Family cooking
I’m madly trying to finish a conference paper. I suspect I’ll get halfway through before the storm hits tonight.
Something just struck me, though, and I thought it was worth sharing. My generation can cook (mostly without help from recipe books) at least 300 of my grandmother’s recipes. The same recipes that you’ve been enjoying. Some of them aren’t even written down in her notebook, but when we compiled our notes and thoughts and memories we added them.
If you add to that our other cooking, that’s an awful lot of dishes we don’t precisely use every day. I could cook a different lunch and dinner a day for a year if I wanted to. Except I don’t want to. And some of the variants would be quite small.
I have 150 words to write and about ten minutes before the storm hits. While I write, don’t ponder on the number of family recipes some families have. Instead think about whether or not having all those recipes at one’s fingertips actually means we can cook…. maybe I creatively burn those different lunches and dinners.
November 19th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
What’s really hard is when the grandparents and great grandparents tell you a pinch of this and a fistful of that. Then you look at the size of your hands versus theirs and wonder what the actual amount should be. The pinch of this and fistful of that can be quite forgiving when it comes to savory dishes but when it comes to baking it can spell disaster.
http://www.noshtalgia.blogspot.com/
November 19th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
I’ve been doing a lot of recipe research lately and have found a lot of things I don’t have any time to make, or are do not go into enough detail about how much seasoning to use. Much like you said about your grandparents Julie. So I’ve been watching these cool little videos that Rocco DiSpirito has been doing for Bertolli and their new line of frozen mediterranean style frozen dinners. You can check em’ out at http://www.whatsyourmedstyle.com/medstyle/demo.aspx?cat=b
There are a lot of good tips on how much spice, cheese, etc, to use and what goes good with these quick and easy meals.. I work with them so I have the inside scoop,but check them out! We can all use a little help in the kitchen cant we?!