I was having one of those intellectual talks with Gaurav yesterday night, which went on till 6 in the morning.

One of the topics which came up was how people cook food for themselves. Since the past few centuries, we have managed to outsource various aspects of our living. Earlier on, people used to stitch their own clothes, bake their own bread, even grow their own crops and rear their own animals.

We have managed to systematically *outsource* many aspects of living to others. Now, you have bakers who will bake bread and other baked goods for you. You have clothing stores where you can buy clothes.

So why does every house still have a kitchen?

I envisioned that n years into the future(n being a totally unknown number), we would have outsourced this aspect of our living too. There will be properly managed food agencies who work similar to “mess houses” these days, except the standards of quality will be much higher. The food will be healthy and nutrious, unlike restaurant food or fast food.

These agencies or “food delivery companies” as I like to call them, may further outsource certain aspects of their business to others. For example, the cooking of rice could be be handled by another company, which cooks several different types of rice for several agencies. There could be another company which will handle the procurement of raw supplies needed for cooking. Maybe another company to handle delivery of food.

There are many unknowns too.. Like when will the food be ordered and How will wastage be managed efficiently.

Infact, the change has already begun. There are people who live in houses without kitchens and order food every night. In India, we have “messes” where single men pay a monthly subscription for two or three meals a day.

But as ridiculous as it sounds to eliminate the need of kitchens in houses today, I think this is totally possible in the future. Maybe a few centuries back, people couldn’t imagine houses without ovens to bake bread.

What do you think?