Mark Bittman interviews Michael Pollan

In his recent New York Times column, Mark Bittman chatted with Michael Pollan about Pollan’s newest book, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation. This isn’t a cookbook – in fact, it only has four recipes – Bolognese, pork shoulder, sauerkraut, and bread – that Pollan uses to explore fundamental principles of cooking.

As anyone familiar with both men would expect, the conversation went a little deeper than a standard author interview. We especially liked Pollan’s comment: 

“Cooking is probably the most important thing you can do to improve your diet. What matters most is not any particular nutrient, or even any particular food: it’s the act of cooking itself. People who cook eat a healthier diet without giving it a thought. It’s the collapse of home cooking that led directly to the obesity epidemic.”

Bittman’s conclusion was also right on:

“With an increasingly progressive population we have the potential to create a gender-agnostic cooking culture. There’s no longer a stigma attached to males cooking, and cooking is not only a democratic pleasure, it is also daily creativity, it’s economic, it’s healthy, and it’s a link to the natural world. And though it may take time, cooking can be about patience and letting things happen. Good things, on many levels.”

Check out the article, Pollan Cooks! for the full interview.