Is Cooking Classist?

[@hootsyoutube]

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[@mariamart_0]

i was a little suspicious of the advert for Surfshark into 5 minutes of this Leftube or Breadtube Video Essay. I thought you were selling yourself out since I know you are a *bread-tube* leftist. But girl, I know you have to sponsor Surfshark so you can pay your bills. Ofc we live in a capitalist neo-liberal colonial settler country. ...wonder if there is going to be a anti-capitalist and anti-politician revolution against these Capitalist sociopaths. Eventually when it comes to carrying about profit over human life & human quality.

[@JohnBainbridge0]

Food prices are classist.

[@jbone877]

Your mom's prices are classist

[@israsaleh]

@@jbone877ahhhaaaaaaa gettem

[@zUJ7EjVD]

@@jbone877 I'd argue: the price is right.

[@TurbopropPuppy]

@@jbone877 i already classed your mom's prices last night

[@jbone877]

@@TurbopropPuppy oh no I've been destroyed with facts and logic in the marketplace of ideas

[@MagicalMysteryViewer]

"Cooking itself isn't classist but the system that rings every ounce of energy and labor out of you until you don't have the necessary resources to provide for your own well-being truly is" I see this firsthand in my own home every day. I have a decent job that pays well enough for me to afford most ingredients I want and also leaves me with enough free time and energy to spend a couple hours on a good meal if I want. This is a rarity in our current work system. My wife, by comparison, has a stressful job that can run 10-12 hours a day and doesn't have energy left at the end of her shifts to do much of anything. If I wasn't there to cook for her, she'd be stuck reheating frozen meals for dinner. I think this is probably much more representative of the state of work environments and their tolls on our lives than my job.

[@daenerys02]

I'm doing my thesis and working two jobs. Until last year I was living by myself (barley paying the bills) and I basically only ate instant ramen. This year I'm in the same situatuon but living with a partner, who also works and studies. They care about their health more than me though, so ramen every day isn't an option 😂even thinking about what to eat every day is the bane of my existence, even though we share that responsability. It seems like a small thing and many times I feel useless for being so stressed about it. It is so nice to see someone validate that experience, especially a male partner to a woman ❤ We are always told that cooking is a duty and a must, and finding it stressful or not wanting to/being able to prioritize it is not discussed enough in my opinion

[@lilpetz500]

This is so true, and it's wild how many people don't seem to see that under this system, even the simple act of sourcing and preparing sustenance, has genuinely become politically complicated and straight up mostly unavailable to so many, and I feel for them. I was studying meal budgeting in my free time, at 15. Getting ready to afford uni when I move out eventually (still never quite got to uni oof. Pandemic and personal illness hit at a bad time) and I mean, finding out the cheapest way to possibly get at least most of my nutrition, while also being sustainable, after hearing about malnutrition cases of budgeting students and self-mansging ED recovery, while still a kid. That's how much fear my class bracket instilled in me, and how much I bought into the "just make the system work as it is!" mindset. And unfortunately being queer, I knew I'd likely be on the outside of amatonormativity we're expected to fit into financially (required to couple up to afford housing and manage chores plus work), and that I'd have to be an extremely reliable friend to make sure I'm not left to tackle living expenses/labour alone. I really feel for those without decent food access out there, especially the students who are ideally supposed to be nourishing themselves and have their needs met to really be able to retain all that knowledge that's costing them thousands. The system needs to be better, you have my love and my active support.

[@LegalKimchi]

1/4 cup soy sauce 1/4 gochujang 1/4 minced garlic 1/4 cup korean chili flakes. 2 tablespoons of brown sugar Chopped daikon/korean raddish and potatoes. Cubed. Put radish and potatoes in pot. (You can add chicken as well). Mix rest of ingredients in sauce. Pour into pot. Pour 1 cup water into bowl that held sauce. Pour into pot. Bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Vegan friendly (without chicken). Serve with pan seared dubu (tofu) and rice.

[@hootsyoutube]

Omg yes yes yes

[@LillyP-xs5qe]

​@@hootsyoutube400 grams of egg noodles (short and wide)(or any pasta) 4 eggs Fruity stuffing (sultanas, diced apples, plums, pecans, etc, whatever you got laying around) 100 grams of sugar (or something sweet) 100 grams of melted butter (or oil) 6 grams of cinnamon 6 grams of clove 6 grams of allspice (Optional mascerpone, cream cheese) Cook the noodles Drain the noodles Mix the noodles with everything else in a bowl Pour into a baking tray Bake at 180°c (435.°k) for about 1 hour, till the top is brown and the centre is mostly dry Try not to eat it all in one go Is a Ashkenazi Jewish recipe called lakshen kugal, or noodle casserole, it's a sweet easy to make dessert born out of poverty (funny when people say Jews are rich when all the traditional food is poverty food), cheap flexible ingredients (use whatever you got laying around), little work and hard to mess up, yet delicious, all hallmarks of poverty cooking

[@sharonbaker3007]

noted!!! thanks!!!

[@loganbradford2343]

Walmart doesn't sell gokujang or korean chili flakes. can i use regular raddish?

[@LegalKimchi]

@@loganbradford2343 I would recommend looking for korean grocery stores, but lacking that, amazon sells both. As for the radish, i've never tried it with a red raddish, but it should work out. It's more about the sauce. you can put that sauce on anything.

[@TheLeftistCooks]

Cookery and Leftist Video Essay?? Genius!

[@hootsyoutube]

How can cooking be classist when some of my favorite cooks are leftist?

[@Owesomasaurus]

​@@hootsyoutube I think in this case the word we're looking for is "classy"

[@Themarshmellow-mf4lr]

Ayyyyyy shoutout to the Leftist Cooks 😎

[@lemonlordminecraft]

It is at least amusing to me that I figured out who had left this comment from its contents before reading the username.

[@FRANCFERNANDEZ]

Cookists?

[@Lildeadthing420]

This feels relevant in a way. When I was in the psych ward they were lecturing us on the importance of a healthy balanced meal for our mental health. I had reminded them that for lunch that day we were served a single chicken tender.

[@SpecialInterestShow]

Adding this to my list of "why I have an intense yet sadly rational phobia of psych wards"

[@StormSought]

the idea that restaurants are broadly less classist than any other option is genuinely hysterical. Amazing video.

[@colbyboucher6391]

Boba tea leftists.

[@rigelb9025]

Of course they're broadly less classist. They largely pay their employees below the minimum wage.

[@StormSought]

@@colbyboucher6391 I don't understand this but it is incredible

[@StormSought]

@@rigelb9025 straight up just don't understand this comment

[@rigelb9025]

@@StormSought I was being somewhat facetious with it, but I was kind of joking that restaurants actually *are* less classist because they often underpay their staff (cue in the 'tip mandate'), thus actively participating in generalized civil empoverishment. Hope this helps clear it up just a little.

[@just_Moss]

This made me think of my neighbor growing up, who always has food to feed you when you want to visit her for 10 minutes, but end up roped into a 3 hour long conversation anyway, who sends you home with her frozen, self cooked meals in the winter, or her self - grown produce in the summer, who comes ring your doorbell with the rest of the soup she cooked for her family after she heared you were ill. I love her. She truly holds our neighborhood together, even if I know some of my next door neighbors mostly from her storys about them. I aspire to be like her when I grow old.

[@toppersundquist]

We used to have a neighbor who grew up in Nova Scotia. She would just... wander over with cookies, or spaghetti, or LOBSTER CHOWDER, ask how we're doing, and just leave the food. No way to stop her. God, I miss her.

[@baby.yogurt]

she sounds like the opposite of a neighbor I had for a while growing up. she was my friend's aunt, and sometimes my friend would take me to her place (she was within walking distance of our both our houses) and just we'd hang out there for a few minutes, have a snack, and leave. pretty soon my friend told me that her aunt said to stop bringing me to her house because I "ate too much".........still annoyed whenever I remember that tbh

[@amethystdream8251]

I am like that neighbor, but younger. I like to cook and sing. I have been the type to give out food and cookies in the past. Over the last few years however, I have gotten the opposite of appreciation from neighbors. Because these days everything is perceived as a threat, and most people are I guess so under resourced that they've got a rabid jealousy and competitiveness over things that are not real. Most neighbors do not look at me if they don't feel lust towards me, and I do not believe I am either exceptionally ugly or beautiful. TLDR I think our society needs better food access and people need more free time. We're seeing the very strange effects of people not having that.

[@tymondabrowski12]

​@@baby.yogurt then there is that group of teenage boys that wander through the neighbourhood and empty the fridge of whichever house they wandered into that specific day (reasonably consensually, the house being one of the boys parents house).

[@glupik1234]

​​​@@amethystdream8251why did you bring up the singing? or apparently everyone looking at you being lustful about you? or if you're beautiful or not. Maybe you're just a weirdo to your neighbours bruh and that's why they don't like you

[@sirnoname7527]

On how time-consuming cooking can be (or in this case, rather baking): Every year I make Christmas cookies, and last year I was talking to a friend of mine and I mentioned that I was just not looking forward to the weekend, because I had to bake cookies. I explained that the reason I was not looking forward to baking cookies was because it takes hours. I spend 8-10 hours baking Christmas cookies every year. She was like, what?? how many batches are you making?? Two, I make two batches. The difference between my friend, who spends two hours making cookies, and me, who spends eight hours, is the size of our oven. I have a small mini oven, because my apartment does not really have the space for a normal oven, she has a normal oven. You just can't bake as many cookies at once in a small mini oven (can't even bake a normal-sized frozen pizza in mine). It's pretty common for people, who don't have a lot of money, to just not have a proper kitchen (like me), which can make cooking even more of a hassle. I can cook at home, I have a stove, and an oven, but I don't have any counters in my "kitchen", have to use the table for that. I find, that not having space, makes cooking very unenjoyable.

