I HAVEN’T cooked a meal at home in six months, unless you count salad, and really you can’t. I can see five restaurants from my window and get so many menus for delivery shoved under my door that on trips away I fear I’ll have to burn my way back into the building.

Thanks to Gordon Ramsay and the lovely Nigella Lawson, Americans have come over to the idea that our food might not be as awful as they had feared. But the way that we eat it (pizza with a knife and fork?) and the lengths that we have to go to get it . . . ridiculous.

If I want to make Americans laugh, I tell them about our takeaways. You phone the restaurant. Then you drive over and pick it up. The last line kills them. Or I tell them how much it costs to eat at Pizza Express. Rolling in the aisles.

Convenience is king in America. These are people who stand by the microwave shouting “hurry”. And with so much competition, prices – even factoring in the weak dollar – are substantially lower than in Europe. But the food paradise is in big trouble.

Bennigan’s, an Irish-themed bar and grill chain, hung up its shillelagh, turned off the Riverdance CD and filed for bankruptcy. Its sister brand, Steak & Ale (no joke), is calling time too. The closures are just the latest in a series sweeping an industry now facing its darkest period in two decades.

It’s not hard to see why. On the one side, all their costs are on the up: oil prices, food prices, labour costs are all on the rise. Meanwhile, their diners are being hit by the same increasing costs and the troubles in the housing market. It’s enough to have even those with the strongest stomachs reaching for the Tums.

The restaurant recession is taking down multi-billion-dollar restaurant companies and “mom-n-pop” restaurants alike. In the heart of New York, restaurants are closing down on streets still thronging with tourists. It’s the same across the country.

Between January and July, the percentage of restaurant and bar workers filing unemployment claims in Hillsborough County, Florida, surged 54% higher than during the same period last year, according to The Tampa Tribune. The number of unemployment claims among all industries is up 38%.

The biggest losers are expected to be the “casual dining” chains such as Benni-gan’s and rivals Applebee’s, TGI Fridays and Outback Stea-khouse. Having done a lot of driving – and eating – in America I know whereof I speak, and the trouble with most of these “concepts” is that, apart from the lettering above the door, they are all exactly the same.

Eating in them gives you déjà vu every time. At the moment, they are all mad about “sliders” – mini burg-ers. Before that they were smothering everything in teri-yaki sauce.

Unfortunately it’s not winning them enough business. Their customers are moving on. But not back home: America doesn’t want to cook. Once again the middle ground is being squeezed out, leaving a small set of restaurants at the top end and a huge market for faster and cheaper rivals.

“Drive-thrus” are the new hot area. Even troubled Star-bucks is seeing growth in drive-thrus. Faster faster, cheaper cheaper.

It’s as American as apple pie to go.

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