Just got back from a fun but exhausting mini-vacation with the kids, and I don't have the energy for any exotic cooking today. So, let's talk about my bookshelf. Well, my cookbook-filled bookcase. My husband and I are serious book-a-holics so this is by no means the ONLY bookcase in my house, but it is the only one completely filled with cookbooks.
Since I have a difficult time getting rid of books, I probably have pretty much every cookbook I've ever purchased, with the lone exception of the copy of The Joy of Cooking which I left in France at the end of my junior year abroad. My backpack was already a whopping 40 kilos, and I didn't need to add the weight of a cookbook. My cookbooks range from some vintage cookbooks I bought for fun, to oddball cookbooks I bought for research interests, to standards, to some high-end cookbooks which I use less for cooking and more for recreational purposes (i.e. "Damn, that looks good. Too bad I don't have three days and $100 to make it.").
While I have yet to finish my saga of how I learned to cook, let me be clear that I am a decent home cook but have no formal training. Most of the learning I have done has been some basics from my mom, additional techniques from watching various good cooks make really good home cooked food from many countries, wayyyyyyy to much time spent reading cookbooks and food blogs and watching cooking shows, and a lot of trial and error. I think it would be fun to take some cooking classes, but I am not one of those people who has a secret desire to quit my job, go to culinary school and then open my own restaurant. First of all, I actually enjoy my career already and second I have enough self-awareness to know that I am a fat middle-aged woman who does not have enough talent, desire or stamina to enter the culinary world. All of this is to say that I have some cookbooks which I purchased before I knew how to evaluate a good cookbook from a bad one.
Falling into this category is a book by Kaye Johns called A Pinch of This and a Dash of That published in 1988, and probably purchased by me in 1988. This is not a widely known cookbook--a Google search turns up a few stray used copies for sale on eBay. I also just Googled Kaye Johns--apparently she and her husband have since started a Christian ministry involving making videos. From what I can tell, she is a good Christian woman from Texas who had her own radio show wherein she recounted touching stories about cooking and her family.
The cookbook contains recipes ranging from not-very-exciting-but-probably-tastes-pretty-good to very strange indeed. Now, here are the reactions from my two personalities:
Anthropologist/Folklorist: How interesting. Given what I know about popular recipes published for women from the 20s through the early 60s, I recognize the sometimes surprising use of gelatin, the use of canned and dried ingredients, and the emphasis on dishes which could be made relatively quickly. She probably learned to cook from her mom and from 4-H and home ec classes as a child and teenager. She's appealing to her primary audience, middle-class homemakers in the south and west.
Just me, the cook: Holy crap! Where on earth did she come up with some of THESE? Here's a few examples...
Peanut Cheese Ball
1/3 cup chopped peanuts
1/3 cup stuffed green olives
1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1/2 jar (2.5-oz.) dried beef, chopped finely
Thoroughly mix peanuts and olives with cream cheese; shape into a ball. Spread dried beef on a sheet of waxed paper; roll cheese ball in it, pressing slightly so it will stick. Serve with an unsalted or bland cracker.
Zingy Tomato Salad
1 small pkg. cherry gelatin (four-serving size)
1 cup boiling water
1 can (16-oz.) sliced tomatoes, undrained
1/2 cup sour cream
Dissolve gelatin in boiling water; add tomatoes and pour into a mold. Refrigerate until set. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.
Open-Faced Peanut Butter Sandwich
1 slice toast
Chunky Peanut Butter
Favorite jam or jelly
1 slice Swiss cheese
Spread toast with peanut butter, then jelly. Top with slice of Swiss cheese and broil until cheese melts.
Rich Creamed Eggs
6 eggs, hard-cooked and peeled
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/3 cup mayonnaise
Parsley, chopped
Hard cook the eggs and peel. While they are still hot, slice them in half lengthwise and place them in a pretty dish. Mix soup and mayonnaise together and heat carefully; do not boil. Spoon sauce over eggs, sprinkle with parsley and stir.
I'm not sure what prompted me to hold on to this cookbook for the last 25 years. For a long time, it was kind of like watching a train wreck. Horrifying, but tough to look away. Now that I understand the historical context a bit better, I think of it as an interesting, if slightly gross, historical document. Just one of the many exciting cookbooks to be found on my bookshelf!
Monday, May 14, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Feeding the Kids
I am currently on a short vacation with my children, ages 11 and 7. They are the exact opposite in their dietary preferences. They are both picky in their own ways. My son hates all fruits and vegetables, as far as I can tell. At dinner he must have a bite of everything on his plate, and he will comply, but with incredible facial contortions to let me know how torturous it is to actually eat a piece of asparagus or a strawberry. He likes bread and meat, but the meat can't have any visible fat and must be easy to chew. He likes crackers and mashed potatoes, but won't eat boiled or roasted potatoes. He hates cheese. He likes sweet things, but generally is very disciplined about only eating a little bit. His preferred drinks are water and plain milk.
