That day's food discourse started with a report showing that spending on food from food service had increased as sales of food purchased from stores had decreased, and people trying to explain that.
https://x.com/SPnoir/status/2018456699313734091
Just looking at the data, it's not as dramatic a difference as you might expect; I can't help wondering how much of it is delivery fees. The lines cross right around 2020 when a lot of people started ordering in more and that has remained popular.
Regardless, people start replying about the wasting of money. On Mike Bird's post, someone with username "TheWealthCoach" admonishes that people learn to cook, and a rjurney below him replies "You can read his class within his response. He’s got time to be thrifty. He’s affluent."
(Because of how the replies are threaded, there is not a good link for that.)
Then, what really started the discussion I saw was this response from SPnoir:
I wanted to make sesame noodles with cucumber last week. Had to buy sesame oil, chili oil, sesame seeds, rice vinegar... let me know if you have these handy in your cupboard. That's not even getting to the main ingredients.
There were replies from many people who had those in their cupboards, and also that those are all reusable.
There were also some replies that there were swaps you could do, like that you could probably use any vinegar if you did not specifically have rice vinegar, and sesame seeds are more of a garnish, so you could probably skip them.
That brings us back to my earlier Worcestershire sauce example. The initial outlay can be expensive, but then the use per meal ends up being very inexpensive. If you bought a jar of nutmeg every time you were going to use it, that would add up (and is a good reason to check your cupboards first).
As you are getting into cooking, by all means take your time and build up gradually. You can look up recipes that use ingredients you already have.
Then BrieBrieJoy entered the chat.
Briahna Joy Gray was the press secretary for Bernie Sanders and now hosts the Bad Faith podcast. It's not the first time she has made anyone roll her eyes.
https://x.com/briebriejoy/status/2019074357125853529She agreed with SPnoir, because people don't have these ingredients and they are overwhelmed. If you want to help people cook, you should focus on single ingredients that taste good with salt, pepper, butter, and olive oil, because everybody has those.
There is a lot you can do with those four ingredients, I am not going to lie. I am also currently out of butter (which I regularly restock) and olive oil, which I have gotten out of using.
Things start to fall apart in Gray's replies to ashley_quan, who points out that the sesame noodle ingredients are Asian staples and that if you are going to make the dish even once a month having them is not unreasonable.
This would have been a really easy time to acknowledge that different pantries have different ingredients, and that every culture has simpler and easier recipes, even if you personally are not familiar with them.
This is someone who worked for Sanders; she was never going to be able to admit she was wrong.
It devolves and then there are different threads, where I can't capture them all.
Gray uses executive function as a reason that it is just too hard to make Asian or Mexican food, where it is much easier to do French cooking instead.
While that is questionable, familiarity is a real factor. If she is used to French cooking, then something a little more complicated might still seem more manageable than a simple stir fry.
However, when you say that sauteing vegetables doesn't sound very Chinese, that just makes you seem ignorant.
What you will see in the link is Gray suggesting adobo as being easier, except that it could easily fit within the Asian cooking that she was decrying. It's traditionally Filipino but I got my adobo recipe out of a Hawaiian cookbook, which also had a strong Japanese influence so bring back the rice vinegar!
Also, to ashley_quan's reply that chicken adobo has eight ingredients, Gray replied with a photo of a seasoning mix from famous Trump supporters Goya.
Yes, I have bought jars of sauce and shakers and packets of seasonings, but willingness to do that is one of those things that puts cooking different types of food within reach.
My favorite part came when she tried to explain how Mexican food is too complicated, like decanting the olives for making tacos:
https://x.com/briebriejoy/status/2019200627641884919
I was not the only one who got hung up on that. There were so many replies and new threads that I am surprised that no one has written it up, for clickbait if nothing else. I couldn't find anything, so I guess it's me.
Decanting is a process for removing sediment. It happens most often with wine, and sometimes with olive oil. I did some searching for olives themselves, and there was one person asking about it because when they open olives and don't eat them all within two weeks they start to see mold.
At the risk of sounding like a snob, don't let opened olives sit around for two weeks. If you do and they start molding, let them go.
I believe there is racism here, and that is not surprising. This post is really more reveling in the ridiculousness of it, so I guess I will get more serious next week.
For now, every time I open a can of olives and hold the detached lid on while I turn the can upside down over the sink to drain the liquid...
I'm decanting them y'all!
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