Why do you say that frozen pizza and microwave dinner tastes like particle-board? There is no good reason why they should be inherently inferior to home cooked meals. Why couldn’t you put the ‘perfect’ dinner in a box and sell it? (I realize that there is no dinner that is perfect for everyone, but you could offer a wide enough array of choices to cover most tastes)
Of course, cooking yourself allows you to fine tune the seasoning, perhaps use fresher ingredients (although frozen ingredients can arguably be more fresh in some cases), and have more variation. There is a lot of crap out there, but I find that the quality of these dinners has improved drastically over the last couple of years.
Having said all this; I do enjoy cooking as well. It it seemed to me that your post showed some biases in need of correcting.
Frozen food is not inherently inferior to home-cooked food at all, given that you can freeze things you make at home without the universe imploding! I made a pizza the other day. Some of it is in my freezer now. It’s not as good as it was hot out of the oven, but it’s still a fine pizza considering I’d never made one before (future pizzas will be better). I used frozen spinach in the pizza because frozen vegetables are no less healthful or tasty (although there are some applications for which they are unsuitable, like roasting) and easier to keep around.
However, as a contingent, non-inherent fact about commercially available prepared frozen meals, they are often made with inferior ingredients (the details of the process are largely concealed from the consumer so this is likely to be financially worthwhile), designed for bland flavor profiles (to appeal to the broadest customer base), and loaded up with cheap tricks to make them desirable in spite of this blandness (inexpensive fat and starch and salt and sugar). The texture often leaves much to be desired as well.
There are lots of reasons for it to taste worse than real food. The companies that make and sell these things have to make them able to withstand conditions that normal food can’t. They have to add preservatives, freeze and possibly even refreeze the food, swap out really delicate ingredients for alternatives that lack flavor but have shelf-stability, and endure breakdown of the compounds that make real food good.
We will be able to overcome all of this with effective nanotech, of course. Right now instant foods are inferior because the companies aren’t selecting for taste, they’re selecting for cheapness of production and handling. Taste suffers, and they put enough effort into it to be ‘good enough’ and no more.
I probably do have biases regarding the issue, but I have more objective reasons as well.
It’s my real name, but since I chose it when I got my name changed you’re still not wrong.
I do mostly cook the food I eat from scratch, as long as you can accept ‘bought the meat and cheese from a grocery store instead of killing or milking the animal personally’ as from scratch. Mostly this isn’t because I’m that incredibly picky, but instead because for me time is abundant and money is scarce. (I am picky, but I’m not really anti-preservative.)
Yeah, I changed my name a while ago, and decided that as long as I was changing it anyway I may as well choose something fun. I’m hoping that my future will be as spicy as my name.
Most normal food can actually take freezing pretty well, and freezing should obviate the need for preservatives… what frozen foods are you thinking of that have preservatives in them?
Most frozen pizza does, I believe. I seem to remember ice cream having preservatives too. I think that preservatives are more likely to be in frozen food as the number of processing steps that it’s been through increase.
I’ll check later today on the pizza and ice cream, it’s been long enough that I don’t have a clear memory.
Why do you say that frozen pizza and microwave dinner tastes like particle-board? There is no good reason why they should be inherently inferior to home cooked meals. Why couldn’t you put the ‘perfect’ dinner in a box and sell it? (I realize that there is no dinner that is perfect for everyone, but you could offer a wide enough array of choices to cover most tastes)
Of course, cooking yourself allows you to fine tune the seasoning, perhaps use fresher ingredients (although frozen ingredients can arguably be more fresh in some cases), and have more variation. There is a lot of crap out there, but I find that the quality of these dinners has improved drastically over the last couple of years.
Having said all this; I do enjoy cooking as well. It it seemed to me that your post showed some biases in need of correcting.
Frozen food is not inherently inferior to home-cooked food at all, given that you can freeze things you make at home without the universe imploding! I made a pizza the other day. Some of it is in my freezer now. It’s not as good as it was hot out of the oven, but it’s still a fine pizza considering I’d never made one before (future pizzas will be better). I used frozen spinach in the pizza because frozen vegetables are no less healthful or tasty (although there are some applications for which they are unsuitable, like roasting) and easier to keep around.
However, as a contingent, non-inherent fact about commercially available prepared frozen meals, they are often made with inferior ingredients (the details of the process are largely concealed from the consumer so this is likely to be financially worthwhile), designed for bland flavor profiles (to appeal to the broadest customer base), and loaded up with cheap tricks to make them desirable in spite of this blandness (inexpensive fat and starch and salt and sugar). The texture often leaves much to be desired as well.
There are lots of reasons for it to taste worse than real food. The companies that make and sell these things have to make them able to withstand conditions that normal food can’t. They have to add preservatives, freeze and possibly even refreeze the food, swap out really delicate ingredients for alternatives that lack flavor but have shelf-stability, and endure breakdown of the compounds that make real food good.
We will be able to overcome all of this with effective nanotech, of course. Right now instant foods are inferior because the companies aren’t selecting for taste, they’re selecting for cheapness of production and handling. Taste suffers, and they put enough effort into it to be ‘good enough’ and no more.
I probably do have biases regarding the issue, but I have more objective reasons as well.
Edit—please disregard this post
I might be starting to see why you picked the name Cayenne.
It’s my real name, but since I chose it when I got my name changed you’re still not wrong.
I do mostly cook the food I eat from scratch, as long as you can accept ‘bought the meat and cheese from a grocery store instead of killing or milking the animal personally’ as from scratch. Mostly this isn’t because I’m that incredibly picky, but instead because for me time is abundant and money is scarce. (I am picky, but I’m not really anti-preservative.)
Edit—please disregard this post
If you wish to bake an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
Your legal name is Cayenne? That is super-cool. Or, you know, hot like burning capsaicin.
Yeah, I changed my name a while ago, and decided that as long as I was changing it anyway I may as well choose something fun. I’m hoping that my future will be as spicy as my name.
Edit—please disregard this post
LILY: Chantarelle was part of my exotic phase.
BUFFY: It’s nice. It’s a mushroom.
LILY: It is? That’s really embarrassing.
BUFFY: It’s an exotic mushroom, if that’s any comfort.
Most normal food can actually take freezing pretty well, and freezing should obviate the need for preservatives… what frozen foods are you thinking of that have preservatives in them?
Most frozen pizza does, I believe. I seem to remember ice cream having preservatives too. I think that preservatives are more likely to be in frozen food as the number of processing steps that it’s been through increase.
I’ll check later today on the pizza and ice cream, it’s been long enough that I don’t have a clear memory.
Edit—please disregard this post
I bet that’s googleable.
You’re right! http://www.redbaron.com/pan-pizza.aspx—The dough contains TBHQ. That’s the only one, so it’s relatively reasonable as far as preservatives go.
I looked at several varieties of ice cream, and none that I found had preservatives. Lots and lots of emulsifiers, but no preservatives.
Edit—please disregard this post