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.

On Sat 12 Jul 2008 02:39:11p, Kswck told us...

> 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.

Initially, and at a very your age, my mother, grandmother, and great-
grandmother. All three were fine cooks. That was a foundation and
springboard for me learning and refining on my own. You never stop
learning about food.

--
Wayne Boatwright
-------------------------------------------
Saturday, 07(VII)/12(XII)/08(MMVIII)
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
In silence man can most readily
preserve his integrity. - M. Eckhart
-------------------------------------------

In article >,
"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.

Learned from my mother and the Edmonds Cookbook, aka the NZ food bible.

Miche

--
Electricians do it in three phases

"Kswck" > wrote in message
...
> 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.

My mother tried but I kept going upstairs to read or going out to catch
frogs with my Dad.

On Jul 12, 2:39*pm, "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.

Mom cared more about taste and texture than that but didn't have much
skill. I learned the basics from the two ladies who ran the school
cafeteria where I had a succession of jobs, and from the short order
cooks at a couple of joints where I worked during college. Then Julia
showed me how to appreciate and try to achieve more than the basics,
Jacques taught me techniques from his shows and his books, Jeff Smith
widened my culinary horizons even further. More than from all of them
I learned techniques and ingredients for Chinese food from my Chinese
uncle whom the rest of the family considered the best cook of them
all. He was actually an organic chemist whose work included crafting
scents and perfumes but cooking was his favorite hobby. The other
night I was lightly browning some dry flour in a skillet in order to
darken it for a sauce I was going to make and had to smile because I
remembered my uncle telling me, "you don't have to do this but the
result will be better even if no one else knows why." -aem

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.
>

Both grandmothers, but mostly my grandmother on my Mom's side. She
taught me how to make homemade noodles (the skill skipped a
generation--my Mom couldn't do them if her life depended upon it) and
gravy. My dad was also a cook (short order, mostly, in diners and
various restaurants), but he didn't cook much at home. He would
sometimes bake for special occasions. Learned to love cinnamon rolls
from eating his. Picked up a few things from him. My grandfather on my
Mom's side was a butcher. Learned a lot about meat and knives from him.
Picked up a lot of the rest of my love of food and kitchen skills by
watching and reading some of the greats like Julia Child.

Other more recent influences have been Alton Brown, Mario Batali, Ming
Tsai, and Lynne Rossetto Kasper.

Kswck said...

> 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 caught on to a couple of my favorite dishes Mom cooked by watching
carefully.

Pop Pop was suave carving the turkey. I paid strict attention.

Inherited cookbook volumes became my best cooking resource. Foolproof!

Andy

"Kswck" > wrote in message
...
> 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 taught me to cook. In my birth family's tradition, men don't cook except
when working as cooks or chefs in a professional capacity. Men cooking at
home is just a no-no. When I moved to a rooming house in another city to
attend college, I barely knew how to boil water. The guys I lived with
helped with the basics, but I quickly wanted to try fancier stuff and bought
cookbooks (there were almost no cooking shows on TV back then). Which
explains why I'm something of a retard when it comes to cooking compared to
most people here.

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.

All of the above plus experience in commercial kitchens. Any time anyone
made a meal for me that I enjoyed, they were asked for the
recipe/technique etc. If it was an awful meal, also took note *never* to
do that!

Arri wrote on Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:44:33 -0600:


> 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 guess I drew up knowing how to make breakfast fried stuff and probably
learned from my mother. She wasn't a bad cook and used the freshest
ingredients but tended to cook vegetables to death.

Until I shared a house and also all the chores with 3 others, I'd never
really tried to cook apart from barbequing steaks and corn in the nearby
national park. My future wife was not very complimentary about my steaks
:-) However, I'm a chemist of sorts so I bought a book and my first meal
in the shared house was not unsuccessful.
--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not

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.

my birth mother was a professional cook before the madness took over
completely, so the genetic touch was there. my step-mother and your
mother were sisters in the kitchen. i learned from watching others,
being taught how to cook mexican food by the first mother-in-law and
from then on it was hit or miss, experimenting, watching friends, and
reading cookbooks.

harriet & critters hiding from the heat.

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 learn something from nearly every person who cooks for me or
lets me assist. Learning can be defined as a positive thing
("Do it this way") or a negative one ("Yuck, don't EVER...")


gloria p

Kswck wrote:
> Parent, other family member, friend? Or did you have to learn on your
> own?

