It’s breakfast, but Sumi Saikawa is already cutting vegetables and chopping garlic for dinner. There are days where she’s preparing meals from scratch, and there are days where she disguises takeaway by putting it on the family's fine china.

 

No matter what was on the plate, her family eats together.

 

For Saikawa, family meals are more than just a time to eat and recap everyone’s days. They are a way of maintaining traditional roots.

 

She does this by keeping a typical Japanese bento of rice, vegetables and a side of protein as a meal they often have, and involving her two children in the cooking process every once in a while.

 

“Sometimes it’s hard to keep the custom, not only the language. So I try to teach my children as much as I can,” said Saikawa.

 

A 2016 research paper done by the International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity stated the source of learning how to cook has an impact on an individual’s attitude towards food.

 

The survey listed ‘mother’ with 60 per cent as the top source for learning their cooking skills.

 

Saikawa once taught a children’s cooking class during the summer a few years back where her children ended up joining. Her son recently asked her for advice on how to cook fish as he ventures out to Canada for his undergraduate degree.

 

Her daughter is now making dinner for the family at least once a week, citing fancy Italian or Modern Australian online recipes as her inspiration.

 

“But nowadays, I can request her to make something. She sometimes makes Japanese food for me, and she sometimes uses my old recipes. So, I’m pleased to see that,” Saikawa said proudly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Academic director of Kenvale College of Tourism & Hospitality Management, Sandra Clark, is currently researching the importance of family meals.

 

According to Clark, the more the children are participating in the family meal, the more likely they are to form a healthy relationship with food and cooking.

 

“When they become parents themselves, they then revert back to the importance of having family meals again,” Clark shared.

 

When I asked Kenvale College teacher Jennifer Gleeson if implementing cooking and homemade meals are important when having a family, she just replied with: “I think so because food is culture.”

 

In an episode from Huang’s World , host Eddie made a traditional dinner with a Sicilian man to which he said: “This is the right way to know Sicily. It’s the food.”

 

For the uninitiated, Eddie Huang travels around the world to get to know a city’s culture by eating his way into it.

 

“People like to give a false narrative on histories. We can look at religion, architecture or a mirror and you see a reflection of yourself. But we choose food. Because every time you look at a plate, it’s the distillation of time, history, culture and identity,” he said in the same episode.

 

The passing down of recipes are of similar traits to the passing down of culture.

 

For 26-year-old Angel Gomez, he was fortunate enough to be given a helpful tip or two from his parents when it comes to cooking. He recalls his earlier memories of food as “very South American” with his father teaching him how to fire up a grill. Gomez is proud of the fact that he was able to cook meat properly from the tender age of 12.

 

“When I was 17 when I finished high school, I moved to America on my own, so my mum gave me a few instructions on how to cook without burning down an apartment,” he laughed.

 

Maryam Noori is the complete opposite. Although this millennial doesn’t cook – despite the hard efforts of her parents trying to teach her – she’s confident she’ll harness the skill when it’s time for her to move out of home.

 

Coming from a Middle Eastern background, she admits to learning a lot from that culture especially when her mother cooks for the whole family on a regular basis.

 

“I’ll be cooking more of what I learned at home and similar Mediterranean dishes because that’s the kind of taste I acquired, so I’m definitely influenced by that,” she said.

​

In an email interview with author Eve Turow Paul, she believes millennials are more food-educated than their parents: "While baby boomers learned to "cook" with packaged goods, millennials are beginning to investigate where their food comes from and what it's made of in a way their parents' generation didn't.

​

"But more importantly, food is serving different emotional needs for this generation. Food is a chance to express one's identity and beliefs; it's a conduit to in-person gatherings; it's a way to excite all our senses and a way to establish hands-on skills," she said.

 

A culture that has been brewing on for generations can’t be rushed. With millennials being a time-pull generation, this is a big challenge.

 

Gomez admitted he aims to cook, eat and clean up within an hour for breakfast and dinner.

 

Also discovered in Clark’s research is that Australian millennials are only willing to spend 30 minutes to prep their meals.

 

“We, really, arrive home and we want to get something on the table in half an hour. So, the amount of time people are willing to spend on cooking, particularly women who are working, is very different to two generations ago,” she said.

 

There may not even be a discussion around family meal participation for much longer as family meals in itself are slowly becoming an endangered activity; more young professionals are working more extended hours and children are eating around smartphones and tablets.

 

 

 

 

 

We are working more hours than ever ; women, in particular, are working an average of 37.9 hours a week in NSW, which is 0.4 more hours than the average in 1996.

 

It’s a universal problem but Australians are feeling time poor with 45 per cent of women, and 36 per cent of men were often rushed or pressed for time in a 2014 ABS survey .  

 

A researcher at the University of Newcastle Dr Tamara Bucher believes the skills are not passed on to the millennial generation as much anymore.

 

“Time restrictions are certainly a problem. More people eat out of home, and I wouldn’t definitely blame women for that!”, she laughed. “It’s just more of an observation that this is definitely happening less.”

 

Saikawa who previously worked as a nutritionist still managed to cook at home despite her “stressful” shifts. Before moving to Australia, she completed a degree as a dietician in Japan after her mother’s advice on learning to be self-sufficient. If the worst possible scenario happens, she would still be able to get a job, sewing or cooking.

 

When cooking skills, recipes, and techniques are not entrusted to the next generation, there will ultimately be a disappearance of culture.

 

Cooking in a time-pressed world is easier said than done, but even the slightest attempt to create something ourselves should be praised.

 

In a short gap between questions, Saikawa asked me if I think cooking is still essential.

 

Ultimately, whether or not the cooking skill is considered a vital ability to save, the decision is up to the millennials themselves. With the insurmountable options on what to feed ourselves, there is no longer a pressure in knowing how to create something out of nothing, but rather whether or not we, as a generation, believe it’s a tradition worth saving.