My daughter is slightly more adventurous. She likes most fruits and quite a few vegetables. She'll eat some meat. She likes bread, but won't eat crusts. She used to eat cheese, but no longer does since she likes to copy her brother. She doesn't like sauce on her pasta, even though she'll eat raw tomatoes with no problem. Her biggest issue is that she has a ravenous sweet tooth. She won't drink milk unless it's chocolate. Given her druthers, she would eat fruit, candy and cake all day long. She loves juice and soda, so I have to strictly limit them (at least the soda). She has the frustrating habit of ordering in restaurants then deciding she doesn't like the food. She also would prefer to graze all day, rather than sit and eat a meal.
How do these food preferences happen? How can two kids be so different? I've read lots about how to feed kids so they won't be picky, but so far no luck. I have always made a point of serving fresh fruit and vegetables, and I serve a wide variety of foods. I make this kids try a bit of everything, but don't force them to eat a bunch of anything they don't like. If they don't like dinner, they may get themselves a yogurt or make a peanut butter sandwich, but I won't fix a second meal for them. Theoretically, this stuff should have resulted in two food-flexible kids, but it hasn't. Why?
Part of the answer may have to do with what they eat during the day. They both were in daycare from babyhood, and were fed institutional food there. The daycare made an effort to serve healthy foods, but it was still institutional food. They both eat school lunches. There again, federal guidelines are followed, but it's institutional food. That kind of food is easier for kids to eat, and probably affected their tastes early on. Should I have sent them with a packed lunch every day? Maybe. They don't particularly like sandwiches, to when I do pack lunches for them I'm always scratching my head about what to do for a main course. They don't have access to a microwave, so they can't heat up leftovers. Maybe I should have worked harder to find workable lunch solutions.
But maybe this is just them, and maybe it's just their ages. I was a somewhat picky eater, and my sister was extremely picky. Could it be genetic? Or is it just the nature of children to grumble about what they're presented with at home?
My daughter is slightly more adventurous. She likes most fruits and quite a few vegetables. She'll eat some meat. She likes bread, but won't eat crusts. She used to eat cheese, but no longer does since she likes to copy her brother. She doesn't like sauce on her pasta, even though she'll eat raw tomatoes with no problem. Her biggest issue is that she has a ravenous sweet tooth. She won't drink milk unless it's chocolate. Given her druthers, she would eat fruit, candy and cake all day long. She loves juice and soda, so I have to strictly limit them (at least the soda). She has the frustrating habit of ordering in restaurants then deciding she doesn't like the food. She also would prefer to graze all day, rather than sit and eat a meal.
How do these food preferences happen? How can two kids be so different? I've read lots about how to feed kids so they won't be picky, but so far no luck. I have always made a point of serving fresh fruit and vegetables, and I serve a wide variety of foods. I make this kids try a bit of everything, but don't force them to eat a bunch of anything they don't like. If they don't like dinner, they may get themselves a yogurt or make a peanut butter sandwich, but I won't fix a second meal for them. Theoretically, this stuff should have resulted in two food-flexible kids, but it hasn't. Why?
Part of the answer may have to do with what they eat during the day. They both were in daycare from babyhood, and were fed institutional food there. The daycare made an effort to serve healthy foods, but it was still institutional food. They both eat school lunches. There again, federal guidelines are followed, but it's institutional food. That kind of food is easier for kids to eat, and probably affected their tastes early on. Should I have sent them with a packed lunch every day? Maybe. They don't particularly like sandwiches, to when I do pack lunches for them I'm always scratching my head about what to do for a main course. They don't have access to a microwave, so they can't heat up leftovers. Maybe I should have worked harder to find workable lunch solutions.
But maybe this is just them, and maybe it's just their ages. I was a somewhat picky eater, and my sister was extremely picky. Could it be genetic? Or is it just the nature of children to grumble about what they're presented with at home?
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
What to Do With Strawberries, Part II
I bought another large container of strawberries on Sunday, and it occurred to me that I had better do something with them quickly. Since they arrive from California, they're probably already a week old by the time they hit the stores, and tend to spoil very quickly. My kids have learned some new expletives after seeing me sort through yet another container of half-spoiled strawberries. I wish they grew more of them here! I mused about the strawberry situation yesterday, wanting to do something a little different. Strawberry Bavarian? Nah. Strawberry Cake? Nah. Strawberry Shortcake? Nah. Should have thought of strawberry daiquiris, but that didn't occur to me until just now. Dang.
