A Good Cook
A few years ago someone asked me whether my mother was a good cook. I was at a loss to know what to say.
They should have asked years earlier. Then, at the height of my Elizabeth David gastro-snob period, I would have said absolutely not. How could she be? Mediterranean vegetables never entered her kitchen, stock was unheard of, little light delicate dishes were not part of her repertoire.
And as final proof I would have pointed to my mother’s own definition of a good cook. The good cook, she said, is the cook who has a hot meal on the table at the appointed time.
Just having food on the table on time? How crass, how unappreciative of a good cook’s taste, discrimination, and skill!
Many years on, and I am much more sympathetic to my mother’s definition. Cooking was her job and it was a relentless one. She had to have breakfast on the table at 9, dinner at 12:30 and tea, the last meal of the day, at 5.
The schedule was dictated by the farm day. My father had a cup of tea and an arrowroot biscuit (cookie) before heading out to meet the farm workers at 7 or 7:30. By breakfast, he’d done a couple of hours of hard physical labor often in raw, unpleasant weather.
So my mother cooked bacon and eggs, or scrambled eggs, or boiled eggs, or sausages, or sometimes kippers or smoked haddock, or liver. She toasted bread under the grill and put it in the toast racks. Then she flipped the seersucker tablecloth washed to faded rusts and greens on the breakfast room table, placed the pot of tea under its green tea cosy, and added the hot water jug and milk jug on the tray by her place at the head of the table. On went the china, cutlery, a butter dish, home-made marmalade, and the toast racks. Half an hour later she cleared the table and washed up.
It was time to start on dinner. Dinner was meat, two vegetables, potatoes, with pudding (in the English sense of substantial sweet course) to follow. She went to the garden to cut or dig the vegetables, the stables to take the potatoes from the sack where they were stored for the winter.
My mother making gravy (years after the period I am describing), though the kitchen had changed little. The door on the left with the roller towel led to the farmyard, the passage behind her to the pantry and breakfast room, the dark shadow on the right is the garden door.
Then she prepared a milk pudding, or a steamed suet pudding, or a fruit pie from fruit she had bottled during the summer. If custard were required, she made an egg custard since my father would take nothing from a packet. She put the potatoes and vegetables on to cook, prepared the roast or shepherd’s pie or chops or stew or meat pie or fish, always with the appropriate gravy or dressing or sauce.
Time to flip the tablecloth and set the table once more, this time adding glasses of water, salt, pepper and hot English mustard (unless we were having lamb). My father came in famished and with just an hour before he had to be outside again. Then she cleared the table and washed up.
Now it was time to start on tea. She pulled out the yellow mixing bowl once more and made a sponge cake or a pound cake or sometimes a fruit cake or small cakes (which would be called muffins in the US). If necessary she made a butter icing.
Then out came the tablecloth, and on went the tea pot and hot water and milk, a couple of kinds of home-made jam, butter, bread, the cakes, and, if the baker’s van had been some buns or a lardy cake or a Battenburg cake. We were all tired, hungry, and cold after a day outside or in unheated houses, schools, and buses. The meal was somewhat more leisurely but once again the table had to be cleared and the washing up done. Then cooking was over until the next morning.
This was during school holidays. During term time, she prepared the cooked breakfast at 7 for us before we caught the bus, and we had lunch at school, returning famished in the afternoon.
Only two occasions provided a break. One was tea with an aunt and uncle (of whom we had a plentiful supply) or a grandmother. Of course, that meant preparing a return, and unusually fancy, tea.
The other was a day out at the sea, collecting fossils, going to a museum, or visiting caves. This meant preparing sandwiches for the road and, invariably on return, omelets in the kitchen for supper.
Nor was cooking all she did. She did most of the cleaning of a house of between 3,000 and 5,000 square feet depending on how many rooms we had open; brought in the wood for the fire that was the only heat in the house, and the coal for the boiler; ran many of the farm errands in the beaten up farm van; dropped us off and picked us up from the bus stop a mile away; took care of the garden; did the washing, wringing it out in a mangle and hanging it in the garden to dry; and then the ironing and mending. From the time I was about four we did have electricity, indoor plumbing, and hot and cold running water which helped.
And some things we associate with cooking she did not do or have. She did not read cookbooks. She had only two, one spiral bound that came with the electric cooker, one that my father gave her when they got married. She consulted them only for Christmas pudding and for toffee we were allowed to make on rainy days. I still have both, pristine except for these two pages.
She did not have electric gadgets: no toaster, no mixer, no nothing.
She did not shop. On Monday she phoned the butcher and the grocer and they delivered the meat and the groceries on Wednesday. On Tuesdays and Fridays the baker’s van arrived, bringing excellent bread, small cakes and buns. Fruit and vegetables came from the garden, milk from our dairy a quarter of a mile down the road, and eggs from the bantams that scratched in the garden.