I ventured out on my own with not a clue about how to cook.
My mother did all the cooking and I was only permitted to
do potato peeling, like that.

I really like to see when people cook with their kids, I think
it's a great idea all around. They get a head start on life as
far as being able to take care of themselves, and maybe they
will eat different foods if they make it. It's a good interest to
cultivate.

My first mil taught me a little bit, she was a fabulous cook.
Italian. I learned crazy stuff from her, like you could cut up
an apple or an orange, whatever was in the refrigerator, and
put it in a tossed salad. Wow. Laugh if you will, but really
that's the first time I started to think about food in a different
way. Food-wise I'd led a pretty sheltered life, except that I was
the only person I knew of my friends, etc., who'd ever had
sushi.

nancy

"Wayne Boatwright" > wrote in message
6.120...
> On Sat 12 Jul 2008 02:39:11p, Kswck told us...
>
>> 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.
>
> Initially, and at a very your age, my mother, grandmother, and great-
> grandmother. All three were fine cooks. That was a foundation and
> springboard for me learning and refining on my own. You never stop
> learning about food.

My mom, who was always a fabulous baker has gotten to be a better and
better cook as the years have passed, my mother-in-law, whose roots are
Southern and has some really great signature dishes, and the home-ec
classes we had to take in junior high. Yes, those home-ec classes were
great!

With exceptions here and there, no one in my family cooked. Learning to
cook was therefore an act of rebellion. (One grandmother made
hamentaschen with us. My mother sometimes made a meat & tomato sauce.
Other than that, it was broiled meats, salads, and frozen vegetables.
Not bad, not what you would call cooking.)


I learned from cookbooks, trial and error (lots of hideous and humorous
errors), the Culinary Institute, Jim, and more cookbooks.


--Lia

Kswck wrote:
> Parent, other family member, friend? Or did you have to learn on your own?
>
The cooking gene definitely skipped a generation in my family. I do
remember my mom and aunt showing me a few things, but I think my love of
cooking comes from my grandmother. She didn't specifically show me how
to cook, but I know I observed her quite a bit. I've noticed that my
cousins are also much more culinarily (I'm pretty sure that's a made up
word) gifted than their parents.

I was interested and wanted to learn. I did learn a lot from the chiefs
on PBS. My efforts were encouraged and appreciated which then spurred
me on to more. So I guess I fall more into the learning on my own side.

--
Queenie

*** Be the change you wish to see in the world ***

"Kswck" > wrote in message
...
> 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.
>

At home, I could fry an egg, make a burger and other simple survival types
of cooking but had no interest aside from that. It was some years later that
I really started to get interested. Frugal Gourmet and Romagnoli's Table
were the two that really got me interested so I took the time to learn basic
cooking and some of the science behind it.

Out of necessity I've been doing the majority of cooking the last couple of
years so there definitely was a payoff in time spent learning. Wish I had
watched my grandmother more though. I certainly miss some of her meals.

"Kswck" > wrote in message
...
> 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.

A little of D. All of the above.
My mom taught me some things, my grandma taught me some things, my aunts
taught me some things and I taught myself alot of things.

I've aldo attended some of the cooking classes at Great News....but mostly
because the menu looked interesting and I wanted the recipes! lol

kimberly

When I was five I begged my mother to let me cook. She said anyone who
wants to be a good cook must know how to read. So I taught myself to
read. When I could sort of stumble through stuff she made me read the
directions on the Jello box. When I could do that (albeit) with
coaching, I made , , , Jello. It was all smooth sailing from there
(well, mostly).

My mother was a good and adventuresome cook. I remember Chinese food
from a cookbook by some nuns from Peking/Beijing borrowed from the
library. She spent years trying to recapture the English foods my dad
grew up on - lemon curd tarts, Yorkshire Pudding, Boiled dinner with
suet pudding, beef and potatoes . . .

I made my first entire meal at between eight and nine years old.
Venison Swiss Steak, baked potatoes, green beans and butterscotch
pudding. Then I used to wait until the grown ups were gone and go
into the kitchen and experiment. No wonder they would never give me a
chemistry set for my birthday.

