@kingerz: I doubt anyone downrated you for criticizing the idea that easy is good. What they're downrating you for is the ridiculously absurd statement you made that cooking "was expensive and / or challenging". It has never been either, and making it easy to achieve quickly during a holiday is just a nice little benefit. It does not devalue something that was once valuable or difficult. It's cooking for crying out loud. It's always been a trivial skill that requires nothing more than cooking up a few easy to obtain ingredients before a fire. You can't trivialize something if it's already trivial to begin with.

You sound like you're taking it way too seriously. And your general tone was insulting (it's kinda hard to throw around words like "pathetic" without being so). The criticism you claim you were making is something most of us would agree with you on, but as is usually the case, people are *not* generally downvoted for what they say, they're downvoted for the way they say it. And in this case, for the fact that it doesn't really apply in this case.