If I had a penny…
If I had a penny for every time I heard, “Do you/did you watch “X” (food program)?”, I would be wealthier than last week’s $21 million lottery winner. Well, perhaps not quite so rich. Nevertheless, the hyperbole is helping me illustrate a point that I hope you will appreciate. We are perpetually bombarded with imagery of extremely fetishised food and domestic cookery products that we simply cannot live without.
A sad fact is that many of us are addicted to trite food programming on television, on websites and social media. Many of us deify certain celebrity chefs, filling the void by purchasing their cook books, subscribing to their television shows and worshipping their brand endorsements. My gripe is not with cooking and food education in a broader sense, but rather the fostering of the intense competition culture and commercialisation that never before existed in our dining.