Page 2, Passage 3 of Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch

In this first passage I chose to talk about, Michael Pollan, author of Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch, talks about how people are so eager to watch other people cook food on TV but when it comes to us we are less eager to do so. I agree with this all the way. It is a weird thing that doesn’t quite make sense. Why wouldn’t we want to cook something that we love watching someone else make? Wouldn’t we want to experience that to? I think in today’s society this is a big problem. Everyone is lazy. No one wants to put the time or effort in, we would rather just have someone do it for us. But looking at the bigger picture it’s not our faults we are this way, it’s today’s society that has taught us to be like this. It’s all about convenience nowadays.

Page 7, Passage 2 of Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch

In this passage, Pollan talks about what the meaning of “to cook” is. He goes on to say that what people call cooking today is something their grandmother would be ashamed of. But when you really think about it, he’s right, what we call cooking today isn’t really cooking. Typically we are just heating things up or throwing something together that’s halfway premade. The work is already done for us. To cook means to “spread mayonnaise on a slice of bread” but throwing a frozen pizza in the oven isn’t. But to me, none of those things are cooking. Cooking is actually putting single ingredients together and forming this bigger meal. The whole concept of cooking has faded into this big mess of nothingness. As Pollan said the definition has “grown so broad” that it’s almost meaningless now. Pollan hit some very interesting points here and made me question a little bit about how American’s live as well as the real meaning of cooking.

Page 9, Passage 3 of Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch

For the most part everything that Pollan has said, I have agreed with. In this next passage I chose he talks about competitions involving cooking as well as cooking shows in general. He added this analogy that I thought was very fascinating, “How much do you learn about playing basketball by watching the N.B.A.” This was a very interesting point he made because if you really think about it, if you don’t know what you’re watching then you’re pretty much not learning anything. Same thing goes for cooking, do we actually learn anything from watching cooking shows? Or are we just watching it for entertainment purposes? To me cooking shows are all for entertainment purposes, people aren’t watching them to learn things. Pollan is right no ones is “hoping to pick up a few dinnertime tips” from todays cooking shows. They’re not making them to say “go try this at home” they are implying that if you really want this dish then go to a restaurant to have it.