Olivia Almy

April 18, 2023

Prof. Miller

ENG 110

Relationships are a very important thing in our everyday lives. Whether it’s with your family, or your friends, but one really important relationship is your relationship with food. Food is a part of our everyday lives, and it can actually bring people together. Just a simple “Hey, wanna get lunch today?” can go a long way in a relationship. But lately in today’s world it seems to be breaking people apart. For starters, if you get home from work late, you are not going to sit your family down and have a full course meal at eleven o’clock at night. You are most likely going to pop a TV dinner in the microwave and call it a meal.

As a person who works constantly back at home, and not in school, I get home around 2 o’clock in the morning. I am not about to start whipping up a meatloaf at that time. My whole family is sleeping, and I am not going to wake them up just so I can have a nice meal with them. I would make a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich or order food from McDonalds and call it a meal, neither being good options. It’s an unfortunate thing that I have to miss my family dinners at home. I don’t get to hear about what my little brother and sister did in school, I don’t get to hear about the newest family drama. It takes away a part of our relationship because you miss the nightly “table talk.” 

I took a moment to read one of my classmates’ papers. Kenneth talks about how his favorite meal is a cheeseburger, always a go to for most people. Kenneth’s dad says “It’s a quick and easy meal I truly enjoy making. I love the environment while I grill, either at a family gathering cooking out or even on football Sundays in the kitchen. Cheeseburgers were one of the first meals my mom had ever taught me to make, I loved them growing up. But, specifically on Sundays this evening meal means way more to me than eating cheeseburgers and french fries. Instead it was a gathering that me and the family dread because after our long weeks of work we all get to come together and relax, sharing time with each other that we usually don’t get to have” (Pierce).  This is what I mean by having dinners together, family time, quality time with friends. It brings people together, gives us a closer bond. Family dinners are things families look forward to, it lets you spend quality time with your family, not a lot of people do that anymore. 

I read one of the papers from 2018, Katie Gordon talk about how her favorite food is a pumpkin whoopie pie, Katie says “Once it started to get a little chilly at night, my mom would start making her pumpkin whoopie pies for my brother and I to bring and share for after our soccer games. At my high school they became famous, and after each home game my team would flock around her when she would bring them down to the field.” Her favorite meal brings people together, her mother makes these for her family, including Katie’s team which is like family to Katie. Everyone’s meal means something to them because it brings people together. It’s not tearing your family apart.

Another one of my classmates, Tim Cantwell, talks about how his favorite meal is lobster. Tim says “The family all sits down together around two large tables with red or blue pattern tablecloths, one table always lower than the other. Two large bowls sit at each end of the tables awaiting empty shells and raw corn husks infused with butter. The smell of seafood and summer air is whisked away as my grandfather opens the grill, taking off the burgers for all the hungry cousins who refuse to eat lobster, mostly because of the eyes looking back at them” (Cantwell). I see a pattern with my classmates and their favorite meals. Everyone has their favorite meal because it has something to do with being close to their family. Tim is very close to his family, that’s the impression I am getting from his writing. If it weren’t for family dinners there would be a part of that bond ripped apart.

Any kind of meal you have whether it’s breakfast, lunch, or dinner I think it’s important to eat with someone, if it’s friends or family. It gives company, it makes you feel nice about yourself because you have someone to be with. I believe that it makes bonds stronger. When I have any type of meal alone I get a feeling of being left out because my friends and I usually get food together. Just to give us something to all do together. But times have changed when it comes to food and who you are having a sit down meal with.

Michael Pollan wrote an article for, The New York Times Magazine – That article is called “Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch.” Pollan writes a few good claims in his article, he mentions the food network and how it has affected us today. “These shows move so fast, in such a blur of flashing knives, fantastic pantry raids and more sheer fire than you would ever want to see in your own kitchen, that I honestly can’t tell you whether that ‘last-minute garnish grab’ happened on ‘Iron Chef America’ or ‘Chopped’ or ‘The Next Food Network Star’ or whether it was Chef Flay or Chef Batali who snagged the sprig of foliage at the buzzer.” (Pollan, 9). Since the food network started becoming more popular we don’t really seem to get inspired by cooking, we get more inspired to order what they make because we act like we won’t be able to make it. It’s all for entertainment, it’s a competition. My family and I always watched “Master Chef” with Chef Gordon Ramsey. My family and I never proceeded to make the meal, we kept watching to see who would win. 

It’s unfortunate that we have these ideas put in our heads that we can’t have a sit down meal anymore, I don’t remember the last time my family had a sit down dinner, I think it was Thanksgiving and that’s a national holiday. I’ve had more TV dinners than a sit down meal with my family in two years. It’s upsetting because that is a thing I truly look forward to, especially when I have been away from home for eight months. I am not as close with my family as I used to be when I was younger. I wish that we still were, family dinners did bring us together, but my sister and I grew up and we now have jobs, my mother works three jobs so we barely ever see her. When it comes to dinner time around five o’clock or sometimes six o’clock, I have to leave for work, so I miss dinners.

Pollan brings up another good point, “So cooking matters — a lot. Which when you think about it, should come as no surprise. When we let corporations do the cooking, they’re bound to go heavy on sugar, fat, and salt; these are three tastes we’re hard wired to like, which happens to be dirt cheap to add and do a good job masking the shortcomings of processed food” (Pollan, 19). We should all be taught how to cook, we shouldn’t sit and watch someone make it and then continue to order it. We need food to survive, we should know how to make it. No matter what it is, I think everyone should know how to cook. I am eighteen years old and will be living on my own in a few years. Do I know how to cook? No, no I do not. That doesn’t mean I am never going to learn, I want to be able to have a family of my own one day and make dinners for them. If I don’t know how to cook I won’t be doing that. I would like to learn for that reason, family dinners mean a lot to me, maybe more than it means to others. 

If we take time out of our days to go to the grocery store, open a cookbook, step in the kitchen most of the population would know how to cook a decent meal. We don’t tend to think like that though, we tend to mostly think, if you don’t know how to make it, there’s a restaurant that knows how to make it twenty minutes down the road. I still strongly believe that family dinners that many people have lost can be brought back if we just all put in effort. We have been influenced by the media that cooking is this game that is simple and anyone can do it, I don’t think that way. I believe that cooking is hard and if you are willing to learn, you should. My mother taught my sister and I how to make spaghetti and meatballs, so simple. It was a bonding moment for the three of us. If I were to ask my mother to teach me how to cook, she would say yes. She would want me to be able to cook for my family when I am older, just like she does. All of the recipes in my family were passed down from generation to generation. This should make it easier for people to learn, if their recipes have been passed down like mine. We need to stop going out and instead spend time making dinner with our families so it doesn’t take away a good moment for you and your family. 

Works Cited

Cantwell, Timothy. “″Favorite Meal.” ″ – Wiktionary, https://tcantwell.uneportfolio.org/favorite-meal/. Accessed 5 May 2023.

Gordon, Katie. “″My Favorite Food.” ″ – Wiktionary, https://kgordon4.uneportfolio.org/food-for-thought-2/. Accessed 5 May 2023.

Pierce, Kenneth. “″.” ″ – Wiktionary, https://kpierce14.uneportfolio.org/favorite-meal-essay/. Accessed 5 May 2023.

Pollan, Michael. “Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch.” 29 July 2009, p. 21.