Open Kitchen

Restaurant Spending

According to the National Restaurant Association's report Restaurant Spending -- 2004:

• The typical American household spent an average of $2,434 on food away from home in 2004. Per-capita expenditures on food away from home averaged $974 that year.
• Households with incomes of $70,000 and over spent an average of $4,308 ($1,390 per capita) on food away from home in 2004. Close to half (47.6 percent) of the total food dollar in these households was spent on food away from home.

Citing speed, convenience and variety Americans are spending "Close to half (47.6 percent) of the total food dollar in these households was spent on food away from home." To me this means two very important things: first, Americans, particularly young people, are not practicing their cooking. Second, the American family is spending even less time in what should be the most revered and honored room in the house, The Kitchen.

When we stop upholding the value of food in our daily lives. When we relinquish the skills of preparation and presentation. When we give up the communion of family meals then we throw ourselves at the feet of the Food Processors.

My children were both fascinated with and horrified by Soylent Green. They it saw it through new eyes. They, who are only interested in microwaving instant meals, couldn't understand the import of a stalk of limp celery. They, who have yet to live for weeks on end eating rama noodles, didn't recognize the succulent, evocative implications of eating strawberry preserves one salacious spoon- licking bite at a time.

It is time to get back to the Sacristy of the Kitchen before it is too late.

Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
sacristy

"repository of sacred things," 1601, from Anglo-Fr. sacrestie, from M.L. sacrista, from L. sacer "sacred" (see sacred).

BONUS LINK: Soylent Green T-shirts (not for the faint of heart).