
The $5B Battle for the American Dinner Plate - smullaney
http://www.fastcompany.com/3046685/most-creative-people/the-5-billion-battle-for-the-american-dinner-plate?Src=longreads
======
takee
I really enjoy cooking and think that it lets me unleash my creativity in a
way. Cooking from raw ingredients at home is not only easier on the pocket but
helps make sure that you eat healthier. I started cooking only in grad school
and YouTube and a variety of recipe websites were a blessing to ensure I knew
what I was doing.

~~~
sarwechshar
What about exactly this growth in the middle of the cooking and eating out
space with (mentioned in the article) the likes of Blue Apron? It seems like
people can still cook what they like with some degree of control over what
they eat whilst eating healthy but...they are likely to pay more for the
convenience of getting only the ingredients and instructions they need.

My question is... Is this convenience catered only to those who can afford it?

------
Mikeb85
I cook everyday, often 2 meals, while going to university and working. I used
to be a chef, and while it's much different cooking at home, I now feel I have
a pretty good handle on it.

My advice:

\- Buy a pressure-cooker and learn to use it

\- Salads are great - no cooking, healthy, tasty (for dressing use just
lemon/balsamic/flavoured vinegar and olive oil)

\- Eat more vegetables (healthy, and easier/quicker to cook than meat)

\- Eat more fish (fish cooks in less time than meat, is easier to cook, and is
healthy)

\- Buy seasonal - you can get great quality products for cheap - especially if
you go to the farmer's market and buy near the end of the day

What dinner looked like today - grilled halibut, rice, tomato/spinach/goat
cheese salad. Total time from start to finish - 20 minutes. Probably only 10
minutes of my actual time, as I sat around watching TV while the rice cooked
and the fish was on the grill.

As for the article on meal-kits, while it's an interesting idea, I don't see
the 'value' in simply assembling a few raw ingredients in a box. It saves
what, 5-10 minutes at most, for a decent mark-up in price. If anything, people
just need to practice cooking with raw ingredients (and pay less attention to
the food networks).

~~~
keithpeter
UK: Birmingham food market has a good range and is fairly cheap (not organic
stuff, its commercial grower stuff trucked in from
Poland/Holand/Warwickshire). Part of the fun is seeing everyone else (real
slice of life stuff). I like to support this market and I like cooking, so box
of ingredients would not be something I'd pay for.

Some local organic growers have £5 boxes or £10 boxes they deliver to your
house each week. These are bulk seasonable veg not prepared ingredients. I
used to sort of like the 'ready steady cook' aspect of making meals out of
what was in the box, but now I quite like the shopping aspect. Examples
below...

[http://www.farm-fresh-organics.co.uk/](http://www.farm-fresh-organics.co.uk/)

[http://www.morefresh.co.uk/medium-vegetable-
box-3-4-people-%...](http://www.morefresh.co.uk/medium-vegetable-
box-3-4-people-%C2%A3725)

Pressure cooker: is this for beans? I've always gone for tinned beans on the
basis that they are picked fresh in Turkey and industrially pressure-cooked in
the tin. Am I wrong?

~~~
Mikeb85
> is this for beans?

Yes but not necessarily. You can cook a stew in a pressure cooker in under an
hour, it's incredibly useful for cooking tough cuts of meat quickly. We make
beef stews and curries at home all the time in the pressure cooker, to get the
meat tender would normally take 3-4 hours, in the pressure cooker takes about
25 minutes. And we do use it for legumes as well (beans, dal, chickpeas for
hummous, etc...).

------
joesmo
These prices are ridiculous for something you still have to cook. In many
parts of the country they are easily as much if not more than an equivalent
meal at a diner or similar establishment, even including tip, and of course
much more than any fast food joint. I could see this as a complement to one's
regular eating strategies (whatever they may be) but not a replacement, which
is apparently what is being sold but not what is marketed. You get three or
four meals a week out of 21. The other big failing is selection. I'm tempted
to try it out for a week, but most of the services don't even tell you what
you'll get and only one or two offer exclusively vegetarian options.

Still, if one of these companies slashes prices in half and offers a wide
selection of food that can be selected a la carte, I do think they're offering
a service that is quite valuable. Until then, it's mainly a curiosity at best.

~~~
moistgorilla
Seriously, in Atlanta there is a delivery service called zifty and I got
really excited when they announced these meal plates. Well guess what? The
cost of a meal for 2 that I still needed to cook myself was 34 dollars. Who in
their right mind would think that is a good price point?

------
benkuykendall
I can't imagine this service helping me. It would easily double my
ingredients' costs, and I enjoy planning and cooking meals myself.

