OK, so you’re a food snob.
In my experience, much high cuisine is pretentious, overpriced, and under-portioned. A lot of these restaurants, in the old cliché, sell the sizzle as much as the steak.
Even simple dishes often demand a degree of skill and experience, especially in the home kitchen. Not all of us can be culinary professionals, but I would never disparage a quality home-cooked meal. The good amateur cooks I’ve known over 62 years are not “cavemen.”
It’s not that often I’ve encountered a perfectly made-from-scratch Southern biscuit, so light it practically floats off the plate, ready for ham, jam, honey, or whatever you want to put on it.
I appreciate simple, hearty American food, with quality ingredients, prepared the old-fashioned way ... but I suppose that’s only fit for “cavemen.”
People stay home for comfort food unless they go to the local diner or something and that’s fine. When they go out they expect something a little more for their money.
That’s why a chef can clear 100k a yr at some places and a cook at a diner is usually making minimum wage. Your points are well taken and I get your perspective, I really do. You don’t get my points or perspective at all though I think.
Remember, this all started because I stated that Brit food is drek, and I stand by that. Good products poorly done make a failure of a plate.