Meal Kit Service Trial: Another Way to Be Alone in Tech-Alienated World

Being the trend follower that I am, I succumbed to one of those coupons for a meal kit service. You know, one of those services that delivers a box to your door filled with all the ingredients and for making several meals at home.  As an experienced home cook who attended culinary school, worked in a few kitchen and helped launch a teaching kitchen, I I don’t think I am really the target customer for these things. But, somehow that pesky coupon offer was constantly popping up on my various electronic media, so someone out there in marketing land thought one of these services might be right for me.

So, while sitting at home, alone with my computer, I signed up following the friendly prompts complete with photos of couples and families happily cooking and eating together. With a few strokes of the keyboard, I browsed photos of plated dishes taken from the standard overhead shot and selected my meals. And then, with the press of the ‘enter’ button, I was all set for my delivery.

Like many other online shopping experiences, I got that smack of instant gratification with my purchase. Even better, in case I later suffered from buyers remorse and wished I had chosen steak over chicken, I had until two days before my delivery to change my dish selections. Given my options this week extended to all of seven dishes, I wasn’t particularly concerned about that potential freak out moment.

Simple enough. I was now freed from the burden of going to the grocery store, the farmer’s market or otherwise for at least three of my upcoming meals. Fortunately, I was also still able to follow my ‘eat local’ ethos, as the service I selected promised the meals’ ingredients were selected with care and they incorporate local ingredients “whenever possible.” On the other hand, I wasn’t so sure they were doing me a favor as I find great pleasure browsing the isles of a market to discover new ingredients. I also find even more joy in meeting the farmers, purveyors and sellers of my local ingredients.

Nevertheless, my three meals were on their way and, clearly, my next week was going to be so much easier for it.  As promised, the box was quietly dropped on my porch the following Sunday. It must have magically happened around 3:30pm because at 3:46pm, I received a friendly text message advising me of its presence and urging me “happy cooking.”  Awww, thanks faceless, mystery texter!

I peered through my blinds to my front porch and spied the box. Surveying the area, I surmised the delivery gnome was gone and I ventured out into the daylight to quickly retrieve my box and squirrel it back into my house. My front door safely locked against the world, I could unwrap the new ‘gift’ I sent to myself.

Disguised in a large envelop, like a spy’s ‘Secret Mission’, was my ingredient list. Actually, maybe a ‘Top Secret’ stamp would make this more interesting than my ‘reference number’ printed on the front, but as it turns out, the blandness of the message was ultimately fitting with the rest of the experience. The recipes and instructions inside began with a “Hi Kimi!” and finished with a “Happy Cooking!” Oh! The exclamation points!!
The rest of the box contained a dizzying array little packages in tiny baggies, little vials and vacuum sealed plastic with the meat and perishables in a plastic/metal, bubble insulated bag with a frozen chemical brick. How could three meals need all these little pieces of plastic and waste? Ignoring my sensibilities about sustainability, I embraced the experience of getting this little box while never having to leave my house. Oh, life was so easy.

It was so thoughtful of those mystery people to individually gift wrap every ingredient for me. It could feel like opening many little cooking gifts, but, to me. as I unwrapped each ingredient, I couldn’t help but feel like a dentist removing freshly sterilized instruments in preparation for an oral cleaning.

With everything freed from their plastic prisons, I began cooking.  The recipes were pretty straight forward. It was  also pretty clear, like the envelope included in the box, this meal was going to be bland. As the recipe was not particularly challenging (or interesting, for that matter), I decided to do the cooking all by myself. So, by my own preference, there would not be one of those happy-couple-cooking-together moments coming out of this week’s box. In the interest of following through with my little meal kit experiment, rather than do my usual improvisation to liven things up, I followed the instructions provided by my new friends to a T. Well, to a T except for my need to season and taste as I go and my preference to cook some ingredients that may cook at different rates separately.

When all was said and done, I got a perfectly fine meal, if not a bland and boring one, to the plate. Yes, I got fed, but the whole experiment left me feeling sort of. . . empty. Isolated. And alone.  Yeah, I know we all lead busy lives, but to me, this whole experience did not solve a busy-ness problem. Yet, it somehow created yet a new way to isolate and alienate us from other human beings and life experiences.

I know there are many other people out there who don’t enjoy perusing the grocery store isle or browsing the farmer’s market or meeting farmers and producers. There are surely people out there who don’t make a hobby out of pouring over cookbooks and relishing in interesting new ingredients and combinations. Nor do they make a treasure hunt out of searching out these ingredients. Certainly, not everyone finds any of this a social and friendly experience. But I do and a meal kit, selected online, quietly delivered to my door, packaged in a pile of plastic smacks of taking all that fun away.

So, for me, I will pass on the meal kit service and opt keep my online instant gratifications to items I don’t find an important social experience in my life. Hand towels, perhaps.