this blogpost is brought to you by the BBCs "Eat Well For Less".
when I was a student, I was domestically useless. at last year's BiCon, I domestically fabulous.
student me: fuck, I need to eat. I should've gone shopping [mumble] days ago. hmmmn, what can I make with this random assortment of stuff? also, it's 10:30pm. why do I do this?
BiCon me: OK, everyone. I'm gonna start cooking the pasta at 6. if you don't want to eat then, it'll still be tasty cold.
student me: has no bras. laundry should really happen soon. laundry should probably have happened last week.
BiCon me: here are my perfectly planned outfits for each day.
now, a small amount of this is the fact that I was significantly older at last year's BiCon than I was as a student, but mostly it's about something else.
BiCon is a discrete event. it has well-defined edges I can work with. I know I will have to organise dinner for 3 nights, plus breakfast & lunch. I will need to pack or order all the ingredients, and think through the utensils I'll need. life...doesn't have edges. you can do whatever you want. it's up to you how much you spend. how often you shop. what you keep on hand and how you keep track.
open ended questions are hard. Being Domestic is an endless list of open ended questions, that aren't even phrased as questions.
so, what does this have to do with "Eat Well For Less"? well, week after week, they take a family who have found answers to the (many) food-related questions of Being Domestic that can mostly be summed up as "paying for convenience is working, but we wish we could save money". the presenters watch, perform shock at how wasteful the family are being, and embarrass them for ratings. then, they guide them through a week of "swaps". sometimes, it's straightforward "this supermarket own brand coffee is £4.23 cheaper than your usual brand and you didn't even notice the difference". sometimes it's not so straightforward. sometimes, it's "let's swap your regular Just Bung This Frozen Thing In The Oven dinner with a wholesome home cooked meal. it's easy! we'll take you through it with a professional chef and if you like it you can keep the swap." and it is easy. the hard bit of cooking fresh, nutritionally-balanced, flavourful and cheap meals isn't chopping a red pepper. it's building a routine of planning, shopping & cooking, and doing it consistently, so you don't open the fridge to discover you have don't have the pepper (or have the pepper and nothing else).
I wonder how much they really keep. oh, they all love the meat-free chilli or marinated chicken & vegetable skewers, and I'm sure they fully intend to continue. but then the cameras leave, the training wheels come off, and real life seeps back in. the well-defined edges are gone, and they've got to find all the answers to all the open ended not-questions again. when confronted with 20 supermarket aisle of options, suddenly bunging the frozen thing in the oven or buying the ready made sandwich for work seems very appealing.
I'm not sure what the answer is, I'm just sure it's not what the program is offering. it's answering a different, much simpler question. "starting with this selection of fresh ingredients and a recipe, make a meal" is not the same as "here is a supermarket. go buy food for your family".
