Increasingly, ready meals are aimed at single households but, “as with any form of eating, there’s probably huge diversity in the ways people eat when they’re alone,” says Wilson. And behold the rise of the single-portion, five-minute chocolate mug cake, with its comforting, studenty appeal, which can be knocked up from scratch almost as easily as from the shop-bought mixes and is perfect for one. Some of his recipes even broke the 10-minute barrier in his 2017 bestseller, Five Ingredients, Quick and Easy Food. In 2010, Jamie Oliver wrote a book of 30-minute recipes, only to eclipse this in 2012 with a book of 15-minute meals. Many of us are time-poor now, but when you are cooking for one you have to do the washing up as well. “There’s a constant mismatch between a sense of how we should be eating and how we’re actually eating.” The multi-generational family meals of the Dolmio television ads are presented as the ideal, she says, but how many of us eat like that in real life, except for at Christmas? The default number that cookbook recipes serve is still four or six, but at least recipe writers have had to meet demand for meals you can throw together in minutes. “Eating alone has not only hugely changed how and what we eat but also how we talk to ourselves about eating,” says Bee Wilson, the author of The Way We Eat Now. On a micro level, deciding what to have for dinner after a long day can be a challenge.
One might also wonder if it is only a coincidence that this new phase is happening at the same time as rising obesity rates.
It wouldn’t be making a giant leap to link eating alone with the current loneliness epidemic. Not only is it practical (many hands make light work – and also reduce our vulnerability to predators) but meals have, traditionally, been used to meet our fundamental need for connection with others. Until now, eating in groups has been a universal human ritual. While destigmatising solo dining in all its manifestations is liberating, our new dietary habits steer us into uncharted territory. Bar seating and communal tables are increasingly popping up in restaurants. The bookings website OpenTable recently reported that reservations for one have increased across the UK by 160% since 2014. As a nation, we have also become less self-conscious about solo dining.
0 kommentar(er)
