for being vociferous but I’ve been editing all night and drank a pint of whiskey. PEACE.
