How did you learn to cook

[Guest guest]

For survival then it became an art to me.

My Mom was an expert baker but her food could make a bear run away from it.

I started with easy recipes like mashed potatoes, boiled and mashed rutabagas,

easy soups. I found a little steamed pan insert used for 50 cents and decided

steamed veggies had to taste better than the green glob my Mom would boil up, I

couldn't tell her peas from spinach. I ventured into clay pot cooking, I

thought if steamed and mashed potatoes tasted good I have an idea clay pot

roasting would make them even better. Oh it does.

The only cookbooks we had were Betty Crocker and Good Housekeeping and a Fannie

Farmer along with some odds and ends. I would and still do use these.

The Hare Krishna's gave me their cookbook on the day I decided to become

vegetarian. I used it for months non-stop, then I found The Vegetarian Epicure

and this quickly became my favorite along with the Tassajara cookbook and their

bread cookbook.

I have made many awful dishes teaching myself, I have also created many terrific

dishes. I had and still have fierce determination.

I fail at sewing and knitting, I never liked it and I gave it a good try many

times. I don't have an interest, it's not my thing and I don't need to do those

the crafts to survive lol

Donna

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

[Guest guest]

I learned to cook from watching my mother mostly in the kitchen, my dad

sometimes when he got the hankering to try his hand at it, (he makes a to die

for spanish rice), then when we visited Florida my grandmother let me experiment

in her kitchen. I made killer chocolate chip rum bars once. Can't remember for

the life of me how to recreate it! lol That was AFTER she had to take a chisel

to one of her cookie sheets (I now own it) to scrape off the attempted chocolate

chip rum cookies. lol She took one look at the batter and said that is a bar

batter honey, here let's try this. It was so cool she didn't have kittens the

way my mother always did. (I literally ONLY watched my mom, didn't dare breathe

in her kitchen cause the second I did I got yelled at for being underfoot.)

However I learned how to make easy stir fry's, my own sauces, and some killer

desserts from her, just from watching. I swear her terimsu is the best, she

learned from a real Italian Nona while we were stationed there. She is great at

picking up the cousines of where ever we lived and incorporating them into our

everday meals. In Germany we ate borsht and the hard rolls (name escapes me),

in DC we ate lots of mac-n-cheese (basic american foods of the 70's though not

so much casseroles cause she hates them), in Italy she mastered the art of pasta

(she already knew how to make noodles) and some killer desserts made with fruits

and tons of chocolate, then in England she made the meat pies (yes I know), and

traditional roasts (yes I know), however the yorkshire pudding is killer, as

were the roasted veggies (still my favorite way to eat a tater), in Texas she

learned the art of Tex Mex (and that's where my Dad got intreasted and started

with the rices and also gumbo's for some reason) we also grilled a lot more, now

here in Alabama it's all of the above for all of us. She lived in the

Philipeans during the Vietnam war as a nurse - where she met Dad and she picked

up asian techinques there, and just mastered them all over the years. She was

raised on a farm in IN and baked all the time and cooked for all her 6 brothers

and sisters plus her parents because her mother couldn't. So in watching her I

picked all these things up! Talk about having a gold mine at your finger tips!

Now that I'm older she lets me in her kitchen and we discuss recipes,

techniques, and problem solving. She is my go to Mrs. Fix it so to speak. Now

my gramma good ol' fashioned deep south cooking with the native american

influences from either her great grandmother or her great great grandmother.

(Our family was one of the first to settle in North Florida, we were part of the

deporting of criminals crew that England was doing both here and in Australia,

and one of mine ended up in Wakulla county where most of them still are lol.)

So she taught me fry bread or a huge fried biscuit they call " hoe cake " in

Florida though it's not the little pancake thing most people are familiar with,

it's literally a HUGE fried biscuit. YUM! She could go in the woods and find all

sorts of things to eat, but she wouldn't as that was " survival food " and " who

wants to do that when you can just go to the store " . In my cooking I trace

my roots and my wanderings. I always strive for that connection and that was my

motivation. I want to taste the foods I tasted as a kid, the foods my ancestors

tasted, and if at all possible to cook them just as they did. (I can't even

begin to tell you the difference in taste from an Italian pizza in Italy vs.

pizza here. It's to die for!) LOL I wrote a book! If you got this far thanks,

if not I don't blame you! Food and cooking is one of my favorite topics!

~Tee

 

 

[Guest guest]

I learned to cook by watching people cook...a lot from television, but I have

learned how to make quite a few dishes by watching people make

them......especially if it's something that you don't use a recipe for, I like

to watch how they make it. I cannot for the life of me cook meat, it always came

out wrong.....I think that was someones way of trying to point me in the

vegetarian direction. Point taken!

 

I love cookbooks, but I much prefer to watch someone make something to learn

how. How to cook everything the basics is a good, very basic technique

cookbook....although it is meat heavy. His book, How to cook everything

vegetarian is great, I highly recommend that one.  

 

Michelle in NH

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Hi,

 

I first learned to cook to a small extent when I became a

short order cook my first year of college. I worked from

10PM to 6AM on Friday and Saturday nights. Admittedly

the menu was rather limited. However I learned to flip

an egg without a spatula and without breaking it (usually),

just with the pan. Exciting, eh?

 

Actually most cooking involving recipes is more like

chemistry to me and I think I took 3 or 4 semesters of

advanced chemistry in college so usually if I have the

proper ingredients and tools at hand and am sufficiently

patient, no problem.

 

Gary

 

 

[Guest guest]

That is all it is, Gary. Correct measurements and putting them together at

the right time.

 

M

 

On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 4:00 PM, Gary Mattingly <gsmattinglywrote:

 

> Hi,

>

> I first learned to cook to a small extent when I became a

> short order cook my first year of college. I worked from

> 10PM to 6AM on Friday and Saturday nights. Admittedly

> the menu was rather limited. However I learned to flip

> an egg without a spatula and without breaking it (usually),

> just with the pan. Exciting, eh?

>

> Actually most cooking involving recipes is more like

> chemistry to me and I think I took 3 or 4 semesters of

> advanced chemistry in college so usually if I have the

> proper ingredients and tools at hand and am sufficiently

> patient, no problem.

>

> Gary

>

>