AUTUMN COOKIN'

[Part 2 of this week's Thursday's Child.]

We recently received a 4-color 20-page magazine from our local grocery store--all about cooking for Autumn. Since we're happy consumers--not to mention cooks--this publication got our attention. My daughter does the shopping, as well as most of the cooking, so she's come up with some suggestions for meals in the near future, featuring things like corn and potatoes (chowder), loaded with bacon; thick soups made with root veggies (carrots, with ginger, etc.); and one of our favorites, the Anything Goes Vegetable Soup. Designed to make the house smell delicious. Not to mention fill all the empty places.

Cooking always reminds me of growing up in the Midwest. In my era, families butchered their own meat, or went with other small families to smoke or can (later, to freeze) what they thought they'd use over the winter.

My mother's family was a big one--ten children, plus Grandma and Grandpa. I've told the story before about helping with a day of canning--Mom and her sisters in Grandma's kitchen, me helping (because my hands were small enough to wash the insides of the canning jars).

Now that I'm pretty much out of the meal making stage of life, I can think back to those days of few labor-saving devices, no sophisticated tools for prep, but plenty of help--great memories.

And I wonder--how did my grandmother do it? Well, I think I have a clue--she began learning as a little girl, standing near her mother or grandmother, watching, maybe getting to help.

Here's some of what she must have learned:

• Measuring Ingredients
• pinch - just what she could take between her thumb and forefinger; a pinch of salt
• dash - a quick shake of a liquid or solid; a dash of sugar
• dollop - the amount of a semi-solid  heaped up on a medium-sized spoon; a dollop of gravy
• handful - reaching into a tin of flour and bringing out a "handful" of flour to put in the batter (my grandmother was petite, five-feet-ten when she married at age 16; how large would her hands have been? I suspect she needed more than one handful of flour)
• spoonful - another highly variable amount; was it a teaspoon, a soup spoon, a tablespoon?
• Measuring Time
• enough - add enough water to make a stiff dough; or a soft dough; or until the dough drops from a spoon to make small mounds
• long enough - beat until the egg whites stand in stiff peaks
• hot enough - ovens without thermometers were tested by the cook's hand inserted into the oven cavity; she knew from experience how hot the oven was, not in degrees, but in amount of heat needed for the cake, or pie, or roast

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My Grandma Jenkins made the most wonderful pies. The crust was delicious, flaky, held together, and always, always, made us want more. Fruit pies were favorites, since the fruits were home-grown.

Cakes? No, she didn't bake cakes. Her oven wasn't up to that. But her daughters all caught on and used their modern ovens to bake tall angel food, fudgy chocolate, and springy spice cakes.

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Learning involves some special ingredients:

• a teacher who allows the student time to experiment, make mistakes, and learn from them
• a student who listens and watches and is willing to make mistakes and not be discouraged when things don't turn out right

People like my grandmother worked alongside their parents or other teachers, absorbing nuances that would later make great cooks. Or woodworkers. Or farmers. Or--you name it. 

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If you're cooking something delicious this Autumn, share it with someone who doesn't like to cook. Or doesn't know how. Better yet--share your know-how.

Blessings,

Thursday's Child