What Constitutes a Home-Cooked Meal?

When I was a child, a home-cooked meal (then the rule, rather than the exception) meant food prepared and cooked from scratch.

This was the 1960s, when the advent of the ready meal was still a distant prospect and the availability of many types of ingredients could not be relied upon. There were also precious few gadgets to help the ‘housewife’ (it was generally a woman in those days). The microwave oven had yet to be invented.

My mother possessed a hand mincer, which she regularly used to mince meat (generally beef), and a Kenwood Chef Mixer (bought with some money given to her by her own mother). Otherwise, the tools of the trade were the kitchen knife, scissors, whisk etc.

In the present day, there is generally much less time available for cooking. A greater number of people (especially women) have employment and our lives have become immeasurably busier.

Set against that, there are now ready meals (which only require reheating in a microwave or conventional oven), a profusion of gadgets, access to the internet and a wide range of ingredients (many inspired by the food eaten and enjoyed on the foreign holidays enjoyed by many of us over the years).

Would it still be correct to describe a meal as home-cooked if, for example, the person preparing it had used a herb or spice mix, a ready-made sauce etc.? I guess the argument might be that if the ingredients were brought together by someone in their home, in a particular way, for a particular dish, then that counts as home cooking.