[@bboops23]

I lived in an apartment like that once. It was difficult to work with and I remember having to cool cookies on my bed because there was no where else

[@moonleafteaofthemonth]

My apartment and kitchen is just like that too. I mean you can say that if you put in the effort you can make cooking enjoyable anywhere, but let's not pretend that if you had a kitchen with even just actual decent counterspace and even just decent appliances that it wouldn't make cooking that much more enjoyable and or easier. Because it would.

[@rigelb9025]

@@moonleafteaofthemonth Indeed, it does.

[@rigelb9025]

@@bboops23 As long as you were'nt cooking coolies, that's cool.

[@yltraviole]

I used to date a guy from a wealthier background than me, and one of the things that signalled that the most for me was when we once were cooking together and he was amazed by my combination microwave-oven. He didn't know those existed. He'd always lived in places with those large, built-in ovens in the kitchen.

[@tangimeme]

Rice, soy, and MSG are all god-tier foods/seasonings. Why anyone would choose racism or misogyny over tofu fried rice is beyond me 🤷‍♀️

[@vaseklepic12]

MSG tastes great but makes me thirsty (maybe I am just using too much)

[@tangimeme]

@@vaseklepic12 I usually use about 1/2tsp for a 4-6 serving meal and I just looked it up and that's apparently the maximum you should really need. If I'm just cooking for myself and maybe one other msg-lover, I'll tend to use about 1/4tsp for one or two servings 😅

[@vaseklepic12]

@@tangimeme Well yeah, I could use less, but splashing it down with a bottle of Czech beer isn't that bad either

[@breadpirateroberts4946]

miso-gyny

[@robokill387]

@@vaseklepic12 well, MSG is like salt that way.

[@morganspaceburger1253]

mac and cheese protip: take the time to grate your own cheese. for multiple reasons, first being that the bagged stuff is covered in an anti-caking powder that effects how the cheese melts and can mess with flavor. second, is depending on brand/type of cheese it can be cheaper. and the third reason is so that you can sneak eat cheese as you cook like a lil mouse.

[@bunasdfghjkl]

ratatouille!! remy!!! mouse!!!!! (rat, ik, but im counting it) 🧀 🎉‼️

[@anthonyamezcua2805]

Try to avoid the dollar tree blocked cheese I'd say, Or maybe I got a bad bit piece idk. But whatever brand I got at the dollar store just would not melt no matter what I did. Was fine texted and taste wise. It was just not melt haha

[@fluidthought42]

If you don't mind spending a bit extra up front you can also buy sliced cheese, either from the packet or the deli counter. If you're particularly lazy like me and don't want to deal with the hassle of cleaning out a cheese grater. Oh, and keep American processed cheese product down to 50-25% of the cheese mix, any properly flavored cheese will probably taste better mixed into it.

[@MissSchnickfitzel]

Also. It doesnt give you health issues lmao

[@vf1923]

@@fluidthought42 Cheese graters should be soaked immediately following use. Then the cheese wipes off.

[@Sparkyball8]

Your conclusion reminded me of how it felt when I was first learning how to cook for myself and stumbled into a soup that tasted so much like my dad's did - he died when I was 15 and it was amazing to suddenly feel close to him again. One of my all time greatest joys in life is making a big batch of that soup for my friends on a cold night.

[@yasmataz616]

this is so precious 💝

[@CastToVoid]

New food hack: Make a video essay to make your meals a tax write off

[@connerblank5069]

That's silly, don't do that. Do a food diary blog. Like, literally just start a page with the sole purpose of documenting your meals and _nothing else._ Then, put _exactly one_ google ad cents plug at the _very bottom_ of the page. That way, it's not a one off, and you barely have to do more than post selfies for the tax write off on every single meal you ever eat.

[@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat]

​@@connerblank5069this guy writes off his taxes

[@lilpetz500]

​@@connerblank5069you know what, if someone was genuinely doing that so they could afford groceries, I'd contribute to the ad cents as much as I could and check the page maybe as I wake up or something. I doubt I can do much as a single person, but like. If taxes aren't actually going to fix class divides intentionally, I'm happy with a little finessing them into actually doing that thing where they, you know, give the taxed people their human needs.

[@SpecialInterestShow]

​@@connerblank5069oh? You might be onto somethin A coworker does keep telling me I need a food blog or podcast, soooo

[@SunniestAutumn]

I know cooking is classist because I went to a cooking class once.

[@tauntingeveryone7208]

Truly the best argument

[@RickJaeger]

That's a nice cooking tip, Master Chef. Care to back it up with a recipe? *My recipe is that I made it the fuck up.*

[@Sqwivig]

This made me actually laugh out loud 😂 Good joke!

[@lilpetz500]

Ok on the surface this is a great joke! But even deeper, should we discuss how unironically, cooking classes interact with class (the financial/access kind), and how there have been short sighted attempts at addressing poor access to nutrition by using funding to...teach the struggling how to cook, under the assumption that the issue is a lack of education. And not the fact that we will leave that class, still unable to actually afford the groceries and have the time needed between work to go on to apply that knowledge. To be clear, this is not inherently all cooking classes, many are just an enriching hobby and share some genuinely great advice, including ways to cook more mindfully of product consumption.

[@machematix]

I know cooking is classist because I've been a chef for 20 years yet I earn less than a plumber/receptionist/fridge repairman with 3 years experience.

[@nondescriptname]

As an addendum to the exploitation inherent to tipped employment: what many people outside the industry never see is the way tip pools are very subtly but consistently used to pit employees against each other. The pressure to perform to certain expectations- even when they are unsafe, violate labor law, or are not compensated- now comes at a social cost from your coworkers rather than your boss. The labor of enforcing unfair standards gets outsourced to the staff themselves who fight each other over scraps while their boss shaves 90% of their labor.

[@Rampala]

Least classist appliance and best purchase I've ever made: ✨ Rice Cooker ✨

[@DTS__]

i use a pressure cooker atm but literally was thinking i need a rice cooker last night

[@EnemyToad]

@@DTS__It is the very best

[@wastelanderone]

mine was £25 I've used it basically every day for the last year absolutely amazing machine.

[@Bpaynee]

Rice cooker, humble servant to the world 🍚💜✊

[@Ozzymandius1]

It's arguably a pretty classist appliance and the best purchase I have ever made that I've only used like four times 🤡Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer🤡

[@redmaple1982]

People need to start talking about the wonders of soup: affordable, flexible, keeps well, freezes well, and can be elevated with just one or two fancier ingredients.

[@lilpetz500]

AH soup is very, very good. And the cold equivalent smoothies too (especially for ND people/people with texture sensitivities that can make fresh produce uncomfortable and unreliable) Like, don't have time to cook and eat a bunch of fresh veggies and/or fruit, and even other stuff like animal by-products? Need to make second rate produce palateable? Soften them/freeze them, add liquid and a flavour you like, puree. Congrats you just speedran nutrition, and it tastes good too?? Need comfort food that is also really warm, that you can even put bread into? You'll never guess what soup does. Even the fanciest soups at restaurants, honestly can't do much more to the formula than what a commoner can.

[@redmaple1982]

@@lilpetz500 yup. I eat so many greens due to soup more than o ever could with salads

[@angellover02171]

Yeah no one talked about soup until now. Thanks for telling the rest of us.

[@blackomega34]

Soup makes an extreme amount of clunky dishes and trash, and isn't a replacement for a meal, and is one of the more difficult things to store for meal prep purposes. It is only at all worth making for a full household.

[@redmaple1982]

@@angellover02171 you're welcome! The blessings of soup must be spread far and wide!

[@MiriamClairify]

I wasn't prepared to be brought to tears. I had my own feelings of irritation about the Discourse, thought I would weigh in about the nuances of moving through the world as both producers and consumers and being exploited on both ends, but. My best friend from college moved to Finland after we graduated. We met through the vegetarian club. We used to volunteer to make meals at the local community center and at at the community gardens. They gave me a Little Mie cup as a gift before they moved away. I'm Jewish and these days my local synagogue hasn't been standing for the same politics as me. I started baking challah and learning yiddish to feel like I'm still connected to my culture and heritage. I started driving an hour to attend services at a congregation associated with jvp and the rabbi was just arrested for trying to bring food into Gaza. I like to cook. I can't afford to eat at restaurants, but maybe I could if what I bought to cook were cheaper. I used to be all but vegan, but as I've gotten more exhausted and cynical, I've lapsed into eating lots of dairy and eggs (but I've been vegetarian for too long to have any serious interest in eating meat). I fucked up the boxed matzoh balls last night and they were way too dense and heavy. I just finished miserably eating the leftovers.

[@gabeoleinik4435]

Hey I’m curious how you’re going about learning Yiddish. I’d like to learn for similar reasons but there’s not as many resources available as the other languages I’ve worked with.

[@MiriamClairify]

@@gabeoleinik4435 for now I'm just using duolingo, although mostly through Jewish fb groups I do see actual yiddish classes with a teacher available online/over zoom sometimes.

