Hi Jamie,
Good to meet you, my name is Rupes and I like food.
I wanted to reach out from a place of love and respect to provide some feedback on (what I have seen of) your approach to food, and to chat about a shift in the relationship between us and what we eat.
There’s no doubt you’re an ardent campaigner for reducing obesity, changing diets, and making cooking more accessible, all with astounding results. My eyes roll at a lot of the backlash you unfairly receive, a generous amount stemming from misguided cynicism from folks safe behind their black mirror.
When I read or listen or watch you, however, your approach to cooking often revolves around convenience. How to make dinner in 10 mins with four ingredients, etc. I understand the motive and sympathize with your intention of creating meals for today’s busy occupied families who could understandably be tempted by the efficiencies and brand penetration of our beloved fast food giants, But, let’s have a reality check.
Living in the US for the past six years, I’ve seen first-hand the damaging effect of this culture’s can-do attitude. It has seeped into the quick-fix “be an expert on X in 6 hours” mentality. Not only does everything have a cure without much behavioural change, but overnight, our problems, supposedly, are solved.
When it comes to food, isn’t there value to the message of “actually you can’t always make great food with love, care, and enjoyment in 15 minutes?” That you can’t make meals well by only thinking of convenience, and a bit of time spent thinking about nutrition?
In 15 minutes, you could make a snack pretty well, maybe peel and roast some asparagus, or even a few quick pasta meals. Sure, that’s not going to feed a family daily, but it’s time to re-write the cookbook. If we want to change food behaviour, the message can’t be “change nothing about your work patterns/relationship dynamics/evening and weekend priorities, just be good to yourself by eating slapdash dinners.” That approach is complicit with us not having an intimate relationship with food. It invests in the lies of a self-help culture that encourages us to feel like we’re making positive strides when in reality it’s smoke and mirrors. Even the recent phenomena of Blue Apron et al are largely centred around convenience for and put forth an IKEA, assembly-based model for cooking.
Approaching food needs to be more holistic than that.
To start to get to know food better, let’s worry less about being on-time, “on-calory count”, or on-budget even, and be on-flavour instead. Let’s be upfront about the limitations of not approaching food this way. To lead with flavour, you can’t give your food the time it deserves in 15 minutes per night. You wanna to cook more? You can’t make time? Think about why and go from there. If you are curious, let’s give ways to make food well and flavour-driven, while not sacrificing everything. It could be encouraging family roasts on a Sunday that could last a few days and to think about food with greater curiosity and team-focus, to work together and cook up a Sunday storm, while also championing the self-care of something quick and cosy like a grilled cheese on a weeknight.
Far from focusing on speed, let’s tweak our approach to food to highlight the love, care, and enjoyment that could be in any dish. Without meaning to sound chunderously cringe, aren’t they the most important ingredients of all? Everything stems from this emotive starter pack that I think you in your position as a leading influencer should highlight. If people are more emotionally attached to cooking overall, they’d then prioritize other factors (flavour, experimentation etc. ) when cooking over simply nutrition at speed.
Let’s not reduce food to convenience, however intoxicatingly seductive it can be. Take a step back to start a conversation about the immersive joy of being around food, and what you can actually make with love in 15 minutes.
Be real. Be fun. Be on-flavour.
I’d love to talk more.
Best, Rupes