However, one related problem I have is the accumulation of ingredients.
Something I cooked yesterday called for mustard, apple cider vinegar, and
Worcestershire sauce. Now I have enough of each to last a decade, and as a
college student in NYC, space is at a premium. I wonder if there is room for
innovation here.

~~~
nn3
The trick is to not too slavishly follow the recipe.

I always replace obscure items in recipes with more common ones I have at
home. For example instead of apple cider vinegar just use the plain vinegar
you likely already have and use for other things. Usually works just fine and
also cuts down on the planing significantly.

There are some more tricks. The best one is to go for relatively simple
recipes. Avoid the "Indian housewife" style recipes who are designed for
people who have nothing else to do.

Avoid the recipes from the "foot p0rn" industry with professional chefs, which
are usually also too complicated and with too exotic ingredients. I

I often start with the ingredients and then select a recipe based on that (I
call that "google cooking"). Basically you google something you already have
in your fridge + recipe, and then replace anything too exotic with other
things that you also have or just leave them out. May not end up exactly the
same as originally intended, but typically works just fine.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>The trick is to not too slavishly follow the recipe.

Sure, but this is mostly for experienced cooks who know what alternatives are
feasible for a given ingredient. For everyone else, ending up with something
that tastes like crap and having to order pizza is too big of a risk.

It's also about building expertise. When I learn a new recipe, I follow it as
closely as possible until I can cook it without looking up the instructions.
Only at that point do I feel comfortable with deviating and experimenting:
because I know what the actual thing is supposed to taste like, I can try
alternatives and judge whether they work well.

------
zhte415
My favourite hobby: Go to a restaurant or friend's house. Taste something
good. Go home and do similar - research if necessary / results don't hit the
spot.

This hobby is just plain fun, but is also has the benefit of saving money and
really appreciating and showing that appreciation to a skilled chef.

------
technological
Why cooking is viewed as difficult thing to do in US ? I see many people get
surprised when I say we cook daily .

~~~
Swizec
Going a step further, I cook multiple times a day. Although now that I'm going
to the office, I mealprep so I cook meals in advance. But I'm still cooking at
least once a day.

If I had to guess, I'd say the reason Americans think cooking is hard is
because they leave home at 7am so they can be at work by 9am. Then work until
5pm, and make it home by 7pm. And cooking, while not hard, does take time. Not
much _time_ in that schedule.

They also hold this weird notion that you can't have dinner at 9pm, which is
when I usually have it at.

But really what matters most is that they just don't value it as much.

~~~
obstinate
Even with my relatively slacker-ish schedule of up at 7, work by 730, leave at
430, pick up son at daycare, home by 515, it can be fairly challenging to cook
some days. Especially if you haven't planned things out in advance.

That said, it's crazy expensive to eat out all the time. We probably cut our
yearly budget by a healthy $2500 just by cutting down on takeout. And there is
some true joy that comes from knowing that you are the reason your wife and
child have smiles on their faces at the dinner table. Even if you did it with
a meal kit rather than shopping for ingredients yourself, who am I to pooh
pooh that.

~~~
Swizec
> Especially if you haven't planned things out in advance.

That's why on non-special days I have a limited set of things that I will
cook. Or a limited set of combinations, if you will. I don't come home
thinking "Oh what do I have, what can I make with this, let's find a recipe".
I look at the fridge and it's like "Ah, I have ingredients for X, I'll make
X". Then on another day it's "Ah yes, today it's going to be Y" and I just
cook the same things all the time.

Helps with a lot of things. I always know what groceries to buy, I know how
much nutrients my meals will have in advance, I know which of my staple meals
fits a particular day's type of activities etc. Limiting your choices makes
life a lot easier.

Think like a line cook, not a chef. Leave the chef stuff for weekends and
special occasions.

~~~
obstinate
This is solid advice. One thing I have to work on is expanding my wheelhouse
of common-day recipes.

------
binarysolo
"Millennials spend more on food outside the home than any other generation,
averaging $50.75 a week." That's... actually way lower than I expected, though
that's average across the US I suppose.

Gonna provide a contrarian view since people seem to be surprised at eating
out: some times you just want to outsource the thinking and execution of food
to others while you focus on winding down, hanging out with friends,
connecting, or what not.

Let's use the example of an SF techie: makes around 100k ($50/hr-ish, or let's
say $40 take-home pay). Would you rather work 1hr and explore good foodie
options around the City or cook for an hour ($40 for 3 meals)? And what if you
enjoyed your work?

Now let's use 50k income, the value prop becomes a little more compelling for
cooking, and the lower that income goes the more interesting cooking becomes.
But food not just a necessity but a recurring entertainment expense...

PS -- I love cooking for fun, but I only want to cook when I'm inspired and
when I can share with friends. Sous viding some steak or salmon, 36-hour prep
some pork belly, or making pasta noodles and spicy meatballs from raw
ingredients. Eating alone... I'll just grab a to-go box, thanks.

