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Yeah that sounds like on of those apocryphal tales that's made up.
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Apr 25, 2014 15:37
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Anne Whateley posted:They can't have hated it all that much. Walk down the baking aisle next time, literally every box of cake mix brags "pudding in the mix!" Well, goes to show how much cake mix I buy. Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:Yeah that sounds like on of those apocryphal tales that's made up. If it is, I'm sorry. I'm pretty sure that I read in the WSJ. The OLD WSJ, before it got subsumed into Murdoch's media machine.
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Apr 25, 2014 15:58
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Well, the average schmuck works a 40-50 hour week, has kids that require their time, has a family and a house to take care of, and probably gets home at 6 PM and needs to be out by 7 to take Jimmy to baseball practice and sarah to dance lessions. Average schmuck doesnt have time to do a lot of cooking, especially since schmuck's wife works also. Not being sexist, but a lot of the true cooking was done by housewives who had time to spend three hours or so preparing and making stuff from scratch. Thats me basically. On the weekends I have time to cook some more detailed stuff, but last night it was mac-n-cheese from a box and hotdogs, since I had to run. Would I have rather made homemade mac and cheese? yeah, that poo poo is awesome. But I don't have time.
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Apr 25, 2014 16:03
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Squashy Nipples posted:Well, goes to show how much cake mix I buy. Your story tickled the back of my mind - I think the apocryphal version I've heard was that the food companies came up with a cake mix that required only water and oil, no eggs, and it was a dud because housewives really fuckin' liked cracking eggs into their cake mix. Who knows.
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Apr 25, 2014 16:06
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The Midniter posted:Your story tickled the back of my mind - I think the apocryphal version I've heard was that the food companies came up with a cake mix that required only water and oil, no eggs, and it was a dud because housewives really fuckin' liked cracking eggs into their cake mix. Who knows. quote:Something Eggstra
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Apr 25, 2014 16:33
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Our area has a lot of NATO families, and a family from France moved in around the corner from us. They had us over for tea or coffee or whatever, and the wife served a huge selection of different baked goods. When we complimented them, she ran and got the boxes to show us the mixes that she used for each of them, and then went on about how they can't get that stuff in France.
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Apr 25, 2014 17:00
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Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:Our area has a lot of NATO families, and a family from France moved in around the corner from us. They had us over for tea or coffee or whatever, and the wife served a huge selection of different baked goods. When we complimented them, she ran and got the boxes to show us the mixes that she used for each of them, and then went on about how they can't get that stuff in France. 
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Apr 25, 2014 18:04
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There's really nothing wrong with box mixes. It's what you personally add to it that matters. Take Sysco cornbread mix, add some smoked corn and jalapeņos, sub half the water it calls for with buttermilk, add an extra Tbsp of salt and 1/4c of sugar. Saves me the trouble of weighing out dry goods, it's consistent, and it tastes drat good. I stay away from most chocolate mixes though, lovely cocoa powder.
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Apr 25, 2014 21:10
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Cimber posted:Well, the average schmuck works a 40-50 hour week, has kids that require their time, has a family and a house to take care of, and probably gets home at 6 PM and needs to be out by 7 to take Jimmy to baseball practice and sarah to dance lessions. Average schmuck doesnt have time to do a lot of cooking, especially since schmuck's wife works also. I was working 60 hour weeks and still found time to make fresh, tasty food that wasn't from a box. WITHOUT "precooking" everything on the weekend and just heating it up. Not everything from scratch takes 3 hours to make. I could make chicken stirfry and rice in less time than a loving hamburger helper. I can make Thai or Indian curries, several different meat/vegetables and a starch in the same amount of time as any boxed mix. If we were expecting to be REALLY busy, I'd make a pot of soup or chili on the weekend, and we'd freeze it or just portion it out for days when I got home too late to cook. The 'boxed food revolution' is due to a lot of advertising explaining that it's just TOO HARD to cook 'real' food during the week, when that isn't true at all.
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Apr 25, 2014 21:22
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:There's really nothing wrong with box mixes. It's what you personally add to it that matters. See, i make my own cornbread myself and find it comes out much better than you can ever get with a boxed mix. But to each their own.
