[stakhanov]

> We had other solutions for a while too[...]

There were more solutions besides monasteries and marriage. My grandparents, living in a small town in a rural area of Austria maybe 50 years ago, had a large family. That town's teacher was single, and it simply wouldn't have been economical for her to do her own cooking, so she had a deal whereby she paid my grandparents so she could come over every day to have dinner with the family. This arrangement was so common that there was even a word for it ("Kostgänger").

I'm surprised that there isn't a sharing economy startup yet, trying to reinvent the concept. -- "Uber for warm meals". Or at least I'm not aware of one. It probably exists.

On another note: The nuclear family household with one dedicated homemaker was historically a relatively short-lived concept. Prior to that, we tended to have extended families sharing a household, and the significant amount of work involved in food preparation was surely one of the drivers of that.

[zdragnar]

Regulations around selling food are far more brutal than "ride sharing". It varies by state in the US, but generally speaking unless you keep your income below certain dollar amounts and stick to things like jam and pickles, you need to operate out of a commercially licensed and inspected kitchen.

Far better to do as hoc, personal arrangements than try to scale it into a fully fledged market.

[ghaff]

I just got back from a week at a hiking camp that generally changes locations each year. I was talking to the head cook and she was saying some locations are more stringent than others but generally there's at least a cursory inspection required.

[nerdponx]

This is somewhat of a plot component in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, set in New York in 1790. Ichabod Crane is a schoolteacher, and he is sustained by food and lodging from the villagers.