cheap, processed, usually pre prepared/cooked saves time for those stuck on the treadmill/holding down more than one job and also saves on the energy needed both for the preparing and the actual cooking of. we have to realise that many come back home at the same time as the kids, they (the parents) don't want another shift in the kitchen and they (the kids) haven't much patience to wait for their tea -things have changed from the days when my mam (who had been running the shop most of the day) would have tea ready when our father came in from work and we all had to wait.
In some cases it is the convenience of takeaways and ready meals ... I understand that .. I'm still partial to tin of beans and sausages on a couple of slices of toast for a quick meal ... but I do wonder whether it's an inability to cook from raw ingredients that is as much to blame as a lack of time. Do mothers and grandmothers (and fathers in some cases) pass on the basic skills of cooking. They no longer seem to teach it in secondary school. I learned how not to cook from my mum.... although I kept some of the things she did well, my grandmother was a great cook and I learned a lot from her .. I once asked her where my mum learned to cook and she told me they had a cook/maid when she was young so she didn't really do 'meals' but my grandma always baked cakes and pastries and did desserts -which my mum was good at ...it explained a lot.
At my age I remember the time when the only processed meals were in tins .. there were few domestic refrigerators and certainly no freezers. Produce was fresh, in seaon and very often local. Most people grew something that they ate and people learned how to prepare and cook from scratch.
I cringe when I see pre-prepared carrots in the chillers in the supermarket and they are not cheaper than the real thing ! I refuse to buy fresh strawberries in January, imported half way across the world - it's just not in my DNA.
Yes, we freeze fruit and veg when they are in season and eat them out of season. I make jams, chutneys and preserves as my ancestors did - and I'm astounded at the incredulity of some of the young(er) people I work with at what I do. I batch cook when I can - it all tastes as good as the shop bought stuff, I know what's in there and it is CHEAPER.
My forebears worked - often dawn to dusk - but managed to prepare and cook with fresh ingredients, without electric gadgets, hot water on tap, multiple ovens and hobs, microwaves, air fryers and mixers, fridges and freezers. The excuse that people no longer have time doesn't always hold true ... it's what we do with the time we have available perhaps that is part of the problem ?
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