Grandmas Special Recipe or Freezer Burnt Veggies 

What’s the difference between a homecooked traditional pasta dish and a drive-through burger? Evidentially, there is a financial and nutritional difference, but the biggest difference is the sentimental value. After diving into several student essays from my class as well as prior classes about their Favorite Homemade Meals, I realized a pattern. Julia Moura claims her grandfather makes the most incredible scrambled eggs, Lily King says her Nana has perfected her sauces and pasta, and Rachel Martin explains how the smell of her father’s meatloaf is mesmerizing. The pattern is that most of the meals are these students’ favorites because the creator is so special to them. Homemade meals hold a sentimental value that TV dinners severely lack. Do not get me wrong, I love going out and trying different restaurants as well. Going out to eat is a different type of experience because it allows me to try foods from different cultures like Chinese food, Mexican food, and Italian Food to name a few. Other than that, it does save a trip to the grocery store and the mess of cooking to clean up. Michael Pollan in his essay “Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch” seems to leave a stigma surrounding the idea of TV dinners and going out to eat as he writes about the impact authenticity has on our daily food choices. There is no arguing that TV dinners and fast food are becoming more of a norm than how homemade meals were some years ago, but they aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Homemade meals will always be my preference, but I also understand that to others, TV dinners or eating out is simply more convenient.  

All of my life I have been taught that a homecooked meal is a form of love. My family got to always have at least one part of the day together, which was enjoying a meal my mother made. When I was younger, I would stand on a chair next to my mom as she cooked and got to learn all her recipes and cooking tricks. These bonding moments that took place over a homemade meal are staples of my childhood that made me who I am today. I believe that these experiences are the reason why I express my love through food and also why family is so significant to me. I love to cook for my friends and family, especially my mom because I know it makes her proud that she taught me so well. Watching someone’s face light up after their first bite of my food or hearing someone ask for a second plate warms my heart. 

Reading my classmates and former students’ essays regarding their favorite meals was very entertaining for me because I have an interest in food. Not only did I get to read about yummy meals and gain a few new recipes to try, I got to see how similarly different families feel about homecooked meals. Food is a symbol of love and family. It’s the center of holidays, events, traditions, and our daily lives. A homecooked meal is a way to get families to reconnect at the end of the day and share a pocket of peace together. Life is constantly moving at a quick pace but taking time to prepare, cook, sit down, savor, and enjoy a meal allows us to be calmly grounded. All of the student essays I read were based on a homemade meal, generally created by a valuable figure in their lives. Aside from eating together as a family, many families use cooking as a task to enjoy together. In Lilys essay she explains, “Once a month since I was little, my family gets together and makes pasta and so many sides. We make homemade pasta, me and all of my little cousins create funny shapes for us all to eat. While we were making all of the little pasta shapes, all of the adults were in the kitchen making homemade sauces.” (King) This idea of creating the dinner together is simply beautiful and an accurate representation of how food can bring a family together. This relates to Pollans argument that TV dinners are taking away these opportunities to connect with our family members. In the section titled “The Cooking Animal” of Pollans essay, he states, “Cooking gave us not just the meal but also occasion: the practice of eating together at an appointed time and place. This was something new under the sun, for the forager of raw food would likely have fed himself on the go and alone, like the animals… But sitting down to common meals, making eye contact, sharing food, all served to civilize us; ‘around that fire,’ Wrangham says, ‘we became tamer.’” (Pollan 17) Pollan holds a strong stance with his opinion on the effects of normalized frozen meals and fast food and Lilys quote provides support to his claims. To put it simply, if we do not interact in a positive manner with our families, which can be provided by cooking dinner together, then our families bonds can grow weaker.  