[@carverredacted]

I mean as a wheelchair using disabled person who can't get an accessible apartment or funding for help with Activities of Daily Living, i have managed to either hurt myself or drop my meal all over basically every time I try to cook. I agree it's not classist to suggest people cook in a kind way. I wonder if I can do that congee with the brown rice i got from the food bank and my tiny little pot safely

[@hootsyoutube]

I think you can make congee with brown rice! You may have to use more liquid and/or cook it more slowly to get it the right consistency.

[@carverredacted]

@@hootsyoutube thanks! I'll try it! I even have some powdered beef bouillon I haven't opened yet

[@anazuleta3079]

You can, you just have to cook it for longer. And bouillon cubes are a godsend! It might be heresy but I almost never use pork bones to make mine. Just bouillon, onion, garlic and ginger.

[@fop8313]

“is cooking classist” - the greatest thread in the history of leftist discourse, locked by a moderator after 12,239 pages of heated debate

[@SpoopySquid]

There truly is a Dril tweet for every situation

[@SpoopySquid]

I work 10-11 hour shifts and have bad AuDHD. The meal box service i use is the only way i can reliably eat properly most of the time

[@gozerthegozarian9500]

I'll probably have to use a meal box service, too, eventually, because I am not currently (and haven't been for soem time) eating properly for much the same reasons

[@kommi7658]

​@@gozerthegozarian9500 honestly they're a bit expensive, but besides that they're pretty great even coming from someone who has culinary experience. For people who dont have a lot of knowledge about cooking they can teach you a lot of basics of cooking without having to worry about food waste or forgetting to buy a certain ingredient and ruining all your plans. Once you make the dish you can just keep the recipe and buy the ingredients from the store cheaper. If you're already experienced in cooking you can add on to, or change the recipes to fit your personal tastes.

[@Jablicek]

Same. After many years of a horrible diet I developed this way of getting around it. Buy: 1 large freezer. Chest freezers are better for energy consumption but it's hard to find things in it (it's essentially a big, cold, square bucket) and standing freezers are much easier to organise but worse for power consumption. Buy: loads of freezable containers (they're probably going to look like take-out boxes) - start with 10 or so Do: When you make a meal for one or two, make it for 3 times that much. It's only a little more effort with ingredients prep - cooking time and clean up are more or less the same. Do: Serve yourself the meal, and an hour later (when everything's cooled down) pop the remainder into containers in standard serving size. When completely cool (you may have to leave it out if the weather's cool enough) for another hour or so, and then label and store in the freezer. Putting warm food in the freezer raises the temperature in there by a LOT and can trigger lots of ice build-up, and can lead to your food going off (weird, but it does, cooling food before putting into cold storage (fridge/freezer) has better outcomes) If you do this often enough you'll build up a complete range of foods you can just take out in the morning, defrost in the fridge through the day, and put in the microwave for dinner. Buying in bulk is cheaper, too, especially if you're able to go out and buy it yourself. Don't put non-microwaveable plastics into the nuker Ways I've managed to get myself through the supermarket without wanting to leave again immediately are: Noise-cancelling headphones Good tunes A LIST - holy moly, this is the single most important thing - helps stop you buying stuff you don't need Your own shopping bags - and as you go through the supermarket, put what you're buying in these, then you know how much you can reasonably carry. If you have your own transport then take your own bags anyway, the world has enough plastic This has a really high barrier to entry with the freezer cost, but you can start by just using the freezer already in your fridge, and move on from there when you start getting into the habit. I would love to hear from you in a year or so if you decide to go down this path - I've found it really helpful and would like to think maybe it can be for others. Take care, and be well :)

[@alexanderarnold8803]

​@@Jablicekdoing community service over here

[@xant8344]

Try frozen microwaveable veggies

[@figsandfigs]

i just finished my final college assignment and the first message i sent to a friend was "weird how you can accomplish something supposedly so huge and then you just have to like,,, sit down and figure out what the the hell you're gonna eat for dinner huh." can't stress enough how perfect the timing of this video was, and how seen it made me (an almost-college grad, who still owes my college an 100 dollar graduation fee, with less than 100 bucks in my bank account and no groceries at home not to mention energy to cook) feel. thanks hoots :)

[@pyeac]

Think someone else is gonna make dinner for you just because you paid to got to school?

[@ZeAndy2806]

On the note of cooking for your community: a huge step for my mental health and independence as an Autistic adult was learning to cook. It was even more of a help when I started making huge meals or baking things I could then give to family and neighbours. I still don't talk to my neighbours much, but seeing someone and their kids light up when I hand over a few tubs has made my life so much brighter

[@megansullivan3005]

Speaking of James Hemings, I went to UVA (which Thomas Jefferson founded), and the dining hall hosted an annual James Hemings Memorial Cook Off featuring food from local Black-owned restaurants. Baked mac n cheese was featured, of course. I thought it was a really cool way to honor an important early American chef.

[@goodbyesheesha]

A lot of the most affordable food is super labour intensive. I used to do a once-a-month cooking social event sort of thing where people would come by with a bottle of wine and we'd all pitch in to make a huge batch of something that keeps/reheats well. We did pierogi, samosas, meat pies, and so on. It was a really fun thing, but it's difficult to keep up with something like that.

[@Invisiblelad]

My grandma does this with dolmas! She just makes a ton and freezes them. Whenever grammy wants a quick healthy meal she just heats it up. Totally recommend

[@lolno6465]

Are they though? Rice with tofu, omurice, oven potato with dip, spaghetti and tomato sauce... Non of these things are particularly expensive, nor do they take long to cook? Like I would take alot longer making something like pelmeni and also pay more instead of just cooking some noodles for 15 minutes and preparing a sauce while doing so.

[@oiytd5wugho]

I mean... all 3 things you mentioned require you to sit down and mold little pockets of dough over and over again. You could branch out into [throwing things into water] or [adding sauces to processed grain] or something. Y'know, so you're not doing arts and crafts for every meal. Did you know you can freeze burritos for later?

[@fluidthought42]

​@@lolno6465 Lots of tofu recipes call for letting it air dry, recipes for beans ofc call for soaking, etc. Even if it's not active work, time is still a commodity and a bit slippery for some of us. Doesn't mean that it's impossible, but it does mean that it's another factor for "do I want to put in the work to actual cook today?".

[@oregonsenior4204]

@goodbyesheesha This is brilliant! I wonder if I could get this going in my Stateside senior group. How long did the group keep going? Making food and being together!

[@fiercerodent]

I love how much genuine empathy, care and frustration comes through here in between all the jokes and wonderful snark.

[@valemilillo]

I don’t know if this is as big of a problem in the US, too, but here in Italy, there was a dramatic raise in the prices of a lot of different foods after the russia/Ukraine conflict. Not only because we got, say, seed oil, from Ukrainian fields, but also, indirectly, because we got gas for our stoves from Russia, so everything costs more to make. That, along with the pandemic, was another big big problem for people already struggling with food

[@anazuleta3079]

Wheat got so expensive in my country on the opposite side of the world! I have always been a rice person but I liked baking, but the price of flour was so high and unstable I just stopped.

[@LoveMyOneesama]

fellow Italian here, didn't finish the video yet but in our country cooking is definitely for poor people, it's the cheapest option, even frozen meals costs more that doing it from scratch. I know that because restaurants, take away, already prepared meals are the first thing I cut from my budget to make ends meet. We don't even have cheap fast foods.

[@rigelb9025]

@@LoveMyOneesama Good point. I barely watched a few seconds of the video, but I would guess a substantial part of ther argument is that cooking requires 'having a kitchen', which not everyone can afford to have.

[@chrono4998]

@@LoveMyOneesama Also italian but sterotypical fast food here is so expensive for no reason, why does anyone here eat at mac donalds anymore

[@AY-ze1fp]

I was at a Conad in Rome c. July 2023. A red bell pepper was 7€. I was floored. 7€ for one bell pepper. Wrapped up in plastic and styrofoam. I even took a picture of it and sent it to my friends.

[@h00pla434]

Writing a comment, per Hoots' instructions, to signal that I don't believe cooking is inherently classist, but I do think an argument can be made that it can be classist in practice.

[@btarczy5067]

No, cooking *is* inherently classist, the revolution will be fried.

[@Birbface]

​@@btarczy5067 the revolution will be telefried

[@petruraciula9056]

Same!

[@MadameCorgi]

​@@btarczy5067 frying is a form of cooking

[@btarczy5067]

@@MadameCorgi Dang those false friends! (I’m German and forgot for a minute that „cook“ can’t just be a replacement for „boil“. False friends are English words that sound similar to German words but mean something different. „Kochen“ means „to cook“ or „to boil“ depending on the context) I guess the revolution will be raw and unseasoned then (:

[@Noirevert]

Me watching autotrophs make their own energy while I have to eat like a chump.

[@loch1694]

ITS NOT FAIR

[@fluffskunk]

We live in a society that actively sought to remove food production from urban centers through zoning. We treat wasted, fallow urban land as a class statement going back to unproductive, chauvanist English estate lawns and gardens.

[@IsomorphicPhi]

I have definitely cooked just rice in a stock cube broth or doused in soy sauce as a full meal. That is excellent if you're super stressed or tired

[@anazuleta3079]

Or if youre saving it to accompany a flavorful protein dish. Sometimes I buy extra rice when it's cheap, cook it and freeze it in ziploc mini bags so I can just defrost it in the microwave or chuck it in soup when I can't cook anything labor-intensive.