Later on she turned me on to Julia (I bought the books!) and the
Frugal Gourmet, but my strongest skill is walking into somebody else's
kitchen and improvising a meal from whatever I can scrounge up -
occasionally a disaster, but almost always edible.

Now I am retired due to disability, I live alone and HATE to cook for
one. If you're ever in North Dakota . . .

Lynn from Fargo

Lynn from Fargo wrote:

> She spent years trying to recapture the English foods my dad grew up on -
> lemon curd tarts, Yorkshire Pudding, Boiled dinner with suet pudding, beef
> and potatoes . . .

You have my sympathy.

Bob

On Jul 12, 9:07*pm, "Bob Terwilliger" >
wrote:
> Lynn from Fargo wrote:
> > She spent years trying to recapture the English foods my dad grew up on -
> > lemon curd tarts, Yorkshire Pudding, Boiled dinner with suet pudding, beef
> > and potatoes . . .
>
> You have my sympathy.
>
> Bob

==================================
Thank you, Bob.
I love lemon tarts and Yorkshire (which I have been known to make for
one!)
The boiled dinner and suet pudding I havent made since my dad died.

Lynn in Fargo

On Sat 12 Jul 2008 07:07:19p, Bob Terwilliger told us...

> Lynn from Fargo wrote:
>
>> She spent years trying to recapture the English foods my dad grew up on
>> - lemon curd tarts, Yorkshire Pudding, Boiled dinner with suet pudding,
>> beef and potatoes . . .
>
> You have my sympathy.
>
> Bob
>
>

I would treasure such a meal!

--
Wayne Boatwright
-------------------------------------------
Saturday, 07(VII)/12(XII)/08(MMVIII)
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
I've a cat in my lap and I can't get up!
-------------------------------------------

"Beer Drinking Dog" > wrote in message
...
> Kswck wrote:
>> Parent, other family member, friend? Or did you have to learn on your
>> own?
>>

I mainly learnt from my Italian mum...she is an amazing cook, and can put a
scratch meal together, using only left-overs, and make it taste like a
gourmet meal (I haven't quite got that knack yet)

she never follows a recipe...using them only as a guide if she's trying
something new, but deciding it would be better if she added this or deleted
that etc

only problem with her cooking, is she never writes anything down, or only
rarely, and so for each time that she makes something truly outstanding, we
would never get it quite the same way again cos she'd forget what she put in
the first time! lol

My dad was a second chef, cooking mainly fish, but he was old school and
always said that since he was married, why should he cook at home when he
had a wife (sheesh!) but occasionally he'd cook Sunday breakfast; French
toast was a fave

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.

Julia Child, Frugal Gourmet, etc. mostly. I took over most of the
cooking in the house pretty early since my mother wasn't a particularly
good cook (she could bake ok). Now that I'm many miles away, she's
learned to cook a bit better and has been known to call me for culinary
advice.

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 pretty much learned on my own. Somebody (my mom, maybe?) gave me a
children's cookbook - probably a youth version of the Joy of Cooking -
that I read cover to cover. I believe that was the summer between 3rd
and 4th grade. Good info on basic techniques and plenty of decent
recipes. I got a lot of practice because my parents were busy that
summer building our new house.

Until I started cooking on my own I thought I hated vegetables. Turns
out, I just hated canned vegetables. My own kids regard canned green
beans as dog food, because that's the only reason I buy them. Our dogs
are athletes and keeping them at their ideal weights leaves them feeling
deprived. Given the opportunity, the wolves in their DNA tell them to
gorge 'til it hurts, eat it all, eat it now, who knows when your next
kill might be? Scheduled feedings are too recent an innovation to
trust. So I add high bulk, low calorie veggies to their meals to help
them feel satisfied.

Usually I make enough extra of whatever vegetable I'm making for the
family so that the dogs can have some but if whatever I've made is too
spicy, greasy or onion-y (big no-no) they get canned green beans or
canned pumpkin. I've actually seen my daughter shudder at the sight of
canned green bean casserole at a holiday potluck. I feel pretty much
the same myself.

On Sat 12 Jul 2008 08:21:43p, Kathleen told us...

