Yeah I loved that about Thailand, I’d eat small things all day from street vendors. Good stuff.

People in ancient Pompeii didn't either. They bought bread from bakers, or paid for time in public ovens, and bought premade food from pubs or other vendors. Preserved homes very clearly did not typically have the means to prepare food.

It's a statement kind of like insisting that everyone should know how to farm or do animal husbandry, when those were specialist jobs (sometimes serfs' jobs...) since time immemorial. Humans built cities millennia ago and lived in semi-specialized social groups before that.

The outmoded self-sufficiency obsession is very culturally American, due to its relatively recent status as a more or less agrarian colony.