Corona cooking means the comeback of the cocktail sausage
There may still be a few home cooks enthusiastically drinking green smoothies and topping sourdough bread with homemade hummus and roasted bell pepper, but after a week of going all-in on vitamins, most people have fallen back harder than ever. Unox, Knorr and other ready-meal factories are doing good business these days. Why?
Reason 1: stop, I have a Zoom meeting soon
Working from home still felt like playing truant in week one, but the dust has settled and now it turns out that actual work also has to be done at home. That means: trying to be louder than the washing machine during a Zoom meeting, tapping on the coffee table while the Wi-Fi stutters and dealing with children pressing Squla with their stubborn little noses. What do you mean, Wednesday is always gym class? I have a deadline! In short: who has time to soak legumes and massage marinades in when you can hear the to-do list growing? Hello, Knorr World Dish!
Reason 2: retro makes you feel good
That ravioli from the past, slippery little dough cushions in a red sauce, immediately gives you the comforting feeling of a crocheted blanket on the sofa, an hour of Toppop and then straight to bed. Retro food is instant feel-good, and we need that with all those ominous RIVM figures and press conferences. Will the prime minister be standing behind the lectern again on Tuesday? With a warm plate on your lap, red beans in tomato sauce with cocktail sausages, it all seems just a little less alarming. Perhaps add a Saroma dessert, for the shock.
Reason 3: lamb’s lettuce wilts before your very eyes
Have you made a weekly menu with a long list of nutritious leafy vegetables and fruit bursting with vitamins, only to find it breeding fruit flies on the kitchen counter within three days? Yes, we were used to popping into the supermarket every day to casually pick something from the shelves. That Thai dish that seemed like a good idea last Friday now looks like a culinary Mount Everest. Besides, the lamb’s lettuce wilts before your very eyes and the avocados were already more than ripe enough last Saturday. Is there still a tin of pea soup?
Reason 4: dealing with picky children is unbearable
Working from home is about the same as a day at the office for people without children, only without the heartburn from the vending-machine coffee. If you also have to manoeuvre recalcitrant children through the school schedule, you need almost supernatural powers. It’s only logical that in the evening you don’t want to have a discussion about the nutritional value of broccoli or artichokes. Just open that box of fish fingers; how do you think Captain Iglo kept his mutinous crew happy?
Reason 5: lizard brain screams: CARBS
Our inner caveman knew it: in times of adversity, you need a good energy reserve. And although our lives no longer resemble those of that distant ancestor, our physiology is still largely the same. That explains the hungry grabbing into the bag of Bugles, the unquenchable thirst for blackcurrant soda and chocolate milk, and the bottomless pit when lasagne is on the table. Garlic sausage, panini toasties, specialty beer and English liquorice: those signals from your reptilian brain, programmed for survival, are stronger than anything years at the gym have taught you.
