Alexis Madrigal taste-tested five frozen turkey dinners — you know, those sad little plastic packages that you microwave and unwrap and find yourself face gelatinous goo and reconstituted turkey scraps — so that even if you over-ate yesterday, you can feel good today that at least you weren’t stuck with that stuff.
And if you were stuck with that stuff, you have my heartfelt sympathies, and I hope your situation improves.
By the way, the title up there…that’s pure Minnesotan. I’m beginning to feel like I might have been here too long.
My family calls them “frozen yuk”s, as in, “I’m too beat to cook tonight. I’m gonna make a frozen yuk.”
A decent way to remind oneself that these are basically emergency belly-fillers, not real food.
Even emergencies don’t justify eating that shit. Make an omelette, cook some pasta – it’s just as quick !
You are referring to “could be worse”?
That’s a fair dinkum Aussie expression. (Or maybe its use is widespread in the English speaking world).
Ajbjasus: it’s not time, it’s effort. Making an omlette involves standing over counter and stove for about 10 minutes, whereas a TV dinner is two minutes and then you get to collapse for 40 minutes while it cooks. And there’s no washing-up after: just throw the tray in the trash.
I’m not defending TV dinners as a frequent solution, but I probably eat 4 or 5 of the things a year as part of my overworked bachelor lifestyle.
Barbarienne. Put the pan on to heat. Beat the egg. Grate some cheese. shred some ham. About a minute to cook it if you know how, five in total. Its actually therapeutic and life affirming to make something good. You’re falling for the “cooking is a drag marketing hype of the modern food industry”. Have some ketchup and a hunk of good bread, with it if you don’t want to cut the umbilical with the commercial world completely. It’s good for the prostate ;-)
More like fifteen to twenty. Funny how a lot of people chronically underestimate the time a job really takes. And it all depends on what should be doing elsewhere with that time.
For example, changing the light bulb over the landing in the upstairs landing takes a couple of minutes. The prep (ladder, safety stuff) and clean-up take twenty.
Nerd
No kidding.
Nerd – my clocks must run slow I reckon, cos IO do this at least once a week. I’ve got a dish washer though !
Snow won’t shovel itself.
Will read it dreckly
What we have as can’t be assed meals are bags of ratatouille in the freezer, add sliced ham or real bacon (ie not American) or Silesian sausages or British bangers or just on its own.
Ajbjasus: I make my own ice cream. I bake my own bread. I made a 5-course Thanksgiving dinner yesterday and I’ll make a similar feast, main dish Beef Wellington, for Christmas.
Your assumption that I don’t know how to make a fucking omelette would be offensive if it weren’t so ridiculous.
I eat these all the time, because they’re cheaper and keep better than raw ingredients. And my disability makes standing long enough to cook bacon and eggs impossible. But thanks for the ablist/classist shit sandwich, ajbjasus, that’ll really perk things up.
Fucking privilege-drenched shitspigot.
If you don’t have a stove, frozen dinners can be done in a microwave.
I’m on the bus,eating chocolate.I call it late lunch.
Luckily, mum will have left some soup so I’ll just heat that up. Not everyone is that lucky. If I had to cook something, even if it only took 10 minutes (plus washing up)…, yeah, I don”t t think so. Exhausted and in no mood to bother
I have BS and MS degrees in food science, so the linked article brought back… memories.
As an undergrad/grad student, I thought food science was the coolest major evah – it gave me a real understanding and appreciation for a process – food preservation in all its many forms – that makes so much of the modern world work, yet is so ubiquitous as to be invisible to many people. I was entranced by all the science that went into everything on the grocery store shelves, including the basic commodities often referred to as “whole foods.”
Speaking of which…
I don’t see how one can “cut the umbilical with the commercial world,” w/respect to food short of raising your own cows, chickens and pigs for the milk, eggs and pork; not to mention possess the subsidiary skills and equipment to hygienically process the milk and pork into cheese and ham, respectively. Yeah, I like to cook meals from scratch, too, but I don’t imagine that it somehow liberates me from the food industry.
My usual solution to a quick meal is to grab some bread, butter it, plop it on the griddle, slice some cheese, and put’em together. Grilled cheese is not just quick and easy, but my favorite comfort food.
“Could be worse” – so widespread in the English speaking world one suspects that a former Empire is responsible for it. Given that the words are usually accompanied by a cuppa tea, reasoning seems good to me!
ajbjasus
Your privilege is showing something awful.
