Hummusgirl's Blog

I think it’s ridiculous how some kids are taught how to bake growing up (maybe this has to do more with science then food), and then when they’re on their own, what do they do?  They eat out.  Of course, I can’t speak for everyone, but really it seems that those kids who are brought up in a culture of cooking meals and vegetables, meats, grains, etc… are more well suited to actually cooking as an adult and passing that tradition on to their children.  Hence, why we have family owned restaurants.

Women used to be responsible for cooking meals for families, but as most of us know, women are now working more than ever, or busier than ever, so who has the time to cook right?  Maybe with the social norms gradually changing and men being stay at home parents, they should be cooking the meals.  And since the consensus is that men are better cooks (although I think that’s an outright lie in a lot of cases) maybe they could pass cooking traditions onto their children.  But I’m just daydreaming, yet again, so this really doesn’t seem like reality.

We are a baking country, and a lot of America’s great historical dishes are baking related, like New York cheesecake, Boston cream pie, Washington cake, carrot cake, red velvet cake, and Kentuckty bourbon cake.  Who really wants to say our national cooking recipes revolves around fast food when in reality we have so many splendid baked dishes?

I also think if you are on the poor side, you are forced to cook your way out of poverty.  Just look at China, India, and South American countries.  These countries are, or were in living memory, developing countries, and tend to focus more on family than American or European people.  I mean I cook because I’m poor and can’t afford to eat out that much.  And I’m part of a cooking family kind of.  I also cook because it’s therapeutic and makes me feel rustic and homey.

I’m always envious when I see movies of Indian or Chinese families cooking big meals from cultural recipes.  I wish America had some fantastic cultural heritage of cooking say, pioneer meals, because our basic nationality is farming based, but it seems to be not what ancient cultures possess.  Maybe with CSA’s making their way into our American conscienceness, we will one day be able to say we are a farming country to our core once again.