cooking illteracy

Harriet Neal said:

now this is scary...

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/living/food/14263404.htm

Current most common cooking terms:

Microwave, Time Cook, 5:00, Start, Ding!

;-)

Rusty

Harriet Neal said:

now this is scary...

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/living/food/14263404.htm

IIRC rfc had this same article or something similar posted a couple of
times in the last two weeks.

I don't call it 'illiteracy' in the directions. The directions are all
subject to interpretations. The problem I perceive is in people not knowing
how to convert measurements (to what they are used to, mind you... I'm used
to U.S. measurements). For example: 4 Tbs. butter = 1/4 cup. A stick of
butter = 1/2 a cup. It says so right on the package, so why is this so
difficult? 2 cups dried pasta = 8 oz. If you bake bread, use a level
measure for the dry ingredients. My grandma did. To me it's not the mixing
of the ingredients instructions or even then baking instructions that are
the problem; it's the how to take the results and simmer or bake it.

I still advocate teaching someone how to bake a chicken and determine when
it is done with poking a fork in the thigh and making sure the juices run
clear or jiggling a drumstick. A special digital thermometer? Hell no.
Figure out if it's done like grandma or great grandma did. I never had a
thermometer for a roast chicken. I also never served a dried out roast
chicken.

Jill

Rusty said:

Harriet Neal said:

now this is scary...

Current most common cooking terms:
Microwave, Time Cook, 5:00, Start, Ding!
;-)
Rusty

The article was indeed alarming. But then... take a trip to any
supermarket!
The items they have at eye level, or most prominent, are those that are
usually big sellers. Things which shock me:
* oven ready potatoes, pumpkin, sweet potato & knobs of butter in
alfoil container ready to bung in the oven. Veg isn't even peeled!
* cooked rice in the freezer section
* prepackaged (limp looking) salad greens, packets of herbs, sachet of
sauce
* the preponderance of quick 'heat & eat' bakery lines - eg:
bread/pizza topped with a 'supreme' mix or with ham bits, cheese & the
odd herb - and NOT refrigerated!
* breakfast cereals whizzed up with long life milk to make a
'nutritious' up and drink as you go, breakfast
* packet meals of macaroni cheese - can't fathom why anyone would buy
these - takes longer to prepare than from scratch I think
* exorbidantly priced pasta 'side' dishes - alfredo, carbonara,
napolitana...sheesh
* packet meals in general, come to think of it - nuke directions on
most

Don't get me wrong, I use convenience foods too, but usually as a
supplement to the meal I am preparing. You can find a use for most
things, but I find the sort of rubbish manufacturers are trying to sell
to the unsuspecting public is in fact designed to create a society
which are totally, utterly and forever dependant on the manufacturers
for their daily meals. It's a conspiracy! (joke intended... but then
maybe there is truth in there somewhere)
Then there are the newbie checkout chicks/guys who have no idea what
certain vegetables & fruits are. It cracks me up that they are
ostensibly working in a 'food' related industry, yet have little or no
knowledge (or training) of the products they are selling. Had one young
sweet thing ask me if my sweet (orange) potato was an artichoke -
nearly choked!

As an aside, am feeling very pleased with myself at present. Invited to
a dear friends birthday tomorrow lunchtime. Her Deliciously Wicked
Chocolate cake is cooling, the pavlova is almost ready to have the oven
door opened so it can cool in comfort and a draught free environment
(to be topped around lunchtime tomorrow with lashings of double cream,
macerated peaches, kiwi fruit, strawberries - 2 punnets - and
passionfruit.
Just wondering how much the sucker is going to sink - at present it is
1 inch above the top of a 12 inch springform pan.......and looks
glorious! (feeling smug - oops... pride cometh before a fall... and no
doubt the 'fall' will be perpetrated by said pav!)
Wanted to make my chocolate rum pavlova, but the hostess requested
fruit. Hmmm... maybe I'll make another one for us alco-choco-holics

just my 2¢ worth

LadyJane
--
"Never trust a skinny cook!"

"jmcquown" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Harriet Neal said:

now this is scary...

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/living/food/14263404.htm

IIRC rfc had this same article or something similar posted a couple of
times in the last two weeks.