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Apr 25, 2014 21:22
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Cimber posted:See, i make my own cornbread myself and find it comes out much better than you can ever get with a boxed mix. But to each their own. Yeah, but I'm just talking about dry mix here. I generally look at dry mixes as a shortcut, and ignore their suggestions for mixing/cooking. E: white cake mix is white cake mix. I see no point in weighing out all the dry to make a cake, when I know my dry and their dry are going to be similar amounts, if not the same. Granted, commercial products can vary greatly from consumer, and I have no idea how good/bad that stuff is. Chef De Cuisinart fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 21:28
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Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:Our area has a lot of NATO families, and a family from France moved in around the corner from us. They had us over for tea or coffee or whatever, and the wife served a huge selection of different baked goods. When we complimented them, she ran and got the boxes to show us the mixes that she used for each of them, and then went on about how they can't get that stuff in France. But if she had been in France, there would've been an awesome boulangerie/patisserie within spitting distance, so she would never have bothered with baking anyway.
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Apr 25, 2014 22:19
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Amykinz posted:I was working 60 hour weeks and still found time to make fresh, tasty food that wasn't from a box. WITHOUT "precooking" everything on the weekend and just heating it up. Not everything from scratch takes 3 hours to make. I could make chicken stirfry and rice in less time than a loving hamburger helper. I can make Thai or Indian curries, several different meat/vegetables and a starch in the same amount of time as any boxed mix. If we were expecting to be REALLY busy, I'd make a pot of soup or chili on the weekend, and we'd freeze it or just portion it out for days when I got home too late to cook. The 'boxed food revolution' is due to a lot of advertising explaining that it's just TOO HARD to cook 'real' food during the week, when that isn't true at all. Out of interest, how do you make curries so quickly? Don't those need a bit of cooking time for flavour to meld?
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Apr 25, 2014 22:57
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With the Thai curries, it's not a great deal of time, and it's not much longer than it takes any meat or vegetables to cook. The Indian style curries I've made don't take lot of time either, 20-30 minutes after the sauce is 'built'. I'm sure it could go longer, or more complicated curries would come out 'better', but even 'quick curries' are much better than hamburger helper/pasta roni for dinner. Edit: Most of my recipes I've found online and just do what they say, so if there are cultural traditions in the cooking that I am missing, I am doing the best I can. Amykinz fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 23:05
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Obviously in a perfect world no one would need or want box mixes, but I can understand their popularity firsthand, since I grew up eating them. 1. Box mixes are cheap. I grew up semi-poor, and we bought Maruchan Ramen and Kraft Mac & Cheese by the case from Costco and gussied it up with extra cheese and a cut up hot dog or lunchmeant and frozen vegetables or a side salad. That's just how we fed the family. We wanted to cook spaghetti and meatballs and curries and burritos every night, and sometimes we had those things because pasta and rice are cheap enough, but fresh or high-quality ingredients were expensive and meal planning consumes a lot of time. Which brings me to: 2. Lots of people hate cooking. It's a chore, it creates dishes which is an even worse chore, everyone in the family is picky or has different allergies and preferences and the whole family is ungrateful, nothing I make is as good as eating out, etc etc etc. Box mixes are shortcuts that are cheaper than eating out and don't require you to think, meal-plan, shop thoughtfully, or any of that stuff. They rely on staples and they are easy to personalize for a crowd of varied eaters. Lots of adults end up at home and starving at 7pm after a 12pm lean cuisine. Lots of kids are hungry well before then. If an adult had made us wait until 7:30 or 8 for dinner because she wanted to cook, there would have been a riot. We ate boxed mixes for dinner and instant oatmeal for breakfast and easy sandwiches for lunch because they fed us--and, crucially, as I grew up, I could make them for me and my brother instead of putting more pressure on my mom. Nicol Bolas fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Apr 26, 2014 00:04
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Yellow cake mix is great. Far better than the cake in any artisanal cupcake I've had.Nicol Bolas posted:Obviously in a perfect world no one would need or want box mixes, but I can understand their popularity firsthand, since I grew up eating them. Though looking at the food you listed as your staples it's a miracle the obesity rate is as low as 30% over here. No Wave fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Apr 26, 2014 00:29
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Hey mindphlux? Congratulations. You've got something in common with Guy Fieri now. http://vegas.eater.com/archives/2014/04/21/the-full-menu-prices-at-guy-fieris-vegas-kitchen-bar.php quote:Filled with exclamation points, a pathological aversion to capitalized letters and an equally rebellious rejection of conventional grammar, the menu for Guy Fieri's Vegas Kitchen & Bar is now rockin' the Strip.
