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ventaEvery so often - usually when cooking - I notice that I'm doing something exactly the same way the mother does it. Of course, it's possible that this is because there is one right and obvious way to do it, and everyone else on the planet does it the same way too.
Apart from it being every woman's tragedy to turn into her mother, I quite like it. It gives me a nice sense of continuity, and of family, in everyday life.
I realise that I have, not quite consciously, stocked my kitchen with many very similar bits of equipment to the kitchen I grew up observing. Not in deliberate emulation, but just because those things strike me as being the proper tool for a job. So I have a beige-on-the-outisde, white-on-the-inside heavy ceramic bowl to mix bread dough in, and a Kenwood food mixer, and a set of Lakeland "add and weigh" scales. I prick eggs before I boil them, and I store my fridge boxes exactly like my mum stores hers. My spices live in a box in the cupboard, not on a rack. Recently, I've begged, borrowed and stolen what I think of as proper "kitchen cutlery" - second-hand heavy, white-metal tablespoons and forks, and flat-bladed knives with yellowing (fake-)bone handles. Kitchen cutlery is used only for cooking, and never makes it to the table for eating with.
Yesterday I was making custard (from powder, not from scratch) using a big, old tablespoon (did you know that a modern tablespoon measure holds slightly less, and if you make custard using one your custard will come out thin?) and I emptied the tin. Getting the new tin of custard powder out of the cupboard, I was suddenly struck by the end of one of these little similarities. Never again will I turn the spoon round and use the handle-end, with its distinctive heart-shaped pattern, to lever off the lid - something I watched my mum do at least once a week for years. They've changed the design, and instead of a lid which resembles that of a tin of paint, the new plastic lid is now easily removable with fingers alone.
It's a much more sensible design, but I can't help slightly regretting the old one's passing. Maybe in another thirty years I'll have got used to it.
Apart from it being every woman's tragedy to turn into her mother, I quite like it. It gives me a nice sense of continuity, and of family, in everyday life.
I realise that I have, not quite consciously, stocked my kitchen with many very similar bits of equipment to the kitchen I grew up observing. Not in deliberate emulation, but just because those things strike me as being the proper tool for a job. So I have a beige-on-the-outisde, white-on-the-inside heavy ceramic bowl to mix bread dough in, and a Kenwood food mixer, and a set of Lakeland "add and weigh" scales. I prick eggs before I boil them, and I store my fridge boxes exactly like my mum stores hers. My spices live in a box in the cupboard, not on a rack. Recently, I've begged, borrowed and stolen what I think of as proper "kitchen cutlery" - second-hand heavy, white-metal tablespoons and forks, and flat-bladed knives with yellowing (fake-)bone handles. Kitchen cutlery is used only for cooking, and never makes it to the table for eating with.
Yesterday I was making custard (from powder, not from scratch) using a big, old tablespoon (did you know that a modern tablespoon measure holds slightly less, and if you make custard using one your custard will come out thin?) and I emptied the tin. Getting the new tin of custard powder out of the cupboard, I was suddenly struck by the end of one of these little similarities. Never again will I turn the spoon round and use the handle-end, with its distinctive heart-shaped pattern, to lever off the lid - something I watched my mum do at least once a week for years. They've changed the design, and instead of a lid which resembles that of a tin of paint, the new plastic lid is now easily removable with fingers alone.
It's a much more sensible design, but I can't help slightly regretting the old one's passing. Maybe in another thirty years I'll have got used to it.
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Date: 2010-08-16 10:00 pm (UTC)gosh, yes, I have one of those too, which slightly surprises me as the colour of the bowl staying consistent strikes me as less predictable than particular pieces of equipment (like the Kenwood we also obviously have)
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Date: 2010-08-16 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-16 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-16 10:43 pm (UTC)I bought one almost exactly like my mum's too....
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Date: 2010-08-16 10:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-17 09:46 am (UTC)Yay, once again, not growing up in the UK means that there's stuff I don't know about... and do differently.
Venta, I don't do my cooking a la Mum, mainly because a) we're in different countries now, and b) I didn't really learn to cook from her. But there are other things I do similarly: mainly things to do with crafts, which she did a LOT of.
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Date: 2010-08-17 09:53 am (UTC)