Coincidentally, tonight was daughter's Sooner Strings Beginning Orchestra concert, down at the University of Oklahoma concert hall, and I was supposed to bring something for the reception afterward. I know, cream puffs!
The beauty of cream puffs is that they are so easy to make. The batter (pate à choux) comes together quickly and isn't overly delicate or fussy. You can stuff the completed puffs with all kinds of good things. I could use the strawberries and make something kid-friendly at the same time!
There are recipes for cream puff pastry all over the place. All of them are straightforward. Here's one I used:
8 T butter (1 stick), cut into pieces
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 cup all purpose flour
4 eggs
To start with, combine butter, salt, sugar, milk and water in a saucepan, and bring just to a boil over medium heat.
When it is just at a boil and the butter has melted, add the flour all at once.
Stir and cook briefly, about a minute, until mixture comes together and begins to leave a film on the pot.
Turn off the heat, and let the batter cool for a few minutes. Now, beat in the eggs, one at a time, until fully incorporated. This is a stiff batter, so it will take some elbow grease--just think of it as your exercise for the day. Congratulations, the batter is done! Preheat oven to 425F. Place parchment paper on two baking sheets--this will keep the puffs from sticking to the pans. You have two choices when making the puffs, well three. First, you can do what I did and use two tablespoons to drop 24ish dollops of cream puff batter on the parchment. Second, you can use a pastry bag with a large tip to pipe 2 1/2 inch dollops onto the parchment. I rarely do this because I hate cleaning out the stupid pastry bag. Third, and I do this one sometimes, is to stuff the cream puff batter into a gallon Ziplock bag, twist the top, and cut a hole in one end and use it to pipe the batter onto the parchment. Using the spoon method, I ended up with something that looked like this:
I brushed these with a simple egg wash (i.e. a beaten egg) because it makes the final cream puff darker and shinier. It's not strictly necessary though. Bake at 425F for 15 minutes. Turn down the heat to 400F and bake an additional 15 minutes. Since I was using two baking sheets, I had to use two different shelves in the oven. I switched the location of the baking sheets halfway through the baking so everything would cook evenly. When done, take them out of the oven and give them a poke with a knife to let the steam vent.
Put them on a cooling rack, and let them sit for at least 30 minutes until cool. If you aren't going to use them for a day or two, store in an airtight container in a cool, dry place. If you fill them too early, they tend to get all soggy (yuck).
Ok, folks, here's where I have to make a confession. Normally I would make some whipped cream, but these were going to have to sit out unrefrigerated for at least two hours, so that wasn't going to work unless you're into deflated whipped cream. Alternatively, I would make some vanilla pastry cream. Pastry cream isn't hard, but it takes time to make and it needs to be thoroughly chilled before using. I was running short on time, so I actually used instant vanilla pudding, figuring this was going to be for kids who wouldn't know the difference anyway. (I'm so ashamed...)
On the plus side, I got to use my brand new Cuisinart hand mixer given to me recently by a bunch of generous colleagues! (Thanks, guys!) Once you have your filling, cut the cream puff in half, then spoon in some filling. Add some cleaned, cut strawberries.
Close it up, and voilà, you have a strawberry cream puff!
Now repeat 23 more times...
For those who are wondering, daughter's concert went great. Here's the serious photo:
And here's daughter mugging for the camera, a more normal photo where she's concerned:
Sadly, we never actually got to eat any of the cream puffs, as they were completely devoured by the time we got through the reception line. Oh well. Time to buy another container of strawberries!
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Weeknight Meal: Wonton Soup
One of the advantages of growing up with a number of Asian friends is that I learned early on to make wontons (and Chinese dumplings) by the time I was a teenager. Now I'm not claiming that what I make is completely authentic, but it is fresh. My kids' favorite homemade soup is wonton soup (although they are also partial to homemade cream of tomato soup). It's one of those things that I don't have or follow a recipe for. It changes depending upon what I have on hand and how strong I want it to taste. But I made it for dinner tonight, and here's the basics.
For the wontons:
Buy pre-made wonton wrappers. I'm all for homemade, but let's not go crazy here. I can usually find them in the grocery store around here. If all they've got is eggroll wrappers, just get those and cut them in half. They're made out of the same stuff.
Today I used about 1/2 pound of ground pork. You can also use ground chicken or shrimp, or some combination. I have a meat grinder attachment for my mixer, so for chicken or shrimp I grind my own.
Flavorings-- today I used about
1 T soy sauce
2 minced garlic cloves
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated (I like to use a microplane grater)
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 green onions, using about the bottom two inches, chopped fairly fine
You can vary the recipe to suit your own tastes. Mix it all up well. Then make the wontons. There's lots of youtube videos out there for how to make wontons, but this one is pretty much what I do, except I use just plain water, rather than egg yolk, to seal it.
