On price and taste, it’s hard for bought-in meals to beat cheese on toast, argues Sophie Morris
I might sound like a killjoy when I say I don’t like takeaways, but I’m confident I’m on the right side of history. I’m not a purist or a health freak and I eat anything and everything. But takeaways are too expensive and typically taste like they were prepared weeks before delivery .
I occasionally make exceptions, but very few. I’ve ordered 10 Deliveroos since 2017 and none this year, and I am thankful for all the congealed chips, sweaty salads and claggy sauces I’ve been spared.
The prevailing myth about the importance of takeaways is based around time to cook, or lack of it. We don’t have time to plan meals, to shop for food, to cook the food. Hell, who even finds time to eat these days? But I maintain that cheese on toast is preferable.
My reluctance to shell out for a shitty meal has been compounded by the rising cost. Where once a takeaway might have been a little treat, now you’re unlikely to get change from £50, or a cool £100 if you’re ordering for a family of four. Takeaways used to seem much cheaper than eating out, and it does cost less to drink your own beer or wine, but what was once a significant price difference has become almost imperceptible.
My feelings are echoed in the 2024 Waitrose Food & Drink Report, published last week. More than a third of those polled for the consumer survey said they don’t order takeaways now, while 55 per cent would opt for a home-cooked meal. I’d long thought I was a freak outlier in my suspicion of takeaways, whereas now it seems I’m a member of the majority.
Cost aside, I rarely get them because they’re always such a letdown. And the way delivery platforms Deliveroo and UberEats have rolled every kind of food into the takeaway model has made them so much worse. The idea that any and every cuisine lends itself to hot delivery has ruined the concept. Really only the classics still work - pizza and Asian cuisines - but even they’re only good if you can order lots of dishes.
I am aware there are some complications to suggesting that a slice of toast topped with cheese is a worthy substitute to a substantial and spicy takeaway. But when that single meal is verging on the price of a weekly shop, the fact that someone else has spent hours chopping those onions and grinding those spices starts to sour.
I don’t prefer home-cooked food because I prefer the home-cooking part. Like everyone else, I’m often exhausted at the end of a working day and don’t feel like heading to the kitchen. But there are so many ways to produce something edible in minutes.
Fresh pasta. Fried eggs. Freezer pizza. And here’s a tip for free - always keep a bag of ready-chopped onions in the freezer. Even Nigella has admitted that she’s sometimes too tired to chop an onion, but if you can get past this hurdle, you’re well on your way to a meal.
Well over half (61 per cent) of the 3,200 Waitrose shoppers said that they cooked from scratch to reduce the amount of ultra-processed food they eat, and nearly half (49 per cent) said that takeaways were not healthy enough. The fakeaway trend is popular, too, with 41 per cent saying they’d had a go at recreating their favourite order at home (Waitrose say gourmet curries and wood-fired pizzas are still “flying off the shelves”).
When I find myself in need of a quick but satisfying meal, I turn to a few fail-safe options. My go-to is, yes, pasta. I never tire of pasta, so it won’t matter if I had it the night before. I’ll choose whatever shape appeals at the time and shower it in Parmesan, some fancy olive oil - maybe truffle oil - or a few chilli flakes. Job done. Yes, I had to boil water so you could call this cooking, but we all know that boiling water is child’s play, whereas locating the open restaurants and whittling down your choices demands advanced levels of patience and concentration.
During the pandemic I actually ate some of the best takeaways of my life - because the restaurant owners desperately trying to make a few quid put a lot of thought into the food they were making. But now, while restaurants struggle to balance their books amid food inflation, rising energy costs and the incoming national insurance increases, I can’t find it in myself to order in sub-par food.
“The hangover from the cost of living and Covid lockdowns is that we go out for meals less, and cook at home more,” says Maddy Wilson, Waitrose’s Director of Own Brand.
The food deliveries that work are those that have always worked, and are tricky to recreate at home, such as crispy duck from my local Cantonese, crunchy snacks and tormentingly hot salads from the Thai and banquets from the south Indian if we have family staying.
The best choice is Rakookoo (in Kent and sometimes London), a former restaurant chef who makes incredible snacks, mains and puds from a range of Asian cuisines, available for delivery or collection, fresh or for your freezer.
It makes sense that an increasing number of restaurant chains are trying to get their brands into our homes, from Ottolenghi, itsu, Wagamama and Leon, to Michelin restaurants such as Gymkhana, a two-star Indian that launched four cooking sauces and two marinades at Waitrose in October. And I approve of the imported North American habit of taking leftovers home, which wasn’t always possible in the UK. You’ve already paid for that food, and will no doubt be delighted to find an instant lunch in your fridge the following day.
It makes sense for a supermarket to push home cooking, and you’re unlikely to see change from £50 on a trip to Waitrose. But I’d rather open a jar of sauce than bite into a stale samosa or a desiccated burrito, any day of the week.