The Boy on Top
I am shocked too. I'm not that surprised that the food was bought, but frankly I'd have expected better quality. From the deli rather than the supermarket!
As you might expect, I always made everything too. But when my children were young, I was a housewife and mother, not a lady-who-lunches. We had a daily, but did all the cooking, in my last house all the gardening, and I did a lot of the housework. I made bread and cakes and cooked everything from scratch, decorated, made curtains, the lot. I have lots of friends who do/did the same. But it's becoming increasingly rare.
I'm not sure about the next generation though. I am encouraged by the number of young people who come and buy our veggies and enthuse about them. Will it last once they have children though? And will they think that the children need to eat as healthy food as they do? Many parents assume that children will only like junk food.
BTW, do you knead the dough yourself or use a breadmaker?
Yes, some was from the deli (though Waitrose bags where the most prevalent), but very few actually made their own. I know housework is hard work, and efficiencies can be a boon, but we seem to have gone way too far. Many of these families had made a conscious decision for one parent to stay at home, which I applaud. Yet food as one of the cornerstones of home life seems to have been thrown out the window. Both LL and I work, long hours too, yet we still strive to keep food and eating together as a major part of family life. Plus I wouldn't dream of feeding kids some of the stuff out of the shops today. Its a mystery to me.
As to bread making I don't hand kneed much. The Kenwood and bread maker are dragooned for that. Its a petty thing, but I found cleaning my hands afterwards too much of a bother. I don't use the bread maker for baking though, other than once a week or so for overnight loaves to do the morning toast. It just delivers the wrong shape, and I dislike the divot in the bottom. There's nothing quite like a handshapped loaf hot from the oven. TB
I think home cooking is a skill we have lost/ are loosing. My mum always cooked everything from scratch, but Wifey and I tend to do a mix and match.
Our nations relative wealth has meant that proceesed food is cheap and plentiful and requires little effort. When I was a child, we were all much poorer and processesed food was not widely available. The nearest we got was a packet of Smash!
I'm not against pre-made food persay, it can be handy, and there's very high quality stuff out there. It just seems people are moving to using preprocessed food ALL THE TIME. In that way lays madness. TB
Quite sad really...one of the nicest things about a picnic is preparing all the lovely picniccy things to eat...and one can be so creative too.
I am a food snob, frankly, and buy as little pre-prepared and convenience foods as possible. I always think I can make it better myself, whatever it may be....and unless a restaurant has a fantastic reputation, I also prefer eating and entertaining at home, because I am often so disappointed by what is served up, knowing I could easily do it myself at home.
Plus, there's something so relaxing and yet stimulating about cooking.
It's not difficult to understand why they do it. They do it because they can. And because it's easy. Lazy-arse-itis, basically.
True, sadly. It still makes me angry though, just because you can doesn't mean you should... TB
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