[@starcatcher3691]

Add some wilted spinach and chickpeas super filling

[@kaworunagisa4009]

Okay, get ready for some Soviet classic (accidentally vegan) 1 part onions, mid to finely cubed 1 part carrots, mid to finely cubed 2-3 parts aubergine or courgette, cubed roughly 2 times larger than onions and carrots 1 part bell pepper, red and/or yellow for aubergine, green and/or yellow for courgette, mid or finely cubed 2-3 parts tomatoes, blended into a paste (you can remove skins and/or seeds if you want to), or tomato paste + water garlic: 1-3 cloves per kg of everything else for courgette, 2-6 for aubergine, minced/finely chopped/crushed any neutral vegetable oil for cooking salt to taste any pot with a bottom suited for sautéing and a lid Sauté onions to translucent to light golden for courgette or darker golden for aubergine Add carrots, sauté till they start changing colour for courgette or up to start caramelising for aubergine (don't burn the onions in the process, lighter carrots are better than burnt onions) Add bell pepper, cook (stirring) till it wilts Add courgette or aubergine, don't forget to stir, courgette should just properly warm through, aubergine should be cooked till it shrinks (if the volume doesn't change in a minute, you're done here) Add tomatoes and salt Add garlic, all for courgette or half for aubergine Stir to mix, bring to boil, set heat to low, close the lid, and let it cook for 30 minutes for courgette or 45 minutes for aubergine Turn the heat off, mix in the rest of the garlic for aubergine, close the lid again, and let it cool Optional: when it's cool enough to handle, paste it with a blender. I personally prefer it chunky though. Can be eaten warm or cold, as a side or on toast. Holds fine in a fridge for at least a week, works great as a preserve as long as you sterilise the jars properly, never tried freezing it

[@JauntyCrepe]

Thank you! I look forward to trying this

[@alexusher4425]

I think another factor in people's access to home cooking is disability. I'm disabled in full time education at university and when I get home after a full day working I don't have the energy to cook. Not even to fry some vegetables, and sometimes not even to boil pasta. It is physically impossible for me to sustain myself in a way that is both budget-friendly and nutritionally healthy. I (almost) always have to give up one or the other to eat dinner.

[@feltfrog]

If you’re in the UK can you apply for disabled students allowance or benefits?

[@robokill387]

@@feltfrog It's very unlikely that you will get anything if you're technically able to do things. The current system doesn't recognise variable disabilities or ones that get worse when you're tired or executive dysfunction. It barely recognises non-physical disabilities either.

[@alexusher4425]

@@robokill387 Exactly. And DSA only helps with getting university specific support, like equipment and stuff, not general living costs.

[@tonycampbell1424]

​@@FionavanDahl Or you just boil pasta. Not every meal has to be some exquisite production worthy of an Instagram selfie.

[@wombat4583]

@@tonycampbell1424 I can tell you don't have executive dysfunction when it comes to cooking. No one is saying it has to be a stellar meal, but the mental fortitude to even do the simplest things can be like climbing the tallest mountain. Or you can be me and even when I finish preparing a meal it's a gamble whether I can stomach it. Nothing to do with like or dislike but I may react to the food anyway to the point I can't eat it.

[@JoseMariaLuna]

Incredibly beautiful. Making my mother's and my grandmother's food while living abroad was one of the very few things that reliably brought me joy and made me feel less alone during my expatriate years, even though I was incredibly broke all the time. Thank you for this wonder!

[@kris12385]

As a 40 year old, I have always felt if you don't now how to cook by the time you are 30, we probably don't have a lot in common. I was born and raised in poverty, cooking was essential, we don't eat out because we can make anything a restaurant can make cheaper better and quicker. In the amount of time it takes to drive to the restaurant, order, wait, eat, and drive home, I coulda just done it all and it's easier, cheaper, healthier than the restaurant. And in the commune that is my household, we all take turns shopping, cooking, and cleaning. We also have a family "cookbook," with recipes passed down from the grandmad, but mostly recipes I found online and mixed and matched with others, experimented on, and perfected into what we like as a family. Everything from quick chicken pot pies made with store bought pie crusts and canned veggies and chicken, to a recipe for gyro meat that takes 3 days of prep and cooking that is the result of mixing various recipes online and a year of experimentation. My mom never cooked; I was raised sandwiches, school lunches, and going to bed hungry when we ran outta bread. I didn't learn to cook because I liked it; I actually don't, I hate cooking. I learned because I HAD to; I got good because I wanted to give my children the family dinners I never had.

[@anfearaerach]

Pro tip: you can cook pasta in the microwave, just put it in enough water and stir halfway through the cooking time as mentioned on the package. If not cooked after that, just add 2 min. Frozen veggies are processed when at their best. You can oven roast tofu, or get smoked tofu if you really don't feel it. Potatoes can also be cooked in the same way!! Pratai for the win

[@d.w.stratton4078]

Black eyed peas, farro, and stewed collard greens with garlic is a BOMBASS combo.

[@adampliszka4855]

Pedantic "correction", intended more as a fun fact for those who don't know, not a gotcha - packing peanuts are food too (there are plastic ones, but those are a bit rarer in my experience). It's mostly carbohydrates, packing peanuts are made of starch - I've tried them, they taste like corn puffs, cause that's what they are. This doesn't change the overall point though, obviously. it's not that rice isn't food, it's that packing peanuts are, technically, if you ignore sanitary concerns.

[@rigelb9025]

If you're eating packing peanuts, you may not be healthy, but you can certainly afford delivery.

[@quiestinliteris]

I mean, they're not poisonous, but they're not food. They're not manufactured to food standards, there isn't any kind of sterilization of the equipment or facilities, they're full of dust and bug parts and industrial lubricants. They're intended to be biodegradable, not edible. It'd be like eating a Cheeto of unknown age off the floor of a machine shop.

[@glupik1234]

please don't eat packing peanuts

[@TheoRae8289]

before I even get into the video: I understand some of the frustrations involving whether or not someone even has cooking utensils (I had literally nothing for almost two years because nothing came with me in a move). My therapist helped me find a slow cooker someone was just giving away and that helped. That said, those same people need to let us speak for ourselves.

[@anazuleta3079]

I feel like some of those people bring up those points just to be combative/alleviate any guilt they might feel. Especially when it's people from the US, as someone from a developing country, it's kind of obscene how much they have and still complain.

[@EricDMMiller]

The people who can't afford utensils don't constitute a class.

[@Casutama]

​@@FionavanDahl I don't know about the US, but I live in Central Europe, and both through charity shops and second hand sales apps, it's possible to get many items very cheaply. Cooking utensils (the essentials) in particular are often given away for free or sold for 1-5€, as those tend to be items people moving in with a partner, for example, want to get rid of.

[@glupik1234]

​@@CasutamaI honestly don't understand the cooking utensil discourse at all, either, so maybe it is one of these American things. I understand when people mean electronic appliances. But finding cheap ustensiles is definitely not difficult

[@Desaki65]

"...made up fantasy settings like...Canada." * waits for Caelan to enter the chat *

[@ZijnShayatanica]

Caelan is dramatic enough to make up an entire country & pretend to live there.

[@vaneskak1579]

I’m Canadian and I don’t understand this?

[@Desaki65]

​@@vaneskak1579 her BFF is from Canada. 💗

[@zoe_bee]

Gorgeous video, and much-needed! Thank you for your consistent nuance, hoots 💜 (also you're one of the funniest essayists in the space rn, please teach me your ways)

[@hootsyoutube]

My secret is I’m too online

[@86fifty]

I'm disabled and live with family, and cooking is one of the most rewarding hobbies I can have, cuz unlike video-gaming (very common pastime for the semi-ambulatory chronic-pain crew I'm in), there's a TANGIBLE REWARD at the end, not just more sparkles on a screen. I'm still exhausted after doing either one, but hey, I can EAT a pancake, I can't eat a Steam trophy! (I still love gaming, don't get me wrong, but I gotta prioritize havin ship to eat, ya dig?) My mom's mom grew up during the Depression, and annoyed her neighbors in the 60s and 70s with the "unruly looking" kitchen garden she kept up in her fairly large suburban backyard. She made pies from scratch several times a week! Just a powerhouse cook, a stay-at-home tradwife who married a ww2 vet and had four kids, who was also college-educated, and remained staunchly liberal despite the red-shift of her small town. My mom still tries to hold herself to that standard of homemaking, even tho she's trying to work more hours now that she's divorced, and so her feet always hurt, so she can't stand in the kitchen for hours like she thinks she should :( I can't work for money, but I can cook our food, so I do. It's not participating in classism TO COOK, but classism definitely makes it harder to participate in cooking - as the over-worked and single and disabled audience members in the comments have already attested to. it's a similar vibe to that tweet that said something like, "1960s: work hard, or you'll have to live in a van down by the river. 2020s: work hard, save up 30,000 dollars, and then you can afford to live in a van down by the river."

[@86fifty]

Update - my mom just came home today, Friday, after an unusually hectic week, and declared we would get sushi for dinner, as a treat. And I was SO PUMPED, BECAUSE HECK YEAH RICE AND FISH AND SUSHI, BRO!

