http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=236x79009Oh my.
Arkansas Granny (1000+ posts) Thu Jul-15-10 11:16 AM
Original message
So, what sparked everyone's interest in cooking and how old were you when you started?
My mom wasn't a bad cook, but her cooking was pretty basic and bland. It was a big day when she discovered oregano for spaghetti sauce and I don't think I ever saw a clove of fresh garlic in the kitchen. I didn't realize at the time, but we were really poor so the food budget was pretty slim.
When I was about 10 years old, she went back to work. She would leave me a list of things to do (peel potatoes, carrots, etc.) so she would have a head start on fixing supper when she got home. I enjoyed it and it really helped her out, so she bought me a cookbook of easy recipes for young cooks and I was hooked. I started at the front of the book and fixed nearly every recipe in it and could put a complete meal on the table by the time I was 12 or so.
I'm not a fancy cook and the old standbys are still my favorites and the ones that are most requested and complimented. All 4 of my kids started cooking by helping me out in the kitchen and they are all good cooks now. There's nothing we enjoy more than getting a bunch of us together and fixing a big meal for family and friends.
Warpy (1000+ posts) Thu Jul-15-10 11:58 AM
THE DEFROCKED WARPED PRIMITIVE, #09 TOP PRIMITIVE OF 2009
Response to Original message
1. My mother hated cooking and it showed
Oh, she tried and I have a book of recipes she clipped out of magazines and the newspaper and she had a few things that were actually quite good, but I consider the biggest favor she ever did me was not teaching me her culinary secrets.
When she went to work, it was as a schoolteacher and then principal, so she was usually home in time to cook. Most of the time, it was convenience foods if my dad was on the road, which he usually was.
I started to experiment when I was about 12 when my parents were gone and I could fiddle around in the kitchen undisturbed. I got serious at 18 when I left home and was too poor to live out of restaurants.
Fanny Farmer was supplanted by Julia Child when I was 22. After that, there was no stopping me and I traveled around the globe by checking ethnic cookbooks out of the library and trying exotic recipes with exotic ingredients and new techniques. I got to the point that I prefer a Chinese cleaver for most jobs, fewer sliced fingers.
I think I inherited the cooking gene from my dad's side of the family and I'm deeply grateful for that.
Arkansas Granny (1000+ posts) Thu Jul-15-10 12:19 PM
Response to Reply #1
4. I don't think my mother hated cooking. It was just something you had to do, but she didn't get a lot of enjoyment out of it.
EFerrari (1000+ posts) Thu Jul-15-10 03:56 PM
DOUG'S STUPID EX-WIFE, #03 TOP PRIMITIVE OF 2009
Response to Reply #1
10. I thought my mom hated cooking but finally figured out that she hated having to cook for us as a single mom who'd never learned to cook and after working all day and a half. Mom did a lot of things with pleasure I thought she had no interest in when we were out of the house.
My grandmother cooked for us until I was about 11. She had never learned to cook either, being from a country where everyone had cooks. Mami soldiered on for about ten years without a clue. The only thing she seemed to take pleasure in was baking one or two recipes. She never really enjoyed "her" kitchen at all.
I don't know if I enjoy cooking or just working problems hands on. I also like mixing paint, fixing stuff around the ranch and used to do a lot of sewing. Maybe next time, engineering would be the way to go.
Food itself has always been important to me because a big cooking day meant a family gathering, the extended family, and that has always been my hub.
beac (1000+ posts) Thu Jul-15-10 12:01 PM
Response to Original message
2. My mom was a good cook, but I too got my start cooking from a children's cookbook.
My mother was kind enough to let me serve my favorite, Tuna Casserole (the kind with the crushed potato chips on top), for dinner now and then. Around twelve, I had to take over and finish preparing Thanksgiving dinner when my mom had to rush off to take care of some snafu at my grandmother's nursing home. I guess I'd absorbed a lot by watching her over the years and my gravy was such a hit that I became the designated gravy-maker every year after that.
I really got interested when I worked in the office of a catering company in high school. Eventually, I asked to be moved to the kitchen because even deboning 150 pounds of chicken (this was in my pre-vegetarian days!) was more interesting than bookkeeping and billing.
