My latest meal kit has arrived from sunny California. All the ingredients plus instructions (oven not included) for making Moroccan mint stuffed mushrooms. And that's just Tuesday's vegan theme dinner. Wednesday is chicken, couscous and cauliflower. Thursday is the full carnivorous bloodbath of beef borguignon and bacon browned broccoli. This fantastic gourmet service is only $120 per week with free dry-iced shipping. From farm to table via supersonic jet and diesel powered truck(wine pairing recommendations sent separately to your smart phone upon request).
Ah, the wonders of modern life. Soon we won't need to leave our houses at all because anything we desire will be sent to us by drone or robotic courier. James from HR, an unmarried colleague of mine, recently boasted that the mail order bride company to which he subscribes are offering overnight delivery and unlimited free returns for unsatisfactory matches. He has already dispatched three women back to Thailand. Apparently his third wife was found wanting because she made poor meal kit choices.
Technological innovations in the workplace mean that James can work from home, too, so he has not left his house since last June. Yesterday he texted me a photograph of the new Amazon Alexa he has installed in his bathroom, explaining that he can now verbally re-order his favorite roll-on deodorant the moment he scrapes his armpit on the empty applicator. Now that's what I call space-age living.
Of course, such technological progress also illuminates the problem of inequality. There is economic inequality, racial inequality, gender inequality and all the combinations thereof. But the the type of inequality that almost everyone will eventually suffer from, regardless of sex or age or color, is what I call "inequality of the future." It's the idea that most people won't be able to afford the same future as the rich folks who live in the climate-controlled bio-dome city on the hill. Will we still think it's great not to need to leave our houses when the super-wealthy are escaping the toxic, frozen Earth in their private rocket ships? Maybe, as long as the latest meal kit recipe is something hot and spicy and we can binge watch Game of Thrones while we eat.
The answer to your - rhetorical - question is, of course: everything is relative. Those outside will be working to maintain the frozen toxic Earth illusion they made those on the inside to believe.
Then the next question is how fishy and srsly overpriced is that meal kit?
Posted by: Tat | January 11, 2018 at 19:26
The truly evil thing about meal kits is that most of the so-called meal is actually pasta, polenta, or similar. Very little vegetable matter and only slivers of meat can be found therein.
Posted by: stephenesque | January 12, 2018 at 09:29
A friend in Vancouver used to work as a private chef for a very busy surgeon with multitude of food allergies.
She (my friend) was paid $400/week. In $CA. Let's say week's supply [organic, local, no-gluten, etc) food is $300/week.
Even $700 a week for 21 meal cost less than 6 meal kits!
Posted by: Tat | January 14, 2018 at 02:45
in more honest times, we opened a tin of Chef Boyardee.
Posted by: zaporozhe | July 07, 2018 at 12:12
... and we ate it cold.
Posted by: stephenesque | July 07, 2018 at 12:30