I recently came across an article in the New York Times about cooking co-ops. I have heard about (and have been part of) housemates sharing meal preparation and numerous potlucks, but until now I’ve never come across a cooking co-op. What a great idea, though!
If you’ve never heard the term before, it basically boils down to this — two or more people or households come together and agree to cook meals for each other on a schedule. It works out so that each household spends less time in the kitchen every night. This is what it looks like in practice: One night a week you prepare a dish of enough food so that you can feed yourself and the other members of the co-op and the people they live with. Those same people are also cooking their own meals to be shared with the group. Set aside enough food for your household, then divide the rest in reusable containers with instructions of how to heat up the food. Depending on how many people are in the co-op, each person walks away with a few home cooked meals and some extra free time on their hands come dinner time.
Co-op participants in the article note that the benefits of dinner sharing include not having to spend a lot of time at the market shopping for dinner ingredients for the whole week, getting to try dishes that you wouldn’t normally cook for yourself, and getting to meet new people. For Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) members who receive box loads of unfamiliar vegetables, co-op cooking provides an opportunity to make use of those items. Of course there can be downfalls, too. Participants may cook foods you don’t like or may not be providing meals of the same quality that you’re contributing. But seeking out like minded eaters can alleviate those problems.
Cooking co-ops seem like a great way to save working families some time and money in the kitchen and to open up people to new dishes.
Image via Kristin Brenemen