[@lvlupproductions2480]

@@86fifty HECK YEAH :D

[@Rhaifha]

I know internet recipes are a thing nowadays, but the library is also great if you want to have a look at what cookbooks might offer you. I volunteer at my local library, and so often I just take home a cookbook that looked even remotely interesting, so I can see if there's anything I'd like to make and if not, I just return it immediately! It's so much cheaper than buying random cookbooks, and the library has *so many*

[@veronicarodriguez8662]

In the early 2010s I volunteered at a church in eastern NC that primarily served migrant fieldworkers and their families. The priest would buy or take donations of essentials like toilet paper, soap, blankets, potable stoves, fuel, and, of course, food and distribute it to the camps where the workers live. The single men would live 30+ in trailers. Women, children, and men in their households would also live in trailers, usually 4-5 families divided by blankets or tarps. I later learned that my grandfather was assigned to that same area with the federal department of labor. When I talked with him about the camps he said it was fairly similar to what he reported as violations to the DoL in the 60s; the major difference was that now, most of the workers had mattresses on the floor of the trailer instead of having to sleep on blankets or clothes.

[@voidstuffs2592]

1-2 onions 3-4 cloves of garlic Meat of your choice if you want to ( i use Italian sausage but use whatever you want to your heart's content) multiple cans of beans (i tend to use black and kidney beans) 3-4 cups of rice 1. chop your onions, garlic and meat if you are using it 1.2 make your rice in whatever way is the easiest or most accessible to you 2. in a pan add oil, add your onions and let them start to brown, then add your garlic till fragrant 3. add your optional meat to the pan 4. add your beans to the pan and make sure to keep the beans and their juice moving around so that the bottom doesn't burn. This will take between 5-10 min depending on how many cans you added, you're looking for it to thicken up with a texture between a thick soup and re-fried beans 5. when your desired consistency has been achieved salt and spice to taste. 6. in a bowl/plate/whatever put down a bead of rice and dollop on your bean mix This recipe can be altered however you want to whatever size you want the amounts are only suggestions to lead you in the right direction With the recipe out of the way here's some tips that could be helpful from someone that has worked in the food industry for waaaaaay too long. Find your local or semi local restaurant supply store (something like a restaurant depot or Gordon Food store), those are great placed to get kitchen supplies/utensils/gadgets that will last longer than consumer products at a big box store and if its a good one also will have some bulk meals/groceries that can be purchased in bulk. If you can invest in a rice cooker, great to make rice and so long as you follow the fill instructions you can leave it alone and it won't overcook your rice and its great at an all kitchen use tool (my friend used to put his raw fish and a little soy sauce in with his rice and it'll be cooked and seasoned only requiring a stirring at the end to mix). Asian grocery stores are great for buying in bulk and to quote dropout CEO Sam Reich "rice is more flavorful than people give it credit for." A lot of cooking is deceptively hard and if you can make it over that initial knowledge gap things get easier and you start to on your own figure out shortcuts and tricks that work for you. To help i suggest the cooking channel Adam Ragusea www.youtube.com/@aragusea/videos all of his recipes are made extremely user friendly with the assumption you don't have any fancy kitchen tools and leaves room for a lot of play/experimentation/fucking up in the instructions.

[@magikarpg]

I didn't know your family was Finnish, that's kinda random and nice to learn as a Finnish viewer. I really want some mustikkapiirakka rn...Mine and my roommate's family also like to do a mixed berry pie, marjapiirakka. :') I'm currently learning Korean btw and it's funny how, according to my teacher, some of the things that people find hard when learning Finnish are the same, mainly the double consonants and the lack of aspiration in some of them. Good luck on your language journey!

[@PetrusEskelinen]

that iittala mug made me check if torilla tavataan

[@gluehfunke1547]

도델라 미에렌기인도이스다

[@magikarpg]

not the finnish in hangul hshshshs ​@@gluehfunke1547

[@xWood4000]

Torilla tavataan

[@PetrusEskelinen]

@@xWood4000 tortillat avataan

[@msjkramey]

I LOVE that you provided actionable steps to take at the end. It's very easy to feel overwhelmed and stuck by these incredible problems, and a lot of creators will tell you just to do your own research, forgetting that many people don't know where to start

[@leenviolite8255]

Right now in the Levant, it's the season for what we call مونة , which kinda could be translated as "meal prep" but it's not quite that; it's the batch prep of ingredients and preserving crops for the entire year (like peas, fava beans, dried mint, molasses, so much more) which the whole family usually participates in. The reason I say this is because around here, the rule of thumb is that the more households use ready made ingredients or even ready made whole meals, it's usually a sign of a much higher economic level. The more you make things from scratch and spend time working on preparing it the cheaper it is

[@larksmith629]

The best mushroom risotto with the least ingredients: 1 lb white mushrooms, chopped 1 lb portobella mushrooms, chopped 2 shallots, chopped 1.5 cups rice (technically you're supposed to use arborio rice, but like any rice thats somewhat short grained should be fine) 1/2-1 cup DRY white wine 4-5 cups broth (chicken or veggie) 1/2 stick of butter An amount of grated parmesan cheese In a sauce pan at medium heat, cook the mushrooms over olive oil until they start to release their juices. This will look like a comical amount of mushrooms but i promise its fine. Set them aside for now. Then, in a large pot or skillet on medium heat, heat up some more olive oil and then throw your chopped shallots in there. Stir them around until they're translucent. Pour in your rice. Stir the rice around until it starts to take on a golden color. Then, pour in your wine. At this point your kitchen should smell incredible. Pour yourself a glass of wine if you like it and prepare to be stirring this rice for a long time. When the wine has fully absorbed into the rice, start pouring the broth in, like 1/2 a cup at a time. Keep stirring until the broth has absobed, then add more. This recipe makes enough for at least 6 people so if you have anyone else around make them trade off stirring duty with you. Taste the rice once you've put about 4 cups of broth in. If it's crunchy at all, add more broth. This tasting time is also a fantastic time to add salt and pepper until it tastes how you like it! After you're happy with the texture of the rice, turn off the heat. If you are vegan/lactose intolerant, you do not have to add the butter and cheese, but this is the time that i add them. I usually start with about 1/2 a cup of parmesan cheese and then taste. At this point, I add the mushrooms and their juice to the pot and stir them in. You can garnish with parsley or chives if you like, but otherwise you are all done! Delight in your finished fancy meal!

[@CthulhusBFF2]

Hold up, let her cook

[@ubergamejunkie]

Hoots is underrated. Comrades, go forth and spread the word of Hoots.

[@rigelb9025]

I think Hooters is sexist.

[@vaneskak1579]

“Comrades” exactly lol

[@ubergamejunkie]

​@rigelb9025 A chud on the internet calling a woman they don't like "Hooters" while claiming that, 'No, it is her that is sexist!' is so obtuse that I am barely capable of appreciating the irony. Do better.

[@sabaqumurasaki7513]

This is a strangely American thing yet again. Here in Germany, foreign fruit and vegetables are usually seen as more healthy, often marketed as super foods. I’ve never seen someone thinking okra was less healthy than a potato or carrot. They are rather seen as some fancy luxury vegetable when and if you find it in a German supermarket. Most often new food trends that are considered more healthy are some kind of foreign dish or ingredient. On the other hand, fast food and „Tütenfutter“ as in instant packages similar to Kraft Mac n cheese is considered extremely unhealthy and looked down upon socially.

[@chiko4536]

Those packaged foods are definitely seen as unhealthy here too, but they took off in the US mostly due to long working hours and lack of time/energy, so I think the culture tends to be more forgiving. Its seen almost like a vice that makes people more relatable because everyones diet is fucked up

[@Casutama]

Maybe the Austro-German culture divide extends to this too, but I don't think I know anyone in Austria who sees foreign fruits and vegetables as inherently more healthy than, say, an apple or a carrot. I agree about "trend foods", but those almost seem more concerned with fashion than nutrition. As for instant packages, I feel like at least part of the negative attitude towards them is fuelled by environmental concerns.

[@mggardiner4066]

@@chiko4536also it tends to be what’s affordable and accessible for many, even from food pantries. She covers a bit with food deserts, but that’s a real struggle for lower income Americans. Even grocery stores are very complex in their economic effects and strategy behind placement here, with CSA’s being more accessible for middle class, and actual “healthy” affordable stores like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods being linked to gentrification

[@AgentSteffi]

But sauces or dressing are still bought in package (looking at Knorr for example), because people feel like they are being healthy by cooking, but they still buy a premade (Pulver) sauce that probably has too much sugar and salt in in [I can speak for those people because I am guilty of it]

[@glupik1234]

how is Turkish food seen in Germany?

[@Nebulyra]

As someone who loves to cook and is so gosh-dang tired all the time... bless this video.

[@lolly9804]

So even though the produce departments I used to work in, could get cheaper deals on the orders they make through the warehouses. During sales, they had to change pricing to match the national sale price, even if that's a much higher price. Which is set weeks in advance. As they had to print a bunch of flyers and mail them out. Even though produce prices can fluctuate faster than that.

