At Your Convenience

I grew up on home-cooked meals, and that was fine by me, because my late mother was an excellent cook. What’s more, she cooked everything from scratch – hand squeezing the grated coconut, getting the santan, pounding spices, drying chilies for curry and chili pastes.

She did that every day when we were growing up, without a single complaint. Instant pastes were unheard of. Everything was locally sourced and available at the local market. She was unaware of the virtues of organic food, “superfoods” and alkaline–acidic foods; neither did she know of the dangers of pesticides and hormone-injected chickens. All she knew was that she had to serve three meals a day on whatever budget available. As money was tight, we had fish and vegetables most days and meat only on special occasions. Most importantly, we grew up healthy and fit with hardly any ailment save the occasional common cold.

In the fast-paced world of today, modern day conveniences do save us considerable time and effort. But have we gone too far? Fast food, take-away and instant mixes have replaced traditional forms of cooking. A friend of mine, upon making mashed potatoes from scratch, was chastised by a guest who told her to use instant mash potato mix in the future. Here in Indonesia, where instant noodles rule, people often fail to realize how easy it is to make a healthy bowl of noodles from fresh ingredients – available in the very same supermarket where they buy the instant versions.

Yes, perhaps a bit more planning is necessary while drawing up that grocery list but it’s hardly gourmet cooking. We expect instant gratification – apparently the source of many of our problems.

Gone also are the days of waiting for seasonal fruits, as they are now available all year round. I remember as a child waiting anxiously for durian season in June as that was the only time we could eat durians to our heart’s content. Today, with sophisticated farming techniques and efficient transport, durians are available all year round and in most parts of the world! The element of anticipation has gone; perhaps that is why durians seemed to taste better back then.

Seasoned to Taste

Yet it is more than just that. The vitamins and minerals in a fruit are diminished as the fruit ripens in the back of a refrigerated truck rather than on the stem – not to mention what might have been sprayed on them to keep them fresh. Environmentalists also bemoan the extra pollution and CO₂ emissions from long journeys bringing seasonal fruits from one hemisphere to other, just so consumers can get a taste of the next season’s fruits right now.

When we lived in Europe, my German friend was zealous about where her food came from. She only bought seasonal fruit and vegetables, while her chicken, beef and pork came from a farmer who gave the animals only organic feed. She was not alone; I met many German mothers with similar habits.

I tried doing this over the weekend at a reputable supermarket here and found it rather frustrating. Australian beef sometimes comes from Australian cows grazing on local farms – are they considered local or imported? Amazingly, I could not find local papayas – a relatively easy fruit to grow in Indonesia. They all came from California or Hawaii.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not an ignoramus when it comes to natural produce. I can tell a local tomato from a San Marzano and I know my camembert from my brie. But are we going too far these days by expecting everything we see on television to be available for tomorrow’s dinner? Indeed, all good chefs look for the best produce they can find, but unless they are running an Italian or French restaurant, they often prefer local produce.

These days, we are told to view food in a completely different manner. Read the food labels, health experts cry. Find the source of the food, says another. Buy only organic food and vegetables, scream the headlines. Countless celebrities seem to be constantly following one new-fangled diet after another. Famous life coach Tony Robbins advocates an alkaline–acid diet. “A what?” I hear you say. In Jakarta, a trainer recently told me to eat according to my blood type. Just being a vegan is nothing unusual any more.

A plethora of information is out there and if my mother were alive today, she would be dumbfounded at the food labels in the supermarket and at a loss as to what to buy. Ironically, her simple home-cooked food made from locally sourced produce is probably what the nutritionist would recommend. 

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