On Sat 12 Jul 2008 10:39:51p, modom (palindrome guy) told us...

> On Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:39:11 -0400, "Kswck" >
> wrote:
>
>>Parent, other family member, friend? Or did you have to learn on your
own?
>>
>>Mom boiled every veggie to death. Figure ALL pork must be cooked in a fry
>>pan covered with mustard and sauerkraut, till it's dead, beef so rare it
>>would moo and chicken ONLY in a pressure cooker, or Shake-N-Bake.
>>(Don't get me started on her soups-she believed food was to keep you
>>alive...taste? 'You want that too? Why?').
>>
>>Learned on my own.
>>
> I've tried to think of a good, simple answer to this, but it's not
> simple.
>
> My grandmother was a very good South Louisiana small town cook. Not
> Creole or Cajun, but influenced that way by the surrounding culture.
> And she doted on me (first grandchild), baking blackberry cobblers on
> days I brought enough berries home. She'd make homemade French fries
> for us at dinner time in an un-air conditioned kitchen in July. She
> never made really fancy food, but her cornbread dressing was well
> loved by the whole clan. And her dark roux gravy was fine. Once a
> week during the summer we'd go fishing and fry up a mess of bream for
> lunch when we got home from a morning on False River. And my
> grandparents had a small, but productive vegetable garden which
> provided us with a lot of very good fresh produce.
>
> My mother grew into cooking. She was very young when I was born --
> hadn't been making a home very long at all when I arrived. It was the
> 1950s and convenience foods were becoming more and more common. We
> ate our share of it early on because money was tight. But there was
> also always an odd spirit of adventure around our food that my
> father's macho ways contributed to: he was a sportsman then -- a
> hunter, a fisherman. So mom cooked dove breasts, crappie, bass,
> catfish, and (once in a while) frog legs. When I got old enough I'd
> hunt and fish and go "frogging" with him. I always liked to eat those
> things. A dove breast is a wonderful thing to eat. And mom cooked
> them well, though she wasn't averse to smothering dove breasts in
> cream of mushroom soup now and again.
>
> Also mom's Louisiana heritage led to our having a gumbo or an etouffee
> or a shrimp Creole considerably more often than our Texas neighbors
> after we moved to suburban north Dallas. And since she'd studied
> French in college, we'd have the occasional boeuf bourguinonne or some
> such Gallic dish.
>
> Eventually money wasn't as tight, and mom got more adventurous in the
> kitchen. By the time I asked D to marry me mom was a very good cook.
> When I took D to meet the family, mom made an appetizer of button
> mushrooms stuffed with lump crab meat in a buerre blanc, for example.
> Funny, 35 years later I remember that appetizer.
>
> Dad was the typical barbecue/charcoal grill guy cook. He made a brick
> pit on our suburban patio and cooked chickens with a
> catsup/mustard/molasses/Worcestershire/lemon juice sauce. Or burgers.
> Or sometimes steak.
>
> I was the one who cooked in the apartments I lived in during college
> when it was just guys. I tried to imitate mom and her mom, but didn't
> know as much as I thought I did. My first attempt at gravy was
> ridiculous. I didn't understand about the roux.
>
> What my grandmother and mom taught me wasn't how to cook, but how to
> appreciate cooking and good food. And I don't think I'm exaggerating
> to say they taught me that cooking for people is an expression of
> affection. Sometimes even love.
>
> The first cooking I felt I was good at was grilling. You know, the
> guy thing. Then smoking. Eventually I got better at cooking inside
> the house, too. I learned on my own, but I was made to do so by the
> food culture I was born to.
> --
>
> modom
> ** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
>

Nice writing, Michael.

--
Wayne Boatwright
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