And now you've got your wontons! These are mine. I made about 60. Once you get the hang of it, it goes pretty fast.
Now, for the soup. If I wanted to go REALLY homemade, I'd use homemade chicken stock. I happen to be out at the moment, so I used the big carton of Swanson's chicken broth.
48oz or more chicken broth (about 6 cups)
1 T nam pla (fish sauce--nam pla is the Thai name, nuoc mam is the Vietnamese name), or more to taste
2 T soy sauce
3 cloves minced garlic
1/4 cup thinly sliced onions
2 julienned carrots
Again, you're really just flavoring it in a way which tastes good to you. I like the slightly sweet yet meaty taste the fish sauce gives the broth, but you can totally skip it if you don't have any, or if the thought of fish sauce makes you recoil. Same thing with the soy sauce--you could just go for a plain clear chicken broth (which is probably more authentic anyway) and it would be good. You can also throw whatever veggies you want in there--my kids like it pretty simple. I also like to add mung bean sprouts, but I was out. Bring to a slow boil and add the wontons. Simmer for about 10 minutes, until cooked through.
Helpful hint--if you boil them too hard or cook the soup with the lid on, your wontons will blow up like little balloons and some wrappers will spit out their little meatballs. I've made this mistake plenty of times, so I know whereof I speak. Unless you're into wonton balloons, in which case be my guest.
Finally, spoon out the soup. Make sure you give yourself plenty of wontons! And get seconds before the kids start lurking to see how many wontons are left so they can steal them.
For the wontons:
Buy pre-made wonton wrappers. I'm all for homemade, but let's not go crazy here. I can usually find them in the grocery store around here. If all they've got is eggroll wrappers, just get those and cut them in half. They're made out of the same stuff.
Today I used about 1/2 pound of ground pork. You can also use ground chicken or shrimp, or some combination. I have a meat grinder attachment for my mixer, so for chicken or shrimp I grind my own.
Flavorings-- today I used about
1 T soy sauce
2 minced garlic cloves
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated (I like to use a microplane grater)
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 green onions, using about the bottom two inches, chopped fairly fine
You can vary the recipe to suit your own tastes. Mix it all up well. Then make the wontons. There's lots of youtube videos out there for how to make wontons, but this one is pretty much what I do, except I use just plain water, rather than egg yolk, to seal it.
And now you've got your wontons! These are mine. I made about 60. Once you get the hang of it, it goes pretty fast.
Now, for the soup. If I wanted to go REALLY homemade, I'd use homemade chicken stock. I happen to be out at the moment, so I used the big carton of Swanson's chicken broth.
48oz or more chicken broth (about 6 cups)
1 T nam pla (fish sauce--nam pla is the Thai name, nuoc mam is the Vietnamese name), or more to taste
2 T soy sauce
3 cloves minced garlic
1/4 cup thinly sliced onions
2 julienned carrots
Again, you're really just flavoring it in a way which tastes good to you. I like the slightly sweet yet meaty taste the fish sauce gives the broth, but you can totally skip it if you don't have any, or if the thought of fish sauce makes you recoil. Same thing with the soy sauce--you could just go for a plain clear chicken broth (which is probably more authentic anyway) and it would be good. You can also throw whatever veggies you want in there--my kids like it pretty simple. I also like to add mung bean sprouts, but I was out. Bring to a slow boil and add the wontons. Simmer for about 10 minutes, until cooked through.
Helpful hint--if you boil them too hard or cook the soup with the lid on, your wontons will blow up like little balloons and some wrappers will spit out their little meatballs. I've made this mistake plenty of times, so I know whereof I speak. Unless you're into wonton balloons, in which case be my guest.
Finally, spoon out the soup. Make sure you give yourself plenty of wontons! And get seconds before the kids start lurking to see how many wontons are left so they can steal them.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Sunday Two-fer: No Knead Bread and Son Makes Brownies (without Ketchup!)
Sunday! Graduation ceremonies attended last night, a perfect day to avoid grading that last set of finals I got on Friday afternoon. Had several things going on in the kitchen today, including making a vat of hummus starting from dried chickpeas which husband said was "too foamy." Too foamy? What the heck does that even mean? "Too much air." Too much... air? Good Lord. Next time I let him make the hummus.
