The Blessing of Creative Cooking
El Bendicio de Preparar la Comida Creativamente
by
Mary Hunt Webb
Posted Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Like this child, I began learning cooking skills at an early age. [Photographer: Later Jay Photography. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com.]
Among my earliest memories are those of food preparation in the kitchen of the four-room dwelling that our family occupied. Those memories include greasing a platter with butter prior to my mother pouring hot vanilla fudge into it. I also remember rolling balls of cookie dough in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar in preparation for Snickerdoodles, one of my favorite cookies.
One of Mother's favorite things to do was to prepare two rolls of refrigerator cookie dough. She would bake part of one roll and freeze the rest. We baked the rest in small batches to fill our desire for warm cookies. It took fewer than 20 minutes to cut off six slices of dough, press in a few colored sprinkles and bake them so that we munched hot cookies with milk or tea. I still follow her practice of keeping frozen cookie dough on hand to bake on short notice.
Yes, those memories involve sweets, but I also remember watching Mother prepare her incomparable fried chicken as well as two different kinds of meat loaf. One was a saucy tomato-based meat loaf while the other was made with condensed mushroom soup. While I was not fond of mushrooms, the tiny bits of that vegetable were difficult to discern.
I remember that prior to leaving for church on Sunday morning, she often seasoned a chicken or an economical cut of roast beef or a pork roast and put it in her trusty roasting pan along with vegetables. After putting the lid on the pan, she put the pan in the oven and turned the heat to the lowest possible setting. She left the oven on while we went to Sunday School and church. Today, people would admonish her about the danger of fire, but in all the years that she did that we never had a problem. We returned home each Sunday to the heavenly smell of our cooked main dish. She purposefully prepared a large amount of meat so that we would have meals from it during the week. A small amount of meat mixed with a can of condensed soup and served over noodles or rice made an adequate mid-week meal. I remember that in summer, she sometimes used a bit of roast beef as part of a salad along with chopped apple, diced celery, some lettuce and a dressing made with mayonnaise and seasonings. She did that when the only freezer she had was the tiny one in the refrigerator that barely had sufficient space for ice cube trays. That lesson of preparing food in advance of need stayed with me after I became a wife and mother, and I still practice it.
When money was tight, Mother would boil a pot of egg noodles and serve it with soy sauce as our main dish along with a vegetable or a salad. I was a grown woman before I realized that egg noodles without any kind of protein accompaniment did not constitute a proper main dish. At other times, she opened a can of tuna and a can of condensed soup, heated them together and served them over slices of bread. This was not one of my favorite meals but it satisfied our appetites.
In addition to main dishes and sweets there were innumerable pots of tea that accompanied hot buttered slices of cinnamon toast. A cup of sweetened hot tea could warm cold bodies and could also soothe hurt feelings that life had wounded. I remember cinnamon toast and tea as a late night snack before going to bed.
The stove in this image resembles one on which my mother cooked when I was a child. The lack of a temperature gauge on the oven did not prevent her from baking some scrumptious food. No, we didn't have a cat or a rocking chair. [Photographer: Later Jay Photography. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com.]
The miracle of our family's cooking ventures was that all of this came out of a kitchen with a stove similar to the one pictured above minus the cat and without the country lane beyond the window, but the sink was much the same. That stove didn't have a temperature gauge so that Mother used her vision to determine the height of the flame needed on that gas stove to cook that particular dish. She always seemed to get the temperature right. I don't remember her burning any food she had prepared.
We had only a little more storage than is shown in the above image, but a lot of delicious food came out of that kitchen. Food wasn't just for eating; it was our entertainment because we had little money for anything else.
The lack of money stirred our creativity so that we stirred up memories as well as food. Honey Brunch Loaf, Cinnamon Crunches, and Snickerdoodles kept the oven hot and our apartment warm. We didn't regard ourselves as poor because we were rich in love and creativity; we just didn't have much money.
The lack of money stirred our imagination as well as our creativity. [Photographer: Andrea Pangilinan. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com.]
Those early lessons in creative cooking served me well when I became an adult. While I was a university student, I remember frying chicken for my roommate's parents using the memory of watching my mother fry countless birds in her cast-iron skillet. After I married my husband, I taught him to fry chicken the same way.
When my husband's career took us to California where we had an exorbitant house payment, I employed many of the cooking skills that Mother taught me as well as the money-saving techniques that she used. While in California, I acquired even more skills to stretch our food dollar beyond what I learned while growing up. I bought used books with vintage recipes that did not use convenience foods. Like my mother, I cooked more food for certain meals than we would need at that time. I did so with the plan that we would have food in the freezer ready for future meals. I called them "planned-overs" rather than "leftovers" and put them in the small freezer space that was part of the refrigerator. It still is a joy to know that I don't have to cook a fresh meal every day but can rely on the bounty of whatever freezer space we have. And, like my mother, I also prepared rolls of cookie dough that I stored in the freezer for use as needed.
One new book that I bought while we were in California showed how to prepare convenience foods such as baking mixes, spice combinations, and pudding mixes. That book saved us quite a bit of money. I still make my own onion salt, celery salt, and seasoned salt, thanks to that book.
Although I would not have chosen to grow up in a family that had so little money that we couldn't even afford a car, I understand that the habits and techniques I learned served me after I had my own kitchen. It's amazing how God prepared me as a youngster for my future as a cooking wife and mother. I have even passed on some of those skills to our grandson. That understanding demonstrates the truth of Romans 8:28, which says, "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.(NKJV)
Who knew that those "things" mentioned in Romans 8:28, would taste so good?
BIBLE VERSES FOR THIS POSTING
Romans 8:28 — 28) And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. (NKJV)
Romanos 8:28 — Y sabemos que a los que aman a Dios, todas las cosas les ayudan a bien, esto es, a los que conforme a su propósito son llamados. (RVR 1960)
A thrifty menu can still be served up attractively at a well-set table. [Photographer: Terri Crudde. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com.]
