Recipes are the hottest thing!
I grew up flavoring by “feel”. In other words, if You felt like pouring something in, you did! Really -my mother has this gift for flavoring things and I just copied that. Which I think she got from her mom.
My sister, in fact, once tried to watch my grandmother make her famous mandel bread. This was in order to record the ingredients and measurements for posterity. “Some flour -ok, another handful. Throw in a fist of nuts and maybe a little more. A few fingerfuls of cinnamon. Sugar? Whatever feels right,” and on and on. Basically, my sister had no idea what to do. Her hands were smaller and her instincts less honed. That’s how my grandmother baked – by feel. A fist, a fingers worth, that’s not a duplicable measuring cup!
The concept of a cookbook was alien! Books were for learning, maybe for reading, but never for cooking!
Today we have cookbooks, recipe blogs, Instagram posts, and Googling, for ideas. Of course, it’s not the same as actually tasting something and wanting to make it. Rather, we look at the picture. The more professional it looks, the more we want to make it! If there are flowers or leafs enhancing the dish, drizzles across it, or its plastered across the dish like art, we are in! Even if the portion is of microscopic size, presentation is everything.
Who would ever want to make a chulent based on this description? They’d faster use it for mortar. With something like chulent, your best bet is to get one of those miniature soup bowls with a little beanie on it, and make it all about the look of the bowl! Because there’s no way to beautify this food! But taste it once, and your hooked.
What about gefilte fish? My mother said her mother use to bring a fish home and have it swimming around in the tub before she made it. Honestly, anything I’m showering with an hour before I cook it is not going into my recipe. But not so back then! First it became an intimate part of the family and then they beheaded it.
The foods of today are not the foods of yesterday. And vice versa, I would venture. I was once in Miami. I was going up and down the aisles looking for items when I saw the attendant. I said “I can’t find any arugula. I guess you don’t carry it”. He laughed and said “are you kidding, a rugalach- we have it in cinnamon, vanilla, and chocolate”.
Here are things I can’t even think why anyone ate or continues to: matchas, herring, ptcha, pickled tongue? They are delicacies some prize from their youth. A lot of us can’t even turn and face them.
Today people eat differently. Years ago a salad was lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, maybe pepper and carrots. Today it’s anything in your pantry or fridge! Animal, vegetable, maybe even mineral- and certainly nuts, beef, or fruits are fair game. Years ago a salad was a side dish, now it’s a main dish. There are whole stores devoted to just making a salad! And here’s where your feel might get developed. It’s anything you feel like throwing in!
It used to be what took time was the preparation. Prep time, not ingredients, were complicated. Today, we have every kind of instrument to help with preparation- a slicer, a dicer, a blender, a bread maker and so on. A kitchen aid, actually use to be your daughter helping in the kitchen. Now, it’s a massive machine. The difference is your daughter used to wash the dishes afterwards, the kitchen aid needs to be washed. But, it never complains about all the work it has to do!
Some people just like to try new things. They are not necessarily looking for a successful dish to use in their repertoire. Once, I ate at a friend’s house and had an amazing chicken dish. So I started making it at times. A few months later my friend ate over and raved about it. I said -I got this recipe from you! She said -she never remembered making it. She just tries new things all the time. If it’s good -well, yay, if not, she serves it anyway. I realized I had been really lucky; I had shown up for one of her successes!
There are people who copy a recipe to a tee. If it turns out well- then – Yay! If not, they serve a bad recipe, you’re stuck. My attitude is that’s where the work begins, fix it up. Throw things in. Try and salvage it. You know the old saying …. it’s not over till it’s over! Or it’s not over till the fat lady sings. I say, it’s not over till you try and use your feel to make it better!
It’s true, I am impressed by a beautiful looking recipe. And I love the cookbooks with the amazing pictures. Still, I can’t claim my culinary art work is always my forte or focus. I’d say I usually shoot for at least aesthetically pleasant. But, I do believe that the way I work, my grandmother would be proud of me! And that makes me feel good, because when you tasted her dishes there was always a Yay, in your mouth!
Rivki Rosenwald is a certified relationship counselor, and career and life coach. She can be contacted at 917-705-2004 or rivki@rosenwalds.com<mailto:rivki@rosenwalds.com