First up, son sees me in the kitchen and inquires as to the state of the dessert situation. I ask him what he wants. "Brownies!" He checks with his sister. "Brownies!" Okey dokey. "Can I help?" Well, it seems it's time to teach son to make brownies. He's made cakes before (from scratch, with supervision). Plus, following a recipe will build those reading skills! I haul out the America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. Woohoo! A recipe for "Classic Brownies." For beginners, even! I make him read through the whole recipe. What temperature do we set the oven to?? 325. Pan? 13"x9". How can you tell it's 13"x9"? Well, see that little designation on the pan that says 13"x9"? Yes, that one. How do we prep the pan? Greased aluminum foil sling? Forget it. That's just America's Test Kitchen fancy talk. Spritz with Pam.
Once we got the basics set up, it was on to the actual recipe. 6 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted with 12 T butter. No, you don't want to eat that (this time to my daughter). No you REALLY don't want to eat that. You really want to eat that? Go ahead. ...See, told you. Time to add the sugar. 2 1/4 cups. Measure it out. Beat it into the chocolate mixture.
Now add the four eggs. One at a time.
Now 1 T of vanilla. One tablespoon. The whole tablespoon. Yes, all the way to the top. Now mix up the dry ingredients. 5 oz cake flour. This is how the scale works. Ok, 3/4 tsp. baking powder. 1 tsp salt. Mix it up. Now fold it into the chocolate mixture.
Do you remember how to fold? You do! Mom's so proud! (sniff) Ok, let's put this sucker in the oven and bake it. How long? Yes, it's in the recipe. Keep reading. Keep reading. Yep, there it is--35 minutes.
And here is proud son, getting ready to eat the first brownie!
Ok, now onto the bread. I made this one. I've been playing around with no-knead bread--although I'm certainly no expert on this stuff yet. I've been working on modifying this loaf from the blog Nine Bean-Rows. Here's what I came up with this time:
2 cups bread flour
1/2 cup dark rye flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp dry yeast
1 T salt
2 tsp sugar
1 cup beer (I used some Corona in our fridge)
1/3 cup water
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
Mix together the dry ingredients. Mix the liquid. Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients and mix with a spoon until well combined (I actually kneaded a little with my hand to get in the last of the flour). Place in a greased bowl. Let sit overnight (I let it sit about 12 hours). The next day, turn out of the bowl. Knead a few times, and form a ball. Put on a plate with cornmeal to keep the dough from sticking when it is baked.
Let it rise for about two hours. 30 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450, and place a dutch oven with lid in the oven to heat. When ready to bake, slash the loaf three times and drop the loaf into the heated dutch oven, cover with lid, and place into the oven. Reduce heat to 425 and bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove the lid, and let the loaf continue to bake for another 25 minutes, until the crust looks dark but not burnt. Let cool, slice, and eat!
Takes time, but very little work. The vinegar gives it a nice tang and the beer gives it some richness. It has a very distinctive taste. The original recipe uses only white flour, less beer and more vinegar, but I like this multi-grain bread better. Way better than the crap you get from the grocery store!
First up, son sees me in the kitchen and inquires as to the state of the dessert situation. I ask him what he wants. "Brownies!" He checks with his sister. "Brownies!" Okey dokey. "Can I help?" Well, it seems it's time to teach son to make brownies. He's made cakes before (from scratch, with supervision). Plus, following a recipe will build those reading skills! I haul out the America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. Woohoo! A recipe for "Classic Brownies." For beginners, even! I make him read through the whole recipe. What temperature do we set the oven to?? 325. Pan? 13"x9". How can you tell it's 13"x9"? Well, see that little designation on the pan that says 13"x9"? Yes, that one. How do we prep the pan? Greased aluminum foil sling? Forget it. That's just America's Test Kitchen fancy talk. Spritz with Pam.
Once we got the basics set up, it was on to the actual recipe. 6 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted with 12 T butter. No, you don't want to eat that (this time to my daughter). No you REALLY don't want to eat that. You really want to eat that? Go ahead. ...See, told you. Time to add the sugar. 2 1/4 cups. Measure it out. Beat it into the chocolate mixture.
Ok, now onto the bread. I made this one. I've been playing around with no-knead bread--although I'm certainly no expert on this stuff yet. I've been working on modifying this loaf from the blog Nine Bean-Rows. Here's what I came up with this time:
2 cups bread flour
1/2 cup dark rye flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp dry yeast
1 T salt
2 tsp sugar
1 cup beer (I used some Corona in our fridge)
1/3 cup water
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
Mix together the dry ingredients. Mix the liquid. Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients and mix with a spoon until well combined (I actually kneaded a little with my hand to get in the last of the flour). Place in a greased bowl. Let sit overnight (I let it sit about 12 hours). The next day, turn out of the bowl. Knead a few times, and form a ball. Put on a plate with cornmeal to keep the dough from sticking when it is baked.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Who Taught Me to Cook? Part II
Sorry for the lack of actual food postings for a few days--it's been final exam week and I haven't done anything particularly interesting since Tuesday. Bread making tomorrow, I hope!