I don't call it 'illiteracy' in the directions. The directions are all
subject to interpretations. The problem I perceive is in people not

knowing

Quoted message said:

how to convert measurements (to what they are used to, mind you... I'm

used

Quoted message said:

to U.S. measurements). For example: 4 Tbs. butter = 1/4 cup. A stick of
butter = 1/2 a cup. It says so right on the package, so why is this so
difficult? 2 cups dried pasta = 8 oz. If you bake bread, use a level
measure for the dry ingredients. My grandma did. To me it's not the

mixing

Quoted message said:

of the ingredients instructions or even then baking instructions that are
the problem; it's the how to take the results and simmer or bake it.

I still advocate teaching someone how to bake a chicken and determine when
it is done with poking a fork in the thigh and making sure the juices run
clear or jiggling a drumstick. A special digital thermometer? Hell no.
Figure out if it's done like grandma or great grandma did. I never had a
thermometer for a roast chicken. I also never served a dried out roast
chicken.

Jill

Therein lies the true art of cooking, Jill. You have learned the art that
passed on through your Grandma.

I don't remember ever seeing my Grandma use any measuring utensils. She
cooked for a large family of boys and men she raised alone, widowed, and was
the lady you called when you needed 100 pounds of potato salad for an event.
She didn't have the time to be precise, she gauged everything through all of
her years of cooking experience, using a wood or coal stove mostly. She
measured most dry stuff with her hands and eyeballed everything else. That
is the way the art of cooking started -- sans digital.

Sundays were the only days she did not wear an apron. She used to blow me
away when she drank her tea from the saucer. (I don't know if I will ever
see that done again.)
--
Lefty

Life is for learning
The worst I ever had was wonderful

Quoted message said:

Rusty said:

Harriet Neal said:

now this is scary...

Current most common cooking terms:
Microwave, Time Cook, 5:00, Start, Ding!
;-)
Rusty

Quoted message said:

The article was indeed alarming. But then... take a trip to any
supermarket!

TELL me about it! Recently I went as usual to the supermarket after my
toddler's playgroup and I bought ingredients for dinner. Don't remember
what, but it would have involved salad-making materials, maybe some staples
like garlic or vinegar if I was out of something, and meat and whatever I
was going to cook with that. The woman I most often end up shopping "with"
watched me load up the cart. She has a toddler as well, and she was filling
her cart with frozen pizzas, fish sticks, steam-in-the-bag microwave
veggies, and ready-to-pour sauces, and also she got some
pre-spiced-and-breaded chicken pieces in an oven-ready tray. After a while,
she said, in some astonishment, "So, do you cook EVERY day?"
--Katrina

"Harriet Neal" <[email hidden]> hitched up their panties and posted
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

now this is scary...

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/living/food/14263404.htm

Gawd... Yet many cookbooks have the definition of the terms right in the
front of the book.

Michael

--
"The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she
served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been
found."

--Calvin Trillin

LadyJane said:

Wanted to make my chocolate rum pavlova, but the hostess requested
fruit. Hmmm... maybe I'll make another one for us alco-choco-holics

I love pavolva, but have never heard of a choc-rum variation. Recipe,
please? =)

"LadyJane" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

The article was indeed alarming. But then... take a trip to any
supermarket!
The items they have at eye level, or most prominent, are those that are
usually big sellers. Things which shock me:

Even in Australia, that's very interesting.

nancy

"jmcquown" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

I still advocate teaching someone how to bake a chicken and determine when
it is done with poking a fork in the thigh and making sure the juices run
clear or jiggling a drumstick. A special digital thermometer? Hell no.
Figure out if it's done like grandma or great grandma did. I never had a
thermometer for a roast chicken. I also never served a dried out roast
chicken.

I think you've read plenty of testemonials here that mom's chicken
was dry as dust and you could knock someone out with the overdone
pork chops of their youth. Just cause it's gramma doesn't mean we
should go there.

I don't have a problem with chicken, probably because I'm not adverse
to it being somewhat overdone. Not dry overdone, falling off the bone
overdone. But since I started using a thermometer, I have been in for
some surprises, and pleasant ones at that.

nancy

Harriet Neal said:

now this is scary...

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/living/food/14263404.htm

I would have guessed that culinary skills were improving. Some oldsters
used to cook the same thing on the same day week after week. Guess you
could get good at doing those meals.

