Scratch Cooking

Scratch cooking is using raw ingredients instead of pre-packaged or processed foods. For example, scratch cooked pasta sauce starts with whole tomatoes instead of canned.

Scratch Cooking Is Not A Moral Question

Let me start by stating this explicitly: contrary to what many people seem to think, and what maybe you might expect from a chef turned farmer, I don’t actually think cooking from scratch is a universal, moral, good.

Cooking from scratch is, in large part, a relic of another time. One in which someone was assumed to be home all day, primarily in order to cook. During the mid to late 20th century, most industrial economies moved to a full employment model, where it was assumed that every adult in a household worked, as opposed to the previous model in which it was assumed that exactly half of the adults in a home would work.

Now, in the 21st century, the only people in those economies who cook at home primarily from scratch are either people for whom cooking is their passion hobby, or those who for reasons of economy, temperament, or religion continue to operate in a milieu in which there is a full-time homemaker. I fall into the latter category, as a full-time dad.

Why I Cook From Scratch

So why would someone choose to be a full-time homemaker and cook all their meals from scratch in the 21st century? I can only answer for myself, but I think some small amount of each of these reasons exists in every person who does cook primarily from scratch:

Economics

The primary reason for many people who cook from scratch is simple economics. I know in my particular case, this looms large. I keep precisely detailed budget and spending records and have done so for more than a decade now. And while I have the receipts (literally) almost no one believes me when I tell them my grocery budget.Given that the USDA considers a “thrifty” grocery budget for a family of four to be 5x what I spend, I can understand the disbelief. They claim an average weekly grocery bill for a family of four (as of 2022) if one is watching every penny to be $268.80.

I spend, on average (based on the last decade of grocery store receipts) $50 per week. This is only possible because I cook almost every meal from scratch. Only in a mindset in which a $3 box of prepared dry cereal is considered a weekly luxury is it even remotely possible to have such a low grocery budget and eat healthy food. My grocery list is made up entirely of staple ingredients like flour, rice, beans, vegetables, cooking oil, oats, and potatoes. Meat makes a very occasional appearance on our table, and ready-meals never. Because I have the holy trinity of Time, Inclination, and Impetus I am able to turn these basics ingredients into a pretty robust repertoire of dishes.

Control Issues

I dislike flying because there is a fundamental part of my brain that believes wholeheartedly that the plane is going to crash and I am going to die simply because I am not the one flying the plane, and no one else can be trusted. Never mind that air travel that I am not in control of is vastly safer than automobile travel that I am in control of. If I am not running the show, bad things will happen - or so my reptile brain tells me every time I go to the airport.

A similar, though I think better-founded distrust informs in part my refusal to buy processed and prepared foods.For a horrifying look at how much more corruption and adulteration takes place in the food industry now, more than a century since Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, spend a little while reading Marion Nestle’s blog about food politics. There is a mountain of evidence that capitalists will adulterate anything with anything else in order to create a tiny sliver of profit, and will only partially reform when lawsuit costs exceed operating costs. Those are the last people I want in charge of deciding what goes into my food. So, I buy foods as unprocessed as possible, as locally as possible, preferably from people I know personally. The aforementioned meat invariably comes from animals that live on the mountain behind my house who were slaughtered in a local abattoir I have personally been inside of during operation and processed by a butcher who works in a glassed enclosure and invites everyone to see what he does with their animals and how. Even the trucker who transports the animals from farm to slaughterhouse is a known quantity, being both a neighbor, and a regular at the same community center bar as I am.

In addition, I consider myself to be a far better cook than most people. My understanding of flavor pairings, layering flavors, and creating both delicious and visually appealing plates of food is well ahead of the average cooks, and I have no reason to be falsely humble about that. I have spent my entire adult life in pursuit of exactly those things at a very high level, and I am rightly proud of what I can do with minimal ingredients.

In addition I have extensive professional (and personal) experience in food sanitation, cost control, and seasonal cooking. These competencies combine to make me deeply uninterested in the vast majority of food available to me that is cooked by other people. I would much prefer to spend two days preparing a dinner party and invite you than have lunch at your house. I hope I have learned how to finesse this into happening and do not come across as a complete snob, but only because I don’t like people who get their feelings hurt too easily, not because I am not a snob, because I most certainly am.

Seasonal Garden Produce

I absolutely believe that much of the enjoyment of each ingredient is the anticipation of eating it in its proper season. As the Bretons say:

Likewise, a good meal begins with longing for the ingredient, not just for the food. Peas are for Spring, zucchini is for Summer, apples are for Autumn, and collard greens are for Winter. Of course, each of them can be processed at home and put away (in a modified form) to be used in other seasons, but the true, fresh, experience of them can only be enjoyed in the proper time.

⊕For me, the ultimate expression of this philosophy of fresh food is how corn on the cob is cooked in the southern United States. Only once the pot of salted water is started boiling is the corn picked. Shucked on the way back to the kitchen, it is dunked into the pot of boiling water for 5 minutes or less before being served directly to waiting eaters. Furthermore, the enjoyment of a perfectly formed vegetable picked from the potager outside the back door and passing briefly through the kitchen for the most delicate of preparations before traveling back outside to the patio table to be eaten mere minutes since it was picked is not just a romantic notion - it is a relatively ancient way of life.

Autarky

Enjoyment