Chinese folktale about the Laziest Man in the World:
His wife wanted to go visit her mother in the next province. But the journey there and back would take two months. She was afraid her lazy husband would starve without her there to feed him.
Then she hit upon a solution. She baked 60 nutritious biscuits, threaded them on a string, and hung them around her husband’s neck. That way he could eat one a day until she got back.
So she went to visit her mother, had a nice time, and came back. Only to find that her husband had starved to death in her absence.
After he’d eaten all the biscuits in front of him, he’d been too lazy to pull the string to get the ones from behind. Now that’s lazy!
A couple weeks after my spouse and I started dating, when I had started hosting him for dinner a couple times a week and we’d eat as a couple at his place other days, we were sitting in his living room watching TV when there as a knock on the door. It was the manager from the neighborhood restaurant where he had been a regular - and by regular, I mean on his days off he’d eat three meals a day there. She had a big container of chicken soup in her hands. She hadn’t seen him for a few days and was worried he was at home sick. “Oh… you have a girlfriend! That’s much better!”
In another case I know of, when an elderly daily regular didn’t show up to a nearby restaurant the owner called the police for a welfare check.
My guess is that some of these folks have that sort of social network where if they disappeared someone would notice. But I also expect some of these folks, like anyone who lives alone, aren’t always found in time to do them any good.
Yes, if they can they’ll go out to eat even if sick. If they can’t manage that they stay home and don’t eat. Or don’t drink either, if they don’t have beverages on hand and don’t like water much.
I currently work a 5 hour day and cooking is something I enjoy doing to relax. An oven baked potato is superior in taste IMO to a microwaved potato. We have a food processor, yet I prefer dicing and mincing by hand. It’s not unusual for me to start a meal at 3 or 4 and then serve at 9. I especially like making multi-course dinners with each course being tiny yet delicious.
My gf works long days, yet when she gets home at 7 or 8 she also likes to unwind by preparing a meal. If I’ve prepared dinner, she relaxes by cleaning her horse stalls before dinner. We often have a glass or three of wine while she cooks. I guess we are lucky to have found each other.
FWIW I can attest it is possible to eat healthily and economically and rarely cook. I ordered food nearly exclusively and was able to lose over 100 pounds and did not break my budget. What was helpful is I had a very good diner that delivered near me so I would often order one of their dinners for under 20 bucks and eat it over two days. They would include salads and good fresh veggies that many diners don’t do as well. I moved this year and miss it. I ordered from other places as well but tried to make responsible choices with what ordered and eat reasonable portions.
While many here seem to think this is odd, I do remember in college I always ate in the dorm or bought a meal someplace when needed. I cooked nothing, didn’t have to spend time shopping, worrying about what was for dinner, and no kitchen to clean up and dishes, no time spent cooking or learning how to. I also didn’t have to spend money on stuff for the kitchen. Preparing food in the home is a daily burden, that some would rather not do. Preparing meals in the home is largely because of tradition, you don’t have to live your life that way just because others do.
Of course you don’t have to live life that way because that’s the way others do - but the definition of “odd” is “differing from the usual”. Not preparing food isn’t "odd"when you’re living in a dorm - in that situation, doing anything more than popping corn in a microwave might be “odd”.
As for whether the situation in the OP seems strange to me- yes, it does. Not because the man doesn’t actually cook - I’ve known lots of people in my life who didn’t cook in the sense of preparing a meal from raw ingredients… Everyone from my widowed grandfather who went to a different relative’s house for dinner every night to my son when he first moved out. But I have never known someone who basically arranged their life so there would never be leftovers that needed heating up - in fact, all the people I’ve known who don’t cook eagerly accept “care packages” from holidays and other events to heat up the next day at home.
My first two years of college I ate in the dorm cafeteria because I had to. The second two years they relaxed that restriction, and I was able to eat for less money than we were paying the school. I was able to make meals with just a toaster oven and a double burner (way before microwaves.) I enjoyed doing it, and it was good practice for living in an apartment later.
