We're now three different series in three different universes by this author

[conuly]

And in every single one we have enough information to conclude that people in the future don't cook.

I'm starting to wonder if the author herself just hates cooking. I suppose there are worse personal issues to drag into your writing.

**********

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Comments

[hilarita]

In the 1960s Doctor Who we're watching, it was the time when food in the future was little white cubes from a machine that somehow tasted of bacon and eggs or roast beef, and delivered a complete nutritional package.

[conuly]

What was it with the mid 20th century's obsession with food pills?

This author doesn't go that far, but everything seems to be very good food that is, idk, mass produced and just heated up at home.

[jesuswasbatman]

Middle-class male writers who resented having to do any housework after moving out of the family home and despised the whole concept as feminine, I assume. The same attitude still exists today in fringe circles-look up the whole enthusiasm for "Solent".

[redbird]

Maybe also women for whom time-saving devices didn't actually give them any more leisure time, but were used to raise the standards: if you can make an OK meal in 20 minutes instead of an hour, is that 40 minutes to yourself, or is it reframed as "you used to spend an hour a day cooking, now you can make us a better meal in that time."

Or women who saw that those labor-saving devices were yet another excuse men used for not doing housework: if what took their mothers 20 hours/week can now be done in ten, why should *they* give up *their* free time so their wives only have to spend six hours/week instead of twenty? If the only choices are "no cooking happens at home" and "I spend most of the time that I'm not doing paid work on cooking, while someone else gets to sit around watching television and hanging out with his friends," I might decide that if you're not cooking for me, I'm not cooking for you either.

[conuly]

Yeah, but did those folks not like to eat at all?

(Then again, I've seen some retro recipes. Maybe they didn't.)

[conuly]

I still can't believe they actually call their stuffy soylent.

[moon_custafer]

I’ve seen at least one early-20th-c take on the idea (Stephen Leacock’s ‘The New Food’) though it parodied the concept.

My guess is that commercial canning, powdered gelatin, Bovril, etc, were all recent-enough things that many people assumed the trend would just continue to its logical end point.

Which makes this seem retro. I still think Glennlivet is just trolling us: https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/05/world/glenlivet-scotch-whisky-capsule-glassless-trnd/index.html

[calimac]

Perhaps, for a corrective, you should read Patricia McKillip, half of whose novels seem to have scenes taking place in kitchens. Try Kingfisher, which is a Grail quest story set largely in an all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant.

[moon_custafer]

Kudos to her for coming up with that premise before Daniel Pinkwater could!

[conuly]

Thanks for the rec :)

[thewayne]

WHO. IS. THE. AUTHOR!

Newly reanimated minds want to know! (I'm inquiring for a zombie friend)

[conuly]

Janet Edwards. Very YA, but her writing grows with every book and the most recent series, the Hive Mind series, is pretty damn good on the disability awareness front. (I think some readers complained about her first series, which... not so much.)

[rhoda_rants]

I'm reading a future-y dystopia right now that has several scenes featuring cooking! In fact, the one guy in this friend group / rag-tag band of misfits trying to save the world is their resident chef and he gets *very* creative.

I kinda wonder if, depending on what kind of universe you're in, there's also an element of fear that growable food with be a thing of the past? I could see that, in certain contexts.

[conuly]

They're not dystopias. Well, one of them mostly is, but the people in it don't think so.

[mindstalk]

Well, supposedly 'millennials' find breakfast cereal too much trouble... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/23/this-is-the-height-of-laziness/

[conuly]

Okay, that's bullshit on so many levels.

Yes, this generation buys less breakfast cereal than previous ones. No, that's not because of laziness. It's because people in this generation don't like cereal enough! You're paying a premium for something that's mostly processed carbs, and you can't eat it on the go either.

[mindstalk]

It does have a source.

"Almost 40 percent of the millennials surveyed by Mintel for its 2015 report said cereal was an inconvenient breakfast choice because they had to clean up after eating it."

Given that if you do it right away, all you really need to do is rinse, or of course use a dishwasher...

[conuly]

Again: Can't eat it on the go. That's not because of laziness, that's because of overscheduling.