"simple food" news and stories

It wasn't until I started cooking meals from scratch on a regular basis that I discovered just how much of a fallacy this whole pre-made foods business is. I'm not talking about one of those tasty, pre-roasted chickens or fresh meals you can buy at the supermarket, but rather canned and frozen foods. They are great in a pinch, but they are not a big time saver, and they're certainly not a decent substitute for fresh foods.

So, reading Astin Cubed's post on "Simple Food" today was like reading a rant of my own, without the obsession with snap peas. How can so many of us have forgotten the simplicity of fresh? Or heck, even balancing the two? If you have zero time to make dinner, throw the fish sticks in the oven, boil/microwave/shred and fry some potatoes, or maybe throw some Caesar dressing on some romaine. If you have enough time to go out, wait to be served, eat, wait to pay, and come home, you certainly have enough time to cook up some pasta, fry up some chicken, make a salad, steak, or even stir-fry. Or, even take a day with some free time, make up a lasagna, and eat it during the week, month, or year.

My favorite frozen food: Using those Thanksgiving leftovers to make REAL roasted, carved turkey meals that I can eat all year.

My favorite "fast" food: Leftover fried potatoes with a fried egg on a toasted baguette.

What's yours?

One piece in the New York Times' food section this week summed up a thought that has probably been on the minds of foodies since offal and rather less conventional cuts of meat became the "It"- foods of the last few years in fine dining. Namely, it put a voice to the sentiment that peasant food isn't simple if you aren't a peasant.

The writer explains her experiences cooking for her family, when she says they view just about anything that is made entirely from scratch with some degree of suspicion because it is unfamiliar. Cooking using some preprepared ingredients, like store-bought taco shells for tacos, seems simpler because it takes far less time to prepare than many "from scratch" dishes, especially when you consider you don't need to have spent any time developing a culinary foundation to use them. Everyone has taco shells at their local store. Tarte tatin, on the other hand, is not something that all people have ever eaten, let alone know how to make.

So is "simple" food stuff that is borne from necessity or does it consist of things that are easily and widely available? The answer is both and, to many, the answer is somewhere in between. Simple foods are those that seem uncomplicated to the chef who is preparing them, whether they take skill, experience or a trip to the store to make.

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