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Apr 26, 2014 00:37
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No Wave posted:Yellow cake mix is great. Far better than the cake in any artisanal cupcake I've had. Trufax. Just be smart about your box mixes people. Cake = yes, mac n chz = no.
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Apr 26, 2014 00:44
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No Wave posted:I'm not saying this to fault your parents or anyone. Exactly. Using premade ingredients is fine; what makes you a schmuck is thinking that it constitutes real cooking. I certainly ate boxed products growing up, but since my mom actually knew how to cook and bake, I never mistook that for the real thing. Despite her awesome baking prowess, mom has a weakness for that cheap Jiffy blueberry muffin mix.
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Apr 26, 2014 00:53
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Squashy Nipples posted:Exactly. Using premade ingredients is fine; what makes you a schmuck is thinking that it constitutes real cooking. Again, way better than any fancy blueberry muffin I've had. "Real" muffins feel like cement by comparison. Box win. No Wave fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Apr 26, 2014 00:58
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Everyone who is saying that box mixes are fine is completely loving wrong. The fact that people think they are too busy to cook, or that cooking is a chore, or that it's too difficult to make something good, are arguments that a bit more education is needed, not that it's OK to have hamburger helper for dinner and angel cake mix for pudding. And everyone who says "buy cake mix and add stuff to it" should just drink a bottle of rum, eat a Kwanza cake and admit that they have given up. Cake is easy to make, box mixes are poo poo.
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Apr 26, 2014 13:34
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Box cake mixes are actually pretty good. You'd have a hard time telling the difference between that and a from scratch yellow cake.
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Apr 26, 2014 13:55
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Confession time: for the last five years I've been the guy making a whole bunch of those prepackaged bakery items. Prepackage soup mixes too. If it's powders in a pouch I probably made it. Bless me father, for I have sinned... To be fair to the company I work for, the quality of ingredients varies wildly based upon what the customer wants.
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Apr 26, 2014 14:01
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Scientastic posted:Everyone who is saying that box mixes are fine is completely loving wrong. No Wave fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Apr 26, 2014 14:33
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No Wave posted:You're actually the one who is wrong. This is about texture, not convenience. A box cake mix will come out lighter and fluffier than any standard cake you'll make at home. I guess it doesn't line up with your weird ideology, though. Uh not necessarily. I can make a cake from scratch that is "lighter and fluffier" than a box. I don't always though because sometimes I'm lazy and boxes do work pretty well for cake. Really though who cares cake sucks pie rules.
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Apr 26, 2014 14:40
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FishBulb posted:Uh not necessarily. I can make a cake from scratch that is "lighter and fluffier" than a box. I don't always though because sometimes I'm lazy and boxes do work pretty well for cake.
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Apr 26, 2014 14:42
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No Wave posted:What do you use? Genuinely curious. Probably the same stuff that's in a box... It's really more about mixing and folding. I usually whip some of my egg whites to a mediumish peak before I fold everything in, nothing special.
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Apr 26, 2014 14:53
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alright guys, my kids baseball game was canceled today on account of weather. What should I make today for tonight's dinner? Give me something challenging but not super difficult!
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Apr 26, 2014 15:01
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FishBulb posted:Probably the same stuff that's in a box... It's really more about mixing and folding. I usually whip some of my egg whites to a mediumish peak before I fold everything in, nothing special. Cimber posted:alright guys, my kids baseball game was canceled today on account of weather. What should I make today for tonight's dinner? Give me something challenging but not super difficult!