> 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 pretty much learned on my own. Somebody (my mom, maybe?) gave me a
> children's cookbook - probably a youth version of the Joy of Cooking -
> that I read cover to cover. I believe that was the summer between 3rd
> and 4th grade. Good info on basic techniques and plenty of decent
> recipes. I got a lot of practice because my parents were busy that
> summer building our new house.
>
> Until I started cooking on my own I thought I hated vegetables. Turns
> out, I just hated canned vegetables. My own kids regard canned green
> beans as dog food, because that's the only reason I buy them. Our dogs
> are athletes and keeping them at their ideal weights leaves them feeling
> deprived. Given the opportunity, the wolves in their DNA tell them to
> gorge 'til it hurts, eat it all, eat it now, who knows when your next
> kill might be? Scheduled feedings are too recent an innovation to
> trust. So I add high bulk, low calorie veggies to their meals to help
> them feel satisfied.
>
> Usually I make enough extra of whatever vegetable I'm making for the
> family so that the dogs can have some but if whatever I've made is too
> spicy, greasy or onion-y (big no-no) they get canned green beans or
> canned pumpkin. I've actually seen my daughter shudder at the sight of
> canned green bean casserole at a holiday potluck. I feel pretty much
> the same myself.

I found "The Boy's Cookbook", '59 Edition, at the library when I was 14. I
had already been cooking for quite a while before then, but this book had
some great recipes in it that I still use.

--
Wayne Boatwright
-------------------------------------------
Saturday, 07(VII)/12(XII)/08(MMVIII)
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
My other car is a broom!
-------------------------------------------

"MG" > wrote in message
>
> My dad was a second chef, cooking mainly fish, but he was old school and
> always said that since he was married, why should he cook at home when he
> had a wife (sheesh!) but occasionally he'd cook Sunday breakfast; French
> toast was a fave
>

That's the way it was. I never saw my father or grandfather cook anything.
Mom stayed home and did the housework while dad went to his job or ran the
family business.

On Sat 12 Jul 2008 08:48:23p, Edwin Pawlowski told us...

>
> "MG" > wrote in message
>>
>> My dad was a second chef, cooking mainly fish, but he was old school
>> and always said that since he was married, why should he cook at home
>> when he had a wife (sheesh!) but occasionally he'd cook Sunday
>> breakfast; French toast was a fave
>>
>
> That's the way it was. I never saw my father or grandfather cook
> anything. Mom stayed home and did the housework while dad went to his
> job or ran the family business.

My dad was master of the great behemoth of a stone barbecue he had built
back in the 1950s. It was a huge thing that he burned hickory logs in. He
also made great oatmeal. :-)



--
Wayne Boatwright
-------------------------------------------
Saturday, 07(VII)/12(XII)/08(MMVIII)
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
Cats have their own lives; get on with
yours
-------------------------------------------

Wayne Boatwright > wrote in
6.120:

> My dad was master of the great behemoth of a stone barbecue he had
> built back in the 1950s. It was a huge thing that he burned hickory
> logs in. He also made great oatmeal. :-)
>

My mom was a great cook...so I liked food...Myh ex couldn't cook to save
her soul, I liked food therefore I learned to cook.

When you get married at 20 cooking is the last thing on your mind.

--

The house of the burning beet-Alan

On Sat 12 Jul 2008 09:14:35p, hahabogus told us...

> Wayne Boatwright > wrote in
> 6.120:
>
>> My dad was master of the great behemoth of a stone barbecue he had
>> built back in the 1950s. It was a huge thing that he burned hickory
>> logs in. He also made great oatmeal. :-)
>>
>
> My mom was a great cook...so I liked food...Myh ex couldn't cook to save
> her soul, I liked food therefore I learned to cook.

My mom was a great cook, too, and I learned a lot from her.

> When you get married at 20 cooking is the last thing on your mind.

In my own home I have almost always been with a partner, but I have always
been the "cook", regardless. Even in college, I felt like I spent half my
life in the kitchen.

--
Wayne Boatwright
-------------------------------------------
Saturday, 07(VII)/12(XII)/08(MMVIII)
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
'Bother!' said A. A. Milne, as he pooh
poohed Disney.
-------------------------------------------

Kswck wrote:
> Parent, other family member, friend? Or did you have to learn on your own?

Primary teacher was my mother. Others were aunts and an Italian landlady
who taught me how to make "gravy" (tomato sauce) Cooking is one of the
things I truly enjoy, so I am still learning new techniques and recipes
all the time.

--
Janet Wilder
Bad spelling. Bad punctuation
Good Friends. Good Life

On Sat 12 Jul 2008 09:24:47p, Janet Wilder told us...