So, let's continue with the story of how I learned to cook. Probably the most pivotal moment in my childhood occurred when my parents decided to move from Detroit, where I was born, to Ann Arbor. It was only about 30 miles away but the environment was very different. In Detroit, I had lived in a working class/lower middle class neighborhood. I was born in 1966, and Detroit had seen race riots and all sorts of economic tensions. In 1973 my parents decided to find a better environment and moved to Ann Arbor. My father already had a brother and his family living in Ann Arbor, where his brother and sister-in-law were in school. The Detroit branch of the extended family were a little dubious about the move, as the University of Michigan certainly had a reputation at that time as being a place where people were rather wild and into drug culture. As a matter of fact, in the first year after we moved there, my mom was walking my sister and I across part of the central campus where there were a lot of students smoking hand-rolled cigarettes than smelled funny. My mom, who had most emphatically NEVER been into drug culture, I think took a couple of minutes to figure out what was going on, then increased her pace considerably to get us off the campus! It seems we had stumbled onto the annual April 1st Hash Bash. Live and learn.
We moved into a house near U of M married student housing. What this meant for me is that I attended public school with kids from all over the world, as the University of Michigan had a large and diverse international student population. I met many east Asian kids, but also children from Central and South America, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and just about any other place you can think of. I found this very cool, and loved getting to know about different people and how they lived. I remember going to a Venezuelan friend's house and seeing a poster of some Chinese guy named Mao and asking about it. It was my first lesson in the international Communist movement and its permutations in South America. I made friends with a girl from Iran who disappeared, never to be heard from again, after the Islamic Revolution. Another friend from Libya left abruptly when his dad was accused of being a spy.
Making friends with foreign kids sometimes meant being invited to eat over at their houses. I went from a very conventional and limited diet to tasting stuff which was, to me, exotic. I think my first exposure to Chinese food was when I was offered a steamed bun with meat inside--what I now know to be bao. I was told it was a Chinese hamburger, so I happily munched away. Since so many of my friends were Chinese or otherwise east Asian, I learned to use chopsticks by the time I was eight. It was either that or starve to death when playing at a friend's house! The chopsticks at Chinese houses were ok, especially if they were bamboo. Plastic chopsticks were a little tougher because they were so slippery. The hardest ones, however, were the flat silver chopsticks at Korean houses.
I learned about homemade tortillas, curries, many permutations on dumplings from around the world (generally my favorites), beans and rice, lumpia, egg rolls, sweet candy wrapped in rice paper, and couscous. I gradually learned to be more adventurous in my eating. My biggest challenge was vegetables. Vegetables, when they were served at my house, were often canned and of limited variety. I liked a lot of the seasonings on foreign food, liked the starches and most meats, liked the sweets, and was willing to try the fruit (what the heck was a lychee? I didn't know, but it tasted good), but I had a tough time with the vegetables. I'm sure that the parents who were feeding me exercised a lot of patience as I picked around vegetable for something I recognized.
All of these experiences taught me to be more open-minded about food (as well as religion, dress, table manners, political views, and just about everything else). They didn't necessarily teach me how to cook, however. I'm saving that for the next installment.
So, let's continue with the story of how I learned to cook. Probably the most pivotal moment in my childhood occurred when my parents decided to move from Detroit, where I was born, to Ann Arbor. It was only about 30 miles away but the environment was very different. In Detroit, I had lived in a working class/lower middle class neighborhood. I was born in 1966, and Detroit had seen race riots and all sorts of economic tensions. In 1973 my parents decided to find a better environment and moved to Ann Arbor. My father already had a brother and his family living in Ann Arbor, where his brother and sister-in-law were in school. The Detroit branch of the extended family were a little dubious about the move, as the University of Michigan certainly had a reputation at that time as being a place where people were rather wild and into drug culture. As a matter of fact, in the first year after we moved there, my mom was walking my sister and I across part of the central campus where there were a lot of students smoking hand-rolled cigarettes than smelled funny. My mom, who had most emphatically NEVER been into drug culture, I think took a couple of minutes to figure out what was going on, then increased her pace considerably to get us off the campus! It seems we had stumbled onto the annual April 1st Hash Bash. Live and learn.
