ILLUSTRATION: ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES
When the Office for National Statistics added ready-made mashed potato to its official ‘basket of goods’ used to gauge consumer price inflation earlier this year, you could have drowned in the avalanche of smuggery that followed. Were people too lazy, too spoiled, too busy watching telly, or too afraid to ruin their manicures to mash now? The hell-in-a-handcart harpies were in their eye-rolling element. Each head-tilting sigh of “how lazy…” from those who weave their own water made me increasingly cross. Such sanctimony has nothing to do with getting dinner on the table and everything to do with marking the tutters out as a superior tribe to those of us who might reach for a stock cube or some frozen veg when we’re in a rush.
And let’s face it, lots of us are in a rush. Or tired, or stressed out, and trying to fit a meal in between dashing back from work, supervising homework, putting a wash on and, you know, maybe as a special treat, having five minutes to ourselves? And then there are those who physically can’t manage all the peeling and chopping. I consider my own ferociously independent parents – my dad’s almost blind now and my mother has arthritis in her hands. Being able to reach for pre-chopped vegetables or pre-grated cheese is the difference between them being able to cook for themselves and not.