~~~
dylanjermiah
Food variability is a large factor. I eat the same food, in differing
quantities, every day. Total prep time per week is around 2 hours on Sunday,
plus .5-1 hour per each other day. The health and financial benefits I get
make it well worth my time. For others it might not be worth the effort.

------
rayiner
> As the two of us consider starting a family, we worry about how our culinary
> ineptitude will impact our future children. We are beginning to wonder
> whether we even have what it takes to put a proper, nutritious dinner on the
> table for our little ones.

This is marketing bullshit at its finest. Not only is our product convenient,
no, it's essential to the health and well-being of your children!

It's easy to eat healthy if you have $140 per week for four dinners (Blue
Apron) prices. We order fresh fish delivered to our house once or twice a
week, along with seasonal vegetables. Oily fish like salmon or steelhead trout
can be cooked easily with just a few minutes under the broiler, and while the
oven is hot you can bake some root veggies or green beans. If you're smart and
use foil to protect the baking sheets, it's a 5-minute prep/cleanup operation.
If you've got 10-15 minutes, marinating some chicken thighs overnight then
grilling is tasty and healthy.

I'll plug the vendor since I think it's a much better deal than meal services:
[https://www.relayfoods.com](https://www.relayfoods.com).

------
joshstrange
I've used Plated and looked heavily into these services as way to eat
healthier and try new things. If I had to put my finger on one part I liked
the most it's sourcing. I like cooking and have no problem looking for and
finding new recipes online but I HATE with a firey passion going to the
grocery store. I hate not knowing where things are and spending a fair amount
of time googling on my phone in the store to find out if cornmeal ==
cornstarch == cornflour. Sometimes I can't even find what I'm looking for and
even asking the help results only in a blank stare. This is particularly
annoying for things I need that I've never heard of or cooked with before. I
can follow recipes perfectly and have food turn out very good but finding the
ingredients is the hard part for me.

Plated results in way too much waste for me as well as sometimes sending me
ingredients/recipes that I don't like/want which is why I've gone back to just
buying all of my ingredients directly (when I can find them).

------
jmspring
Oh for f's sake. Life isn't all about work, fast food, meal kits, (or
burritos...mmm...burritos) are a stop gap. Making decent meals doesn't take a
lot of time in the aggregate, it is just like planning out any other project.
Prepare when you have time on the weekend, or a spare moment during the week.

Soups and stews, lasagne, salads, even meat dishes can be prepared ahead of
time and enjoyed over the course of days (or if you use a freezer) a week or
two.

Someone "married" and especially if children are involved, would do well to
learn basics and do food prep and rudiments of cooking. Work is not
everything.

For me, the kitchen is zen. I'm probably the other extreme, but my coding
breaks when I need to just relax and let go, I cook. That said, making dishes
for my wife and I during the week don't take that much time (in the
aggregate).

~~~
harlanji
True this. I have about 5 goto meals that I can prepare, eat, and clean up in
15-30 minutes any time. While growing up my family made everything frozen and
from cans, so I didn't learn there; I taught myself in college without any
fanfare, and enjoy it (which, btw, CS degree w/ grad electives in 3 years,
still had time to learn to cook).

Each meal is, as you say, zen to prepare. I make it perfect every time because
I've made the same few meals dozens of times+. All are made with food from the
organic market for << 10 per meal. Bonus: there's excellent food in SF, and if
you eat at home 4 days per week the others don't hurt the budget so bad.

------
kepano
A lot of negativity in this thread but Blue Apron and co. are clearly doing
something right.

As someone who subscribed to Blue Apron for a few months last year, the value
to me was less about convenience and more about entertainment and education.
For the cost of a movie ticket you get a shared experience cooking with
someone else, you learn a new cooking technique, maybe discover a new recipe
and get a darn tasty meal at the end. That's a pretty good deal.

These services don't replace grocery shopping, they're a fun way to spend time
with people. If they can convince Americans that cooking can be fun, that's an
extra bonus.

------
don_draper
Quick tip for hackers: Cook big meals and then freeze the rest in many small
bags for later meals.

------
venomsnake
Can we HN types create affordable combi ovens and be done with it?

------
oldmanjay
the article lost me when the opening sentence started right out with hipster
horseshit. this generation did not invent farm-fresh food.

------
nn3
A good sub title of the article would be "The sad sad world of people who
cannot cook"

