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In "Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch" Michael Pollan illustrates the benefits of home cooking how it shaped his household. Pollen also analyzes the rise of corporation food and how it’s affecting our population. In regards to home cooking shaping his family household, Pollen owes it all to "The French Chef", Julia Child.
It was her famous french dishes that began to sprinkle in with their weeknight dinners. It wasn’t just her delicious recipes that made Julia Child an idol to almost every woman across America at the time. It was her honesty and rawness in the kitchen, her show was live and unedited. Child gave women confidence in the kitchen and "took the fear out of cooking". She also radiated confidence on her show. Her lesson was that you will never learn unless you try, or "the only way you learn to flip things is just to flip them" Pollen discusses how Child always seemed to take pleasure in actually breaking a sweat and working hard to make her concoctions. You could tell just from watching her that she cooked to please herself and no one else. The Food Network stars seem to take pleasure in making everything as quick and convenient as possible - all while trying to please others. The nostalgia of watching one’s own mother cook hits home for almost everyone. Thanks to Julia, she made this possible for Pollan due to his mother trying out all of her recipes. And lastly, was the sheer satisfaction that cooking gave Child. Pollan closes his love and respect for Julia Child with this question, how many people do you know these days get "such a gratifying and tasty sense of close" from cooking?" The answer is no one.
The next question that is puzzling to Pollan is why do people like watching cooking shows but they’re not willing to cook? The rise of fast food and convenient processed shortcuts contribute to the decline of home cooking. Along with the decrease in cooking from scratch, it also leads to obesity. Since people don’t watch t.v to learn, why would they learn how to cook from a cooking show? The Food Network took this into consideration and made more shows about eating and competition rather than cooking. These competition shows such as "Iron Chef" and "Chopped" are attracting more of a male crowd.
Another reason why cooking is decreasing is because Americans have been working more, about 167 more hours a month. In turn, we have relied more on processed food. Food is not the only reason why cooking shows are so fascinating, cooking identifies us as humans. It sets us apart from animals, and it developed us. We became tamer and more socialized by sitting around a fire and eating together. Our brains became larger from absorbing more nutrients from the cooked food and our abdominal areas became smaller because it takes less time to chew and digest cooked food rather than raw food.