I have a small private belief — for which, despite being a science writer, I can produce no data — that much of the complex difficulty of the American food system would vanish if people knew how to cook. When I say “cook,” I don’t mean mimicking “Top Chef” theatrics, or reproducing the transglutaminase excesses of molecular cuisine; I don’t even, particularly, mean carefully following recipes. What I mean, instead, is getting people to a place where they can walk into a store, or into their own pantries, emerge with a handful of ingredients, and make them into a meal.
If people trusted they could feed themselves, without much effort or advance planning, they wouldn’t be so vulnerable to the lure of fast and processed food. And if sales of those diminished, the market for the cheap products of industrial agriculture would diminish too. This I believe.
To trust that you can feed yourself, it helps to know a few techniques and to have developed a feel for some simple kitchen processes: when it’s appropriate to use a saute pan or a stock pot, and how long it takes water to boil. Most of all though I think it requires not being intimidated by the idea of cooking. Which is why I wish anyone who wants to be someone who cooks — but doesn’t quite know how to get there — could read “Dinner: A Love Story” (Ecco). At first glance, it’s a cookbook, based on a blog, by Jenny Rosenstrach, a magazine columnist and editor who lives outside New York City. But really, it’s a memoir, and also a how-to manual: a smart, pragmatic, warm and thoughtful guide to how two young professionals taught themselves to cook, and then taught their two kids to like food, and then organized their lives so that they all convene at a home-cooked meal, almost every day.
