I have blamed my lack of enthusiasm for cooking on being a lesbian, and my mother, in varying percentages. However I know many lesbians who love to cook, so decided it came down to my mother. She cooked as necessary for my dad and me, but it was always apparent that it was more of a chore than a pleasure; my attitude exactly to cooking for my family, although I managed to keep four teenage stepchildren from complaining too much. I’m not sure whether that’s a testament to my unexciting but perfectly palatable meals, however, or to their forbearance.
It was only later in life when, perhaps, you look back on things with at least slightly less distortion, I realized that for most of the years that I lived at home, Britain was under severe food rationing. In a world where many things, including practically anything imported, were simply unavailable, and what was available severely rationed, no wonder she lacked a certain enthusiasm. Doubtless some women reveled in the challenge of creating gourmet wonders from dried egg substitute (though we did get one real egg per week) and substituting ground potato for just about anything and frying sausages that were 90% bread crumbs. My mother was not among them.
I still have one of her cookbooks from that time and some of the recipes are astounding:
Carrot Fudge: well the thought’s enough to gag you. But, hey, the recipe was simple and easy; grate and cook as many carrots as you can spare, flavor with anything available; juice squeezed from fruit in season, artificial vanilla, left-over tea. Add gelatin, cook a few minutes, spoon into a flat dish. Leave to set then cut into cubes.
Yummm
Or there was SpaMghetti, which called for spaghetti, four eggs from reconstituted egg substitute, one half can of SPAM (God Bless America,) ¼ cup grated cheese (or grated potato if not available), onions and parsley, pepper and salt, as available. While spaghetti is boiling cook other ingredients in margarine if available or lard if available or water if nothing else is available.
Now you just try working up a fervor for that!
And, looking back, my poor mother did try so hard.
One of my most vivid childhood memories is of a very early birthday. I think I was three or possibly four. Mum produced, with a grand flourish, a birthday cake. Surpri-ise! Well I doubt my brain actually had a grasp of any such concept. Rationing allowed us very little in the way of cake at all, and I’m not sure if I had ever even seen a real pre-war style frosted cake, let alone tasted one. Only many years later did I have the remotest concept of the hording of ingredients and the trading of coupons this production must have cost.
It smelled delicious. I remember that.
And I was not the only one who thought so.
The dog sprang from the fireside mat, gained the table in one quick lunge, knocked the cake on the floor, and inhaled it. Apparently she, being considerably older than I, did recognize such pre-war visions of taste-treat sensation.
My mother was inconsolable. She wept. She roughly shoved the dog outside – about as close to animal cruelty as Mum would ever get. My dad shook his head and clicked his tongue and said, “Never mind,” - about as close to verbosity as he would ever get.
I remember feeling very confused at all this drama and then I sat down on the floor beside the remains of the shattered cake and scooped up finger loads into my mouth. It was delicious. Who could fault the dog?
I started to giggle. My mother, who always had a good sense of humor, soon joined in.
Dad, looking much relieved, winked solemnly at me and sat beside me on the floor, jabbing big hairy fingers into flattened frosting.
As he had anticipated, my mother responded with a disgusted, “Oh Edward! Get up!” but we both knew that secretly she was delighted with our response and our evident delight at her cake, even if it was not served quite as she intended.
She even relented and let the dog back in eventually, to clean up the dregs my dad and I had left on the kitchen linoleum.
There were still years of rationing to follow, but I don’t recall Mum ever going for the Big Cake Event again, and she certainly did not once rationing ended and cakes were readily available in the local bakery. So, whether or not it originated with rationing, who knows? (Though Brits of my generation and up do so love to blame the Germans.)
All I know for sure is, I’m with her. A woman’s place is no longer in the kitchen, and I would rather spend my time writing my silly short stories.
And as it’s almost Thanksgiving I shall close with a relevant quote from Erma Bombeck?
Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times takes twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.
Lakewood, 2012
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