One of the best ways to learn good cooking skills is from mimicking our ancestors. In most every family there is a recipe or two (if not more) handed down generation after generation that has been a family favourite among all the decades of family members. Perhaps it is Great grandpa’s famous fish soup and biscuits, or grandma’s apple rhubarb pie, or even Auntie Beatrice’s chicken fried dumplings. For all these recipes, there are often associated happy memories of time spent together laughing and enjoying each other’s company.
Home cooking is often the base of simple and easy to make home dishes that have been crafted with love and care when assembling. Dishes do not have to be fancy or full of ingredients that cost a small fortune, or mixed with items that you will rarely ever use again. It is the little things that matter in real true home cooking.
Wouldn’t it be nice to learn how to make a jambalaya using only the freshest ingredients and spiced just the right way as your great great grandpa used to and surprise your family and friends? So many times people get lost in trying to come up with new tasty dishes that often the best ones are forgotten. There is a reason recipes survive over time. We should look upon these classic dishes as a basis to prepare our menu plans when feeding our families.
If you are unsure of what types of dishes to prepare, you could do a genealogy search for your ancestors and see what types of lives they lived. Then do some research into what kinds of foods were popular back then. One of the good things about cooking in the olden days is that most everything was fresh. People lived off of what they grew, they took time to preserve their food in a healthy manner and not stuffing it full of preservatives and additives as so much food is now contained.
Do you know how they cured bacon? Do you know how they canned their jams and jellies? What was the trick to growing the lushest tomato plants or apple trees? It is all part of this process that goes into true home cooking. By starting out with superb ingredients, a gentle touch, and an excellent palate, you can end up with meals that people will remember for generations to come. Keeping your family healthy and able to indulge in delicious tasting food is all part of knowing that the best things in life don’t have to cost very much at all.
By M. Bremmer
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