Another Day in the Country
What’s cookin’?
© Another Day in the Country
Does anyone really cook anymore? I’m beginning to wonder. I think a lot of people heat things up, stir up a box mix, pop something in the microwave, order in, order out, or just go out to eat.
The way we eat has changed. The things we eat have changed. Maybe the definition of cooking has changed, too.
I looked it up, even though I was thinking everyone knows what it is to cook. How difficult could this be?
To cook: (1) to prepare food for eating by boiling, toasting, baking, broiling, frying etc., (2) to subject to heat, (3) to tamper with, (4) to concoct, (5) devise (fraudulently) as in cooking the books.
— Webster’s Unabridged
That’s definitely not the definition of cooking that I have in my head. My definition does not call opening a box and heating the contents cooking.
In Pat Wick’s unabridged dictionary, I define cooking as skillfully assembling a variety of healthy, delicious, colorful edibles (heated or chilled, singly or in a combination) that are presented on a plate for consumption.
Webster called my kind of cooking, “cookery”: the art or practice of preparing food for eating.
Oh, well, whatever! Let it be cookery. I can enjoy cookery in my own home as well as relishing being able to visit friends who also engage in cookery. We just don’t do it as often as we used to.
Part of the joy of cookery for me is setting the table and anticipating whoever will be joining me. I like for the dishes and tablecloth to match the food being presented. For me, that’s half the fun of cooking — having guests enjoy the food.
Cooking always has been a big thing in my family. It was the way my mother and her mother before her showed love. When we’d come home, that first meal that we had together was always a big deal.
We knew what it was going to be: noodle soup with “butter balls” and freshly baked homemade bread. With a nod toward salad, Mom would cut up carrot and celery sticks and display them in a fancy side dish.
We always looked forward to this meal.
Cooking, even though it happened three times a day, was a ritual that got fancier when company was coming, or someone had an occasion to celebrate.
For Sabbath dinner (noon), birthdays and holidays, my mother would get out the “good dishes” and her best tablecloth with cloth napkins.
We’d always have some special recipe, tried and true, most of which involved cream — either whipped with sugar added or thickened covering vegetables.
My mother loved creamed corn, creamed beans, creamed peas. She even creamed cabbage. To this day, along with mashed potatoes, those creamed veggies are my comfort food.
Mom’s favorite creamy concoction was called banana and apple salad, which she’d whip up for any special meal.
The recipe was simple: equal parts sliced bananas and peeled, diced, crisp apples smothered in whipped cream. You should try it. It’s yummy.
Grandma specialized in fried chicken — so fresh that the chicken we were eating at dinner probably had helped provide the eggs we’d had for breakfast.
Gramm also made a variety of noodle dishes, covered again in cream as a savory sauce with onions added.
My cookery, learned in Mom’s kitchen, began to change the minute I had a home of my own.
We were in college now, on a diverse campus, in a bigger city. My young Midwestern husband had recently visited relatives in California and had been served something called tacos.
I’d never heard of them, but the concept he described was simple enough, and tacos became quick and easy standard fare for newlyweds with a limited culinary palette.
To some of you reading, it will seem strange for someone not to know what a taco was, but if you’re an octogenarian like me, you’ll remember when you first heard of them, right along with the first time you heard of pizza pie.
I remember thinking that a pie filled with tomato sauce and cheese sounded unimaginably ghastly, but once I ate some, I was hooked.
The food I now cook is so diverse it feels like globetrotting at the table: Italian, Middle Eastern, Chinese, Korean, French, and we won’t forget those German roots.
In homage I still make my own sauerkraut and homemade noodles as Mom did though I’ve given up on bread.
Today, instead of practicing cookery in the kitchen, I’ve been cooking up the Easter season in my living room — dragging down boxes of Easter decorations that always seem to be on the highest shelf.
When I put them away in May, I put them up top because it’s going to be a long time before I need them again. But lo and behold, in a couple of months, it’s spring.
Last year, Easter crept up on me, and I didn’t get some things done that I had intended to do because here in the decoration box, sealed in a plastic bag for safety, were two Easter cards addressed to my bonus grandkids that I never gave to them.
This year, I’ll cook up a little surprise, post them early enough so they can enjoy actually getting something in the U.S. Mail on another day in the country.