[@hjartaborg]

My Great Grandfathers Appalachian chicken and dumplins: One whole chicken Salt and any preferred herbs/seasonings Flour Water Optional: Veggie scraps, onion ends, leek tops, garlic bulbs, celery tops, carrot ends etc etc. Cover whole chicken with water with seasonings and anything optional added. Bring to a boil then reduce to med low. Cover and simmer for 1 hour or so or until chicken is cooked thoroughly. Turn off heat. Remove chicken and strain out all solids. Allow to cool (enough to be able to handle the chicken) But first skim all fat and reserve. Pull meat from chicken and add to broth. Bring chicken and broth back up to a boil. Take about 3 cups of flour and add the reserved fat to it to form a dough. Add broth if there is not enough fat. It will still work. Work dough until it is soft and can be rolled out and sliced into wide dumplings. (flour hands, countertop, and rolling pin to combat the stickiness!) Add dumpings to boiling soup and cook for approx 5 minutes. Turn OFF heat and cover. Sit for one hour then bring back up to a boil. Then turn off heat after stirring. Repeat until the thickness and consistency you want.

[@KateKatastrophe]

The only way we can afford to eat (Australia where the duopoly of supermarkets make the most profit in the world through price gouging. Theres a government commission into them right now) is to make a weekly meal list and make a shopping list around that and visit several different shops and cook all meals at home. It costs about $60 au dollars for a restaurant meal for two. About $40 for fast food.

[@soulsworn13]

Not me getting a Woolworths ad in the middle of this video 😂

[@KateKatastrophe]

​@soulsworn13 come shop with us! You literally have no choice!

[@nicholehunter6463]

I’m from Sweden and lived in Australia (NSW) for a year and there was a store that had this farmers market branding (can’t remember the name) that had cheaper, imperfect picks for veggies that I used to get a lot. That really helped me overlook superficial flaws and minimize food waste. I’d get the rest of the groceries like rice, oat and milk at Aldi 🙃

[@Joshuaraymalan]

Throw in a a couple kids, and everything gets insanely expensive really fast. I'm privileged and have a pretty good job. My wife also works. We're somewhere in that nebulous middle class I'm always hearing about. We live in a "cheaper" part of the country. It still feels impossible to keep the food budget in check. Not to mention the difficulty of food prep when the adults all have jobs besides. Things that can be prepared easily are things we're told are bad for us (Zoe Bee did a video on this), so it's easy to throw your hands up. I totally get why people just say "fuck it, let's do McDonalds again," and again, my situation is pretty good.

[@hootsyoutube]

I know the footage on my last couple of videos has been kind of dark. My ring light is dying a death and I've promised myself I'd replace it for the next video. If you'd like to help me get some light panels, there's some on my Amazon wishlist: www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2KVK4OPCU3JOR?ref_=wl_share (Also open to other recs if the ones I found on Amazon are bad. I gotta be real with you all: I have no idea what I'm doing here.)

[@kant12]

Hope the new lights showed up yesterday!

[@hootsyoutube]

@@kant12 thank you so much!!!!

[@kant12]

@@hootsyoutube You're welcome! Glad you got it. The status I received was rather vague.

[@trailertrish2587]

You can get cooking utensils at goodwill for less than one restaurant meal. Porterhouse steak was on sale at the grocery store. It cost less than a terrible fast food meal. People who say these things can get stuffed (and served with a side of mashed potatoes )

[@skydoors]

this is one of the best video essays i’ve ever watched. really important stuff, so many people need to see this!!!!

[@THATGuy5654]

I remember seeing a video advertising amazing sandwich recepies for under $5 each, and the very first one he makes calls for f+×+ing truffle oil... Yeah, maybe some of these people are out of touch.

[@nicholehunter6463]

That’s messed up

[@L83467]

yeah thats a problem with a lot of 'budget' recipes. i mean most of them arent that bougie but theyll still use like fresh herbs, heaps of meat/cheese, fresh lemons and limes. stuff thats expensive and arent necessary

[@hedgeyes6411]

It's okay, you can say Joshua Weissman.

[@THATGuy5654]

@@hedgeyes6411 It might have been Guga...

[@phoenixfritzinger9185]

Classic Josh

[@AutomateTheBoringStuff]

"Also a solution that is only a solution for people who can afford to be part of the solution is not a solution." IF IT IS INACCESSIBLE TO THE POOR, IT IS NEITHER RADICAL NOR REVOLUTIONARY.

[@TeTaongaKorora]

Kia kaha e hoa arohanui! This has always been a topic close to my heart as an animal lover raised in a deprived/recovering from colonisation muttonbirding Māori village.I especially loved your segment about your Finnish family and its link to food and culture. As a Māori living in the USA I can feel removed from the culture and sharing food with my friends, colleagues, and community here has been a great way to connect both to my iwi and my new whenua

[@lola9148]

i love leftover cooking. learning to cook omurice changed my life for real! also put some sugar in to mix when youre heating up and seasoning your store bought tomato pasta sauce if you already dont... it cuts the acidity... im personally a fan of throwing whatever i feel like into the tomato sauce. some fresh tomato chunks too.

[@nicholehunter6463]

It was truly groundbreaking when I started putting a little sugar in the tomato sauce.

[@lola9148]

@@nicholehunter6463 right? it opened an entire new world to me when i did

[@phoenixfritzinger9185]

I don’t remember the actual name but my dad likes to make this stuff we call “sumo soup” out of whatever we have laying around in the fridge

[@thegadflysnemesis4102]

Cornbread casserole to feed a crowd: 2 boxes Jiffy cornbread mix (or approx. 16 oz dry mix) 3 cans chili, any type eggs and milk as required by cornbread Heat oven and mix cornbread batter per box instructions. Pour chili into your largest baking dish (I use a 15"x10" glass) then add cornbread mix over top. Bake until the cornbread springs back when pressed gently, maybe 25 min? The summer after I graduated college, I was living on campus and working for comped housing only, and the on-campus food pantry lowered my grocery bill that summer to $20 total. The donations were sourced partly from students themselves, and though there was a limit to how much of each thing a person could take, you could pick out exactly what you wanted (and they gave me an insulated bag I still use to this day). That summer to me is the gold standard of, I don't know what to call it, food dignity? We were given the right to good food, and the right to choose what we ate, and by the choice of honestly a *lot* of fresh produce the right to healthy, balanced diet - I could regularly share meals, even! By August I was fantasizing about bread, but that time remains with me as a very good system for dignified food distribution under scarcity, and also the best experience I've ever had getting groceries. Even beyond the massive material help it was, it really does something for your self-worth to have the right to eat

[@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023]

Before watching: I have 3 medical digestive tract conditions and a list as long as my arm of stuff I cannot eat. I *wish* I could just eat street food! TBC...

[@literaterose6731]

Ugh, similar. You have all my sympathy. Me: medical diet with so many restrictions (for GI conditions) that I couldn’t make any of the lovely recipes Hoots demoed. (Well, I’d have to leave out a *lot*.) Cooking is fraught for me due to extremely limiting disabilities, dietary restrictions and poverty: ableism + capitalism for the big L. Truly sucks.

[@HopeGardner3amed]

I recently learned I cannot have salt or added sugar or fat. Like what is left.... (I am venting not asking for advice).

[@baby.yogurt]

feel you on this. my list of safe foods is extremely small, and eating out has been out of the question for years. I can only handle simple, bland foods, even then I still feel sick every day. having meals with my bf's family therefore is something I try to avoid because typically it just isn't possible for me, and of course they don't get it and will judge and speculate because they can't relate or understand

[@rigelb9025]

Then I suggest you try the New York Pretzel, they're typically not as long as a human arm. (joke)

[@vladys5238]

​@@baby.yogurtno offense to your bf's family but how stupid can someone be to not understand a medical condition.

[@orillia-jq6yk]

I’m a care worker in the uk and before I was a care worker I was a catering assistant at a different care home. Sliced cheese might be more processed but I have known people who will only eat sliced cheese in their sandwiches because grated cheese will fall out of their sandwiches when they try to hold it but the sliced cheese wont. Food accessibility means so much more than just having access to food that you are not allergic to.

[@L83467]

but you can just cut up your own cheese into slices...

[@katsucurry8357]

Dude i’m abt 40 mins into this but this is fantastic; you more than deserve to be able to do youtube full time. I’ve been subscribed for a bit but I’m commenting to try and boost the algorithm as much as i can because you’re such a talented creator and this is some of your best work. Genuinely wish i was financially stable enough to support you on patreon or any other way

[@alexlemaire8513]

The mention of opening a jar reminded me of the random trick I learned from a local québec show as a kid, that whacking around the lid a few times with the handle of a cooking ustensil makes it much easier to open

[@thatblerdoverthereb9654]

I grew up rural poor. We had a deep freezer where my grandma would always stock up cheap protein during sales. We always had a huge bag of rice, and local or home grown produce. There were 5 "mom and pop" restaurants in town, one grocery store and 1 Hardee's. As I've gotten older a really appreciate my upbringing.

[@diablominero]

Here's a home-cooked meal that tastes good, doesn't cost a ridiculous amount, and is decently quick to prepare: -form a patty out of 80/20 ground beef; add salt and pepper -cook the beef to well-done in a frying pan -when the beef is mostly done, add frozen vegetables of your choice around the sides of the pan, so they warm up by the time the beef finishes cooking -transfer beef and vegetables to a plate -add creamy/tangy sauce of your choice (sour cream, mayonnaise, full-fat greek yogurt, and ranch dressing are all good options) -season with more salt and pepper, or with MSG, or both as you see fit, and enjoy It's also fairly low in net carbs, and the salt can be replaced with Morton Lite-Salt if you feel you need more potassium in your diet. The beef can be replaced with other meats (e.g., pork breakfast sausage), and you can melt cheese on the patty or fry an egg in the pan with the meat and vegetables if you want to add something special to your meal. I've eaten variations of this a bunch of times and highly recommend it if you don't have dietary restrictions preventing you from trying it. I have no objection to soybeans (frozen blanched edamame would go well in this meal), but I feel better when I eat less sugar and starch, so I'm going to have to skip the rice you seem to be encouraging.

