Yesterday we had meetings to discuss English/Language Arts Common Core standards and discussing students. One staff member said she was shocked her students didn't realize cookies could be baked st home, I said that very little true cooking is taking place and the time in the kitchen with mom and grandma has become a thing of the past.
At first some registered disbelief, but then we talked about it and they said it probably is true. I know most of the people I work with rarely cook or bake. One gal said her child won't eat something unless it comes from the microwave.
So, what do you think...has cooking become a lost art?
Is cooking a lost art?
December 19th, 2012 at 01:26 am
December 19th, 2012 at 01:44 am 1355881453
December 19th, 2012 at 02:04 am 1355882688
December 19th, 2012 at 02:44 am 1355885080
December 19th, 2012 at 02:45 am 1355885118
December 19th, 2012 at 03:33 am 1355888013
I cooked and baked almost exclusively the two years I took off work a few years ago and LOVED it. My oldest grandson and I would make homemade waffles...to this day he talks about it.
Now I would say we are 75% home cook vs 25% eating not-from scratch food.- Which is still too little home from scratch IMO.
December 19th, 2012 at 04:07 am 1355890053
December 19th, 2012 at 04:27 am 1355891269
December 19th, 2012 at 05:14 am 1355894047
So then everyone just says "It takes too much time." The truth is they really just have no idea where to start. & even my dh and I are a little guilty, because though my mom made an effort to teach me to cook, she never cooked much. (I took several cooking classes as a child, and my mom taught me all her easy family recipes and we did a lot of baking). My spouse probably was not expected to cook much as a male. BUT, seeing my lack of practiced cooking skills, he just took over at some point (after we lived on fast food and microwave dinners for a couple of years). We sat down and took the time to find recipes and build menus and go from there. We've started our new traditions, but I know we both had cooking skills already, which made this less of a frightening undertaking. We just needed to take those skills and find recipes and menus and routines that worked for us. Though I suppose in this day and age that the internet can teach you to cook if you really want to learn! (Which is how we are continually expanding our culinary horizons, and has left us both cooking far more from scratch than our parents ever did).
My 9yo has more cooking skills than most adults. But the kids LOVE to help in the kitchen - this is the age to teach them. When they are willing and able and absorb everything like a sponge. I think people are so over-protective of their kids they kind of miss the prime teaching years.
December 19th, 2012 at 10:50 am 1355914239
I was a girl scout leader back then & we did NUMEROUS cooking projects-at least 1 every month or 2 including a Mother's Day lunch that HAD to be lacto-0vo veggie.
Today both my daughters regularly cook- prob 5-6/7 nights. Older is a lacto-ovo veggie. Younger pretty much follows weight watchers. These days I batch cook entrees at least 1x/week and freeze several portions. Just need to add salad, veg and/or fruit.
December 19th, 2012 at 02:57 pm 1355929042
Both of my DIL's like to cook -- one is a SAHM, and the other works, but they are both handy in the kitchen. The SAHM didn't learn to cook at home, but taught herself after she got married. The working girl was taught by a mother who loves to cook.
Both my sons also like to cook -- in fact, both have done it for a living at one time or another. And my ex-husband also cooked at a veteran's facility when he was young and was serving as a conscientious objector.
My brother is a chef, and my sister is a rabid foodie. So I guess we are a really cookin' family! I know some people who don't cook, but to me, they seem like the minority. Maybe not.
December 19th, 2012 at 04:45 pm 1355935536
I guarantee you that a kid who has been measuring cups, ounces, tablespoons, teaspoons, liters, ml, pounds, grams, heat degrees, and the fractions thereof have a nice advantage in their schoolish mathwork. Can't you just see a third grader noticing 4 x 8 in the pan of brownies she has just cut? Or appreciating the beauty of a round cake well portioned first into thirds, then into sixths?
Kids who have an idea of how denaturing the proteins of egg in heat helps bind together a cake, how yeasts are living organisms that eat and breathe, how in fermented foods vinegar or alcohol stop biolgical activity though they are produced by it in the first place, how water evaporates from a hot roast faster than a cold one, how dry beans soak up water and soften, how ice takes up more volume than the liquid water it was made from, how detergents clean that oily bowl you mixed the salad dressing in, how starches in a gravy hold the oil and water closely together, how the buttermilk activates the baking soda in an acid-base reaction to release carbon dioxide to make the biscuits fluffy--- kids who are familiar with these things in cooking have hooks upon which to hang a lot of the science-y things they will learn in school.
Kids who have read a variety of recipes have a better understanding of how to organize information for the reader, the importance of sequence, clarity, precision. On the other hand, cooking can also give a child confidence that in some projects, there is a lot of leeway for precision, allowance for opinion and taste (literally), creativity and the ability to make-do.
I guess you can see that I think cooking is one of the most educational things a parent can do with their kids.
December 24th, 2012 at 04:18 pm 1356365912
Jerry