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Apr 26, 2014 15:05
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Cimber posted:alright guys, my kids baseball game was canceled today on account of weather. What should I make today for tonight's dinner? Give me something challenging but not super difficult! Moules frites.
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Apr 26, 2014 15:21
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No Wave posted:weird ideology Yes, you're right. It's weird to want to cook things properly and make things from scratch and teach my children how to bake cakes with real ingredients. A cooking forum is certainly not the place to espouse such radical philosophy.
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Apr 26, 2014 16:07
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Scientastic posted:Yes, you're right. It's weird to want to cook things properly and make things from scratch and teach my children how to bake cakes with real ingredients. A cooking forum is certainly not the place to espouse such radical philosophy. Yeah but, dude, boxed cake mix is fine, and probably better than your scratch made cake.
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Apr 26, 2014 16:12
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No Wave posted:I loved that stuff with the sugar clumps on top of it, the Duncan Hynes Blueberry Streusel. My mom would take the mix and add fresh blueberries to it. That's because real muffins aren't 90% cupcake...
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Apr 26, 2014 16:13
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:Yeah but, dude, boxed cake mix is fine, and probably better than your scratch made cake. Why not just buy a cake? Might as well, it's fine and better than scratch made cake.
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Apr 26, 2014 16:15
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Scientastic posted:Yes, you're right. It's weird to want to cook things properly and make things from scratch and teach my children how to bake cakes with real ingredients. A cooking forum is certainly not the place to espouse such radical philosophy. It's pretty weird to get really upset about it. A lot of people don't care as much about food as you do or other people in here do and aren't going to spend the amount of time it takes to make a properly good cake. Personally, I think box mixes are a much better option than premade anything, so I'm not going to get mad at somebody who doesn't want to weigh/mix the dry ingredients themselves. You can still teach your kids how to cook and do something in the kitchen with them that will help them appreciate the process, since that's what it seems like you're so hung up on.
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Apr 26, 2014 16:19
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If I'm going to cook something from scratch, I'm going to cook it properly, but gently caress if I don't live off microwave burritos and delivery Indian most of the time.
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Apr 26, 2014 16:22
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Scientastic posted:Everyone who is saying that box mixes are fine is completely loving wrong. This really touches a nerve with me, because you are making GBS threads on my mom and my stepdad. They are both really good cooks. They are both very educated. Hell, my stepdad went to culinary school. But planning for and feeding a family of four out of fresh stuff is kinda difficult and time-consuming and expensive. They could and did overcome the difficulty regularly (huge pots of chick pea curries, mashed potatoes, dinner-of-recombined-leftovers) but they did not have the time or the money to do it more than once or twice a week. My after-school job in high school bought us fresh vegetables when it had to. All of us would have preferred to have a lovingly cooked meal made of fresh ingredients. Don't tell me that my parents were lovely or under-educated for not being able to have the money or the time to cook for us. They knew how. They couldn't, most of the time. When they could, I learned from them. When they couldn't, I still learned from them, which sometimes just means figuring out how to salvage lovely prepackaged whatever into something halfway decent. When I gently caress up a recipe, that knowledge has served me just as well as the knowledge of blooming my spices in oil for a curry, or how to make a roux. Nicol Bolas fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Apr 26, 2014 16:24
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Scientastic posted:Yes, you're right. It's weird to want to cook things properly and make things from scratch and teach my children how to bake cakes with real ingredients. A cooking forum is certainly not the place to espouse such radical philosophy. Scientastic posted:Why not just buy a cake? Might as well, it's fine and better than scratch made cake. No Wave fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Apr 26, 2014 16:38
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Besides Scientastic, some pre-made cakes are bitchin. Are you saying you can outdo a real bakery?   
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Apr 26, 2014 16:53
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Manuel Calavera posted:Besides Scientastic, some pre-made cakes are bitchin. Are you saying you can outdo a real bakery? I dunno about him, but I think I can the majority of the time. Most of the bakeries and soccermoms trying to be a cupcakeist or whatever is in vogue these days are boring as hell around here.
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Apr 26, 2014 17:25
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