With the diversity of the bounty that we have available today I doubt that
the oldster folks would have know what to do with much of it...exceptions
of course.

"Harriet Neal" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

now this is scary...

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/living/food/14263404.htm

My Joy of Cooking is from the early 1970s ... over 30 years
old. It explains cooking terms in excrutiating detail. For this
reason I question the article saying JOC has had to add a
glossary of cooking terms. They probably just reorganized
the information, which is not a bad idea.

How much uncooked rice does it take to make a cup of
cooked rice? For pete's sake, people even here debate how
much water they add. I go 1 cup rice/2 cups water, but I know
some people use more or less. And didn't someone just say
that Sarah Moulton just boils up some rice and strains it?
And who the hell cooks up 1 cup of rice? Yes, I know, some
of you nuts. (laugh)

Not arguing with the gist of the article. The guy who buttered
the outside of the pan, well ... morons are nothing new. But
when you have people saying, just add applesauce, not oil
to your cake batter ... I could see someone thinking a juicy
peach might cut it for eggs. Shaky, but ... if you never baked.

But, yes, people are not being taught to cook anymore, more
and more, but that would include me, so there is hope that people
would like to learn.

nancy

blem; it's the how to take the results and simmer or bake it.

Quoted message said:

I still advocate teaching someone how to bake a chicken and determine when
it is done with poking a fork in the thigh and making sure the juices run
clear or jiggling a drumstick. A special digital thermometer? Hell no.
Figure out if it's done like grandma or great grandma did. I never had a
thermometer for a roast chicken. I also never served a dried out roast
chicken.

Jill

Shrinking >> They sell the thermometers to people like me who are nervous
nellies.
Dee Dee

Then there are the newbie checkout chicks/guys who have no idea what
certain vegetables & fruits are. It cracks me up that they are
ostensibly working in a 'food' related industry, yet have little or no
knowledge (or training) of the products they are selling. Had one young
sweet thing ask me if my sweet (orange) potato was an artichoke -
nearly choked!

LadyJane

LOL -- We love it when we check out and they ask us what this or that
is -- we crack up on our way to the car.
Yours was a good one.
Dee Dee

.. She

Quoted message said:

measured most dry stuff with her hands and eyeballed everything else. That
is the way the art of cooking started -- sans digital.

Sundays were the only days she did not wear an apron. She used to blow me
away when she drank her tea from the saucer. (I don't know if I will ever
see that done again.)
--
Lefty

We, as kids, used to wait for the end of the meal for my grandfather to do 2
things, first lick his knife -- YEWWH! and then at the end of drinking his
coffee out of the cup, he would drink what was remaining in the saucer.
We snickered, then after dinner we reminisced & laughed like hyenas over
this - every single time.

My grandfather worked like a dog on his farm from 4am until 7-8 pm every
day. He was small, thin-nish and muscular. He never ate more than one
plate full (and a small plate at that); never had seconds. All of that
energy from the small amount of food he ate has never ceased to amaze me.
(d. age 81.)
Dee Dee

Dee Randall said:

Quoted message said:

LOL -- We love it when we check out and they ask us what this or
that is -- we crack up on our way to the car.

Don't you just love the ones that make a mistake on ringing in your order
and have to manually make change instead of having the computer tell them
how much? You don't want to be in a hurry!

Debbie

(Email account is valid but one I do not check. To email use above
name dot neill at sympatico dot ca)

Jude said:

I love pavolva, but have never heard of a choc-rum variation. Recipe,
please? =)

Happy to oblige!

Chocolate Rum Pavlova
Anecdote: I had only been married a few months and had never before
made a Pavlova when my husband said we had been invited to a work party
and he had volunteered me to bring along dessert - Pavlova!!!

3 egg whites
pinch salt
2 tsp cornflour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp vinegar
1 cup castor sugar

Filling:
250ml cream
1 dessertspoon icing sugar
1 dessertspoon dark rum
2-3 Tblsp grated, dark chocolate
1 cup (approx) dark chocolate curls
Optional: 2 oz glace cherries, finely sliced

Preheat oven to 200ºC.
In a large, warm (and immaculately clean) bowl, beat egg whites until
stiff.
Add ½ cup sugar, beating continuously until thick and glossy.
Fold in the remainder of the sugar, vanilla, vinegar and sifted
cornflour.
Cover a baking tray with non-stick baking paper or alumunium foil and
dust with sifted cornflour. Mark out a 7 inch diameter circle and
spread pavlova within the circle, making a rim around the edge.
Place in the oven, reduce temp to 120ºC and bake for 1¼ hours or
until slightly golden.