> Kswck wrote:
>> Parent, other family member, friend? Or did you have to learn on your own?
>
> Primary teacher was my mother. Others were aunts and an Italian landlady
> who taught me how to make "gravy" (tomato sauce) Cooking is one of the
> things I truly enjoy, so I am still learning new techniques and recipes
> all the time.
>

One never stops learning how to cook things.

--
Wayne Boatwright
-------------------------------------------
Saturday, 07(VII)/12(XII)/08(MMVIII)
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
Camera men on strike, Slides at 11.
-------------------------------------------

Kswck wrote:
>
> Parent, other family member, friend? Or did you have to learn on your own?

Without realizing it, mom taught me how not
to cook. She is what I would call a recipe cook.
Except for a few dishes that she copied from
her mother and a few things she made very often
(hence had a chance to observe improvements
in her technique), almost everything she made came
from a recipe, usually in the newspaper, a women's
magazine, or the Boston Cooking School cookbook.

I'm an intuitive cook. I never use recipes,
and the only times when I measure both time and
quantity is when boiling rice. I'll time
pan-frying a steak, and I'll measure the
temperature of the water I use to brew coffee.
Those are the only cases that are so sensitive that
I don't use my own judgement. For everything else,
I evaluate by visual inspection, aroma, and taking
samples. (When I'm doing multiple batches of the
same thing, I may measure time while evaluating
the first batch, then run all subsequent batches
at the same time. For example when I'm making
a large quantity of food for a pot-luck.)

While my dad was alive, mom always made fresh bread.
This was a really dense, large crumb, bread full of
healthful grain flours and meals that my dad seemed
to like. I never much liked that bread, so I don't
recall eating much bread except white bread
when young. My favorite food was fried rice,
so mom would make that all the time. But the bread
is an example of a recipe which my mom was constantly
changing and improving to suit my dad.

When I had to cook on my own for the first time,
when I went to college, I was eating mostly omelletes
and Campbell's soup. My standard breakfast was
to boil a pack of ramen noodles and set them aside,
beat into two eggs a few large spoonfuls of dried
parsely flakes, half spoonful of curry, dash of
fine ground black pepper, fry a couple strips of
bacon, eat the bacon, pour the noodles into the
hot bacon fat to fry with constant stirring
until I could see they were getting fried, dump
in the eggs and keep stirring until the eggs
were half set-up and half liquid, then pour into
a large Pyrex measuring cup for presentation (hah!),
fill the pot with water so I can scrub out the egg
residue later, and go back to my room while the eggs
continued to set up. I liked them somewhat runny.

I ate that almost every day as a college student,
with some soup (initially, Lipton's dried soup,
but later Campbell's) in the evening. As I recall,
I'd boil some water with an immersion heater,
break an egg into it, beat it into an emulsion
with a fork (I discovered that if you beat the egg
immediately after dropping it in, it formed into
something like dilute milk rather than flakes and
clumps), then I'd dump a can of some Campbell's
soup into this egg-enriched hot water.

This mostly reflected my interpretation of my mom's
advice about nutrition. She always told me to
eat lots of eggs and drink lots of milk, which
I did. It wasn't until my biochemistry class
when gout was described, that I recognized that
this diet was responsible for my swollen, painful
feet during the new quarter, when I would have
to make many trips on foot to the campus bookstore
(distance of a few miles) carrying heavy loads of
books. I also learned a lot about nutrition in that
class, which contributed toward unlearning a lot
of what mom taught me about what food I should eat.

I didn't really to start learning how to cook
until in my 20's, when I began to try to reproduce
foods I really liked. The two foods that were
most important at that time were fried squid,
which had been made by a joint that went out
of business. As a teenager, I'd always try
to get my mom to stop there so we could have
the squid. The other was the quesadillas that
were made at the El Torito restaurant chain.
The crowd I was with in my 20's really liked
those quesadillas.

The squid was a tough nut to crack. The way
I solved the problem was by making squid in all
of the wrong ways, and understanding why they
were wrong. A liquid batter, for example,
is unnecessary for squid and leads to an
undesirably thick coating. And it's much more
difficult to handle than a powder coating. Not
peeling the squid skin leads to poor adhesion of
the coating and off-flavors. I made many batches
of squid before I made one that was acceptable,
and even more to equal the quality standard
I was trying to equal and eventually beat.

