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?

I have been reading other replies to this and I have to say like some
folks here, I come from a rich food heritage. No, it wasn't the deep
south, but growing up in Virginia still gave me that rich southern
heritage.

I learned mostly from my mother, although I gained a lot from my
southern grandparents and family by osmosis. My mother raised three
daughters by herself, from the time I was a baby. And she worked
full time, and had to deal with me being in the hospital for a
prolonged time. Even with all of that, she came home and put dinner
on the table every night. Money was short, as my father wasn't giving
any child support for us, but we still ate well.

I didn't really get involved in cooking til I came home after 2 years
in the hospital..when I was about 6. My memories after that often
revolve around the kitchen: making pancakes, helping to knead bread,
and pouring even then through what cookbooks we had. I think it was
the checkered one, whichever one that was.

I can remember a lot of things from those years. My mother making
soup in this funny kettle thing that was a part of the stove we had.
Making chicken soup from a chicken that was freshly killed...and
unlaid eggs were still inside the chicken. I can remember the soup to
this day.

I was expected to help with cooking ever since I can remember. I was
the only one of my family to really take to it... I paid attention to
what my mother made, and there weren't many things to which I turned
up my nose.

I can remember helping my mother make fruitcake...and it gradually
evolved over the years to where I was the fruitcake baker in the
family.

My mother also taught me to bake bread. She made it every week and by
the time I was in my late teens I could do it on my own. And by the
time I was in high school, I was coming home and starting dinner on
many days.

By the time I was in my last years of high school, the Foods of the
World series by Time-Life was starting to be published. I saw
advertisements for them and I begged and begged my mother to let me
get those. I think those (after the JOC) started my lifelong cookbook
collecting. And by the time I went away to nursing school, those
books had been arriving in the mail for several months. I started
cooking a few things from those at home.

When I went away to nursing school...there wasn't much opportunity to
do any cooking. However I was exposed to new worlds of food...and I
would come home to visit and eat and cook then. After nursing
school, I started cooking and baking in earnest... and by that time, I
was starting to teach my mother some of the things I learned.

After that, I started collecting more and more cookbooks and learning
from them. By the time I was 25, I had been exposed to Julia Child's
books (some of them) and was really starting to branch out.. I
started becoming really adventurous then with all I was discovering.
And in my late 20s, the series The Good Cook started appearing..and I
really started expanding my food knowledge.

Now, I still learn. I have been lucky to have lived in one of the
great food meccas of the US (northern California) and that influenced
me profoundly. It still does... And now I find myself going back
and learning more and more about my southern heritage...and relearning
to cook some of the foods I grew up with... this time from food
forums, and books.

Christine