I love what I do! Sharing my passion for food and cooking with the community. The last couple of weeks, I've been relishing the time I shared with the Clark College Health 100: "Food and Your Health" students. Oh, what delicious fun we had! The students have been using my cookbook -- Shop, Cook, Eat: Outside of the Box for the past several weeks and their time spent with me was to help them step further OUTSIDE of the Box.
As much as I enjoyed our time together, it dawned on me and sadden me to realize that most of these young adults have never cooked. Yet alone shopped in the grocery store.
I'm a child of the 70s. Probably the last generation before fast food and TV dinners replaced good home cooked meals. I grew up with a mother and grandmother who cooked and grocery shopped religiously. So I got to see first hand how it was done. Thank you mama and grandmama. As a reinforcement to what they taught me, I also took a Home Ec class in 7th grade. What ever happened to Home Ec classes? Have they been replaced with computer technology classes? I wonder.
I have fond memories of my time in the Home Ec classroom. There was a kitchenette were we practiced all sorts of basic cooking skills. Making chocolate chip cookies was always a sweet delight. There was a living space with a sewing machine and sewing items. I wasn't crazy about this area, but I did learn the very basics: how to stitch, sew on buttons, etc.
I wanna know...What happened to teaching our kids the very basic life skills (cooking, sewing, cleaning) at home? Is grocery shopping for real food a thing of the past? Is cooking from scratch a lost art? And, why did Home Ec get phased out of the curriculum?
For me cooking is an everyday essential skill. Instead of just pondering the questions, I'm doing what I can to help us return to the very basics. I'm on a mission to Bring Cooking Back and help folks step OUTSIDE of the prepared food Box! The responsibility should not fall on only our school systems or on the shoulders of lil ol' me, but really starts at home.
I took home ec in the seventh, ninth and tenth grades. I also took one of the first programming classes offered by my high school so I can see where one gained popularity and one lacked. It's really sad because the skills of home economics (which for me included nutrition, child development and budgeting) could benefit anyone.
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