I., K. and Brunel, Henry Byrd, and hens in the garden
We were never less than seven people (parents, three children, uncle or later grandmother, and live-in girl). Much of the time we were more as school friends, foreign children on exchanges with us, lost souls, or friends of my parents came to stay for days or weeks at a time.
My mother’s task was made easier by the scarcity that limited her choices. Rationing did not end until I was eight. Meals ran on a weekly routine: roasts on Sunday, transformed and planned leftovers for the next couple of days, fish on Fridays. Rules for those meals were laid down in stone: sage and onion stuffing and apple sauce with roast pork, marmalade not jam for breakfast. There were no incentives to experiment with money tight, no enticing supermarkets, and the danger of failing to produce something palatable to the whole family.
My mother’s best items were what you might expect: cakes, pastry, rouxes that never failed for gravy or the family of white sauces (cheese, caper, parsley, etc), excellent jams and marmalades that put the high-priced artisanal ones I’ve encountered in farmer’s markets to shame. And fresh, natural, and local were just the way our meat and vegetables were.
The work never stopped, though. Even had we been able to afford the luxury of eating out, there were no restaurants closer than ten miles away, there was no take out, no delivery. It was three home-cooked meals a day, 375 days a year, for fifteen years. Then things eased a bit in the 1960s as we children went off to college, my uncle and the live-in girl got married, my grandmother died, my parents got a better car, and pubs began serving meals.
My mother’s work was the norm. It was what all the farm wives I knew did. And have done for thousands of years. And there were lots of worse jobs that humans have had. But it was not a job she had any choice about.
So was my mother a good cook? I would now say yes. Never do I remember a meal being late, never do I remember a tough pastry crust or a fallen cake, never do I remember running out of vegetables at the end of winter (though cabbage did play an ever larger role as February pass into March and March into April, the cruelest month). Nor come to that do I remember shoddily laid tables, scratch meals, or dirty dishes in the sink.
To put appetizing food on the table that regularly for that length of time took planning, energy, persistence, and skill. I now realize that when she said getting a meal on the table on time was what made a good cook, she did not mean that it was the only thing that made a good cook. It was that without that, the finest meal in the world was worthless to the people it was her job to feed.
As an adult, I returned time and again to ask myself why the contribution of cooks, their skill and their hard work, received so little recognition. To answer this, I eventually spent years writing Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History. I’m just sorry that my mother never lived to see that, nor to hear my apologies for being such a little snot about her cooking.
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I was reminded of the question of good cooking by a post on the Rambling Epicure: Mastering the Art of Food Writing Facebook Group a couple of weeks back. One of the two leaders, Jonell Galloway or Elatia Harris, asked whether you could be a great cook without having experienced great cooking, which I understood from the subsequent discussion to be professional cooking. The question comes from a different world from that of my mother and generations of other rural cooks.
There’s also been a slew of articles recently about the history and virtues of home-cooked family meals. That’s again a rather different question.
A wonderful story, Rachel. It made me rethink my own “snotty” opinion about my mother’s cooking. Thanks.
I loved this post – thanks for sharing!
Wow — I was getting weary just reading about all the work your mother did. Amazing. Epitome of the old saying “a woman’s work is never done.” I do love your comparison of concepts of what makes a good cook. Yes, it was a different time and a different world.
As for Cuisine and Empire, I just received my copy from Amazon this weekend, and I look forward to reading it. I’m sorry your mom didn’t get the chance.
Cynthia
Thank you Cynthia. And, yes, we are able to indulge our creative instincts when we cook without any serious liabilities.
Thanks for a lovely and detailed post about an era most of us have forgotten, even though it was not so far in the past. And such a terrific, valuable photo! Sort of comparably, my great-grandmother ran a boardinghouse in downtown Houston from the 30s through the 50s; she cooked three squares a day for 15-20 people, including biscuits and cornbread. I’d give anything for a photo of her in her kitchen, of which I have only dim memories.
Oh, I’d love to hear more about your great-grandmother. What a pity there is no photo. And you don’t mention that if our enemy was constant cold, cooking biscuits and cornbread in the Houston summer was gruelling.
Enjoyed your post very much, Rachel. Some of the recent debate about home cooked meals touches on the “invisible labor” they involve, to which we might add “invisible skill” as well.
Thank you Barbara. Yes, lots of invisibles here about planning meals, distributing helpings, having ways to deal with the days your period was killing you or you had flu or the electricity went out.
I grew up on a farm in northern Iceland in the 1960s. You are describing my mother’s life and cooking almost exactly, although the food was different. We also got electricity when I was four. She was a good cook although she never experimented and didn’t have a single cookbook. But it wasn’t until after she died that I realized that I actually have no idea if she ever enjoyed cooking.
