My mother has taught me so many unbelievable things I will need to know for when I get older and have my own family. One thing she has taught me is how to make traditional Christmas cookies. Every year our kitchen is flooded with flour and cookie dough. The warm scent makes the house smell like Christmas time. Since she is from a different generation than me she does things differently. Instead of looking up online cookie recipes she either has them all memorized or pulls her Italian cookbooks out that has pages filled from top to bottom with the recipes to make the delicious cookies.
My mom said, “It is very important to be able to cook, my grandmother taught me.”
I replied with, “Now you are teaching me and I’m very grateful for it.”
She answered with,“Cooking is very important in our family, it has been passed down from generation to generation.”
I continued with, “First you need to gather all the ingredients. One ingredient I know we definitely need is butter. ”
She rejoined with, “Correct.”
I asked, “What other ingredients should I gather?”
A forceful, “Cream, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour and baking powder.” was implied.
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First we put all the ingredients into a bowl. We then lowered an automatic mixer inside and let it do all the work. All the ingredients mushed together creating a sweet dough. We lifted the mixer up and scooped the dough of the edges of the bowl. Next I laid the dough down and rolled it out. After about five minutes my mom told me I could make shapes out of it with the cookie cutters. I pushed templates of bells, bears, trees, presents and Santa into the dough. I put a cookie sheet down and placed the shaped pieces of cookie dough on it in perfect rows of 4 by 6. I carefully placed the tray inside the preheated oven. 400 degrees later the perfect christmas cookies were
The baker will start by melting the one stick of butter in the oven safe dish. Take the paper off of the stick butter and place the stick of butter in the oven safe dish, then place the oven safe dish in the preheated oven until butter is melted, after the butter is melted put on oven mitts and remove the oven safe dish from the oven. Now get your measuring cup, measure out one cup of flour, pour the cup of flour in the mixing bowl. Then measure out one cup of milk and pour it in the mixing bowl, next measure out one cup of sugar and pour in mixing bowl. Next get the spoon and mix the ingredients thoroughly until mixed completely. Now pour the mix into oven safe dish on top of the melted butter, and lastly open the large can of peaches with can opener, dump all of the peaches on top of mix in oven safe dish.
My mother was a simple cook. She prepared foods she'd been raised on, plain Southern fare-rice, gravy, sliced tomatoes, turnip greens, cornpone, grits, eggs, chicken and dumplings, pot roast, ham, field peas, lima beans, potato salad, stewed okra, pumpkin pie, salmon balls. We didn't have fancy casseroles or lasagnas or spaghetti, and nobody had ever heard of a burrito or an egg roll. I didn't know what an artichoke or a parsnip or kiwi or papaya was-certainly had never taste them. We drank sweet iced tea and sometimes lemonade.
In Chang Rae Lee’s essay “Coming Home Again," he uses food as a way to remember the connection he had with his mother. Food was their bond. As a child, he always wanted to spend time in the kitchen with his mother and learn how to cook. Much later, when his mother became sick, he became the cook for the family. “My mother would gently set herself down in her customary chair near the stove. I sat across from her, my father and sister to my left and right, and crammed in the center was all the food I had made - a spicy codfish stew, say, or a casserole of gingery beef, dishes that in my youth she had prepared for us a hundred times” (164). He made the food like his mother did and it was the lessons that his mother was able to pass onto him. These lessons of cooking were like lesson he learned in life. He recalls the times where growing up, he rejected the Korean food that his mother made for American food that was provided for him, which his father later told him, hurt his mother. After that experience, he then remembers how he came back to Korean food and how he loved it so much that he was willing to get sick from eating it, establishing a reconnection to who he was before he became a rebellious teenager. Kalbi, a dish he describes that includes various phases to make, was like his bond with his mother, and like the kalbi needs the bones nearby to borrow its richness, Lee borrowed his mother’s richness to develop a stronger bond with her.
The definition of homemade has changed drastically throughout time. Rachel Jones recognizes this in her article “Homemade is the New Organic,” published in 2013 by The Atlantic. It is in this article that she explains how media nowadays has raised expectations on home cooking. Jones` purpose is to make readers aware of the unrecognizable and unrealistic expectations that the modern media subtly places on us when it comes to home cooking. Based on the content and the examples presented in the article, it appears as though the author`s intended audience is people who cook, or more specifically, mothers that cook. Jones begins building her credibility with past experiences and reputable sources, uses facts to back up her claims, and appeals to reader`s emotions.
“She was from Pasadena, this six-foot-two marvel of a woman. It was not so much because she was an extraordinary cook- and she would pointedly remind us that she was a cook, not a chef” (Kehoe 1). Julia Child was an extraordinary woman who had a passion for cooking that she didn’t even know could change the way people cook. Julia Child most definitely influenced cooking for generations to come with her passion for cooking and love for food.
Equally, my paternal grandmother taught me about my Italian heritage. She would cook specialties from Sicily and tell me stories of her homeland. Likewise, my grandmother made sure I appreciated Sicilian traditions, superstitions, and the language. I am grateful to both my grandparents for exposing me to their cultures.
