Whether the ingredients have changed or the region has changed, cuisine has continued to evolve whilst taking on new forms. However, the changes that cuisine is now facing are of a slightly different nature to those of the past.

You can eat without having to cook. It arrives without you having to choose. It’s decided without you having to decide. That era has already begun.

If you place an order, a hot meal will be delivered right to your front door. The ingredients arrive already chopped and ready to use. These days, if you ask an AI what to cook, it will even give you an answer.

The changes we’ve discussed so far have been about changes to the contents of dishes. However, this change means you no longer need to cook the dishes at all.

Let me make this clear from the outset: I do not dismiss the value of convenient food.

They’ve come to my rescue time and again as a ready-made meal on days when I’ve come home exhausted. I never cease to be amazed by the advances in frozen foods. Some days I eat out, other days I order in, and when I’m stuck for meal ideas, I even ask my screen for suggestions.

When I look around my own kitchen, it’s full of handy gadgets. I simply can’t do without those stock cubes that add the perfect flavour just by adding hot water. The first time I used a machine that makes fresh-baked bread simply by adding the ingredients and pressing a button, I was amazed by how easy it was.I rely on my microwave not just for reheating, but also for boiling vegetables and reducing moisture. I can no longer imagine a day without them.

So, I’m not suggesting we go back to the way things used to be. We can’t go back, and I don’t think going back would be a good thing either. Nor does this book ever suggest that you should cut corners or make everything by hand.

With that in mind, I would like to consider the following: when we enjoy the benefits of convenience, what are we giving up in return?

First of all, I’d like to take a look at what these ready-made dishes I’ve bought actually are.

It is sometimes said that this is a symbol of cutting corners, but that is not the case. It is someone’s work. Someone has planned the menu, selected the ingredients, chopped them, decided on the flavours, and, after many failed attempts, adjusted the proportions to create the final product. In short, buying ready-made dishes means purchasing something that someone else has made.

As they are made by professionals, there are plenty that are delicious and well-made. It is not necessarily flavour that is sacrificed for the sake of convenience. What is lost lies elsewhere.

It was not within the finished dish that those six forces were at work.

When you stand in front of the fridge, unsure what to eat. The moment you picture the face of the person who will eat it. The moment you give it a go. Standing before a bowl of rich miso soup. The reply you receive. All of these lie not on the plate, but along the path leading up to it.

Convenience is having someone else take on the burden of this journey. Someone else makes the decisions, imagines the possibilities, tries things out and gets the failures out of the way for you. That is why it is both quick and reliable.

It is not the meal itself that is lost. It is the journey along the path leading to the plate. And it was always along that path that strength was cultivated.

There is one important point to note here. If we’re talking about each individual meal, you needn’t worry too much about what is lost.

Even if you make do with ready-made meals tonight, you’re not missing out on anything. Even if you eat out all week, nothing much will happen. So, to single out each and every meal and say things like ‘you should have cooked it yourself’ is pointless and discourteous.

Change happens in quieter moments. It is when the default settings are reset.

Until quite recently, at least in many households, it was far more common than it is now to prepare meals at home. Eating out or ordering takeaways was the exception, and I believe many families regarded it as a special occasion. Now, however, this trend is reversing. Receiving ready-made food has become the norm, whilst cooking has increasingly become an act that requires a conscious decision.

It is not this reversal itself that I wish to lament. I believe I understand both the hectic nature of a dual-income household and the efficiency of living alone.

However, when the default settings change, there is one thing that is bound to change. If you do nothing, you will stop spending time in the kitchen. In the past, there used to be a time every day when someone in the family would spend time in the kitchen. From now on, unless you make a conscious choice to do so, the number of days you spend in the kitchen will gradually decrease.

This change was already becoming apparent in the classroom.

‘I never realised you could tear vegetables by hand,’ they said. ‘I’d never really looked inside the fridge before,’ they said. At the time, I wrote about these as new discoveries. But looking back at them through the lens of this chapter, I can see another side to them.

That was not only a discovery, but also the moment when something that had been lost was, quite by chance, found again.

How much force is needed to snap a vegetable in two? This is a kind of knowledge that only the hands possess—it is not found in recipes or nutritional tables. As we spend more and more of our lives receiving vegetables that have already been cut, washed and bagged, this kind of knowledge held by the hands fades away without a sound. It is always the most fundamental, the quietest things that disappear first.

This shape looks familiar. It’s the kitchen from that morning.

It was the same as always: ‘See you next time.’ Each time on its own is harmless, but when they add up, the offer itself disappears.

The same goes for convenience. There’s no harm in eating out once in a while. However, when that becomes the norm, it isn’t your cooking skills that disappear—it’s the very willingness to say, ‘Perhaps I’ll have a go at making something.’

Just as the adults were not to blame that morning, convenience is not to blame either. With no one to blame, opportunities simply dwindle away quietly. This is the form that is hardest to spot.

The same applies to the thought process.

Nowadays, if I ask for meal ideas, I get an answer; I can also calculate nutritional values and discuss meal planning. I think this is something worth making use of. As a tool, it’s exceptionally good.

However, there are two things I would like to bear in mind. Firstly, that questions cannot be handed out. And secondly, that anything left undecided will never become your own. No matter how quickly you receive answers, these two truths will never change.

It is only the ‘answer’ side that can take over the screen. ‘I’m in the mood for this tonight’, ‘That person has been tired of late’, ‘I want to use up this vegetable’. For the time being, the ‘question’ side exists only within the person standing in the kitchen. That is why the only thing we can hand over to the tools is the ‘search for an answer’. If we hand over the question as well, another space where decisions can be made will quietly close.

This teaches us how to strike a balance with convenience. What to let go of, and what to keep close at hand. Here, I found the key to distinguishing between the two.

It is perfectly fine to hand over some of the tasks: cutting, measuring and preparing ingredients. Even if you entrust these tasks to tools or systems, you do not lose all connection with the cooking process. However, when it comes to deciding, imagining and experimenting—if you hand over even those moments where these six abilities come into play, there will be no room left for them to develop.

It’s fine to hand over the tedious bits. But I’d like to keep a few situations where I can make my own decisions. That’s how I feel.

So, what should we do? I don’t think it’s a case of either making everything ourselves or buying everything.

I’d like to bring up the idea of ‘leaving one spot open’ once again here.

On days when I’m tempted to make do with ready-made meals, I make the miso soup myself. I try adding chopped vegetables to frozen gyoza. I add just one dish to the meal that’s been delivered. I just do the plating myself.

Each one takes just a little effort. Yet, in that one place, the decisions you make, the things you try, and the small successes you achieve are all clearly preserved.

Convenience allows us to cut nine-tenths of the journey short, whilst leaving the remaining one-tenth open. Convenience and space are not mutually exclusive; rather, we can choose how to balance them. Indeed, one could say that it is precisely because convenience frees up our time and energy that we are able to enjoy that one remaining stretch.

TERUMI ISHIBASHI

FARM8 Co. Ltd.,

Next Chapter: ‘The Future Potential Nurtured by Cooking’ – Chapter 14: Things I’d Like to Try