The joy of cooking

[Maverick2272]

I just had to say something on this, not pointing fingers or venting but courious if anyone else ever feels this was as well:

I love cooking, I love making new recipes for the first time, and I love changing them and putting my own twist on things.

But sometimes it seems to me the love and joy of cooking are getting lost in all the chemical and health and technology talk of today. Every time I turn around there is a huge discussion on this chemical or that or some new health craze or health news, or even worse some new sensational report on how some thing that some day may some how impact some person on some part of this planet and therefore we should all huddle in fear in our basements awaiting doomsday.
My Dr. says I will be dead in ten years because I refuse to comprimise flavor by using low fat or no fat or fake and we dont think it has fat stuff in my food.
That was ten years ago, I am still here and going strong. I wash my food, I grow what I can, what I cant I buy from local farmers markets or fruit and vegetable markets. I make as much from scratch as possible using the freshest ingredients possible, and make more fruits and vegetables than meats and grains. And I believe moderation is key to all things. Even the healthiest thing, taken too far, becomes unhealthy.
And I think we have a tendancy to do that ourselves, to get so focused on all the facts and figures and whys and hows and whens that we loose site of the simple joy of slapping a burger on a grill and watching it sizzle...

Either that or its time for me to head down to the basement and lock myself securely in a corner room under a mattress...

 

[Loprraine]

" because I refuse to comprimise flavor by using low fat or no fat or fake and we dont think it has fat stuff in my food. "

I won't compromise flavour either. I'm a firm believer in "everything in moderation". I don't buy low fat / no fat / fake, simply because I don't like the taste, and they upset my stomach. ( Yes, it could be mind over matter). I grow what I can, I make from scratch what I can, so...if I have pork belly every 3 months, so be it.

 

[jeninga75]

My grandfather ate fried chicken every day, drank whiskey every day and smoked. He lived until he was 86, and not in such a bad way. He lived on his own and died in his sleep peacefully.

People have been eating and doing what they want for years and living 80+. This is the age of medication. The age of low-fat this, light that and lo-cal this. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to go this route if you so choose, my point is what did people do years ago when we didn't have this stuff?

My take on it is this... you only live once. Eat what you want *in moderation* and enjoy life. If you love cheese burgers, indulge in one. If you crave fried chicken, knock yourself out. There's no point in denying what you love and makes you happy. And this goes beyond food.

 

[jkath]

Mav, I'm with you all the way.
I don't buy weird stuff either.
I eat butter daily, & I make food the way my Grandma did...with real food(!)


and honestly, who reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally likes fake food?

 

[BreezyCooking]

I agree with you completely Maverick - I don't like the taste nor the list of nasty-sounding compromising ingredients in "fake" low-fat/no-fat food.

But I'll never convince my husband of that, so we just co-exist. Granted, he eats what I cook (& I cook with "real" food), but he buys his own "fake" sour cream for garnishing, his own "spreads" for bread, his own "egg substitute" for breakfast, etc., etc., & I'm not going to argue with him over it. I just buy my own sour cream, butter, eggs, etc., etc., & we just co-exist. Life's too short - lol!

 

[Robo410]

I eat real food. I buy local when I can, and organic when I can and when it looks good. I watch my fat intake but what fat I do eat is real... either animal or vegetable and has taste and food value. I will not waste my time on earth with artificial dreck.

 

[radhuni]

Indian foods are rich with oil and spices, low caloried food cannot match the taste.

And I dont like those tasteless foods.

Everyday I take a spoonful ghee(clarified butter) with steaming rice.

I dont have any problems like high blood pressure, cholesterol and other problems that said to related with high fat diet.

But I must say something that I never overeat.

 

[Maverick2272]

Yum! I love Indian food, always worth the trip up to Clarke St. to the Indian neighborhood there.

"Life is a journey, eat it up!" I wish I knew who said that.

I think we here on DC are on the right track with this stuff. I look around our culture and see people obsessed with health this and dangers that and yet we are an obese country consuming far far too much per person.
I look around other cultures (European, Indian, Oriental, etc) and see cultures obsessed with taste and variety and food that 'pop' and wake up the senses. And they dont seem to have nearly as many health problems as us.
Maybe its all perception, or maybe they are on to something?
Alls I know is up until ten years ago I was part of the problem, consuming tons of sugars and fats and fast foods and processed foods. I gained tons of weight and took ill so I went on the 'fad train' following the low fat low cal low carb diet ways. No help. Always made me want to eat more. Then three years ago I switched and started concentrating on making things from scratch, using fresh ingredients, and going for the rich taste. Suddenly I found myself eating less, loosing weight, and becoming healthier.

