The sociologist, anthropologist and historian Claude Fischler, who notably edited the book Special Foods. Will we still eat together tomorrow? (Odile Jacob, 2013), analyzes how meal preparation has evolved over time.
Is the “laziness” of cooking a new thing?
From the beginning of the transformation of food by man, we can consider that cooking was already a way of promoting “laziness” in terms of digestion. Behind our relationship with the kitchen, lies the way in which we use our labor power: it is a question of saving effort and time to be much more efficient in hunting and gathering. In the history of food, there is a constant reorganization of the way of obtaining food, of nourishing oneself and of restoring one’s strength.
In my youth, you had to catch the chicken, pluck it and gut it. At the time of mass distribution, poultry arrives ready to be put in the oven. For a good thirty years, we have seen products on the market that eliminate more and more stages in the culinary transformation process. In agri-food jargon, this is called the ” convenience “ [des produits pour faciliter la vie]. The line between catering and food retail is blurring. Fast food is already almost a retail business. This trend has accelerated since confinement, with the appearance of “dark kitchens”: products are packaged or delivered at high temperature which are then delivered to your home.
How has the place of the kitchen in interiors evolved?
I remember an article from a few years ago about a luxury real estate development in the gentrified neighborhoods of lower Manhattan. There were plenty of upscale apartments for sale but without kitchens, with only room for a microwave. The configuration of middle-class kitchens has also evolved. We see more and more the so-called “American” kitchen, where a room serves both as a dining room and as a kitchen. Everyone becomes free to serve themselves directly in the oven or in the fridge. It changes the relationship to food.
So isn’t preparing your own meals so common?
All over the world, all kinds of urban foods exist. In the XVIIIe century, pizza was street food for port porters in Naples. It bends, is eaten while walking, like a snack. In Jakarta, Indonesia, there are entire working-class neighborhoods where there is not enough space for cooking: people get their supplies from street vendors. Behind street food, it is the relationship between food and work in the urban environment that is at stake. But during confinement, everything that was consumed outside the home had to be brought home. Telework has redistributed the cards between collective catering and home catering.