I may eat out at fancy restaurants enough to be considered a 'foodie' but I really get to eat at friends homes often enough to have a sense of modern home cooking.
I find a great difference between good restaurant food (including Applebees and the Cheese Factory, and home cooking. Sufficient enough to comment on the difference.
Among many of my friends the most prized dish is a roast that has strings around it which has been cooked for four to eight hours and an Indian sauce that had to marinate overnight. Those are what many of my friends rave about. They call it good savory cooking.
They also love vegetable with complex and imaginative french sauces on them and most of all steamed fish with a slow cooked complex marinade.
I personally think this is pre 1960's summer camp cooking.
To me, the reality is that a century ago most fruit was worm eaten and barely able to get to the closest market without spoiling. Fish was put on ice and was days old when sold. Most meat had been feeding on sparse ranges and the meat was dried for as long as possible before getting to the market.
Today, fruit and vegetables are protected from pests with a wide range of lightly dusted pesticides early in the growth season. Meat is fed abundant grass and extra food to make it tender at the stockyards.
All fruits and vegetables are refrigerated, the fish is flash frozen and we get it at the market in wonderfully ripe and tender with nearly perfect flavor.
To me our food is so good when sold to us at the market it needs little more than light stove top roasting, a quick pan sauteing and ocassionally a sauce made immediately with fresh herbs, choice oils and vinegars.
I hope more people are eating with respect for the incredible high quality offered us in our supermarkets.