One great story my family has told me is my family's history. My maternal grandmother's parents came to the United States from Ukraine by boat around 1906 or 1907. They initially settled in Export, PA, because they had relatives and friends living there. My grandmother was born in 1921 and was the seventh of eight children. A year after she was born, they moved to Warren, OH, where they stayed until my grandmother graduated from high school. The family's religion was Ukrainian Orthodox. My grandmother grew up speaking Ukrainian and English. Ukrainian was spoken in the home, and English was spoken at school. My grandmother started kindergarten at the age five knowing no English. She picked up the English language from her classmates. My grandmother's family did not own a car. Every Easter, they walked about seven miles to go to church. My grandmother grew up during the depression. She was the only girl in her family to own a doll from a store. All of her sister's dolls were homemade.
Though the woodchopper just wagged his finger. "Remember, food isn't everything, dear," he reminded her.
I was taught the value of food by going to farms and milking cows. I learned how nothing is wasted. I saw traditions through own eyes and experienced them for myself instead of hearing vague stories that never seemed to be finished from getting choked up on nostalgia. I couldn’t help but feel guilty for thinking of them differently without having met them. They treated more like a daughter than my dad ever has. They made me feel included and loved. They’re everything I always imagined a family to be
This statement by Druckman portrays the belief that women cook for the emotional experience while men cook for the technical experience. Research conducted by Marjorie DeVault (1991) suggests wives and mothers cook as a way to show their love to their family. Similarly, research by Cairns, Johnston, and Baumann (2010) discusses women’s emotional responses to cooking for their family and friends. Both studies highlight the emotion and nurture women feel as they cook for others. The studies’ discussion about the nurturing aspect of cooking demonstrates the traditional feminine belief that women cook in order to nurture their families as discussed by Friedan (1963) and Hochschild
A typical family dinner would be her whole family sitting together and one of their rules are no talking whatsoever until they are done eating (no tv, no music.. Basically no sound at all). I am so glad my mom did not make this a rule in our household because I can’t sit in silence and eat. During birthdays, her parents would always make eggs and they have to eat it because it is considered good luck if you eat eggs in the morning of your birthday. They were not allowed to eat porridge in the morning because that was considered bad luck and the superstition was that if you ate porridge in the morning of your birthday you will always be hungry. In addition, during a holiday dinner they would all help out and cooked together. Their traditional foods were sweet potatoes, a lot of vegetables, some kind of meat, and there is always soup on the side. One of Annie’s favorite family recipe was chicken soup that her mother taught her. My mom still makes it till this day, she uses a special small pot that is filled with all the ingredients that is put into a giant pot which is filled with water and she boils it for hours and sometimes even
About a week before they all came to dinner, I began to plan what I would make. After having talked to each of them several times on the telephone, I could tell they may de...
Right next to food, family is the most important thing in Italian culture. My mother was born and raised in Naples, Italy and lived with her mother and three siblings after her father passed away when she was only six years old. My mother and my grandmother had a very close bond, the same bond my mother and I share now. My grandmother was a very hands on type of mom my mother tells me. Like most mothers, her children were her pride and joy. My mother’s most vivid memories of her childhood involve my grandmother teaching her how to make tiramisu and lasagna. Practices my mother has now passed onto me. Aside from the cooking lessons, my mother also taught me what it means to be a women. Being independent, never giving up, and working for what
Emma, Marissa and I are in charge of the making the lefse. This has been our job ever since we were little girls, becoming experts through all our years of experience. My grandma makes the most amazing food and always has enough to feed us for a week. After we stuff ourselves full of delicious, lasagna, salads, and hot dishes all made with love and while the adults lean back comfortably in their chairs, us kids go put on our pajamas and troop downstairs to open our gifts. The most memorable gift would be the ring my grandma gave me that used to be my great-grandmothers who died a couple days after my grandma turned fifteen. My great-grandma loved to travel and had a great passion for fashion, so this circle of metal with a little diamond in the middle and a floral pattern surrounding it, had been bought in California and has been in the family since. “Bang, bang, bang!” A huge pounding comes from the front door. Dogs bark, adults grin, and we race to open the creaky door. Santa Claus, eyes twinkling, dressed in red with coal-black boots, and swinging a sack over his right shoulder, steps inside. He plops down heavily; ringing merry bells and passes them off to David, my brother, telling him seriously to keep ringing them so Rudolf won’t fly away without him. With wide eyes, little David shakes the bells with such rigor that if Rudolf was in the North Pole he would be able to hear them. We each take a turn perching on his knee, hesitant at first but then opening up and telling him our age and that, “yes we have been really, really, really good this year.” As Santa’s beard tickles our chin as we lean in close for a picture and his big belly shakes as he laughs at the same time as you start to giggle. Then he opens his sack and pulls out gifts wrapped in colorful paper for each of us. With a few cookies for the road, crumbs in his beard and a
She taught me many, many things, along with Dad, but he is rarely in the house. Mom says it was because he has work. What kind of work he does, I do not know. I do not ask him either, but he playes and speaks to me when he's home so I am happy. Either way, I was practically raised by my mother. She held my hand and told me stories about the world. She has the patience of a saint. I regret to say that I was quite a problem child in the past. My days were pretty much spent crying and complaining and throwing tantrums over every little thing, but even then Mom would just stroke my hair and soothe me. I was very much spoilt.