Blog 6: Julie and Julia

Who here enjoys watching The Great British Bake Off? You do? Awesome, you have great taste. If you don't, I'm gonna pretend that you do for the point of this argument. Now how 'bout Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives? Or Iron Chef? Chef's Table? Buzzfeed's Worth It series? I can go on and on but I think I've reached the point of this blog. As a culture, we are entertained, if not obsessed, over shows about food. Reasons vary from person to person but ultimately we continually follow cooking shows like these because, as Pollen points out in his article "Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch", its become a lost art. Most of us, especially college students, have no time to cook a real meal, let alone a four course meal, because we're busy with finals and projects and would rather buy something quick like a Chipotle burrito. Sure, some of us meal prep, but when was the last time we actively engaged in the preparation and making of our food? And enjoyed it? I certainly can't. But it doesn't stop there. We get older, we find jobs, and we put in long hours. According to Pollen, we have put in an extra 167 hours to the total amount of time we spend working each year. Americans devote more time to their job than any industrialized nation. Food preparation has declined a good 40% since 1967. 80% of the cost of food eaten at home goes to someone other than a farmer like packaging and industrial cooking. So many facts happening here! Basically, how we cook and what we eat has changed since the end of World War II and it seems the effort we put into cooking is decreasing with every generation.

When I was younger, I used to think watching someone else cook food was boring; it seemed like an activity I would rather do myself rather than observe. But then I saw Julie and Julia, a wonderfully cute movie made by the late great Nora Ephron, that follows a blogger inspired by the famous chef, Julia Childs, to cook all of her recipes within a year. I was so inspired after watching this movie that I immediately baked a cake right after (I was 10 so cake was always my first choice). There was nothing remarkable about this cake. It was plain vanilla with chocolate frosting. But spending time beating the eggs with the butter and folding it into the batter just made it special because it was my creation with no rush to finish.  However, things change when we get older. Now when we make meals, the average American spend 27 minutes on prep time, which is less time it takes to watch an episode of Food Network Star or Chopped. Times are a'changing and people are spending more time watching food being made than they are making it for themselves. Even the cooking shows that teach you how to cook stress more about quick results and shortcuts than about the actual gratification you get from cooking. Julia Childs, in comparison with her cooking show which was unedited and live, showed the pleasure one receives from the work of cooking. She inspired a generation to get up and tackle french cuisines, which are notorious for their difficulty, and to just enjoy the rhythm and consistency of their food.  We can still cook like Julia Childs. Just because we don't have time now doesn't mean we don't have time later. And even if we never do at least we'll never lose the appreciation for it.