[@bethelbethel845]

Food bank peanut butter is usually some relatively bad stuff. However it is the perfect ingredient for 3 ingredient peanut butter cookies. 1 cup peanut butter 1 egg (or an equivalent egg substitute) 3/4 to 1 cup sugar. 1 tablespoon at a time on a well greased cookie sheet (or use parchment if you have some) Bake at 350 for 10 to 13 minutes. Watch closely because they burn quickly. They’re done when the edges brown. If they’re not done enough you can always put them in for longer. That’s better than burnt. They’re my favorite way to use food bank peanut butter. You can use skippy or jiff if you’re feeling fancy, but do not use Adams or any kind of peanut butter that separates. It doesn’t work and tastes gross.

[@Eddies_Bra-att-ha-grejer]

A pure peanut butter WILL separate. If it doesn't it definitively contains sugar and other additives.

[@Gurianthe]

after I finally decided that my husband and I would start meal prepping for 2 weeks, we've had so much free time my husband is a stay at home husband and it sucks for him cause he has to cook for like 2 entire days, but then we just reheat stuff truly a life saver

[@Maric18]

msg is not salt plus seaweed extract! its *A* salt in the chemical sense (its a sodium salt, C5H8NO4Na instead of the usual NaCl) but yeah the most dangerous thing is that it has an LD50 (which at 16600 mg/kg if you weigh about 50 kg you'd need to eat a kilo of the pure stuff) that is 3x safer than table salt (same 50kg person would need less than 333 g of NaCl) the true danger in msg is that you'll overeat and not be 50kg xD

[@LupulaAster]

Pausing the video at abattoirs and COVID to add a little extra "we always lose in capitalism" on top. In a past life I was an employment specialist for a charity, primarily with felons. The only job that would consistently take our calls was for the slaughterline. If these folks lost a day of work, were made redundant, failed to pay for the halfway house they were forced to live in - they went straight back to mass incarceration. Their options were COVID or COVID and also losing parole. I fucking hate this system. Great video! 🖤🖤🖤

[@glummdead]

the "Ought implies you Immanuel Kan" was so good.

[@albertcapley6894]

Talking about MSG reminded me that my mom became convinced I had an MSG allergy after observing my face getting flushed after eating fast food and/or Chinese inspired food, and I'm really not sure we can be so confident in isolating MSG as the culprit, seeing how there was an ongoing dialogue similar to the "Chinese restaurant syndrome" you mentioned still ongoing in the 90s where I'm from, I have to wonder if she wasn't influenced by this notion. I never had any I'll effects, from whatever it was, unless you count having a flushed face for a few minutes, if I had to guess, looking back, the high salt consumption could have been boosting my blood pressure, as I used to salt things, particularly fries, to an absurd extent when I was little, like I would eat the salt collected at the bottom of the box the fries came it.

[@victoriah.20]

Sometimes people turn red after eating certain foods due to large amounts of niacin, it's a thing called niacin flush. Might have been that 🤷‍♀️

[@dokiepkosa]

I work at A Conglomerate Grocery Store (tm) that serves higher end food, so we do have more upper class people coming in. In the prepped Foods department, I’m always shocked during the holiday times the volume of catering orders. People pay $20 for six deviled eggs! I grew up poor, and the family culture that’s been cemented through cooking together (ESPECIALLY during the holidays) feels essential. Like, I need moments like that to connect with my family that I don’t get to see as often as I’d like because I work closing weekend shifts. I’m confronted with the class issue all the time when interacting with customers, a lot of whole expect to be served and accommodated for. Real interesting topic, something I know my friends and I have been talking about

[@PareliusC]

I work at Whole Foods and we have some of the most entitled dickhead customers.

[@vf1923]

Tips for corner-cutting in numerous ways: Cheap tinned soup is super salty and not healthy. Tinned soup stretched with extra vegetables (carrots, zucchini, onions, tinnede veggies esp. tomatoes, wilting herbs, etc., frozen basically anything) is less salty, more flavoursome, and more healthy, while keeping the simplicity of the commercial soup stock and avoiding the need to plan "to make a soup". Dry/tinned/fresh rice, barley, lentils, chickpeas, potato, pasta, beans etc. can be added for more body or protein. Potato freezes kinda weirdly but literally everything else can be frozen without negative effects in soup form. Making a large batch is as about as easy as making a small one, if you have a freezer to keep it, and you have to really go for a weird combination to end up with something that tastes actively bad. Cut fresh, tinned or frozen veggies (not herbs) up into soup sized pieces. Stir-fry the vegetables in oil, fat or butter (save your bacon fat from breakfast), until they just start to brown in a large saucepan, ideally with a lid (remember plates are lids). Add the tinned soup. Add more water. Add other ingredients like beans or starches. Boil covered. Taste. Possible adjustments: more water, more salt (only if you put way too much water), more veggies, dried herbs, oil, lime/lemon juice (just the stuff in the plastic bottles is fine, this is flavour not trying to cure scurvy), spices. Experiment, explore! Day-old sale-counter bread frozen and reheated on a low oven tastes fresh served on the side, and a block of that cheapish grocery store slab cheese ("cheddar") keeps in the fridge basically indefinitely when sealed (think 2 months?), so, yeah, go ahead, buy four blocks of cheese when they're on sale. Cheese also freezes just fine if you need to go longer than 2 months.

[@SunniestAutumn]

Oh the pronunciation of mustikkapiirakka was spot on! I was listening to this on the background, only half-paying attention and it made me perk up my ears and jump in my seat a bit

[@Cthulhuliessleeping]

cooking is quite fun, what worked for me is figuring out something that my partner from another country/culture likes/misses and learning that in secret. it was very rewarding to see the bright eyes and enjoyment

[@spaghettiking7312]

People who actually want to save money cook their own food, grow their own food and save their own food. Men should cook. Women should cook. It's one of the most important and useful skills in life.

[@btarczy5067]

The question may seem to just be Twitter‘s usual outrage bait but the way it’s tackled in this video is so much more than that. Thank you! (And the food you cooked looks delicious, thanks for the recipes as well!)

[@Rosencreutzzz]

Tipping culture is the part of the food industry I'm most familiar with and something I think everyone should get more into understanding-- because it's the point of contact for many of us. Obviously the other parts of the factory-farm-to-table are gruesome and underpay and are worthy of outrage as well, but those problems seem... out of reach for changing them. When I worked in restaurants in DC, an initiative went forward to try and change the minimum wage for tipped employees, and it laid bare a ton of the problems that spiral out from tipping-- like how it makes harassment more possible, because well, job insecurity, a "necessity" to respond politely to everything, it all layers on. And where you said voting down ballot matters-- I'm of mixed feelings on this and I don't know if it's just because DC is a weird place. But what happened in our case is that the initiative passed... and the council and mayor just... voided the matter. They ignored the result. The campaign won the vote despite a massive astroturf campaign, and it still got burned down because of liberal DC politicians. Buuuuut also. Not to end on a note of doom, it's to say that the city level vote absolutely mattered, the difference between default dems and progressives mattered. And voting could help that.

[@sukkasock]

As a disabled person who doesn't often have a choice but to eat whatever easy thing I can afford, this video spoke to me a lot. Additionally, I have two food intolerances (celiac disease and lactose intolerance) that make me unable to eat most vegetarian/vegan microwave meals, as they seem to often replace the meat with something wheat based.. I often feel guilty about my inability to live according to my beliefs, and it sucks to have no choice but to eat whatever is easiest and available. And ALSO, as a finnish person, I was outraged (/j) seeing not-blueberry berries in a mustikkapiirakka, but hearing the backstory for the inclusion of other berries warmed my heart. I also think the mustikkapiirakka made by my mom is the only correct kind! Also finnish is a pretty hard language to learn, good luck with the process! 💙🤍💙

[@user-yh1tx6bf1f]

I’ve always found it so wierd how people think ready meals are cheaper. When my family didn’t have money we always did our own cooking since you can produce larger batches for cheaper. We’d make our cultural soup and freeze it in a jar, then warm it up. It lasted ages. Takeout is luxury, atleast where I’m from

[@L83467]

same! lol. like obviously ready meals are more expensive, it takes money to hire the people that make it, the electricty to run the factory, the money for advertising. how people think processed food is cheaper is a mystery to me.

[@picahudsoniaunflocked5426]

I've been food insecure for a few years & I was just blessed by someone who cared enough to take me for a full grocery run. I'm disabled & nausea's been an ongoing problem, & among my many autoimmune diseases, I have Crohns, so people love giving me the worst, most useless, condescending poverty advice. I actually cook from scratch really well, that's not the issue, folks! So this was just such a gift, in so many ways... it was hard not to cry, & I was overwhelmed by gratitude but also choice. The person who gave me this was so gracious about it too --- no trying to exert control, no judgement, trust that I wasn't going to run up an unconscionable bill & waste the care, food, or money. It was such a blessing & allowed me to watch this, bc I couldn't have watched this if I was still hungry, or hungry again. The people destroying food aid in Palestine are behaving unconscionably. No one should be hungry or unsheltered.

