what does cooking mean to you?
My mom likes to tell the story of when I was a teenager making my lunch. As I was heating a hot dog in the microwave, I turned to our dog and proudly announced “Kim’s a cook’n!”
My mother laughs when she tells this story, but where does she think I got the idea from? While my grandmother cooked and baked almost everything from scratch (her homemade doughnuts are legendary), my mother did most of her cooking from a box and used the microwave more and more as the years went on. By the time I started in the kitchen, I continued the downward spiral from scratch cooking to assembling and heating.
Michael Pollan discusses this decline in cooking in his most recent article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. A food-marketing researcher explains how years ago people killed, plucked and gutted a chicken before they cooked it. Who would do that today? (Okay, I know some people who still do but not on a regular basis.) He claims our grandchildren will think that cooking something for dinner is as crazy as starting with killing a chicken. On the cooking spectrum ranging from scratch to reheating, our society seems to be moving more and more toward the reheating end. You can see the end of cooking from here.
Gosh, I sure hope not. For myself, I stopped the downward progression. Over the years I have learned to cook by watching my mother-in-law and her mother-in-law and by being willing to make oh so many mistakes. Now that I am almost 40 and have a family of my own, I cook almost every night and I don’t even own a microwave.
But the question remains, what does it mean to cook? I can only define it for myself. I strive to cook from scratch as much as possible, but I am willing to use shortcuts if need be. Cooking for my family is a balancing act made up of day-to-day choices as to where to draw the line between scratch cooking and convenience. I make all birthday cakes from scratch. I get a CSA box of vegetables from a local farm and challenge myself to use everything. (Sweet corn ice cream anyone?) I eat Fritos.
In order to srike the right balance, I focus on my pantry. If I have items like flour and yeast, I can make bread, usually in my bread maker. If I have rice, beans, a can of tuna, I am all set to add some sauteed vegetables and call it a casserole. The trick is to have items for scratch cooking as well as shortcut items. I have both canned and dried beans, instant rice and regular. If I have time and plan ahead, I cook from scratch, otherwise, I open a can or boil a bag.
I do draw some hard lines. I have never bought a ready-to-eat meal that you simply reheat in the oven. I always make my own breadcrumbs and stock for example. I keep them both in the freezer. The convenience forms of these foods are too processed for my taste.
I am always negotiating with myself as to where to find the balance and am proud of my progression from microwaved hot dogs to homemade doughnuts. I am currently teaching my 5-year-old daughter how to make my grandmother’s doughnuts so she doesn’t have to start as far back as I did. I don’t know where she will find herself on the cooking spectrum but I am hoping she will not find cooking crazy.
Do you cook? If so, how? And, what does cooking mean to you?
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oh i just love cooking and eating. i love to cook pasta recipes and the like.,*’
me and my mom always love to cook and eat delicious recipes;*-
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my mother and i loves to do cooking and baking-”‘
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me and my husband loves cooking and we love to taste lots of food stuffs too’.;
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I am coming to you today to tell you about my hopes and dreams of being a perfesional chef. Well first my name is Imani Miller and I am 13 years of age. I attend school at the Stadium School on Gorsuch Ave. At my school they have a cooking class for the 8th graders called the Food and Nutrition class and in that class we cook very basic foods from many diffrent countries like China,and North America. We also cook many healthy dishes with very little meat. My hopes of being a cook are very postive. Me and my mom spends most of our time in the kitchen making recipes and learning the basics of trying to be a perfesional chef.We have ben also trying diffrent foods from all over the world. So yes I do cook. I cook because it is very fun and I enjoy doing it with many others.Well…… what I think cooking means to me is just to basicly you have to just love it and enjoy what it is or what type of cooking it is your doing. This is what I love and think about cooking. I love it, Ilove it, Ilove it, and I love it sooooo very much!! Thankyou for saying what you said it really does inspire me alot to keep my dream of cooking going forward to the next level. So THANK YOU again. Bye,Bye I will talk to you another time and please do respond back.
Hiii everyone Im back on this same day. Me and my mom just cooked got finish cooking salmon,corn, and mac&cheese now thats what I call a HomeMade meal and ohhhhhhhh was it so delisous. Everyone liked it they say it taste like I put my foot in it and of course I laughed Ha Ha Ha Ha. Now how exciting is that. I think I’ll cook it again tommorow.Thats all I wanted to say now thank you and bye bye……………
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cooking is my passion and a hobby for me, besides, i love to eat lots of foods -*;
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[...]what does cooking mean to you? | Mom in the kitchen[...]…
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