Michael Pollan’s contention in Cooked is that it is through the act of cooking food that we can
address the health and environmental issues concerning food and food practices
that permeate our culture. Not only is cooking at home healthier than eating
processed food, it both encourages and allows consumers to be closer to the
food chain process and, in the process through the act of sharing meals, foster
a better family environment.
This is the first Pollan book I have read. I was familiar
with his food philosophy – “Eat food. Mainly plants. Not too much”, which I
think is an excellent way to approach eating (although, based on the amount of
meat he says he eats in this book, he doesn’t practice what he preaches). I
also like his idea that you can eat whatever you want – as long as you make it
yourself. He argues that it is the easy access to high calorie foods that were
previously labour intensive that has led to widespread health problems.
Previously, making French fries or potato chips was a labour-intensive time-consuming
process that, because it was difficult to do, was done less often. Now, not
only is access to potato chips and French fries easy, it is cheap – cheaper
than other nutrient-dense lower-calorie foods. In this book, Pollan extends his
food philosophy to the practice of cooking by developing his basic cooking
skills in four different cooking practices: grilling with fire (bbq), cooking
with liquid (braising), baking bread and fermenting (brewing beer). He was “surprised
and pleased” to find these elements just happen to coincide with the classical elements
of earth: Fire, Water, Air and Earth. What a happy coincidence! Warning: do not
read this book if eye-rolling is an issue for you because situations such as
this abound throughout the pages of Cooked.
I had two thoughts when reading this book. Firstly, Pollan
does go on a bit. He talked about
onions for many more pages than I felt was justified – we get it, onions are a
big deal. I imagine in person he’s a man who very much likes the sound of his
own voice. I found this very wearying and I admit that I did skip the last
chapter on brewing completely because I felt that if he can be so unbearable on
the subject of onions, then what would he be like on the infinitely more wanky
subject of homebrewing? I did find his tone quite offputting and, in places, a
bit patronising.
Secondly, there seems to be a huge disconnect between
Pollan’s understanding and interaction with the cooking process and actual real
life. I am not implying that Pollan is some sort of cyborg and not a real person;
rather, that he has no concept of how the average person interacts with food
and cooking in their everyday life. For example, he makes a convincing point
that cooking is important and that everyone should cook at home. But to develop
his cooking skills, he hires a chef to come into his house once a week and
teach him to cook. No one I know would consider that a reasonable option. In
another section, he waxes lyrical about how well the bread-making process fits
in to his personal writing schedule. If you work in an office to which you have
to commute, fitting regular bread baking into your schedule is very
difficult. At one stage he realises that
if you set aside time on the weekend to make meals in advance, it is cheaper
and healthier than buying takeaway or microwaving meals. No shit, Sherlock – do
you reckon? Not only is that information included in most cookbooks (which I
have noticed now tend to contain a helpful key that indicates whether meals are
freezer friendly, vegetarian, gluten-free, etc), the kind of person who would
read a book called Cooked by a food
philosopher and activist already knows that.
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This leads me to the central paradox of Cooked. It says some really important stuff! The links between poor
health and processed food are persuasively outlined and the case for cooking
more (by both genders, he is clear to state) is convincingly made. But while he identifies the problem
(current food consumption practices are bad for us and the planet) and the
solution (cook more, especially more local food) there’s no bridge between
those two positions. It’s like asking ‘How do I produce more knitted objects?’
and then answering ‘Knit more’. Well sure, but unless I stop paying rent or seeing
my friends or exercising, that’s not actually a useful solution at all. I’m not
sure there’s a point of identifying a solution, even a really really good
solution, if there’s no way of implementing it. (Although, I do admit that
after reading Cooked I put a book on
making sourdough bread on reserve at the library and I’m going to have another
go at creating a starter of my own…I’m very suggestible when it comes to bread
baking!)
Cooked raises an
important topic but is lacking in its delivery and execution. I give it a
tentative three stars.