[@thomasrocha4891]

As the primary caretaker in my family, I prepare 16-20 meals a week. About 4 of those meals are sandwiches and slices of cheese and fruit, but the large majority of them involve actual cooking. As such, I enjoy a meal that comes together in less than an hour. I also like a meal that doesn't use up a bunch of dishes. One thing that has really been a labor saver recently is learning from Kenji Lopez-Alt that pasta doesn't need a whole pot of water to cook. His 3 ingredient mac and cheese takes less than 10 minutes for me to make, from pulling the ingredients out of the pantry to serving it out on everyone's plates. Making it feels like taking part in the revolution.

[@technopoptart]

yeah, turns out you only need enough water to keep the pasta covered, the whole pot of water thing is just to reduce the time. i used to make casseroles that only had like 3cm of water at the bottom on the pasta/rice layer and they were fine XD

[@youtubeuserremainsanonymou9022]

I wish more people knew about strategies like what I do. I rely on frozen veg/fruit/seafood and canned beans/tomatoes. I don't plan much or spend much time/money. The texture can be off but dried spices make the flavor okay

[@karoliinalehtinen6701]

A Finn here! Pie with multiple berries is a thing in Finland and it's called kuningatarpiirakka aka queen pie. Kuningatarpiirakka specifically has blueberries and raspberries and sometimes additionally some other red berries. The combination of blueberries and raspberries is generally called queen, no idea why, there's probably some historic explanation. Also there was a mass immigration from Finland to mostly Sweden and US in late 19th century mainly because there was a devastating famine in Finland in 1860s, which killed 1/10 of the whole population and devastated the peasantry, which had already been very impoverished. The famine got so bad because the colonial Swedish ruling class decided it would be bad economically to buy enough aid and they didn't believe it was really that bad anyway. So that is probably why your great grandparents moved to US. Also also Finnish is bullshit language and I commend your dedication!

[@hootsyoutube]

Ooh that's all interesting to know. My great-grandparents got here in 1912, so maybe they're part of the last wave???

[@karoliinalehtinen6701]

@@hootsyoutube That seems very likely! The peak of the immigration to US extends to early years 1900s, so I would imagine they may have been at the tail end of that mass immigration. Do you happen to know where from Finland they left? Majority left from Ostrobothania, from where at least one of my great great uncles also left to US.

[@hootsyoutube]

@@karoliinalehtinen6701 I don't but I'm sure some of my mom's generation do. Or my cousins who still live over there.

[@doublebloodhound]

@@hootsyoutube 1912 would be in the middle of years of oppression (sortovuodet in Finnish) enacted by the russians at the time. This lead to us gaining independence in 1917 along the Russian revolution. Fun fact is that we gained universal suffrage where women were fully eligible to vote for the first time in Europe among other significant changes.

[@KS-ld7zs]

Finns heading to Astoria, Oregon (making an educated guess) came for various reasons, but mostly fleeing either famine or Russian oppression. They liked Astoria because it was similar to Finland in many ways, environmentally, and was a major hub for logging, fishing, and canning (though cannery labor was mostly Chinese immigrants). 1912 would more likely have been fleeing Russian oppression. Once they got here, they may have enjoyed a community of like-minded "radical immigrants" who had well established socialist clubs and unionization. Finns were doing the same stuff in Minnesota, but it was more iron mining.

[@athegrey]

all the women in my mom's family have celiac (i'm literally eating wheat on borrowed time lol) food is already expensive enough, but because gluten free diets are trendy and not super common they have to spend so much more money on food than people who can eat gluten. it's ridiculous that in food pantries, homeless shelters, and even school cafeterias it can be next to impossible for people with dietary restrictions to get proper nutrition. i'm so lucky that my grandma and aunts have years of experience cooking and eating gluten free because the transition is a struggle not only in getting good nutrition, but finding recipes and foods that actually taste good. we need food to survive, and we deserve food that brings us joy to eat. it is horrendous that healthy food is a luxury. (also i will not sit by and let someone disparage fry bread. i would literally murder for fry bread)

[@butwithcats265]

msg legit rocks!

[@spacedonut8157]

Based MSG enjoyer.

[@WolfHreda]

They don't call it The King of Flavor for nothing.

[@feltfrog]

would snort it if i could

[@Radhaun]

This is my cottage pie recipe, it does take time, but is relatively low labor: 5-6 med/lg potatoes 1-3 pads of butter a dash of milk 1-2 tbsp mayo 1 egg (optional) Spices 1# Ground meat or similar protein 1-1/2C mixed vegetables (whatever you like) Flour (as needed) 1 egg (optional) Wash and chop potatoes (peel if you want, it's not necessary for this recipe). Boil in salted water until tender and strain. Preheat your oven to 450/475F. Make mashed potatoes (here's my recipe but do whatever, as long as they get smooshed): Using a potato masher, smoosh potatoes. Mix in 1-3 pads of butter, a dash of milk, whatever spices you like (I tend to use salt, pepper, garlic, and Italian seasonings), mayo and egg. Mix until you have mashed potatoes (the egg helps the potatoes keep their shape). In a standard bundt pan or similar sized oven safe pan, use 3/4th of your mashed potatoes to form a "shell". Brown your meat or otherwise cook your protein. If it's meat, drain some but not all of your fat. Throw in your vegetables. When the vegetables are cooked (or warm if you're using frozen/canned) take off heat and add your egg and flour until it's sticky. Dump contents into your mashed potato shell. Use the remaining 1/4 mashed potatoes to enclose your shell. Put a little bit of butter on top. Bake for 35-45min or until the top begins to brown. Freezes fine, but it's better had within the first couple of weeks. If you're heating it in the microwave, put a small dish or cup of water with it to prevent it from drying out. Use whatever potatoes you want. I like to use a mix of red, purple and a single Okinawain yam. This is my chicken and dumpling recipe, again, takes a while but low labor cost: 1 whole chicken 1 can of biscuits Milk (or sub) Assorted spices I suggest using a crockpot, but you absolutely can start this on a stove. Cook your chicken for 4-8 hours in whatever spices make you happy. Just remember things like pepper, cayenne and other hot spices will become more so overtime, so don't add too much of those. Make sure it never runs out of water (crockpots are better for leaving and forgetting). Once your chicken is done (meat should fall right off the bone) remove from your broth, I suggest transferring your broth to the stove at this point (if it wasn't already) as the dumplings can be difficult to cook properly in a crockpot, this also let's you strain out any grissle you don't want in the final soup. Add milk (or sub) to your broth until whatever pot you're using is roughly half full. Once the chicken is cool enough to handle, strip the meat from the bones and put back in your soup. You can cook the bones a second time to get bone broth. Once the chicken is back in the soup, make sure the soup is hot (not quite boiling) and get your biscuits. Tear off portions of your biscuit and roll them into rough balls, then drop into your soup. These dumplings expand a LOT so make them small, maybe the size of a large marble. With all your biscuits in, taste and add whatever spices you think you need. Let the mix simmer for 15-30 minutes before serving. This soup gets better the longer it sits and freezes fine.

[@ourmobilehomemakeover662]

Walmarts open in small town and rural areas in order to push out locally owned grocery stores. Then some ivory tower executive decides to reorganize and the local mini Walmart closes, leaving the town with only a Dollar General. I’ve seen this happen even in a town that was close to a Walmart distribution center. They ain’t even care.

[@summerchild_]

Me: ohhh a really interesting topic!! Hoots: this is us centirc only Me: *throws laptop out the window*

[@lovelyleety7132]

This was an outstanding video essay. Thank you for your hard work and advocacy.

[@Loalrikowki]

A solid vegetable soup recipe: 3 cloves garlic 1 onion (diced) Cut em fine and put em in a pot on medium for 5 minutes 4 carrots (cut into half-inch disks) 1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes 8 cups water (or broth if you're fancy like that) 1 cup barley or rice or whatever. Spices as you like. I've been using oregano, paprika, black pepper, and serrano pepper Dump it all in, bring to a boil, reduce to simmer and cook 30 minutes 1 potato (1 inch cubes) Simmer 10 more minutes 1 cup frozen green beans 1/2 cup frozen peas 1/2 cup frozen corn Cook 5 more minutes. If you have a freezer, a cooking element, and a big pot, it's pretty economical. If you think this sucks, change it until it doesn't.

[@berndsauerstein1946]

The sudden and very serious "There are ways to break people" got me xD

[@21nickik]

I think a big thing you miss, or only touch on the slightest amount is housing, just having housing on the current model can't work. Its zoning that is the biggest problem. The reason the old stores where people shopped at are not there is because they used to be mixed use areas where most people could easily get too. Suberbia is the opposite, no mixed use, long distances. This makes shopping more expensive because of transportation. It also leads to less shopping trips, thus food that preserve longer. It used to be normal to go shopping every other day. This also ruins the city with lots of unnecessary car trips. The cost of starting a store is much easier if a smaller shop can be in a mixed use neighbourhood. And you can keep the store alive with much less overhead if you can live in the same building. The success of Walmart style store is because they can game the tax system and other structural issue with the zoning code and to large one of investments. The fundamental thing that needs to change is zoning and taxing. In Japan, basically every zone allows for small neighbourhood stores. Otherwise many of the other solution will only reinforce this issue.

[@robinhenderson5373]

It is more classist to convince people they should spend money at restaurants when that money could be used to build some financial stability. It is much more cost effective to shop then cook your own food. Period. I really feel for those in food deserts because they have no choice in the matter.