the six-minute pot roast

From The New York Times:

“Rip! Zap! Ding! It’s a Classic 6-Minute Pot Roast” “The family dinner wasn’t all about mom standing in the kitchen cooking all day and then cleaning up the dishes for several hours,” said Jack Dunn, senior vice president for refrigerated processed meats at Tyson Foods. “The family dinner was about sitting down and eating a good meal together.”

Well, no, actually that IS what it was about. Their nostalgia is totally misplaced. I bet that this guy’s mom remembers “what it was about” quite differently than he seems to. Part of it was that Mom taught the kids (or at least the girls) how to cook, and the kids had to help clean up as part of their chores. That seems like standard Americana nostalgia to me. They’ve just twisted it around in order to make their microwavable pot roast sound better than it actually is.

The whole point is that these days, people hate to cook. They hate having to think of what to eat, and actually fix it, not to mention the grocery shopping, the learning how to cook, etc. etc. Why else would anyone accept the quality of these prepackaged foods? Have you ever tasted a Lean Cuisine or Budget Gourmet? They’re disgusting. We need to figure out a way to get people to ENJOY cooking again — to make that 30 minutes spent in the kitchen seem worthwhile instead of a waste of time. Why? These companies have created a need — I have no doubt that these big industries are responsible in large part for telling people ‘you hate to cook,’ and like sheep we believe it — and then they have created a product to fill it.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think it works much the same way as the antivirus software companies — I bet that the writers of some of these viruses are on secret payroll from companies like Norton or McAfee. Create the “need,” then market the solution.

But the companies are hoping that more convenient entrees will become a staple at the dinner table, as more families try to balance the family meal with responsibilities outside the home. Today, 49 percent of all dinners are made in less than 30 minutes, an increase of 11 percent from 1996, according to the NPD Group. The fastest-growing part of that is meals that can be prepared, or more likely picked up from a restaurant, in 15 minutes or less, NPD said.

I don’t think that people need to spend 30 minutes in the kitchen every night, don’t get me wrong. I don’t even think that buying prepackaged meals or going out regularly is a bad idea. I just think that we need to help get it into people’s heads that they can make something really simple yet really good in a really short amount of time, all by their little old selves. If you’re gonna eat a Tyson Nine-Minute Meatloaf, at least know how to toss up a salad from scratch to go with it.