Mark Bittman, who has headed over from the Food and Dining Section of The New York Times to the Opinion pages, recently stated the following objective. What are your thoughts?Encourage and subsidize home cooking. (Someday soon, I’ll write about my idea for a new Civilian Cooking Corps.) When people cook their own food, they make better choices. When families eat together, they’re more stable. We should provide food education for children (a new form of home ec, anyone?), cooking classes for anyone who wants them and even cooking assistance for those unable to cook for themselves.
I think that it's a fantastic idea, one that is feasible yet also very difficult to implement. Teaching people how to cook is not part of our country's framework - perhaps because teaching such skills has historically been something taught in the home. We're no longer teaching cooking skills in the home, so I agree with Bittman that we need to find an alternative. A country not knowing how to cook is simply not an option. What are your ideas on this issue? Should we have a "Civilian Cooking Corps"? Why is cooking no longer something learned at home among family? Who should be taught how to cook?