We moved into a house near U of M married student housing. What this meant for me is that I attended public school with kids from all over the world, as the University of Michigan had a large and diverse international student population. I met many east Asian kids, but also children from Central and South America, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and just about any other place you can think of. I found this very cool, and loved getting to know about different people and how they lived. I remember going to a Venezuelan friend's house and seeing a poster of some Chinese guy named Mao and asking about it. It was my first lesson in the international Communist movement and its permutations in South America. I made friends with a girl from Iran who disappeared, never to be heard from again, after the Islamic Revolution. Another friend from Libya left abruptly when his dad was accused of being a spy.
Making friends with foreign kids sometimes meant being invited to eat over at their houses. I went from a very conventional and limited diet to tasting stuff which was, to me, exotic. I think my first exposure to Chinese food was when I was offered a steamed bun with meat inside--what I now know to be bao. I was told it was a Chinese hamburger, so I happily munched away. Since so many of my friends were Chinese or otherwise east Asian, I learned to use chopsticks by the time I was eight. It was either that or starve to death when playing at a friend's house! The chopsticks at Chinese houses were ok, especially if they were bamboo. Plastic chopsticks were a little tougher because they were so slippery. The hardest ones, however, were the flat silver chopsticks at Korean houses.
I learned about homemade tortillas, curries, many permutations on dumplings from around the world (generally my favorites), beans and rice, lumpia, egg rolls, sweet candy wrapped in rice paper, and couscous. I gradually learned to be more adventurous in my eating. My biggest challenge was vegetables. Vegetables, when they were served at my house, were often canned and of limited variety. I liked a lot of the seasonings on foreign food, liked the starches and most meats, liked the sweets, and was willing to try the fruit (what the heck was a lychee? I didn't know, but it tasted good), but I had a tough time with the vegetables. I'm sure that the parents who were feeding me exercised a lot of patience as I picked around vegetable for something I recognized.
All of these experiences taught me to be more open-minded about food (as well as religion, dress, table manners, political views, and just about everything else). They didn't necessarily teach me how to cook, however. I'm saving that for the next installment.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Who Taught Me to Cook? (Part I)
Who taught me to cook? That's kind of an odd and complicated question. I've been thinking a lot about that,. First of all, I don't come from a long line of good cooks. My paternal grandmother died long before I was born, but she was an Irish immigrant to the United States, first arriving in the early 1920s. I'm told that she used to make plum pudding for Christmas, although my aunts and father have told me about finding a coin wrapped in the pudding, rather than reminisced about how good it tasted. She may have in fact been a great cook, but the stories have never made it down to me. When my paternal grandfather (another Irish immigrant) remarried, he was probably in his 50s and married a woman from his hometown of Cork, Ireland. She had been living in New York City with relatives, and was something of a socialite. She had never had children and had never learned to cook or do any traditional "mom" things, so she was something of an awkward fit. I knew her as a small and somewhat fussy woman who had a good sense of humor and loved a good story. I also remember her offering me stale store-bought cookies. My father--who had gone a number of years without a mother in the house--had already suffered through my grandfather's meals, which I gather mainly involved boiled potatoes and tea at least twice a day. He grew up in Detroit, and says he used to go hang out by an Italian neighbor's house around dinner, hoping for an invitation to a dinner that actually tasted like something. To this day, he hates potatoes, quite the anomaly in a big Irish family. His step-mother, the woman I knew as "Grandmom" tried to cook for her new family, but not knowing how, she basically boiled everything. One time, she followed a recipe for what was probably baked ham--he watched her put on pineapple rings and cloves, maybe some brown sugar, with his mouth watering. Then he watched in horror as she slid the whole thing into boiling water to cook it. His sisters, my aunts, certainly became competent cooks, able to feel their families on a daily basis, and I did eat their food at family get-togethers--but being second generation Irish raised in the upper Midwest, their food tended to be fairly straightforward, and neither one taught me how to cook.
On my mother's side, I'm told that my great-grandmother was a good cook. She died when I was a baby. I don't think she made exotic food, but tales of her chicken and dumplings have certainly reached my ears over the years, although no one ever duplicated them for me (although I recently acquired a family recipe for dumplings, and I have spoken with my mom about trying to reproduce the dish). My grandmother, who was a rather difficult person (think battle-axe), was a good meat-and-potatoes cook who must have learned from her mother. I remember all dinners at her house featuring large fluffy mounds of mashed potatoes. I also remember said meals always containing a tug-of-war between my grandmother and my father. My father wouldn't eat potatoes, and my grandmother was used to her commands, including her command to eat the potatoes, being obeyed. It was the irresistible force meets the immovable object every time we came to dinner. Strangely, I also remember her serving my sister and I Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup for lunch, and I remember actually eating it--although I did develop a mushroom phobia later after watching an episode of Emergency! in which someone dies from eating poison mushrooms. Kids, if you don't know which show I'm referring to, Google it. I have a vague recollection of my grandmother showing me how to make mashed potatoes. I think a mixer was involved. However, mashed potatoes were of limited currency at home due to my dad's aforementioned aversion.
