Ingredient snobbery must go

July 9, 2022·Darcie

Just about every TV chef I have watched has maligned a ready-made ingredient like boxed chicken broth or pre-peeled garlic. I've also seen scads of articles like Food & Wine's "29 things chefs never buy pre-made," where the pros besmirch everything from salad mix to jarred sauces, emphatically stating they would never deign to purchase such an inferior product.

While I admit that I in the past I turned up my nose at some ready-made items, more recently I have concluded that it is time to quit ingredient-bashing and instead encourage people to cook with what they have and like to use. As J. Kenji López-Alt noted in a recent Instagram post: "It's OK to cook with convenience ingredients and it's OK not to." For starters, ingredient-bashing is ableist. People with arthritis may struggle to chop vegetables, peel garlic, or squeeze lemons, so they buy pre-cut veggies and bottled juice. It's also classist: not everyone lives in an area where they can find fresh, high-quality produce or it is prohibitively expensive, so they must resort to frozen or (gasp) canned fruits and vegetables. Plus, it's pretentious and just downright rude.

Of course those articles get clicks and the shows attract eyeballs, so they will continue to proliferate and there isn't much any one of us can do about it. However, if we see someone we know trash talking pre-made hummus or guacamole, we can remind them not to "yuck someone's yum." While I prefer to make hummus and guacamole from the best ingredients I can find, I also appreciate being able to enjoy either when I just can't make it myself. Maybe the product isn't as great as homemade, but it will hit the spot.

If you want to use garlic in a jar, go for it! I will teach you how to make a pie crust if you want, but if you'd rather just buy one, that's okay too. You don't need to have 27 fancy salts to be a good cook, Morton's is fine. Really.

I knew I had fully turned over this new leaf when I didn't comment when a friend ordered a vodka martini. I still firmly believe that a true and righteous martini contains gin, but if someone wants one with vodka then why should it ruffle my feathers? Heck, they can even get an apple-tini if that is what they prefer. (Not gonna lie though, I might cry a little on the inside.)

11 comments

rollyridgeJuly 10, 2022

Yes, it's all about clicks and eyeballs, this post being no exception.

Bottom line, your food is only as good as the poorest ingredient you choose. We all make choices and we accept that. We also accept that compromises have consequences.

KatieK1July 10, 2022

But keep in mind that most recipes, when they call for Kosher salt, are referring to Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, which is half as salty as Morton's.

FuzzyChefJuly 10, 2022

Nonsense, Rolly. If there is any art to cooking, it lies in taking mediocre ingredients and making something great with them. Heck, that describes most of classic French cuisine.

Indio32July 10, 2022

Spoke to a chef friend about this and he was somewhat puzzled. Does that mean I can buy ready made lasagne from Lidl, microwave it and sell it to paying customers for £20? Of course chefs use the best possible ingredients, equipment & techniques because customers expect and more importantly pay for that.

matagJuly 10, 2022

My pasta sauce takes a good 5 hours to make from scratch. It gets plenty of oooooouuuuussss and ahhhasssss! But not everyone has that kind of time. So invite me over to dinner and use the jar sauce…. I appreciate the invitation!

demomcookJuly 10, 2022

"For starters, ingredient-bashing is ableist. People with arthritis may struggle to chop vegetables, peel garlic, or squeeze lemons, so they buy pre-cut veggies and bottled juice."

This - so much!
The days when I could grind my own flour, mix my blends and bake fresh bread every day are long gone. My hands are so stiff others must cut my food for me. BUT I can still make a wonderful meal with pre-cut vegetables, and I know how to season and cook things well. Turn up your nose, perhaps, but one day you may wake up as I did with no sense of smell, sight, and one side numb. The joy is in cooking with love, as every home cook knows. That is the best ingredient.

sir_ken_gJuly 10, 2022

It depends on what you are making.
We stock fresh garlic, freeze dried garlic and jarred chopped garlic.
If we are making something that will not be cooked - gazpacho - then use fresh garlic. If it is going into long cooked spaghetti sauce use jarred garlic and nobody will be the wiser.

FyretiggerJuly 10, 2022

Regardless of the topic, snobbery typically seems to come down to some form of gate-keeping and the 'No True Scotsman...' logical fallacy -- "I'm a real XXX because YYY and if you don't, you aren't a real XXX." I think the 'Vegan' versus 'plant-based' is the most frequent and tiresome example of this around food and cooking.

One can educate about food choices without making someone feel bad about theirs. As mentioned, J. Kenji Lopez Alt tends to be good about this. He educates about the downside of pre-minced garlic, and why for most of us most of the time canned tomatoes are going to be superior for cooking than fresh, but he's clear that whatever you choose to do is going to be too -- just use the best quality ingredients within your budget, availability, dietary concerns, time constraints, and capabilities. But even JKLA states opinions about products he'll never use, like store-bought vegetable stock; but he's not against the shortcut, he's against what he considers to be a bad product -- he recommends Better-Than-Bullion in its place.

angrygreycatJuly 10, 2022

I agree with this obviously with caveats. I don't like food snobbery that amounts to gatekeeping. This indicates to people that cooking is only for the well off and it discourages people in lower SES groups (or in food deserts) from cooking. On the other hand part of cooking is knowing how to make the best of the ingredients that you have, so if you don't have access to a specific type of mushroom or cheese or whatever, perhaps you are better served by choosing dishes that don't center that item.

SoapJuly 15, 2022

The opposite it true, too. I get so angry when the NYTimes, for example, devotes an entire page to recipes for which an ordinary person will never be able to find the ingredient(s).

Anyone who cans knows the bliss of being able to buy a bag of peeled garlic!

rose_cuveeJuly 19, 2022

Beyond ablelist and classist, all of us need to get fed somehow day in, and day out. I love cooking, but it's not my career and thus I have limited time. It's better to be able to make a meal than just get take-out, so if a convenience ingredient helps, so be it.

Also, if you know what you're doing-- not all "convenience" ingredients will taste "inferior" when used in a recipe.