“Could be worse” is pretty common here in Australia and, apparently, Minnesota.
To be truly British, you’d have to add “mustn’t grumble”.
@ CatieCat – A friend of ours had MS and used to cook from an architects seat because he could not stand, I don’t know if that thought is helpful or not
I’ve had, a few times even heartily enjoyed, worse.
I’ve been so hungry, cold, and tired that military C-rations, specifically the ham and Lima beans (Universally referenced as ham and motherfuckers), heated in the can over an open fire, was an absolute delight. I have had food from top restaurants with the highest rated chefs that I have enjoyed much less.
Another time, after survival school and a grueling five day final ordeal, we found a bag of week old french fries from Burger King and a six-pack of warm beer behind the seat of the truck. The warm beer and cold, stale, greasy french fries were a feast … pure ambrosia after two weeks eating roots, berries, the occasional unlucky lizard, and washing it down with muddy water filtered through a bandanna and treated with iodine.
I tend to appreciate what is available. TV dinners are not bad if it is all you have. Some of the higher end ones are actually pretty good. Most of them can be made workable with a little doctoring. Worse case you could smother it in Sriracha hot sauce.
I love those Indian dinners. $2, microwave it a couple minutes in a bowl, eat from that bowl, clean the bowl and spoon. Ideally you have leftover rice, or some naan or pita, or *some* kind of starchy thing. That takes me about two minutes prep, and one minute cleaning.
My least-work dinner, developed in grad school: onion, peas and/or tofu, soy sauce, rice, and 1.5 parts water for each part rice. Spices spruce things up; add to taste if you have time and availability. Water and rice into the pot on high heat; gather up the other ingredients (chopping 1/4 to 1/2 onion) and dump them in as they’re ready. When the water boils, turn down the heat to a simmer, stir once, cover the pot, and go away for 10-20 minutes (take a shower, read pharyngula, whatever). When it’s cooked, dump the contents into a bowl, eat. The key is to fit all the prep into the five minutes between when you start the rice and when it boils. So you’re at five minutes prep, 10-20 minutes off, then two minutes cleaning (you can wash your knife and cutting board during the prep).
Total: 7 minutes for home-cooked versus 3 minutes for reheats. Reheats still win.
Reheats of home-cooked are the best of both worlds, but there’s times when you run out.
ajbjasus –
Some people have physical issues that make standing/moving around a kitchen/handling hot things and sharp things very difficult.
Some people have trouble with executive function and other issues that make the number of steps involved in even simple cookery overwhelming.
Some people don’t have access to supermarkets that carry good fresh food.
Some people don’t live in places that have a stove or a refrigerator or storage for cooking utensils.
It’s not all about whether you think you know how to cook or not.
My most deliciousest dinner ever: spaghetti with tuna, raisins, and tomato sauce.
At 10,000′ elevation after hiking hard all day that day and the previous one.
I’ve learned how to cook in camp since then, and I’ve been on harder trips, but nothing has quite matched that experience. And nothing in the city comes even close.
The innocent suggestion of making an omelette – a poor person’s meal consisting of an egg and cheese is privileged and the suggestion one might do it instead of having a corporately made ready meal makes me a privileged fucking shitspigot eh ? Perhaps you might consider the elitist attitude is that only privileged people know how to cook.
By the way – what happens to all the packaging and plastic. yes we throw it in the trash. Or does looking after the planet only work when it suits ?
By the way Carlie – agree – and in no way was I implying that some people need this kind of convenience food.
Sorry that some people don’t
ajbjasus
Yes. Look what the fuck you said:
You call it shit, say it’s NEVER justified to eat it and disregard everyone who has to and can’t make food but telling them to make something else. As if adults are too stupid to figure out how to cook.
Idiot, stop pulling shit out of your ass. It’s not that poor people don’t know how to cook, it’s that they can’t. Something you just can’t get through your thick fucking skull because you must know oh so much more than those stupid poor folks, those other. How dare they do it different than you!
Go fuck yourself.
Your problem is you presume people who eat frozen foods are a) poor, and b) have time. I’m not poor, but due to both working full time and being a primary caregiver to a bed-ridden person when I’m not at work, my time is limited, so quick meals with little cleanup are a boon.
I’ll do so with or without your permission. Which is neither asked for nor wanted.
ajbjasus @25:
How deep a hole are you intending to dig?
