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The esteemable Mark Bittman in the New York Times points us to Cook For Good, a site that proposes and demonstrates how a person on a very limited income (i.e. food stamps) can cook and eat well for very little money.

Bittman did encounter some curiously negative responses to this (you're pre-supposing that poor people have somewhere to store these foods and have electricity; you're rich so how would you know how poor people live; poor people don't have stoves/electricity/pots to cook in; poor people don't know how to cook; and so forth). These responses in themselves assume some interesting things about poor people (i.e. they are all living in tenement slums, wear recycled plastic trash bags, are illiterate/alcoholic/abused, and are unable to provide the simplest efforts toward their own care). There are and always will be, of course, some people for whom this is true: No matter what help/services are available, there will be some who cannot/will not/do not take advantage of this. A few will refuse what is offered and say "It's not enough."

But it is also true that for millennia, so-called primitive peoples without a roof over their heads or a steady supply of water cooked these very same foods in such a way that what they ate is now called cuisine, and you may now pay a pretty penny indeed for modern interpretations of Vietnamese/Indian/Mexican/rural European dishes. And in Mlle. de Joie's opinion, it is true that people are responsible for making their own choices about how to live. Do it, don't do it - it's not my decision. It's an option that's available for those willing to make an attempt to change their lives.

- Femme de Joie