It makes economic sense that we don’t cook meals at home, but dine out regularly. This is what happens in South East Asia, and I will question why this is at the end.
Quite simply, it is better that 5 people cook for 50 people (ie chefs in a restuaruant cooking for 50 people over a night), than 25 people cooking for 50 people (1 partner cooking for the other, sharing flat cooking duties).
Not only will this saving on total man hours spent cooking, and doing dishes, and also things like electricity, water, and every house hold will not need the same pots, pans, plates, cutlery, and indeed ovens and full sized fridges. Also it may effectively eliminate the need for conventional supermarkets, and instead we would move toward more efficient wholesale warehouses. Effectively this will free up those factories to produce something we do value, or it simply means that we work less.
There are also spill over effects of increased sociability, and general life enjoyment.
I’ll try deal with the most obvious objection here, that the average worker cannot afford to dine out every night. Let’s make it clear that the economy wide cost of every bodies eating, is cheaper if with the dining out model, as demonstrated above, but the current reality is that even if it costs the average worker more time units to cook at home, it is a lot cheaper for him to cook at home.
I would argue that this is simply a reflection of inefficiently configured economy. However let’s consider one reason why this might be. It might be because we value the time of the chef much more than we value the time of the time of the chef much more than we value the time of worker, ie the time saved from not having to make dinner, not having to shop, not having to work to pay for pots, pans, fridge, oven, electricity, is not as valuable as the short time it takes for the chef to make the worker a meal. If that was the case, the worker would be better off getting himself into the dining industry, if he is happy to eat his own meals, then so will his fellow workers, but apparently he is being valued more.
Here is my model for how this society would operate.
Our worker (let’s call him Bob), get’s out of bed, does what ever exercises he likes to do in the morning, and then goes for breakfast. He has a smallish beer fridge in his kitchen, grabs some cereal some milk out the fridge, has breakfast. Perhaps he feels like a coffee, and this is actually a difficult area. It might actually be best that everybody has there own espresso machine.
First thing in the morning do you really feel like going outside to get a coffee from a professional? Making your own espresso isn’t that hard. And also - you really don’t feel like waiting in line. It’s alright once its 10oclock, you don’t mind so much waiting 5 minutes in a cafe for a professionally made coffee. So perhaps that’s one area where we still are diversified.
He goes to work, if he’s in an office he perhaps fills out an online order form and a office catering company brings the lunches around at lunch time. If he works in a factory, there is a similar system, or perhaps there is a restaurant type thing as part of the factory.
Bobs finished work now, perhaps he heads straight to a social club (there will be lots of these) with some friends where one can eat food, drink a beer, watch television. Or perhaps he just heads to a quiet favorite restaurant. Or perhaps he heads home, or participates in whatever other activities he does, and then heads out later into the street to the local restaurant on his street.
So why do countries like Japan and Korea have this model, and New Zealand or the United States not? The prime factors are probably the cost of the land, and the concentration of population. A higher population means more foot traffic and more customers. Also higher land prices put the cost of adding a kitchen to a house or apartment up, making sacrificing the kitchen and dining out a more attractive option. I think we value 'cooking for ourselves' - largely because it is seen as cheaper, which it is! Also, perhaps people don't value their time very highly - essentially seeing it as free. But this has also spawned into a kind of work ethic of cooking for yourself seen as valuable in itself. This is a mistake, and if the possibility arises for us to dine out at cheaper than it costs to cook at home, we should.
Also - I think people just don't consider it. In an urban context - a houseowner may do very well to consider saving money by building their house without a smaller kitchen, working out how much (how little) extra dining out instead would be.
