My youngest son, now 23, was staying with me for a while this past year. I got so mad at him because he wouldn’t do anything around the house and, being me, I struck out in my normal method — I wrote a story about it. Included in the story was the following paragraph.

My youngest son keeps talking about “getting his own place,” but has, thus far, not shown any ability to look around and see that something needs to be done. He can look at dog hair all over the floor and not think about sweeping the floor. One night he looked at a mirror I have in the dining room and commented on how dirty it was, but it never occurred to him to clean it. I have had him in the kitchen a couple of times and, with me stepping him through what to do, he has managed to turn out pretty good food. He just can’t remember what he did so he can do it again later. I’ll keep working on him and, at some point, get him where he can make up something.

After writing that I went off on a tangent as I often do and started thinking about the cooking done in my family over the years and the difference in styles and abilities.

Types of Food

My mother cooked good, wholesome meals for our family: most were boiled or roasted. She made a few things that were really great. I can particularly remember her spaghetti and meatballs, chop suey, and tacos.

My dad never cooked until we moved into our own house where we had a brick barbecue. His menu on that consisted of only hot dogs and hamburgers. I don’t remember him ever cooking a steak or chicken on the grill, and I have no idea when he started cooking for real. When mom got too sick to care for herself he evidently picked up the cooking tasks and concentrated on meat and potatoes in every meal. He also bought a lot of frozen dinners and pizzas that he could just heat and eat. He cut out recipes from papers and magazines all the time and collected over a thousand recipes. He was not an experimenter, he followed the recipe exactly. As a result he had a lot of variety in his diet, but he could never make something without having the recipe in front of him.

My Grandma Webb was a farm wife and, although I can’t remember exactly what she served, the table was always loaded with meat, potatoes, veggies, and dessert. I also remember that I liked everything she cooked.

My Grandma Maxwell also loaded the table with the same types of foods. Because they lived on a chicken farm, there was nearly always chicken on the table.

My first wife, Robin — what to say about her expertise? When we lived together in Paris she was attending the famous Cordon Bleu cooking school and each night she would experiment on me by fixing whatever she learned in class that day. She had also lived in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and learned a lot of Brazilian and Portuguese cooking. She was great at fixing gourmet dishes. When we lived in NC, however, she was not up to fixing daily meals for just the two of us and she got bored easily. I’m ashamed to admit I was a typical male-chauvinist when we were married. I worked, she didn’t, so when I came home from work I expected to be fed. I honestly don’t remember ever cooking while Robin and I were together.

My middle wife, Mickey, like mom, cooked good, solid, “stick-to-your-ribs” meals. She made more Mexican food and was willing to experiment occasionally. When she did that it was either great or — well, like when made tacos using beef tongue — YUCK!

My last wife, Debbi got off work at five and her old boyfriend got off at seven or eight and she was expected to have dinner ready. When we got together she was shocked the first night when she got home from work and found dinner ready for her. We traded off cooking as long as we were together. She was not really into gourmet or “fancy” cooking but she had an extremely wide array of items she could prepare. She also experimented a lot in the kitchen, sometimes mixing a bunch of things I would never think of and ending up with something really great. I don’t remember ever seeing her use a recipe, she just thought about what she wanted to fix and did it.

The Kitchen

Mom ruled our kitchen and didn’t want dad in there while she was cooking, but she always had me helping her and I learned all the basics of cooking from her.

Grandma Webb allowed nobody in the kitchen while she was cooking. Even Mom would ask before venturing into Grandma Webb’s kitchen and then she would rapidly come back out. Like most farm families, the kitchen was where everyone gathered during non-cooking hours. However, as soon as it was time to start fixing dinner, everyone cleared out. Oh, she did allow people in the kitchen afterwards — to wash the dishes.

Grandma Maxwell, however, held more to Pennsylvania traditions in that the kitchen was the center of the family. Her kitchen/dining room was larger than any three other rooms in the house combined. While she cooked two or three of us would be sitting in the kitchen chatting and nearly everyone pitched in at one time or another to help in some way.

For whatever reason, I don’t remember Mickey ever teaching the kids how to cook. The times I remember the kids helping in the kitchen were those when I was cooking. Mickey and I did NOT cook well together. Any time we were in the kitchen together we got in each other’s way and usually ended up in an argument.

My oldest son, Greg, has somehow learned to be an exceptional chef. Naturally I like to think that I had some influence on his ability. I have absolutely no idea whether my middle son can cook or not. The times he has been here it was as a guest and I did all the cooking. He never volunteered and I never asked him to fix anything.

When Greg and I visited my daughter and her husband Greg and I did the bulk of the cooking because they both worked and Greg and I were home all day. The times they did cook it was a joint effort for them. They worked well together in the kitchen and came up with some tasty dishes. When they visited me I fixed a brunch comprising California Eggs Benedict and Quiche Lorraine and Tracy asked for the recipes. I sent them to her and, so far as I know, she still hasn’t gotten around to fixing them.

Debbi and I worked well in the kitchen together and could both work on different things or even help each other with one thing with no arguments.

Dinner Time

Last September 25 was National Family Day and there were ads all over the radio about the family eating together on that day. That made me start thinking about the following comparisons.

At Grandma Maxwell’s house everyone sat down to eat together. If there were a family get-together there would be one big table for the adults and one or two smaller tables for the kids. I remember when I graduated to the adult table and I was soooo proud and even stuck out my tongue at the kiddies at their table. (Yeah, I’m really a nice guy.) Dinner was always at six o’clock and everyone was expected to be there. If you weren’t there — you ate whatever happened to be left over!

At Grandma Webb’s we all ate together. The time wasn’t fixed, but it was usually about an hour after Grandpa Webb, dad, and I returned from working in the fields. It just dawned on me that mom must have been bored silly during those summers. The men would go away during the day and she’d sit at home with Grandma Webb. Hmm, guess that’s pretty much what women did all the time in those days, huh? But mom was used to working and I now wonder how she spent her time and whether she ever got tired of doing “women’s” stuff.

When I was growing up mom and dad both worked. Mom 8 to 5 and dad on rotating shifts, so he was there for dinner only about two-thirds of the time. Even though mom worked she, as the wife, was expected to fix dinner and have it on the table at six each evening. When she was late dad would fret and stew until she either told him to shut up or said something like, “If you want this on the table at six, you get out here and fix it.” That always shut him up.

When dad wasn’t home mom usually let me sit in the living room and watch TV while eating dinner on a TV tray. TV dinners were a new thing and we ate a lot of them when dad wasn’t there. I remember dad making a big deal about not eating TV dinners. I can’t remember what it was, but there was a time when one TV show attracted him and he actually sat in the living room one night a week and ate a TV dinner on a TV tray.

Mickey and I tried to have dinner each night with the entire family at the table. Easy when the kids were younger, but progressively harder as they grew up.

A Review

When I finished writing this I sent it to my son Greg and he responded with the following:

I read that cooking document you sent. I never bothered to think about what our family’s eating habits were. Not only was it informative for me on a personal level, but it shows how the disintegration of evening “family time” has progressed and what has replaced it.

Start with full sit-down meals, then women in the workplace meant quicker meals with flexible dining room time. Television technology brought less hearty/healthful meals to living room and dining room time was lessened. Junk food and mass media made sit-down meals special occasions only. Now, cyber space equates to too busy to eat, let alone set a table.

It was a little slice of Americana.

I can’t think of a better comment with which to end this treatise.