To reiterate a post from the Other Site, for most of the last four thousand+ years, the vast majority of people living in cities got takeout. Many apartments lacked kitchens due to space and fire risk. Cooking yourself 7 fresh, varied meals a week is a VERY recent expectation.

I am always saying this

this post came to me in my hour of need

And along with what we'd consider takeout, there were a lot of businesses that would cook the food you brought them. Like, chophouses used to be "bring your own chop". Hell, there's a place not too far from me where you can buy fish fillets and have them fried there.

There was a time, in Toronto, it cost less to eat out very well at the Greek diner on the corner than buy food to cook.

Even rural peasants didn't bake!

I remember that post because I left an ancient Egyptian "We've got onions at home" John Mulaney joke under it and I got random likes on it for a year. Gotta be careful what you say under an Ursula Vernon post.

Wasn't Division of Labour how we, like, ended the stone age?

I’ve seen a lot of this in the last year or two, and it’s like, yeah? They saw what it costs to go grocery shopping these days and what it costs to get takeout and are finding little or no difference. So they’re going for convenience, even if the food quality is garbage.

Aaaaaamen.

I study the late 19th & early 20thC. If you were poor, you bought food from street vendors who were just as poor as you. That thing of your nana making rabbit stew for buttons involve a) a cooker that was also the house's boiler and b) poaching