Most millennials shrug at their lack of cooking skills, and Ansel Wakamatsu is no different. It’s not that he doesn’t care, but he just hasn’t found his drive yet.

 

“I was listening to a really old episode of Hamish and Andy the other day, and this was when Hamish was around 20-years-old before he had a family,” he started.

 

“He was like, ‘I step into a supermarket and I know there are ingredients to make food in here. I just don’t know which ingredients and how to put them together’. And that’s how I feel like when thinking about food.”

 

Living at home with his parents who both cook well made him comfortable and secretly jealous at the same time. He described that a brick wall was in the way of him and food: he continually has access to good food but is unable to create it himself.

 

“I think because I can’t produce it myself, I do tend to eat out quite a bit,” said Wakamatsu.

 

The 2016 Nielsen Australian Millennials Report reveals that this thriving demographic was worth 7 per cent of the Australian food and grocery retail market. The report also projected that it would jump to 17 per cent by 2021.

 

This ten percent increase in just a few short years accounts for a growth of AUD$6.1 billion, which only demonstrates the immense buying power millennials have.

 

Due to having more spending power, we’re often spoiled from the food we eat in fancy restaurants, and home-cooked meals are no longer adequate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eve Turow Paul, author of A Taste of Generation Yum: How the Millennial Generation’s Love for Organic Fare, Celebrity Chefs, and Microbrews Will Make or Break the Future of Food, hopes there will be a "back to the land" movement in Australia. 

 

"Because at the end of the day, we all know that an amazing home cooked meal satisfies a part of us that no restaurant or delivery meal will," she wrote in our email interview.

 

Sandra Clark, the academic advisor at Kenvale College of Tourism & Hospitality Management, has some ideas as to why millennials are hardly batting an eye after spending their hard-earned pay on overpriced Sydney brunches.

 

“Funny enough, people are willing to do that, millennials love doing that because first of all, it’s socialisation. They’re not going there to a lovely café and having an avocado smash on their own. They’re going with others,” she explained.

 

When shedding light on this to 26-year-old Angel Gomez, he simply brought up one of his mother’s advice.

 

“If there’s one thing my mum always taught me – what she always emphasized was – do not cheat with food,” he said it shyly, almost as if it was taboo.

 

Gomez goes on to say that he finds other ways of saving money and food is not one of them. He quickly adds on the fact that he would never spend $200 on lunch or dinner at a fancy restaurant – as if it’s a wrong thing to not eat cheaply in a world filled with overpriced colourful super bowls plastered all over social media.

 

 

With the Instagram food scene on the rise, it's no surprise that Turow Paul refers to food as a "social currency" with its pros and cons.

 

"It allows us to learn about new types of food, new recipes, and connect with others who share our passions for perhaps vegan food or sushi donuts. On the flip side, it turns food into a performance instead of an art to be appreciated in real life," she continued. 

 

Clark further suggests the busy millennial lifestyle didn’t allow for socialisation during the week, giving the eating out on weekends even more of a purpose equivalent to a night out – like the recharging of batteries.

 

 

 

 

 

One of the creative directors at VictorsFood , Wanitha Tanasingam said that cooking could do just the same, if not better.

 

Tanasingam often teaches classes for corporate team building for a lot of major firms. For her, the best part of the classes is to be able to show the participants cooking skills that will serve them lifelong and know that she’s improving their health.

 

“Also, cooking brings people into your life, builds great relationships,” she added.

 

Despite not wanting or knowing how to cook good food, Wakamatsu prefers if his group of friends socialise over dinner parties. It’s fun to provide commentary on a friend’s cooking either because something usually goes wrong or they turn out to be fantastic cooks.

 

“When you’re hanging out, you just reproduce the same behaviours over and over again. And cooking is one of those things which often fall outside of those behavioural patterns in friendships,” Wakamatsu said.

 

“I think it gives you access to another part of your friend’s personality and can open up new dynamics. Seeing your friends cook is kind of a profound thing in friendship,” he continued.

 

Twenty-year-old Egbert Chandra believed cooking has moved up the ladder on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. He joked if it could even be considered under the pyramid’s capstone of self-actualisation, but he might be onto something.

 

A study revealed in the International Journal of Humanities and Social Science that Maslow’s theory is relevant for understanding the effect of cooking chefs. It gave them ethnic belongingness, connection to family roots and social esteem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although food fulfills our physiological needs, achieving the ability to create your food unlocks a greater self-satisfaction.  

 

“You feel some sort of achievement compared to if you were just cooking for eating. You actually cook to embrace the relationship,” Chandra said. He added on to say that the presence of good food makes it even better.

 

Clark agrees.

 

“There’s practically no enjoyment in making your own meals and sitting and having it on your own,” Clark said bluntly. “That’s not having a meal, that’s actually just eating.”

 

Turow Paul hopes for young people to carve out the time to cook and consider it something that's not just good for them physically but emotionally, too. "It feeds the soul," she added. 

 

"Because here's the thing: Not eating together, not using your hands, not creating, not appreciating how our food is grown and by whom the food is grown is ultimately not fulfilling. The joy that people receive from taking a picture of their brunch is not the same as receiving thanks from friends and family that you feed with something created with your own two hands."

 

With cooking becoming a threatened activity, there’s a stronger sense of urgency to return to the kitchen to regain the traditions we have lost. There is an intrinsic human need to cook and nourish ourselves.

 

Anthropologist Richard Wrangham stated in his research that our primal ancestors escaped from their raw meat-eating ways through the discovery of fire. The ‘evolution of cooking’ and ultimately the change of diet played a crucial role in our anatomies – small teeth, shorter jaws and larger brains – making us the way we are today.

 

“The ability or the skill to change food that in a way that makes it safe and more digestible have definitely brought a revolutionary advantage to humankind,” Bucher said.

 

Apart from many other things, cooking is what separates us from other species.