Saturday Special: Cooking with Kids
Once again, a fellow Substacker inspires a good writing topic. This time, it's Dixie Dillon of The Hollow.
Painting by American artist, Ignat Ignatov
Occasionally, Ring Around the Basin features food and family relationships and the lessons passed between the generations. Dixie Dillon, of The Hollow, posted this story about teaching kids how to cook: Instead of Scrolling, Teach your Children How to Bake
In this story, she offers a biscuit recipe that her kids learned to make for breakfast. It inspired memories of how my Mom taught me to cook a few simple meals when I was in the first grade. Almost as soon as I started school, she started thinking about returning to the workplace. Teaching me to provide my own lunch when I came home from school and doing a few household chores was now her main agenda. As a latchkey kid, I would not spend my afternoons watching TV, not that there were any kids' shows at that time. I would be learning life skills and helping around the house … what she often called, in a stern voice, "earning my keep."
Having grown up during The Depression of the 1930s, she and her four siblings were "mouths to feed and feet to shoe," expensive needs in those desperate days. As soon as children could understand instructions, they were expected to cook, clean, and take care of their siblings. They also acquired a few nursing skills that translated into a generation who didn't suffer the "ew" factor at the sight of a sick body. This fostered Mom's career in nursing, thus the need for me to take care of myself and the house while she was at work.
One of the first cooking sessions we shared taught me how to fry an egg, make a peanut butter sandwich, and a bowl of Campbell's soup. (See the poem below.) Shortly thereafter, she gave me the Betty Crocker Cookbook for Boys and Girls, which is still available. It was geared toward school-aged kids and easy to use. (Disclaimer: this link is a key to a rabbit hole that will reveal many books for kids on this topic. Have fun exploring. You'll probably be amused at the differences between dishes found in the 1950s book and 21st Century foods.)
The first dinner we made together was meatloaf, baked potatoes, and canned green beans. Canned food was a staple in 1950s homes, providing convenient nutrition along with the growing industry of convenience appliances for the Space Age household. Those were yeasty times when rockets to the moon were only a decade away and women didn't want to waste their lives beating rugs with a racket or cook from scratch!
Mom's cooking lesson that night didn't just focus on the meatloaf. It was all about preparing a complete meal to surprise Dad when he came home. Adding the potatoes and beans demonstrated the timing and oven-sharing concept of thrifty cooking. Everything had a "savings" angle to it. Hating to waste all that oven space and heat on just one item, Mom showed me how to smear the potatoes in bacon grease and poke them with a few holes. Then we arranged the meatloaf pan and three potatoes on the middle rack to bake for an hour.
About twenty minutes before the meatloaf would be done, she had me open the can of green beans and pour them into a saucepan to heat up. The only added spice was a sprinkle of dried onions to punch up the flavor. That was it. When the beans were done, so were the meatloaf and potatoes.
YUM!
As years passed and Mom's nursing shift changed from graveyard to swing, I fixed dinner for Dad when he got home from work. It was an excellent time to bond over simple meals, hearing his stories about his youth. I learned to view him as a person rather than the man who came home every night and settled behind the newspaper or in front of the television set. My sister and I had spent many a night in our beds, listening to Mom and Dad argue. We also heard Mom giggle occasionally as they shut the door on their bedroom. It was a complex marriage. Over those dinners, I found out why.
Trying to get my daughter, Valerie, to cook was a failure until I wrote a book with recipes and family stories attached to them. Beyond Ramen accompanied her to college and included everything I had learned from various sources, including the rice pudding Mom taught me to make. When Valerie moved into her own apartment, she cooked us a steak dinner based on the recipes from that book. It was a major rite of passage for her and a huge vindication for me.
When Valerie married Andy, she discovered he learned to cook during his bachelor days. Over time, they divided the kitchen duties to favor their preferred tasks involved in the whole process. He loves to barbeque brisket on his Traeger BBQ, but will cleanup after dinner. Valerie does the side dishes, occasionally testing Andy's willingness to accept green food on his plate.
That's the challenge, though. Cooking is not only about timing, efficiency, and flavorful results; it's also about nourishment and a balanced diet for good health. When loved ones limit their food choices and balk at trying new dishes, that causes problems that probably start a lot of arguments. Children are finicky enough. The household dietician doesn't need another adult to foment discord over a plate of veggies.
Perhaps bringing kids into the kitchen at an early age will help them try new foods and learn how to prepare them. This parent-child process tests our patience sometimes, but the scope of knowledge passed in this exercise brings major benefits to family life and good health habits.
Fried Eggs and Soup
First day of first grade
I walk home for lunch
Mom pulls me to the kitchen
And takes out a saucepan.
Open that soup can
She says, handing me
The opener. It slips
But finally cuts the rim.
I pour it into the pan
Turn the knob on high
When it boils, she says,
Turn it low, let it simmer.
We set the table.
Mom sets a fry pan
That must've belonged
To Grandma. She flicks
A pat of butter to melt
In the pan and spreads it
Sizzling to a patina of gold.
She hands me an egg
Crack it into the pan
She says, and stands back
The egg drips through my fingers
Most of it lands in the butter
Bubbles around the edges
I pierce the yolk with my fork.
Now you've made a scrambled egg
She says, but she's not upset.
We eat our eggs and soup
Along with some toast
I smear mine with peanut butter
And a spoonful of jam,
Leave the crusts on the plate.
As I walk back to school
I remember her smile
Her pride as she said
Now you can make
Lunch all by yourself.
If you enjoyed this post, feel free to explore other essays, poems, and stories in the Ring Around the Basin Archives.
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