Is our food dying?

Earlier this week, we had a longish debate at the lunch table. 

In the foreseeable future, will some foods / food preparations and items stop being made? Meaning, your regular home-made, catering cooked foods. Not factory manufactured biscuits and stuff. We are talking about vegetable, pulses, fruit preparations, breads, rice, accompaniments, domestic snacks, and more like that.

One argument is, everything is cyclical. Things make a comeback. Like bell-bottoms. Nothing really dies. Someone, somewhere will be producing, preparing, and consuming items that are perhaps not easily available. 

So, the item or preparation might actually be 'statistically' dead - but since someone is consuming it somewhere, there is a chance that it might make a comeback and become a rage all over the civilised world. 

I am in other school of thought. I think foods and food preparations are getting extinct. 

Two reasons. First being i have personally seen regular foods transitioning to exotic or once in a while affairs. Like the jowar / bajra / maize breads (locally called bhakari), which once were staple are now eaten perhaps twice a year, on occasions. 

Second is there is no makers, and no eaters left!! Just like the average vocabulary reduces 20% with each generation, i think the food items one is exposed to is reduced with every generation. My grandmother had far wider 'menu' so to speak, as compared to my mother. Perhaps, my mother only learnt and prepares what she likes / or what she is good at...
Similarly, with professional catering. The items on the menu are regular, similar everywhere... And the slightly more seasonal, complicated, expensive ones are discarded with each cook.


IMO, with changing tastes, choices, likes - there definitely will be food items that wont be available. No one will cook them. The recipes will die.

Instead, new items will keep getting invented. One day someone is going to try pizza with black dal topping, or pour egg inside a chapatti and make inside out omelette.  


What do you think? Are we eating the kind of food/s our parents ate? Will the next generation eat food identical to us? 

Why Cant We Differentiate Good From Bad

There is no profession which allows a novice to become a practitioner. A medical doctor undergoes years of academic training, does an almost suicidal residency, finishes a specialised course, works under a superior for years, before there is credibility and fame. Lawyers, engineers, chefs, CA's - you name it. Include liberal and performing arts in the list... Singers, music producers, dancers, technicians. 
Even politicians who aren't born with a silver spoon start at the mohalla, corporation, and climb up to legislative assembly, before heading to the Parliament. 

The point i am making is, there is a certain amount of experiential learning involved in everything. Of course, education gives a degree, but it is the practice of the craft / trade that empowers the person. 

As consumers we talk to friends, family, references before picking the professional when we need any service. We ask references for doctors, lawyers, plumbers, etc... Others we trust 'recommend' the service based on word-of-mouth or individual experience. They tell us good from bad - and we find out for ourselves too, by interaction. 

Then why are we blinded while consuming media?

 

Most of us watch television and movies and read newspapers right from our childhood. We are exposed to all sorts of fare. And i am hoping people develop taste after a certain point of time. But this is where i am completely wrong!! Time and again, i ask myself why do we get subjected to shit on television? Or the bad reporting and grammar in the newspapers? Why are news so terrible on television? Why are we served with idiotic movies with unrealistic plots and executions? There is creative liberty - and there is the 100cr club!!

Let me take an example that everyone can relate to... 

Food. From childhood itself we know tastes, what to expect in what dish / preparation, what goes best with what, so on and so forth. I am confident that if we are ever served with a poor tasting food, we will immediately notice it, point it out. Often little bit salt here and there is enough to create a storm on the dining table! 

If eating food on a daily basis gives us enough sense to differentiate good from bad, tasty from bland, cooked from raw, edible from gone bad - why cant we differentiate good TV serials / movies / news / newspaper from bad - if we watch movies for 10-15 years?

I sometimes feel our apathy to what we consume on TV matches with the proven theory: money doesn't buy class. No amount of education or exposure will prepare the audience for "learning" to view. Perhaps it is time that we "teach" people how to consume media... Make everyone Pavlov's projects and condition their viewing skills. 

Sometimes i am shaken with the terrifying reality of our lack of judgement! How can people appreciate bad stuff!? They spend money and time to celebrate mediocrity. I think humans overall are lazy. They want appreciation for doing regular things. Hence they appreciate average presentations. 

I need to correct my opening line: 
There is no profession which allows a novice to become a practitioner - with the possible exception of media, which is a free for all. Since we don't know who is dishing out the junk, the audience needs to take charge and be more demanding. 

The bottom line is, its about our judgement. If we continue to consume BS, we will be force fed some more BS.