The quesadillas were easy. It rapidly became
a game of how much better I could make it.
The main improvements I introduced were broken
(not crumbled) bacon into the cheese layer
which had no bacon in the original, putting
individual small dollops of guacamole on each
slice rather than a single large dollop on
the side or spead around (I forget which they
did), and pressing half of a cherry tomato
into the guacamole on each slice with the axis
of the placenta pointing toward the center of
the quesadilla (El Torito used no tomatoes).

After those two projects, pretty much all of
my education has been using the trial-and-error
method. The important skills to learn are
how to tell bad from good, and how to diagnose
ways in which to remedy defects. The former
may seem trivial, but it really was the hardest
one to learn, and I'm still learning.

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 **

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
-------------------------------------------
Saturday, 07(VII)/12(XII)/08(MMVIII)
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
Welcome to the Church of the Holy
Cabbage. Lettuce pray
-------------------------------------------

"Kswck" > ha scritto nel messaggio
...
> 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.

In culinary terms I was luckier in my choice of mothers. It started with
her and seeing how much pleasure cooking well gave her. AAMOF, I like doing
all the things that my parents openly enjoyed, like reading, gardening, etc.
I did not like everything my mother made, but since she was a child of the
Depression, some of it was wierd. Waste not, you know.

"Lynn from Fargo" > wrote in message
...
> When I was five I begged my mother to let me cook. She said anyone who
> wants to be a good cook must know how to read. So I taught myself to
> read. When I could sort of stumble through stuff she made me read the
> directions on the Jello box. When I could do that (albeit) with
> coaching, I made , , , Jello. It was all smooth sailing from there
> (well, mostly).
>
> My mother was a good and adventuresome cook. I remember Chinese food
> from a cookbook by some nuns from Peking/Beijing borrowed from the
> library. She spent years trying to recapture the English foods my dad
> grew up on - lemon curd tarts, Yorkshire Pudding, Boiled dinner with
> suet pudding, beef and potatoes . . .
>
> I made my first entire meal at between eight and nine years old.
> Venison Swiss Steak, baked potatoes, green beans and butterscotch
> pudding. Then I used to wait until the grown ups were gone and go
> into the kitchen and experiment. No wonder they would never give me a
> chemistry set for my birthday.
>
> Later on she turned me on to Julia (I bought the books!) and the
> Frugal Gourmet, but my strongest skill is walking into somebody else's
> kitchen and improvising a meal from whatever I can scrounge up -
> occasionally a disaster, but almost always edible.
>
> Now I am retired due to disability, I live alone and HATE to cook for
> one. If you're ever in North Dakota . . .
>
> Lynn from Fargo

That last part is sad, and makes me want to drop by, but I'm 2,500 miles
northeast of you. :-( Maybe when I visit my friend in California we could
work something out.

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

Christine Dabney said...

> 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


GREAT food story!!!

Thanks!!!

Andy

Wayne Boatwright wrote:
> On Sat 12 Jul 2008 09:14:35p, hahabogus told us...
>
>> Wayne Boatwright > wrote in
>> 6.120:
>>
>>> My dad was master of the great behemoth of a stone barbecue he had
>>> built back in the 1950s. It was a huge thing that he burned hickory
>>> logs in. He also made great oatmeal. :-)
>>>
>>
>> My mom was a great cook...so I liked food...Myh ex couldn't cook to
>> save her soul, I liked food therefore I learned to cook.
>
> My mom was a great cook, too, and I learned a lot from her.
>

My mom wasn't a great cook, but she got us interested in cooking by the time
we were about 3. She could bake, though. We always helped with cookies or
cakes (she always cooked from scratch) and she made it fun by letting us
lick the bowl or the mixers after we helped. Oh, and she used to make all
kinds of puddings and custards - dang, the memories!

She served typical dinners, though. Meatloaf, chop suey, chicken
cacciatore, chicken noel, fried cod, and the ever-famous tuna noodle
casserole. My dad, every Sunday, rain or shine, snow or sleet, grilled on
Sundays. It could be -36F outside, and my dad would be grilling. I dreaded
Sundays because I've never been a fan of meat. LOL. Our family was of the
mind that you will sit at this table until you eat everything. I *still*
don't eat meat! :~)

kili