It has nothing to do with the food, nothing at all, it has to do with intimacy and care. THIS is where I live and I invite you here, I take care of you because I care about you, THIS is food that I made for YOU, I'm sharing a part of my life, this is how I cook because I like it or because that's what my family usually eats or because I tried something new.
Maybe it's because I'm. Mediterranean and it's part of the culture but the idea that you invite someone to eat and it being about the food is oh god so depressing to me. It's like gifting someone a poem and caring about how good the poem is.
It depends on the household, and not exactly on the country and culture. However, those definitely affect prevalence. For example, I like to hold parties during which we cook together. But I have several relatives and friends who already prepares everything before anybody arrive. It’s not even family, because a lot of us do differently than how our parents and grandparents do. It’s a matter of taste.
That’s however a joke that home food is better. There are great home meals, and there are bad restaurants, sure. But the top is obviously restaurants. And not even just because they really know what they do, but it’s even way more difficult to get those kind of ingredients what they use. One time, one of my friends from one of the best restaurants from my home country (Hungary) left some beef loin from his restaurant in my fridge as gratitude. I made the best steak from it, that I’ve ever made. It didn’t matter how expensive meat I bought, or in which expensive meat shop. I tried different techniques, but no. I couldn’t reproduce it. Simply that kind of loin is not accessible for common people there.
> It has nothing to do with the food, nothing at all, it has to do with intimacy and care.
Right. So the act of cooking actually doesn't have much to do with it! Arguably, you are tying the act of making food to "intimacy and care" in a way that makes it feel to me like there's this big social pressure to feed people! There are a myriad of other ways to look after your humans.
I'm not from that culture particularly, but everyone needs to eat, and going to a nice restaurant can be a pain (e.g. transport) and be expensive as well. Having people into your home for a meal is a very good alignment of a lot of things at once; that's why cultures have been built on it.
Order some food, it doesn't even need to be from fancy restaurants. Low-end to cheap catering and delivery services (so not Uber Eats or such). You can prepare some appetizers at home if you really want some home made food.
Depending on where you order the food... people might not even realize you didn't cook it.
Slightly off topic, as we don't do this for guests, but one thing I do for cheaper takeout (which we have extremely rarely anyway) is order curry but cook rice at home. Although these days ready meals from some supermarkets (I'm in the UK) are pretty great, and you can get a half-decent curry for £3 or so, and again just cook your own rice.
Sharing meals is a cornerstone of human society. Nobody cares if you personally don't want to involve yourself, but the idea that it's the result of some social pressure is absurd. It is society or part thereof.
Honestly one of the most saddening comments I've read.
So why is it saddening to you? It's down to preference. Some people are natural feeders (and they are lovely people) but others aren't. The two coexist very peacefully.
You can feed your people because you enjoy it, me and my tribe of outliers can chill in other ways :)
FWIW: It's not like I'd ever let anyone go hungry!! Just that in my mind there's a big discrepancy between "fully preparing a home-cooked meal for several hours". If you're privileged to have the time, space, energy and knowledge to lovingly prepare big feasts for people, more power to you. Me and my cold-hearted mates will be content with, oftentimes, shoving some chips in the oven or frying a bag of frozen nasi goreng, or getting cheap takeaway to go with our beers ;)
But then why are we talking about having giant houses with huge dining tables? Invite as many people over as your living quarters can accommodate. Do whatever with them. Make whatever food. I agree with you that the value is not in the food but in the act and intention of making it.
I think this whole thread is depressing because it suggests you need a bunch of shit to be happy and have good relationships. But if you have good friends and relationships often you don't need all that shit. If you need a pickup once a year you probably have a friend you can borrow it from. Even better you can invite that friend to help you with the thing you need it for and help them with something else when they need it.
Enjoying it has nothing to do with it. It's better for you and better for taste even if you don't like it. I don't like brushing my teeth but I do it because it's better than not doing it and because I'm a functioning adult. I'm better at brushing than I was the first times I did it, and I'm also better at cooking than I was 20 years ago, because even if I don't enjoy it, I know I'll enjoy the flavor and the nutrition is good for me. This is basic "live your life" stuff.
Imagine lecturing people about saving the planet while defending going out to eat in restaurants or ordering all your meals.
There are many ways to life your life and thankfully in the modern day, you can live your entire life without cooking anything involved yet getting all the necessary nutrients plus enjoying delicious food.
It's just more expensive, so you need to afford it.
I'm intentionally skipping all the other soapboxing in the rest of the comment.
You can confirm that "probably" with 5 minutes of research and find out that the largest contributors to carbon emissions in eating are the production of the raw materials (which ingredients you use). Once that is controlled for, cooking method is the largest second factor (wood / coal / gas / electric). Once that's controlled for, going out to eat in a restaurant is worse than at home. The only communal eating that is more efficient is school / soviet canteen style eating, which is not what you were thinking about when you said restaurants.
Sadly, agreed. I love the idea of being self-sufficient and permaculture, but even myself as someone who grows vegetables on an allotment and batch-cooks nearly all my meals at home, I can't ignore the idea that, just as with agriculture, it's way more efficient to prepare food at scale than it is at the individual level -- unless we all shifted to just eating the food as raw as possible.
If we look at the full chains of:
- Equipment distribution (production and delivery of large domestic kitchen appliances)
- Energy distribution (residential delivery of electricity/gas needed to power kitchen appliances, and water)
- Space required in each home for a reasonably kitted out kitchen (more space to heat in winter, more materials used in building)
- Ingredients and materials distribution (including the production and packaging of intermediate food products made from raw products, since everyone's cooking with canned things, packaged things, cured meats, pastes, pasteurized things, grains, ...)
The restaurants, fast-food chains and ready-meal prep companies are able to operate on economies of scale that are vastly more efficient than the individualistic, nuclear-family domestic "you must cook home-made meals for your family, friends and guests" culture.
We've made eating out seem either:
- Decadent (cost)
- Unhealthy (take-out and fast-food)
But neither of those things need to be true.
The problem with scale is the storage aspect - preservatives we use to reduce spoilage etc., which arguably affect the healthiness of the food. "Just-in-time" distribution works well until it doesn't (see: COVID).
But I'd argue that the individual household probably spoils more ingredients than industrial production does - that just isn't evident; everyone has their little compost heaps or things go to landfill. Old ingredients go mouldy at the backs of cupboards, just as things run out their shelf life in supermarkets.
Maybe the raw-food vegans and paleo bros are on to something...
No problem, just charge your guests some carbon credits to offset for the meal you cooked for them. I even think there's an app there for you Dutch to easily request a transfer from friends and family.
If you:
1. Like cooking.
2. Are good at cooking.