So this blog topic came to me today while I was cooking.
You see, there comes plenty of times on our little farm where the fridge is empty, the freezer bare, the cupboards dusty with misuse. These are times where I must use my imagination to come with with dinner.
So I pulled out some cheap chicken breasts (bone-in, skinned) I bought on sale, a package of instant potatoes, and some queso, because I always have a jar of queso knocking around in my fridge. And before you knew it, I had a delicious moist flavorful chicken breast on my plate, accompanied by a big spoonful of potatoes flavored with a large dollop of queso. Yum!
So that got me to thinking. Why are Americans so damned lazy in the kitchen these days? What ever happened to using your imagination and cooking on a budget.
So often have I heard, "Oh, there's nothing to cook. Let's order out." and I would look at their kitchen full of wonderful food and be absolutely puzzled. Why is it so hard to put together a decent dinner?
And then a mother, (no offense to Parents-not-Breeders out there) tried to say, "Oh, we stay-at-home moms are the best at cooking on a budget" and I just feel like saying, "Bitch, please. I just made a delicious dinner with three cheap-ass ingredients. And no foodstamp card either."
But then again, I'm not a very nice person.
If you want the truth of the matter, the people who are best at buying food, making food last, and making dinner out of nothing are those of us who have been HUNGRY in our lives. I'm not talking about "damn I haven't eaten since breakfast" hungry in the evening. I'm not even talking about "I haven't eaten all day" hungry.
I'm talking about days without food, stomach crampingly painful, can't even get the energy to cry hungry. Thankfully, the majority of people in our country have not had to encounter this. Some have. Including myself. And it really teaches you an absolute respect for food, how to shop to last, and how to make do with nothing.
Skills I am damn grateful for now, because even if I no longer have to fear going hungry, I can budget our grocery bill to get the most with my money, saving that money to buy other things. Like expensive feed for my fat goats.
I agree, you want to know someone who can eat when the cupboards are "bare" you talk to someone who has really been hungry and who has lived through the cupboards REALLY being bare. Folks like those who lived through the Great Depression or those of us who have lived through times that went way beyond lean to "they had a permanent effect on your health because you were so malnourished".
ReplyDeleteThese folks are also the most likely to have a stash of canned goods somewhere even if they aren't preparing for Y2K, lol.
They know how to make edible gravy out of a dab of left over grease, some flour, salt, pepper and water... They can make a bag of dry rice last a week and have a different meal every day.
Some of my "concoctions" aren't something i would want to eat when I had money for something else, but they fill the tummy and taste acceptable.
When Tsu lost his job and before we had that obnoxious legal thing where we had to defend ourselves against the state's screw up we splurged and invested in a chest freezer. One of the best things we did. I freeze up ANY left overs as well, NOTHING goes to waste. Even the compost type garbage gets used to feed the chickens who give us eggs.
I live by the motto: Waste not, want not!
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