Some people just like to cook.
This may not count, but I know for a fact that my father never used the range, oven, or microwave at all during the last 35 years of his life. He DID fend for himself for 18 months in 1970-1971, but he admitted that he only heated canned soup and made sandwiches during that time. He ate out for most meals.
Of course, he depended on my mother for all cooking. He worked as a chemist and had a BS, but, as far as I know, he never used a microwave himself. The only food I ever saw him prepare (and I’m in my mid-60s) was cold cereal. He didn’t even use the toaster.
This is the sort of thing that baffles me. A chemist who can’t figure out simple meal prep? It’s completely illogical.
It reminds of a couple of Navy SESs I worked with early in my career. They suffered from “keyboard phobia.” In the 70’s and 80’s only Admins and Secretaries typed, you see. So executives were reluctant to use a keyboard for fear of losing status in the workplace. Getting them to interact with their computers was quite a challenge.
I think there was a similar fear of losing one’s status or masculinity by learning to cook.
Can’t cook, won’t cook as the British show goes. I don’t remember my father-in-law going anywhere near a kitchen until my mother-in-law passed away when they were both 90. It was not from inability - I taught him to program when he was 65 and cooking is just following an algorithm. I think it was culture.
One good thing about the Boy Scouts when I was in them in the early 60s - there was a Cooking merit badge and cooking during camping trips was standard. And in junior high all boys took Food and Home Economics (not sewing.) Maybe that helped my generation get over fear of cooking.
My dad was a pharmacist capable of compounding any drug imaginable but claimed he couldn’t cook. After mom passed away I told him no, MOM told you that you couldn’t cook and kept you out of the kitchen. If you can mix up pharmaceuticals that require precise chemistry and measuring so you don’t kill the patient you can damn well cook food. He sort of thought it over, then said I had a point. The last few years of his life he did start cooking a lot more, including a daily breakfast for himself.
I think cultural memes have a lot to do with some men (though not all) not cooking, or thinking they can’t cook.
Then again, after a day of precision measuring and mixing and hoping you don’t make a mistake and kill someone I can sort of understand not wanting to bother with doing something similar in the kitchen.
Thanks for all the interesting anecdotes and observations. I had the feeling that most people would think it quite odd, and yet know of someone who had similar cooking issues. I can understand single people, especially young single people, not using stove or oven. I know I had to adjust my cooking after my divorce when it was just me at home.
I have more trouble understanding why someone would go without a microwave. They are absolutely the quickest, no fuss way to heat leftovers (and at my house we always have lots of leftovers). But I know people who do without them and apparently live fulfilling lives.
It’s always interesting to follow these food/cooking threads. It’s such a fundamental thing, eating, and yet we all do it in out own unique ways.
I’m surprised to see so little mention of slow cookers here–I use mine often. I think if I didn’t have one, I’d use my oven a lot more, but much of my food comes from slow cooking something and then eating it over the course of the week. Right now I have a bunch of pork I’m going through by adding to pasta/sandwiches/eggs/whatever. My oven is used for an occasional frozen pizza, and not much else.
My mother has never owned a microwave in her life, and whenever I went to my parents’ house I complained loudly about having to heat up leftovers on the stove, but it’s not so bad. Actually most of what I use my microwave for is instant oatmeal when I want a quick breakfast.
My great aunt was a home economics teacher. Back in the 1960s she designed a “Bachelor Survival” course for senior boys and got the school board to implement it. Apparently it was very popular with the parents; especially the mothers.
I use a traditional oven a lot less than a microwave; IME countries in Northern Europe tend to use the traditional oven a lot more than the microwave (you even get different instructions on precooked food). Which makes sense: in NE its warming the house is an advantage, in Spain I know people who will specifically order out any roasts during the hotter parts of the year so they can avoid switching on the “kitchen heater”.
Right now people seeing my kitchen would probably think I have a microwave but no traditional oven. I’ve got an appliance which combines microwave, grill and traditional oven and it goes on the counter. It’s a microgrilloven