Thank you for a wonderful story.
I am such an admirer of your work on Icelandic food and now even more. My mother was very clear that she did not enjoy cooking. But if that was what she had to do, she would do it to the best of her ability.
Beautiful.
Thank you Mike.I am sure you have similar stories and find yourself just as shamed by our easy dismissal of the work of our parents and grandparents and great grandparents.
Everyone who studies traditions Western women’s lives should read your essay! So should people who think they can learn it all from cookbooks. Forty years later I know that all that cooking, which mostly I loved doing but didn’t always want to do, was worth it. It helped make us a family. Now parents hardly have time to make meals so dependable.
Thank you Barbara. And I agree a huge number of the tacit skills in traditional cooking are not captured in cookbooks. How to roll from one meal to the next, how to balance meals over the week, how to accommodate the different tastes of different members of the family. I’d love to know more about your cooking for your family and how it related to your work on the history of French cooking.
That’s a fine tribute to your mother and her dedication to nourishing, and nurturing, her family.
One hopes this essay will receive a wider distribution.
Gary
Thank you Gary. She was not alone. This was what traditional cooking was for all but the tiny proportion of wealthy people.
One of the ironies of the foodie movement is that the authenticity it relentlessly seeks was achieved completely un-self-consciously by mothers raising their families according to ancestral traditions. Often they used ingredients they grew themselves, or which were native to the area, without excess adornment and featuring pure flavours. At bottom, Elizabeth David (IMO) sought similar values from food but drew often on foreign cultures, which gave it an exotic, sophisticated note. Many books deliver this kind of experience very well, one of my favourites is a book written by Paul Prudhomme, the well-known Louisiana chef. It is about growing up on a farm with very limited resources in the 40’s and 50’s. Without any artifice or hipster edge he tells you exactly what it was like to turn the farm’s resources into savoury dishes which spoke to the Cajuns’ mingled old French and southern cultures. He wrote that apart from a few staples, the family bought nothing outside the home. The cuisine that resulted formed the basis of his professional work much later…
Anyway that would be a good essay to see in Bon Appetit or the last page NYT magazine, say.
Gary
Thank you Gary. I haven’t read the Prudhomme book but will look for it.
Rachel, this is the Paul Prudhomme book I meant, the Prudhomme Family Cookbook:
http://www.harpercollins.com/web-sampler/9780062188113
Harper Collins generously permits reading a sample and there is considerable background in the 10 page introduction. Further history is given in each chapter where Paul Prudhomme or different family members give context to their recipes for specific dishes.
Thanks so much for tracking this down for me, Gary. A great read.
That’s comfort reading, love it Rachel!
Lovely, Rachel. I felt the same way about my mother, though she handed over the labor cooking dinner to me when I was a young teenager. My father always prepared breakfast, and Mom did make up our lunch boxes: either Swiss cheese sandwiches or bologna, a banana or an apple, and maybe a cookie if we were lucky. Every day. I am not to keen on Swiss cheese or bologna to day. How nice that you have a picture of your mum in the kitchen. And, yes, I am sure she’d be ever so proud of you for your wonderful book.
I’d take Swiss cheese sandwiches over English school lunches any day! But perhaps not every day!
I’d take a Swiss cheese sandwich over an English school lunch any day! Perhaps not every day!
The fact that someone else in the world has written, “at the height of my Elizabeth David gastro-snob period,” makes me feel less alone in the world, so thank you for that. Once I learned a little more about the history of food, I came to understand that being a cook and being a chef are completely different things. Someone who can take available ingredients and transform them, without fuss, into palatable meals, and yes, on time, is the mark of a good cook and that trumps any four stars and any chef’s cap for me. I think David actually had an essay about that in An Omelette and A Glass of Wine…
Judging by the unexpected response to this essay, I think you’re not alone at all. And I love your blog.
I loved the story and every one of the comments. Yes, I too remember when a good cook was one who served up 3 meals a day on time and didn’t poison anybody.
Thanks, Kay. And I forgot the didn’t poison anyone bit. Thanks for reminding me.
My Mother was raised in an ethnic-German Mennonite community in western Oklahoma. Now that I am older I better understand how much intelligence it took to make this routine happen every day, on time. We didn’t live on a farm, but my Father worked near our house so he came home for lunch every day and also wanted his dinner on the table at 5:30 pm each day. My Mother didn’t experiment much, but there was the occasional new dish. I now realize how smart and dedicated she was, AND what hard work it was. I admire her dedication to us, her family (and she does extract some retribution now that she is 93 :) )
Thanks for writing Joyce. Mennonite food has always fascinated me with its extraordinary dispersal to so many parts of the world. Did your mother serve follow this tradition? Or more broadly American?
Very thoughtful post, Ms. Laudan.
