Saturday, August 05, 2023

Telegram From Planet Dull

     Had a commenter the other day refer to my cooking as "experiments" and express the hope that I "won't poison my renter."

     Look, mister, I'm sorry if your Mom raised you on boxed mac'n'cheese, bologna sandwiches on white bread and box-mix pizza, supplemented by Mickey Dee and The Colonel, but there's nothing particularly experimental about my cooking, and normal, ordinary supermarket vegetables aren't random weeds.  Turnips, rutabaga, beets, parsnips, fennel and celery root have been eaten and enjoyed by millions of people for thousands and thousands or years.  Likewise rice, blackeyed peas, crowder peas, green and red kidney beans, pinto and black beans, garbanzos, lima and butter beans and so on. This stuff is food.  Shishito peppers are a little new in most U. S. markets, but bell and banana peppers, chilis and poblanos aren't.  Radishes and leeks have been around since almost forever -- diakons or "watermelon radish" (red on the inside!) is still uncommon.  Kale and other greens are as old as the hills!

     I grew up eating a lot of it.  We grew kohlrabi, snap peas, green beans, cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, radishes, cabbage, various kinds of tomatoes and melons and more in our own garden.  In the winter, we enjoyed an assortment of canned, frozen and dried vegetables along with the supermarket's fresh stuff.  (Mixed-bean soup made from many different kinds of dried beans plus some strong ham, simmered for hours and served with chopped fresh onion and celery is a winter treat not to be missed!)

     Mom cooked a variety of meat -- various cuts of beef and pork, ham, chicken, turkey (at the holidays) and so on.  At least once, my parents got together with friends and bought an entire side of beef, had it butchered, divvied up the results and stocked the freezer for months.  Several times a year, my Mom made a delicious clear-broth beef stew that neither my sister nor I have ever quite duplicated, and she could turn out chicken and noodles that would float you the the dinner table by sheer force of the aroma.

     There were always cookbooks in the kitchen, and my mother liked to try new foods and encouraged us to do so as well. 

     I'm proud of my cooking, and it is deliberately a little intuitive.  I'm especially proud of being able to cook well over coals.  I've been doing that since I was of junior high school age -- when my family would go on vacation, Mom preferred her Coleman (white gas) or, later, LP stove but I did most of the campfire cookery.

     How and what I prepare and the ingredients I use are about as ordinary as you can find.  They're not very processed.  Both of my parents grew up during the Great Depression and WW II, and in large families without large incomes.  As children, they ate mostly fresh, unprocessed food whenever it was available, and when they started their own family, they fed their own kids the same things.*  It was not health-nut stuff; bacon and eggs was our usual breakfast and there was plenty of red meat on the dinner menus.  But it was often fresh, there were nearly always two different vegetables to go with the meat and they preferred whole-grain bread (Roman Meal, which has about vanished) or home-made white bread to the squishy supermarket version.  Other starches like rice or potatoes were counted the same as bread, not as side veggies.  Highly processed snacks were discouraged and highly-processed sides and main dishes (corned beef hash!) were rare treats.  Mom did like those dinner rolls you buy ready to pop from the can and bake for Sunday dinner: they're a real time saver.  And did we ever have Sunday dinners!  It was a late lunch after church, a large and fancy meal.  Sunday supper was often no more than a late-evening snack.

     To judge by what the supermarkets around here stock, my notion of plain old regular food is pretty mainstream -- or at least it is for people who get most of their meals at the grocery instead of from restaurants.
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* Both of their families had vegetable gardens and their own chickens well before WW II rationing.  Mom's family raised goats for milk and meat; Dad's always had a milk cow.  I don't know if Mom's family kept bees, but she took it up in middle age and did well, using honey in place of sugar in many recipes.

12 comments:

  1. “ Had a commenter the other day refer to my cooking as "experiments" and express the hope that I "won't poison my renter."”

    Wow.

    Just…wow.

    Imagine telling on yourself like that.

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  2. Roman Meal Bread. Reminds me of eating at my Grandma's house.

    I also grew up in a house with a garden and the annual canning of vegetables to eat during the winter. One wall of our cellar was covered with shelves of mason jars with various stuff.

    I don't cook the way you do, but I enjoy reading your posts. Their only downside is when they make me hungry and it's not near meal time yet.

    The commenter in question brings to mind a quote in the 80's during one of the African famines. Some lady wrote into the local paper wondering why we were sending wheat to Africa? What are those people supposed to do with it? She had a modern kitchen with a food processor and she couldn't make a meal with raw wheat, so how could those people? (SMH)

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  3. Your meals seem anything but exotic (or risky) to me. Like you, I grew up on what we raised in our gardens plus chicken. The difference was that we did not grow the variety that did your family. Eventually, when we moved to a largish city, we too bought sides of beef that were cut up and kept in a locker.

    I would "chance" eating your meals anytime, Roberta. Let me at it. It always sounds wonderful. Myself? I hate to cook - and it shows in the meals served at our house.

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  4. Sounds like cooking I grew up with. Ma was not a recipe cook
    it was always a bit of this and a bit of that. In the end
    I grew to like all the things kids often pan. Especially
    Turnips, and greens, and all manner of roots, and tubers.

    Some of my most exciting dishes were what happens if I
    combine a list of this I like is a different way.

    For the one going on about food that sounds divine
    to me, go develop real appreciation for food with
    complex flavor. If anything its made me more
    willing to try things I've never had.

    So please keep cooking and writing about it.


    Eck!

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  5. Atta girl. You can cook for me anytime. You've moved on from your folk's meat and potatoes regime to more elegant stuff, but still love the basics. (but you've succumbed to indistinguishable fashion: Extra virgin vs good old olive oil & irish butter vs good old butter, etc). Anyway, your cooking is great, so keep it up.

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  6. I can't think of anyone who is better fed than Tam.

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  7. Careful, sir! You may have stepped on quicksand! ;)

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  8. Re: quicksand. Hahahahaha!

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  9. I was referring to the quality of your meals.What did you think I meant?

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  10. Glenn Kelley, I took it as a compliment -- but I couldn't resist pointing out that calling someone "well-fed" is one of those terms that's sharp on both sides. ;)

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  11. Vegetables dream of responding to you....
    Call any vegetable...and the chances are good....that the vegetable will respond to you
    Rootabayayaga, Rootabayayaga...

    We will commence bombing the Bush compound with broccoli in 5 minutes.

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  12. How did this person manage to have enough brain cells to find you on the internet?!?

    ReplyDelete

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