The convenience and addiction of fast food and eating out at restaurants to Americans has become a noticeable decline to the significance of making a homemade meal and an even more noticeable increase to the obesity rates. After reading my classmates and the student archives of their “Favorite Food” essays, I noticed that there was either no mention of restaurant meals and fast-food restaurants or they were mentioned in a negative context, so the superiority of a homemade meal is still prominent in the modern-day world. Rachel Martin makes a very interesting statement in her essay about her father’s delicious meatloaf. She expresses her thought that, “Food can help lift a person’s spirits and enrich our lives. Without good, home cooked food, the world would not be the same. People would be restricted to the greasy burgers and fries from their nearest fast-food establishment.” (Martin) This opens an interesting discussion of how the world would be without homecooked meals. The first concern I thought of was the obesity rates sky rocketing. Pollan states, “A 2003 study… found that the rise of food preparation outside the home could explain most of the increase in obesity in America.” (Pollan 18) Obesity is already an issue and with the rates of homemade meals decreasing, the problem will only be getting more detrimental. Julia Moura wrote her favorite meal essay in 2019 about her love for Vovo’s, her grandfathers, scrambled eggs. She could have picked any meal she had ever eaten, including microwavable food, a restaurant meal, or her choice from any of the thousands of fast-food chains in America, but she chose one of the simplest meals. This is a very powerful choice because it expresses that homemade meals will always hold a value that’s far above any other type of meal. Julia explains the sentimental value she has to this meal beautifully, “Vovo’s eggs may be my favorite thing to eat but, it is way more than that. I love how going to breakfast for these eggs brings us all together, especially my siblings and me.  Over the years, we have all grown up… We are all in different spots in our life. Trying to figure out what we want to do and who we are, sometimes we forget where we came from and who we have by our sides. However, there is always Vovo’s eggs…” (Moura) This is another prime example how food can create a connection within families, but it also presents that homemade food, no matter how simple, can be an emotional symbol that is nonexistent in food made outside the home. In the section “The End of Cooking” in Pollans essay he dives into the fact that industries were persistent with convincing society that restaurants and food brands should be doing the cooking. This began many years ago when women started to enter the work force which meant they had less time to spend in the kitchen. Pollan states, “Over the years, the food scientists have gotten better and better at simulating real food, keeping it looking attractive and seemingly fresh, and the rapid acceptance of microwave ovens- which went from being in only 8 percent of American households in 1978 to 90 percent today- opened up vast new horizons of home-meal replacement.” (Pollan 15) There’s no denying Pollans claim that Americans have become more dependent on “convenient” food such as fast food, frozen food, canned food, and microwaveable food but after reading all of the essays about their favorite meals, all being homecooked, these new world options will never satisfy us, emotionally or physically, in the way a homecooked meal will. 

As someone who was raised in a family that eats homecooked meals every day, I have wondered why some people only eat frozen or restaurant food. There happen to be many valid reasons depending on their lifestyle. Most people use frozen or restaurant food for convenience reasons. Parents with full time jobs and multiple children may struggle to find time to complete their daily tasks as well as grocery shopping, cooking the meal, and cleaning up afterwards. Instead, they can just pick up their kids and bring them to a restaurant which requires no grocery shopping, cooking, or clean up. Older people that have lost their ability to move around and react quickly find it difficult to cook and clean up, so they tend to depend on easy microwavable meals. TV dinners may not be as nutritious, but some form of substance will always be healthier than nothing. There have been cases of elderly people living in filth due to the fact their health does not allow them to stand for long periods of time. Another population that may prefer eating out or frozen dinners is single people. My mother, for example, now lives alone most of the time because my dad passed away, my siblings moved out, and I am in college. This has been a burdensome transition for her. Most ingredients and products at the grocery store are sold in packages that can feed at least three people, so she has found herself throwing away almost full packages of food that have gone bad before she can eat it. When she does cook a meal for herself, recipes also result in serving sized fit for an average sized family. She usually eats around one portion for dinner but then has most of it left over, but she once again finds herself throwing away containers full of meals that never got finished. My mother over anyone will express the importance of the value of a homemade meal but she is now finding quick frozen dishes more appealing due to the convenience and simplicity. Homecooked meals will always be a preference to most because there is truly nothing better than the cozy and sentimental feel it brings to your heart and belly.