"The Cook" > wrote

> I don't remember learning to cook. My mother was raised on a farm in
> NC and cooked like her mother. She may have picked up some things
> from her MIL but I don't remember Grandmama cooking much. We seemed
> to eat out when we visited.
>

Your post made me remember something I have not thought about for years. My
mother's grandmother had a farm nearby, and her mother had chickens. This
was during the Great Depression and WWII, so that may be another reason she
was
weird about food--shortages of money and certain foods, rationing and such.

She would not eat many things, often due to texture issues. This included
onions,
garlic, celery, and mushrooms. She could only eat eggs over easy, and then
just
by dipping toast in the yolk, she did not actually eat the eggs except for
the yolk.
No mayonnaise or any other type of dressing. These are all things I really
love,
so I found her cooking bland most of the time, but her baking was amazing.

She did make things like potato salad and other salads, but we had to taste
them
for her because she could not stand mayo.

Her roast beef was the worst, I think because she rarely had it growing up,
so
she had no idea how to cook it. It was always eye of round, that nicely
shaped but awfully tough cut. I never had tender beef at home at all, so it
is
about the last kind of muscle meatI learned to cook.

I think another thing that kept me from getting interested in cooking until
pretty
late was just the style of dishes she and many other 1960s moms cooked.
Either
casseroles in which everything was a sodden lump, or bland tasting, often
overcooked meat with lumps of overcooked vegetables on the side. NO
al dente pasta. All rice was white.