Hell's kitchen? Home-cooked family meals hardly a comfort, new book argues

There's nothing like a nice home-cooked meal at least, that's the message cooking show gurus, health experts and othersbombard us with.

But one author says the reality is that many families just aren't able to make that happen every day as challenges like work schedules, finances and more get in the way and that can make us miserable.

Sinikka Elliott is a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia and co-author of Pressure Cooker: Why Home Cooking Won't Solve Our Problems and What We Can Do About It, which explores our high expectations for home cooking.

"[Home cooking] was gonna solve any number of problems, from issues of obesity, diet-related diseases, family disintegration," Elliott told On The Coast guest host Margaret Gallagher.

"Even the health of the planet: if we could get back to cooking at home from scratch, then we could also stave off climate change, according to some influential food gurus."

Elliott and her co-authors spoke to over 150 families that heard and believed those messages. They felt a great deal of pressure to serve family meals but also found making those meals happen was pretty tough.

"It was very common for people to talk about how they had worked hard to put this meal together and then they were greeted with complaints, and 'eww, what is that?'" she explained.

Elliott said her research found families struggled with the costs of serving idealized meals and guilt when they could not serve the perfect meal.

Issues of gender permeate feelings about home cooking, she said. Many mothers, for instance, felt like failures if they couldn't serve the perfect meal.

Poorer families also struggle with not having the latest kitchen gadgets, or in some cases, safe kitchens at all.

Elliott says the way to reduce these pressures is to stop piling expectations on families and find how society can help them eat healthier and connect over food.

"That might be at neighbourhood housesor a community centreor commercial kitchens, like in daycares or churches, could be making these ready-made meals that families can buy at a sliding scale and take home and reheat," she suggested.

"I think there are a lot of creative solutions if we can just get the conversation out of the kitchen and into how we can more collectively support families."

Listen to the full interview: