Reading the French Fry

I've been thinking a lot about food recently. That is in part due to my graduate studies, and also in part due to a book that I recently came across at the library-- How to Read a French Fry by Russ Parsons. It is part science, part cookbook; of course, cooking is a cross between science and art (with a hint of math and a pinch of reading thrown in for good measure).

Parsons makes a chilling point that I had somehow been overlooking even as I look at real food and how our food industry works. "We are now three and sometimes four generations removed from the age of real cooks--those who made do using the raw ingredients at hand, without the aid of food industry shortcuts" (Parsons 4).

I am one of those exceptions to that. I love Real Food and Real Cooking. I enjoy cooking from scratch. I don't cook from scratch for every single meal, but it is a fairly big part of my life.

But, somehow, I had been failing to recognize that many of the people I have known-- especially those my age and younger (I am rapidly approaching the Big 3-0)-- don't actually cook. Even the ones that say they enjoy baking or cooking generally mean that they use cake mixes or other prepackaged foods.

What do you think? Do you think that home cooking is on its deathbed? Is Big Food winning this war? Or, does Real Food and Real Cooking still stand a chance?