Genealogy Blog Prompt #6: Cooking and Food
My father-in-law was here for a visit a few years ago, and as I was setting the table one night he asked me, “Who taught you to cook?”. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but my eventual answer was “Almost everyone I have come in contact with”.
Of course, my mom was my first instructor, and I have to admit, probably my finest teacher. She not only taught me how to put food on the table, but to cook in a smart way. By that I mean that she was taught the “clean up and put away” method and that is what she passed along to me. Mom was not a gourmet cook or anything, but she could do it all. It was like she started at the beginning of a cook book and took on the dishes that appealed to her. Roasts with veggies, soups and stews, raisin pie for Dad, and desserts we all loved like pineapple upside down cake, peach cobbler, apple pie, and banana bread.
One of the funniest stories I can tell about my newlywed cooking attempts has to do with corned beef. Even though I thought I had paid attention when Mom was cooking corned beef brisket with all the vegetables, I missed one important step. After cooking my first brisket and serving it to Jim, I made a phone call to my mom annoucing, “I cooked corned beef and did it just like you did, even cutting up the meat in chunks!”.
My mom paused for a minute (no doubt laughing to herself) and then asked when I cut the meat. At that moment I knew I had done it all wrong. “Um, I cut the brisket in chunks and put it in to cook, adding the vegetables later”. It was then that she informed me that she cut up the meat after the whole thing was cooked (and easier to cut I might add) only to make it easier to cut up and eat. We had a good laugh about it. Learning to cook is a very humbling experience.
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Filed under: Genealogy
I like to throw stuff together, but I’m a horrible cook. Thank God Bill loves to cook or we would eat mac and cheese a lot or frozen dinners.
I’d have to say my mother was my main teacher, also…but so was my grandmother and great-grandmother. They must have come from a long line of good cooks, and I dearly hope I haven’t broken the chain! LOL
You stirred the memory of my first carrot cake…my poor husband had to chip it out of the pan with a knife…and the dear sat there and ate it, telling me it was the ‘best cake he’d ever had’. Awwww….
My mother laughed at that one…said, ‘he must really love you, girl!”
Very nice post. I learnt cooking from my dad who was a wonderful cook – great memories.