My culinary experience is that of a homemaker of the 1960’s. I cook like my mother who learned from television or her father. The only cookbook my mother owned was the Betty Crocker red and white dealie. My grandmother didn’t know how to cook nor wanted to learn. After her husband died she had no idea how to feed her family so bought diet food for her already thin brood. Mom however had an instinctual gift when it came to cooking. After she died when I tried to duplicate her recipes and even though I had made them with her, they were not the same.
I currently cook for my father who has the pickiest palate known to man-kind. The man didn’t eat spaghetti until after he was married and that was after threats from my mother. Still our food growing up was your basic meat and potatoes fare and when I was born my mother was trying to cut out salt because she thought my dad had high blood pressure. In turn, I didn’t start adding salt to food until about 2 years ago. We weren’t allowed to eat sugar cereals, Twinkies or anything good. Then again I was on a diet from the age of 5.
So, I still cook what my mother had cooked for 40 years. However, I am becoming a little more advanced. To duplicate her recipes I have had to add some tricks that I’ve learned. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I also happen to be a very, very picky eater. Until recently I didn’t use salt, salad dressing, gravy, sauces, sour cream or spices. Unless it was the neon orange Seasoning Salt that every household had in their pantries in the 1970’s. The list is terribly long and makes me seem like a Howard Hughes type. I although am sort of a compulsive over eater. I love typical American convenience foods like hot dogs, hamburgers, macaroni and cheese and I live and die for Spagettios. I’ve always loved food, watching Lidia and Julia when I was a kid and then Good Eats and anything else on the Food Network. (Except Rachel. Fuck Rachel.)
When I met my fiancé, my world of food opened up with the glitter and excitement that only NYC can create. While he was living there and since I wanted to impress him, he showed me the joys of the foods like Mediterranean and I was more open to trying different things. Even though we had all these different foods I still stuck to my previous apprehensions. I still don’t eat mushrooms or spicy foods. I haven’t eaten a lobster and shrimp squick me out.
Regardless, I love to checkout cookbooks from the library but never tried any of the recipes. I can’t really try new things because my father won’t eat it and I don’t want to waste food so it was just dreaming until I was reintroduced to Julia. Julia Child that is. I’ve never read Mastering the Art of French Cooking and took it out of the library on a whim. I’ve since become obsessed. With her help I learned to use a béchamel to make creamy Macaroni and Cheese that my father loves and to use a velouté to fix my beef stew fiasco today.
I want more though. I want to learn more. I have come to realize that the food we eat in this country is full of chemicals, fat, sugar and preservatives. So it got me thinking. What if I ate whole, fresh foods, cooked beautifully, no “diet” food? I’m not talking about a “raw” or low-fat thing either. Would I be able to stick to it a diet that is delicious and adventurous? I suck at diets since my mother pushed them on me. I last about a day or two because I always think, “Why do I have to suffer?” What happens if I didn’t have to suffer? AND Why is losing weight and getting fit all about pain and agony? Why can’t it be fun?
Dammit.
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