Filling:
Whip cream and icing sugar until thick and glossy then fold in the rum
and the grated chocolate. Fill centre of pavlova with this mixture and
top with chocolate curls (and optional glace cherries.)

Another favourite quote:
I always use alcohol when cooking - sometimes I even put it in the
recipe....

LadyJane
--
"Never trust a skinny cook!"

Lefty said:

I don't remember ever seeing my Grandma use any measuring utensils.

Which brings up an interesting thing I've recently noticed.

I started grinding coffee beans each time I make coffee, and the scoops
for that are 1-floz, 1/8th-cup, 2 tbs in size. At least nominally;
some are smaller because they're for grounds.

But the scoops that come "free" with coffee makers, grinders, coffee,
etc. are all short-handled, and the bags of beans are all deep -
sometimes ridiculously so: Tully's bags are about 3 inches wide and as
long as your forearm.

So I needed a long-handled 1-ounce coffee scoop.

Took weeks to find.

But what I noticed, in thinking I could improvise with a 2-tbs
measuring spoon, or a 1/8-cup measuring cup, is that the 1-ounce
measure is a glaring hole in the "you can get them everywhere" nature
of measuring utensils. Measuring-spoon sets go up to 1 tbs.
Measuring-cup sets go down to 1/4 cup. And almost nobody considers the
gap between as a market. I think I saw only one set with the right
size measure and - you guessed it - a very short handle.

I was starting to engineer one (turning it on a lathe; slip-molded
clay; tinfoil-and-duct-tape origami) when I found a genune coffee scoop
that will be adequate.

I think I may have got it at Sur La Table. It's a cheap, stamped and
spot-welded sheetmetal job, and it was in the clearance section, so I
probably paid only twice what it's worth.

Maybe I should have just calibrated my hand.

--Blair

jay said:

Harriet Neal said:

now this is scary...

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/living/food/14263404.htm

I would have guessed that culinary skills were improving. Some
oldsters used to cook the same thing on the same day week after week.
Guess you could get good at doing those meals.

My Scottish grandmother did that when she and grandpa became elderly. It
was easier than having to think up a meal idea every day and they could shop
ahead and have what they needed. They had beef roast (I think it was chuck
roast) on Sunday. I think she served chicken sometimes. She used the
leftovers to make sliced beef in gravy on Tuesday or if it was chicken,
chicken on biscuits. I have no idea about Monday; maybe it was 'Mince' and
mashed potatoes? Wednesday was spaghetti day (maybe using up leftover mince
in the tomato sauce?) I don't remember Thursdays. On Fridays it was fish
sticks and tater tots. Don't ask me why fish on Friday; they were staunch
Methodists and Orangemen but there you have it. That's still comfort food
for me; I *love* fish sticks and tater tots and I don't care how trashy it
sounds. Dang, now I have a craving and I don't have any! Oh well!

OB Food: Squash Casserole:

2 c. sliced yellow (crookneck) squash
1 c. grated Parmesan cheese
1 c. cornbread stuffing crumbs
1 c. milk
1 small minced onion
1 Tbs. butter
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

Combine all ingredients. Place in a 1-1/2 quart casserole dish. Bake at
350F for 1 hour or until set. If using prepared leftover cornbread
stuffing, cut the liquid slightly.

Jill

"Michael "Dog3" Lonergan" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Harriet Neal" <[email hidden]> hitched up their panties and posted
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

now this is scary...

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/living/food/14263404.htm

Gawd... Yet many cookbooks have the definition of the terms right in the
front of the book.

And I for one needed those when I started cooking from cookbooks. I learned
the techniques for doing things, but not the names. So as I was helping in
the kitchen as a youngster, it wasn't "fold this into that" it was "take
this thing and do *this* with it" while she was showing me what to do.

Same with words like simmer or boil or whatever. I knew what it was supposed
to be doing for certain dishes, but I didn't always know the correct terms.
I don't know if mom ever knew the correct terms either. She just cooked.

Donna