The Great Culinary Spectator Sport Era

Somewhere in America, a person is standing in front of an open refrigerator like it is a confession booth.

Inside: a sad zucchini, a half used jar of mustard, and the kind of leftover container that could be anything from chili to a science fair project.

In their hand: a phone.

On their phone: a beautiful stranger with a perfect knife grip, chopping onions with the calm confidence of a monk and the shoulder definition of a Greek statue. The stranger smiles and says, “So simple,” while doing something to garlic that looks like it requires both a culinary degree and a minor in ballet.

And that is the moment we should all pause and appreciate the irony.

We live in a time when we watch more cooking than we do.

We have turned dinner into a spectator sport. We do not sauté. We subscribe.

When food became content

This is not about laziness, exactly. It is about a cultural trade.

Cooking used to be an act. Now it is an aesthetic.

Cooking used to be a question. What do we have, what can we make, who will eat it, and how do we keep everybody alive and mildly happy.

Now cooking is a vibe. A soundtrack. A camera angle. A miniature hero journey in under sixty seconds where the villain is blandness and the savior is flaky salt.

And look, I love it. I have watched people make pasta in ways that would make my ancestors rise from their graves and ask for the WiFi password. I have learned things. I have been inspired. I have been seduced by the promise that I too can become someone who keeps fresh basil on hand at all times, like a person who has their life together and also their herbs together.

But here is the cultural side effect: when a basic human skill becomes mostly something we consume, it quietly stops being something we do.

When we do not do, we lose more than dinner. We lose agency.

You can feel it in the language. “I’m not a good cook.” As if cooking is a personality trait like being funny or having great hair. As if heat and salt and time are reserved for the chosen.

Cooking is not a talent. It is a practice. It is mostly showing up and making small decisions while things sizzle.

Which is also, by the way, how culture is made.

The performance trap

We are not just watching people cook. We are watching people perform competence.

That is the hidden product being sold, and it is not rosemary.

We are consuming a steady stream of proof that someone out there is doing life correctly. Their cutting board is clean. Their spices are alphabetized. Their kitchen has natural light that suggests they have never cried into a sink full of dishes.

This matters because it nudges our culture toward an exhausting standard: if it is not polished, it is not worth doing.

That is how hobbies die. That is how art gets replaced by scrolling. That is how a generation ends up with thirty saved recipes and one default DoorDash order.

And the weird part is we do this to ourselves while pretending it is relaxation.

It is like going to the gym to watch someone else lift weights, then going home sore from sitting.

What it does to work

Now take that same pattern and drag it into the office like a muddy dog.

We watch productivity more than we practice it.

We binge videos about morning routines, notebook systems, and the mythical zero inbox lifestyle. We consume “how to focus” content while our actual focus sits in the corner, hungry and neglected, like a plant we keep forgetting to water.

Work becomes aspirational content too. We do not ship. We research how other people ship.

We do not lead meetings. We watch clips about leading meetings.

We do not build the thing. We watch someone build the thing in a time lapse set to music that makes it look like the universe approves.

And then we wonder why we feel behind.

Because when you replace doing with watching, you get the illusion of progress without the nourishment of progress.

You get entertained competence instead of earned confidence.

What it does to the personal

Cooking is one of the most intimate forms of care that does not require a therapist or a group text.

When you cook, you touch time. You turn raw into ready. You take the chaos of ingredients and give them a plan.

You also put your body back into the story. Smell, taste, heat, texture, patience. Cooking is a full sensory reminder that you are not a brain in a jar. You are an animal that needs fuel and ritual and maybe a little butter.

When we outsource that too often, something subtle happens. We start treating our own lives like something that should arrive finished.

Like we are waiting for a delivery of meaning.

I give this era a mixed rating, in the spirit of those anthropocene product reviews. Five stars for access. Five stars for creativity. Two stars for what it does to our sense of capability when we confuse admiration with participation.

Stay Positive & Let’s Sizzle Something Up Today