Just seems to me the more diet and low fat and low carb stuff you eat, the emptier it is and the more of it I want. Whereas the richer the food the less of it I consume. Or maybe thats what these diet companies were wanting??

 

[Dave Hutchins]

Maverick2272 Your idea's are right on track. I am a retired EX Chef and when healthy came into vogue my customer's raised a lot of sand about not changing my menu one little bit. I was know far and wide as a comfort food chef and I bought from farmers markets and as much as i could it was fresh scratch cooking every day. I love to cook and my customers loved to eat my food.

 

[TATTRAT]

My grandfather ate fried chicken every day, drank whiskey every day and smoked. He lived until he was 86, and not in such a bad way. He lived on his own and died in his sleep peacefully.

AMEN!

We would have gotten along famously.


May we all have it as good.

 

[elaine l]

I agree with the group. No fake anything. No low carb, low fat. I eat what I want. I try to eat "good" foods meaning quality fresh products. I make most everything from scratch. Moderation is key to me. I don't eat everything I ever wanted in one sitting. It balances out since no one in my house has any problem with weight but eats butter, sometimes fried food, cheese, pasta, sweets.

 

[radhuni]

I think we here on DC are on the right track with this stuff. I look around our culture and see people obsessed with health this and dangers that and yet we are an obese country consuming far far too much per person.
I look around other cultures (European, Indian, Oriental, etc) and see cultures obsessed with taste and variety and food that 'pop' and wake up the senses. And they dont seem to have nearly as many health problems as us.
Maybe its all perception, or maybe they are on to something?
Alls I know is up until ten years ago I was part of the problem, consuming tons of sugars and fats and fast foods and processed foods. I gained tons of weight and took ill so I went on the 'fad train' following the low fat low cal low carb diet ways. No help. Always made me want to eat more. Then three years ago I switched and started concentrating on making things from scratch, using fresh ingredients, and going for the rich taste. Suddenly I found myself eating less, loosing weight, and becoming healthier.

Although I dont know much about your food habits yet I think that you dont take balance diet (I dont mean balance in protien, carbohydrates etc)


May be I cannot explain it properly. I am giving an example to explain it:
We never take only one dish in our meal, instead we take several dishes. We take spicy food but we also take other dishes with it to neutralised it's action. If we take 'biriyani' we also take 'raita' or 'dahi vada'.

A traditional Indian meal must contains bitter item, spicy and hot items, sour item and sweets.

[SIZE=-1]I use my fridge only to preserve raw meat, fish, vegetables, fruits and sometimes excess food, but I generally dont keep cooked food, I prepare our meal everyday with fresh ingredients. I dont like processed foods having unpleasant odour of preservatives.


[/SIZE]

 

[radhuni]

May I ask you a question ? Please dont mind.

If we can prepare our food everyday in a hot tropical country like India ( It is not easy to stand in the front of a gas oven when the temperature is nearly 40 degree celsius in summer), why cant you prepare it and have fresh food everyday?

 

[Constance]

I'll take a stab at answering that questions, Radhuni.

In this day and age, most women work, and when they get done at work, they often have to take children to soccer games, music lessons, etc. When finally get home, they just don't feel like cooking, so they buy fast food, or packaged and frozen items to make life easier. A lot of young people these days have grown up on sacks of burgers from McDonalds, frozen pizzas, etc.

 

[radhuni]

In this day and age, most women work, and when they get done at work, they often have to take children to soccer games, music lessons, etc. When finally get home, they just don't feel like cooking, so they buy fast food, or packaged and frozen items to make life easier. A lot of young people these days have grown up on sacks of burgers from McDonalds, frozen pizzas, etc.

Yes ofcourse time is a problem. May be I had expressed myself badly. I am not so much familier with your life styles. I am just wating to know.

I want to say cooking will be more easier in colder country yet you have tendency to eat processed food more than us.

We go outside for a dinner only once or twice in a month. If I dont have time I just prepare plain rice, dal, boiled potato and boiled egg. It just take 10-15 min to prepare.

The young people have grown up on processed food, but I think it is not good for them.

 

[Constance]

I agree, Radhuni. That's why obesity is such a problem for American children.

It is possible for a busy mother (or father) to provide healthy food for the family. I did it for my own children, and for the grandson I raised while running my own business. It just requires motivation and education.

 

[GotGarlic]

My grandfather ate fried chicken every day, drank whiskey every day and smoked. He lived until he was 86, and not in such a bad way. He lived on his own and died in his sleep peacefully.

People have been eating and doing what they want for years and living 80+. This is the age of medication. The age of low-fat this, light that and lo-cal this. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to go this route if you so choose, my point is what did people do years ago when we didn't have this stuff?

