We ought to know about our culinary past. Food and identity is terribly important ... I don't mean we should go out and eat historic dishes, but we should know what makes us different ... self-confident nations have that sense of where they come from.
I think that what's so interesting about her is that she took to an extreme her embrace of peasant life even though she was a singing and dancing European intellectual.
If cooking becomes an art form rather than a means of providing a reasonable diet, then something is clearly wrong.