Out of 13 spare time activities listed by a 2015 Nielsen survey, cooking is the second least popular activity amongst Generation Z. Cooking isn’t in the top five for millennials.

 

If millennials aren’t cooking, how are they eating and – ultimately – surviving?

 

Six-in-ten millennials are eating out at least once a week. Out of that statistic, 30 per cent of them are eating out three or more times a week – twice the percentage of baby boomers.

 

A Nation of Non-Cooks is a collection of features and an opinion piece on Australian millennials, aged 20-35, and their relationship to cooking or the lack thereof. The stories aim to uncover the reasons as to why this generation hardly steps into the kitchen.

 

Time and their dependence on technology are reflected in their eating habits, giving rise to the successes of on-demand food deliveries like Deliveroo and meal kit services. Housing affordability crisis and having to live with parents for longer implies a growing reliance to mum’s home-cooked meals, meaning we never have to cook anything less delicious and less comforting.

 

At the same time, millennials are spoiled with food choices in the vast multicultural landscape of cuisines in Sydney, making our attempts at a homemade meal less than satisfactory. We are the most broke generation (thanks to Bernard Salt for exposing us to our home-less futures), yet we have the highest of expectations in food.

 

These paradoxes, along with means on how to save the cooking skill, are to be explored in this body of work. How a pure, self-sufficient ability can ultimately be our last desperate reach to preserve traditions in this ever aggregating melting pot of cultures. How this life necessity that has been around for thousands of years is easily shrugged off by to-be university graduates and young working professionals.

 

After many interviews with millennials, cooking teachers, and food and culinary experts, it is clear that cooking is more than just to feed oneself. Cooking has shifted from a fundamental human need to an activity that recharges our social batteries, to a way of getting to know our culture and to a way of becoming a better human being.