Look, you made a comment that shows a lack of understanding of why people would choose to eat a frozen dinner. Just because you don’t agree with the reasons doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons. Moreover, each individual makes the choices they feel are best for themselves.
You also ought to recognize that it’s not about anyone’s cooking ability (or lack thereof). Did you completely miss the rest of CaitieCat’s comment @12?
She said:
Given what she said here, you should have apologized, but you didn’t. Instead you chose to continue digging the hole you’re in.
Your assumption that people should cook an omelette rather than heat up a frozen dinner is a hasty assumption based on your able-bodied privilege. Not everyone shares that privilege. Some people cannot stand for long periods of time, limiting their ability to cook over the stove. For people like this, frozen, microwaveable meals are extremely helpful. I shouldn’t need to point this out, bc again, CaitieCat already said all this. It looks like you’re ignoring her comment (why is that, I wonder).
Your dissing of people who choose to eat these meals implies that you know the circumstances of others AND shows that you’re comfortable making judgment calls about the personal eating habits of others.
You’ve been told your opinion is a privileged one. Why are you continuing to double down rather than simply saying “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about people who aren’t physically capable of standing and cooking. My privilege as an able-bodied individual was showing”?
CaitieCat. I wholeheartedly apologise that my interaction with Barbarienne implied that my comments applied to all people who have to use readymeals.
That was not the intention – he had said he called them yuck, and they allowed him o slump for 40 minutes when he couldn’t be bothered to cook (eg beef wellington), not that he was forced to use them due to his abilities, and I was trying to suggest an alternative approach.
ajbjasus
You are still digging.
and how do you get “he” from a nym like “Barbarienne”?
@ ajbjasus
At what point are you going to detect the pattern here? You make a suggestion, people point out why that won’t work for them and you end up apologizing for having failed to consider certain possibilities. That should be your cue to shut the fuck up recommending things to people whose personal situations you know fuck all about.
ajbjasus,
How ’bout shutting up before you dig yourself in any deeper?
… Just as a suggestion of an alternative approach.
Chigau :
and how do you get “he” from a nym like “Barbarienne”?
“but I probably eat 4 or 5 of the things a year as part of my overworked bachelor lifestyle”.
How about you get of the feeding frenzy ?
(Took me a minute to understand that the misleading comma was purely decorative.)
Good bread? In America? Can you buy such a thing there?!? barbarienne makes her own instead, but that’s seriously time-consuming.
…what? Did you confuse “year” with “day” or something? Lay off the sanctimony.
Depends on your definition of good. I can get cheap “Wonder bread™”, up to multi-grain and/or cheese loaves with yeast and baked at one of the local groceries. Ranges from $1 per loaf to $7 per loaf depending upon complexity. Fresh made “French bread” about $3 per loaf. So you have to pick your price/quality point.
ajbjasus #36
“bachelor”
yeah
they should have said “bachelorette”.
—
Your use of “feeding frenzy” is an indication of your place on the bingo card.
ajbjasus
A friendly bit of advice, yours to take or leave, STFU.
David Marjanović @37
Good bread is available in the US. Go to San Francisco and have some sourdough (there’s a bakery there which claims to have been using the same starter since the 1870s). New York City has some excellent bakeries, offering everything from challah to very flavorful pumpernickel to better baguettes than found in most of France. In fact there is quite decent bread widely found in the US. It’s purely eurocentric to claim otherwise.
Also, really good bread can be had in Philadelphia. Visit any of the bigger cities.
Unfortunately, there is no good bread in Minnesota.
PZ
Make your own.
Also, really good bread can be had in Philadelphia. Visit any of the bigger cities.
Unfortunately, there is no good bread in Minnesota.
Chigau
PZ
Make your own.
That’s an interesting idea. Sourdough can be pretty easy.
PZ and David a@37 Try looking at New York Times No Knead bread. It takes quite a lot of elapsed time, but hardly any input of your time, and is a great place to start putting traditionally made, additive free bread on the table
There also seems to be the assumption that everyone should just love cooking and their own home-cooked meals. I still don’t care for it much myself. My cost-benefit analyses on the subject don’t often come out very high.
I have but one word: lunch. I have eaten ( happily and unhappily) frozen meals for lunch at work when I was out of leftovers to bring in. I’ve never worked anywhere that had a stove for people to cook on. (And given how most people treat shared work kitchens, I wouldn’t want to.) Eating lunch out at work isn’t always an option because of time/money/availability issues.