MajorChode (1000+ posts) Thu Jul-15-10 06:34 PM
Response to Original message
12. My two grandmothers were my biggest early influence
Both of them had very different cooking styles. My maternal grandmother had all her recipes in her head and she never measured anything. I suspect she could probably scoop out a cup of flour and be within a few grams of being spot on. She could pour vanilla straight out of the bottle and probably be within a few drops of a teaspoon every time. Despite not owning a single measuring cup or set of measuring spoons, her creations turned out incredibly consistent each time. She had a relatively small set of recipes that she did very well and almost never made anything else.
My paternal grandmother measured everything to the nth degree. She kept a big box of index cards with hundreds of recipes, but those were really just the starting point by which she forged her own creations. She kept a notebook with details on the modifications she had made to various recipes. She would often try new recipes and work with them until she was satisfied they were perfect. She also had an uncanny ability to eat something at a restaurant or made by someone else, and recreate that recipe herself with a pretty high degree of fidelity.
hippywife (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-18-10 09:45 PM
MRS. ALFRED PACKER
Response to Original message
17. Not sure how old but it was pretty young. I would spend weekends with my Italian gran any chance I got and we spent time in the kitchen. My mom was a good cook but at home it was always "you have to" when it came to anything in the kitchen, so it wasn't as much fun.
I've always loved cooking and baking for as long as I can remember.
Vinca (1000+ posts) Mon Jul-19-10 08:37 AM
THE HIP-IMPAIRED VINDICTIVE PRIMITIVE, A NOTORIOUS RE-SELLER
Response to Original message
19. I didn't enjoy cooking until well into my marriage.
My early attempts as a teenager who was stuck filling in for a working stepmother were disastrous. There was the meatloaf that poured out of the pan and muffins that made their way around the neighborhood to see who could break one when thrown against a brick wall. My first attempt at spaghetti and meatballs produced a pot of hot, slimy, greasy goo - guess I forgot to cook the meatballs first. I have to credit my husband, who worked as a cook for a short time, for teaching me enough of the basics to get me started. Now I'm a wannabe chef.
yellerpup (1000+ posts) Tue Jul-20-10 02:07 PM
Response to Original message
25. I was always interested in food and my grandmother, Flora, was my biggest influence. She had a kitchen in the house and a separate "cookhouse" so we could cook to our heart's content and keep the main house cool enough to still be able to sleep at night. She taught my mom (a teenage bride) to cook and mom always made good pies (including the crust which no one in our family would ever dream of NOT eating) and quick breads like biscuits and cornbread, muffins, pancakes & waffles. Grandma always had a huge vegetable garden plus an orchard, and we spent most days all summer long in "putting up" one thing or another. Tomatoes, chow chow, piccalilly, okra and stewed tomatoes, quart upon quart of green beans, beets, and dill pickles. We made apple butter, plum and grape jelly, and jars of whole pears from the orchard and pint jars of wild blackberry jam. The only fruit we would buy was strawberries for ice cream and jam. Being interested in eating made me interested in cooking and exploring different cuisines.
I was the first person in our very well-fed family to ever try a mushroom or a tortilla. I'm still hooked on both. She also had a pecan grove, raised a steer and two or three pigs to share with the rest of the family every year. Then there was the small dairy herd so we always had fresh milk. We churned butter but sold the good stuff off for cash while we bought and ate oleo for five or ten cents a stick. Grandpa had a hand for chickens, so we were never lacking for eggs either. On the other hand, the men in our family hunt, so we also had duck, rabbit, squirrel, and venison. My favorite motivating quote from Grandma: "If you can get to where you can cook good enough, honey, you can get practically anybody in the world to come to your house to eat." She was right.
As a teen, I began cooking for crowds. My family moved at least once a year, so I was always the new kid in school and having to start from the ground floor to make friends in each new town. All I had to do to draw a crowd of teens was offer them food. I started out making home made pizza, but soon the local boys thought it would be fun to challenge me, so I also learned how to prepare frog legs and pheasant just to prove I could without being grossed out. For years, I expressed my creativity almost totally through cooking. It is still a favorite activity that I can be excited about and know that it will also calm me down.
Hmmmm. franksolich was born at the tail end of a big family, and as the parents were usually away, his younger brother and he were fed by older brothers and sisters resentful that they had to be culinary for us. One can imagine the nightmare--grease and glop and more grease and white bread and minced ham and Jello and chocolate candy and yet more grease and fish-sticks and &c., &c., &c.
Which turned franksolich "off" on food, for which he credits his good health today.