My take on it is this... you only live once. Eat what you want *in moderation* and enjoy life. If you love cheese burgers, indulge in one. If you crave fried chicken, knock yourself out. There's no point in denying what you love and makes you happy. And this goes beyond food.

I agree for the most part with the sentiments expressed here - I try to eat healthfully and prepare our dinners most days, most of the time, and often eat the leftovers for lunch. And I sometimes indulge in some things that aren't so healthy, so I'm not a fanatic about it. I cook a lot because I love good food and I'm a good cook

But the truth is, a hundred years ago, most people didn't live into their 80s. The average life expectancy was around 40, partly because of infectious diseases but partly because of lack of nutrition. In WWII, the primary cause of the military rejecting young men for service was the requirement that they have at least three teeth! Due to lack of vitamin D, many didn't have that; that's why vitamin D is added to milk and other foods. It's also why oranges are a traditional Christmas stocking stuffer - they used to be very expensive and many people didn't get enough vitamin C. Check out the history of British sailors being called Limeys.

And the reason why people in countries outside the U.S. are often healthier than we are is not just because of food - their entire lifestyles are different. They walk more, they work less, they don't have cars or gas costs so much they don't drive as much, they have better public transportation, junk food is expensive while fresh food is cheaper, it goes on and on. After hosting 6 European exchange students, I try, even with all my health issues, to get exercise, even if it's just walking up the four flights of stairs to my office.

The bottom line is our society is organized around the car, while many others are not. That makes it a lot easier for us to gain weight. And our culture values work over leisure time, which increases stress and decreases time and motivation available to prepare meals.

 

[Robo410]

I like this conversation. I came from a family with working parents but we always had fresh food and a regular dinner at the table. Some meals were cooked in quantity on the weekend for later in the week, ie spaghetti sauce, soup from the roast on Sunday or stew. Otherwise it might be chops (lamb pork or veal) with a pan sauce and veggies etc. But also, we kids were in the kitchen helping mom get dinner on the table, learning to cook, learning to like new foods etc. By the time we were young teens, mom could leave us directions to get stuff started when necessary.

Despite busy American schedules we have allowed the "outside world" to eat away at our family times unnecessarily. Boards like these and TV like the foodtv and pbs have begun to help people realize what is possible and what should be our new norm.

 

[Barbara L]

Another reason we shop less often and store food in the refrigerator and freezer is that it is cheaper to stock up when there are sales. Add that to the element of time and we unfortunately end up eating less fresh food than we should.

Barbara

 

[Maverick2272]

Radhuni,
I think you are expressing yourself very well, and i agree very much with what you are saying. If I go back more than 3 years in my life, I was the one with a fridge and freezer full of pre-packaged foods, and a pantry full of boxes and cans of 'quick-prep' foods as well.
And this is despite the fact that I grew up in the country (on a farm but not farmers), and we made everything from scratch. But, I moved to Chicago and fell into the "no time for anything gotta work work work play play play mentality. I thought, why waste time cooking when I could be out experience this or seeing that in the city?
I am still kicking myself for thinking that, but happily no longer do that. Now my fridge is used like yours, to keep ingredients fresh for when I am going to cook them. We buy less when we go to the store, and go to the store more often so that we can keep fresh ingredients around. My pantry is now where I store raw dried goods, not cans and boxes of quick and easy meals.
I also understand what you are saying about 'balanced diet'. Not the food pyramid or meats, vegetables, fruits, grains etc but rather tastes. Balancing spice with bitter sweet with sour etc. Which speaks to one of the points I was making. I see those around me treating meals as something to 'shovel' in quickly before moving on to the next activity or event, while other cultures treat it more as an experience, a joy, and a time well spent with thier families.
Your experiences and views on life offer much for us to learn, and I am glad you chose to share them with us here.

Constance, GotGarlic and Barbara L:
I think you struck right into the heart of the problem here. Excellent points about how focused on work we are, how we are centered around the car, and how conveneince reings over taste. Case in point was the many many hours each week my wife spent collecting coupons just so she could get all this pre-packaged food cheap. What a trap that is. It gets you into the whole cycle of buying all this garbage and thinking about the money you are 'saving' instead of your health.
It was almost as if we didnt have the time to cook because we were too busy clipping coupons so we had to buy the quick meals which in turn made us spend more time clipping coupons to save money on quick meals and around and around we went.
Now we are more like Radhuni keeping fresh ingredients and 'balancing' our meals. Amazing how much healthier we all feel.

Robo410:
Very good point. We should include our kids more in the cooking we do, encourage them to hold on to the same ideals of cooking fresh cooking healthy so they have a better life as well.

I think, but all together, you guys did a better, more eliquent job of explaining what I was trying to express than I did!

Thanks guys!