To read of the discipline, skill and care sustained over a substantial period of time in the kitchen in and of itself is so admirable but to do so despite enjoying cooking makes it even more admirable. It reminds me of people I had/have the good fortune of knowing in India and the USA – in some instances the person being part of family and in others not so.
To me, generally speaking, a question arises: does sustained proficiency in the kitchen despite not enjoying cooking, say something about cooking itself?
Bala.
Thanks Bala. I’m not sure it says anything about cooking particularly. I think it does say that many of us are exceptionally lucky today to be able to chose what we do. The idea that one has to love doing something to do it well is very recent, I think.
Rachel,
As a different line of thought, I agree that many of us in the current generation are fortunate to be able to chose what we do, and the idea that one has to enjoy what one does in order to do it well does appear to be more prevalent now.
As she grew up, my mother was never allowed in the kitchen — it belonged to her grandmother. In my earlier memories she was still figuring out how to make the dishes that would please my father, and learning how to get everything ready to serve at its best all at the same time. I have envelopes full of scraps of paper with her notes on how friends and relatives made dishes she wanted to master — she also never thought of using a cookbook, only the telephone. Your mother appears to have completely mastered all that before you recall — another process that isn’t acknowledged by the romantic view or the critical view.
How interesting, Mae. It’s hard for me even to imagine that a mother would not be a competent cook. But I think that’s where a restricted menu and a regular weekly pattern help. My mother did not attempt a wide range of dishes–variety came from seasonality and from changing ingredients. So she was constantly practicing a limited number of skills.
What a wonderful description of your mother’s hard work! I’m new to your blog, and am so happy to have found it. As I was reading your description of an era in our not so distant past I came to realize that this way of life is still – for the moment at least – alive in Italy. Many of our neighbors in Umbria, where we have a home, are still on this schedule of getting the meals on the table based on their own produce. But even I realize that this may be the last generation to live this hard life.
Thank you, Elizabeth. And for the comment about Umbria. It was also still this way in rural Mexico where we lived for nearly two decades. I think it brings out all our confusions about wanting to chose what we do and what we eat while still having local, home-cooked food.
Thank you for sharing this, it’s really lovely to catch up with your blog. As I get older I’ve done a lot of thinking about my mom, her cooking and the difficult relationship she’s had with the kitchen work in her life, there’s a black and white picture of her (that she hates) grinding masa on her knees probably no more than 8-10 years old. Later on in life she used to travel to Mexico City and cook for people for extended periods of time, as a kid I couldn’t understand her circumstances and that it wasn’t until later that I realized that she was an amazing cook to be able to go to Mexico City cook for weeks and go back to Oaxaca and always have a job waiting for her. At some point she stopped cooking all the labor intensive dishes of my infancy no more pozole with all the fixings for New Years, her exquisite tamales de salsa verde, the peaches in conserva, empanadas de lechecilla. But in a way even if the meals became “simpler” the quality of time with her improved greatly. To this day she and I eat the same thing for breakfast often just the two of us if we wake up early; Cafe de Olla, atole blanco, tortillas blandas, grilled cactus, queso blanco and salsa de Arbol. The simplicity in eating has given way to more stories and time to talk about food rather than stressing about the next meal.
Thank you for this lovely contribution, Nef. All the girls and women who taught me to grind were generous with their expertise but they understandably did not want to be photographed grinding masa on their knees. Your mother must have been a really excellent cook to be able to count on employment always balancing that trade off between being with the family and supporting the family financially. And I’m glad that you had the chance to appreciate her dishes and just as glad that she no longer feels she has to produce them. So many questions about food raised by your comments.
Fantastic topic. My 2 grandmas were worlds apart: one would make something and then leave it to bake to death on the stove, sometimes leaving it out for 3 days (that was my only experience with food poisoning); and the other hated cooking, but she always complained that “kids these days don’t eat onions, they’re loaded with Vit. C, donchaknow”, and she would never stoop to eat green peppers or quiches (that night led to a big fight, especially as my mom had made the quiches).
This whole romanticism of the past is complete baloney, as neither of my grandmas would’ve recognized food from today, with all the ethnic explosion (in the international aisle) and more variety.
I, on the other hand, have become interested in pot roast, but the flavours are hard to get right. I have discovered that poultry seasoning works great. It’s a chore to find good tastes in it, since my dad’s allergic to tomatoes, and I don’t like them, so you have to add tons more spice than normal. I’m also lactose intolerant, and most likely celiac, so finding a common meal for the 3 of us can be astronomical! So we end up eating a lot of chicken and fish.
PS Your site was linked to on FB by the Fat Nutritionist, so you might get more traffic. But I had to chime in.
There ought to be a way to make it tasty to you without the tomatoes. They would not have been available in the past. thanks so much for writing.