Then comes my mom. Many children learn to cook from their mothers. My mom was a competent cook at simple 1960s Midwestern dishes. I remember her showing my sister and I how to tear up bread then make stuffing for the turkey. I remember her making four kinds of cookies--oatmeal raisin, molasses, chocolate chip, and what I think were called sandies, although I now know them as Mexican wedding cakes. There might have been a peanut butter cookie or two as well, as I seem to recall making interlaced fork patterns on them. She made the occasional cake from a mix (as most women did in the 60s and 70s). She had a smallish repertoire of decent dishes--pork chops and egg noodles (which I still love), beef stew made with barley and tomato juice, spaghetti, pot roast with onion soup topping, all dishes which I recognize from reading about food in the 60s. When she used a recipe, she mostly used one cookbook which I believe she had received as a wedding gift-- Betty Crocker's New Picture Cookbook, published in the early 60s.
My mom taught me how to slice an onion without cutting myself, and how to read a recipe. She made some things I hated--Hamburger Helper and some tuna and pasta dishes. For lunch, my sister and I ate bologna sandwiches, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Spaghettios, and other standard kid fare. Well, my sister mostly ate Goober Grape sandwiches, but I do remember her eating the occasional bowl of Spaghettios or mac and cheese. In short, my mom used a fair number of convenience foods, but so did most of the other American moms I knew. Here's the thing though--my mom hated to cook. She cooked until my sister and I were old enough to fend for ourselves, then she kind of phased out the whole cooking thing. To this day, she still doesn't enjoy cooking and so rarely does it. Still, I probably learned my most basic cooking skills from her.
Stay tuned for Part II--moving to Ann Arbor and eating with kids from all over the world!
On my mother's side, I'm told that my great-grandmother was a good cook. She died when I was a baby. I don't think she made exotic food, but tales of her chicken and dumplings have certainly reached my ears over the years, although no one ever duplicated them for me (although I recently acquired a family recipe for dumplings, and I have spoken with my mom about trying to reproduce the dish). My grandmother, who was a rather difficult person (think battle-axe), was a good meat-and-potatoes cook who must have learned from her mother. I remember all dinners at her house featuring large fluffy mounds of mashed potatoes. I also remember said meals always containing a tug-of-war between my grandmother and my father. My father wouldn't eat potatoes, and my grandmother was used to her commands, including her command to eat the potatoes, being obeyed. It was the irresistible force meets the immovable object every time we came to dinner. Strangely, I also remember her serving my sister and I Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup for lunch, and I remember actually eating it--although I did develop a mushroom phobia later after watching an episode of Emergency! in which someone dies from eating poison mushrooms. Kids, if you don't know which show I'm referring to, Google it. I have a vague recollection of my grandmother showing me how to make mashed potatoes. I think a mixer was involved. However, mashed potatoes were of limited currency at home due to my dad's aforementioned aversion.
Then comes my mom. Many children learn to cook from their mothers. My mom was a competent cook at simple 1960s Midwestern dishes. I remember her showing my sister and I how to tear up bread then make stuffing for the turkey. I remember her making four kinds of cookies--oatmeal raisin, molasses, chocolate chip, and what I think were called sandies, although I now know them as Mexican wedding cakes. There might have been a peanut butter cookie or two as well, as I seem to recall making interlaced fork patterns on them. She made the occasional cake from a mix (as most women did in the 60s and 70s). She had a smallish repertoire of decent dishes--pork chops and egg noodles (which I still love), beef stew made with barley and tomato juice, spaghetti, pot roast with onion soup topping, all dishes which I recognize from reading about food in the 60s. When she used a recipe, she mostly used one cookbook which I believe she had received as a wedding gift-- Betty Crocker's New Picture Cookbook, published in the early 60s.
My mom taught me how to slice an onion without cutting myself, and how to read a recipe. She made some things I hated--Hamburger Helper and some tuna and pasta dishes. For lunch, my sister and I ate bologna sandwiches, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Spaghettios, and other standard kid fare. Well, my sister mostly ate Goober Grape sandwiches, but I do remember her eating the occasional bowl of Spaghettios or mac and cheese. In short, my mom used a fair number of convenience foods, but so did most of the other American moms I knew. Here's the thing though--my mom hated to cook. She cooked until my sister and I were old enough to fend for ourselves, then she kind of phased out the whole cooking thing. To this day, she still doesn't enjoy cooking and so rarely does it. Still, I probably learned my most basic cooking skills from her.
Stay tuned for Part II--moving to Ann Arbor and eating with kids from all over the world!
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