LOL - those school days memories. In my home ec course we made spaghetti, brownies (which were actually really good), and....home made onion rings of all things. And some fabulous french toast that was sort of orange flavored in a kind of meringue. Mostly what I remember is being taught to understand table-settings for all occasions, and that the instructor had an interesting habit of guzzling vanilla extract. Yup.
DH has a penchant for comfort foods, so will at times request some creamy thing - Thanksgiving leftovers tend to get made into sort of Turkey tetrazini or ala king. Maybe left over chicken from a roast, but not often.
This discussion of the SOS made me laugh 'cause a few weeks back when I had this photo capsule endoscopy, and we asked the nurse practitioner when I could eat (after fasting for 36 hours) he said - well, in 2 hours you could have a light meal - like sausage and biscuits with gravy. My husband couldn't stop laughing "yup, that's light."
Our current thing is chicken fricassee - where the flavor really depends on the chicken. I'm trying for richer flavor while cooking ultra low fat. (it isn't working)
And who could blame that poor instructor - all those teen age girls.
Ah, the memories of home ec! Sadly, it's not taught any more, in the way we had it, when you had a year of sewing and a year of cooking, IIRC. Such education takes time, and because it's not measured on the tests, it's no longer deemed important enough to give adequate time.
(Not to mention the gender issue. When girls had sewing/cooking, boys had shop. It certainly wasn't right to buttonhole everyone based on gender and I don't want to go back to "the good old days" on that account, but OTOH each group learned to do something worthwhile, even if they learned *nothing* about the other half's subject. Now it seems like everyone gets a smattering of everything, but it's not enough for anyone to actually do anything with!)
But I do remember learning the basics well...how to measure, and the difference between a liquid measuring cup and a dry measuring cup. How to cook efficiently - use one pot to melt butter, and you can still re-use the same pot to boil veggies in without cleaning in between (but not necessarily the other way around, so think ahead. The difference between using a double boiler or direct heat and yeast vs. baking powder. So many details!
She was a hoot - I think she retired about a year or 2 after my 8th grade class. I still remember the fabulous bell bottom hip-huggers I made during the sewing section! With vertical stripes of flowers - very hippie era.
Chicken fricassee - one of those things my mother would make every so often
- I think it was a budget kind of dish - lots of food out of less pricey poultry, as the stewed down meat gets quite tender. But, I never really liked it 'cause she used wings with the other parts. I'm not a good carnivore, and so while I do eat chicken, go through squeamish periods about food that looks "functional" - and I don't eat some shellfish, crabs, lobster - due to allergies and the issue of cooking things while they're alive.
On the chicken fricassee front - good for you. Instead of fricassee, I do a lot of curries (having learned from the former MIL, and time in India). So that's replaced the fricassee. Just did a lovely not-too-hot curry the other night - that is likely the Indian equivalent - cooked with onion seeds, onions, the standard cumin/coriander, and tomatoes/fresh coriander, red & green bell peppers, and of course some hot chili powder.
One of my good friends (we met in school) has a group of other Indian women who get together and cook on Mondays - thus then sharing the dishes around for the week. Gets about 3 main courses for each of them done. I'm the "white" girl that gets to contribute. I know these women, and they know the deal - but it's hilarious when I've sent over some dish that I've cooked - and my friend serves it at a dinner party - and then has to tell that it's her American friend who cooked. Her husband thinks this is a great party trick - as my friend doesn't like to cook, though she's a pretty fair cook. But I love to and have lightened up a lot of these recipes with less oil or ghee, so her husband (and she) are happy to have me in the cook sharing!
If you're interested, maybe I'll send you some recipes.
True, though I think there's been an arisal of the home-ec type classes of late. What with the popularity of cooking shows, etc. When I did it, the class was just 1 year, half cooking/half sewing.
Sadly true about the smattering thing, not even enough to be a dilettante. We were allowed to take shop, but only after doing the home-ec year. For me, I got my shop stuff along the way, and then in university - which bode well for the future career.
Exactly. I remember she had has try some pre-melted bakers chocolate that came in packets - versus melting and tempering on a double boiler. I seriously kept my notebook of recipes from that class for ages - losing it when my parents moved to their condo and the storage unit was broken into (of less value I suspect than my inherited tiffany pendant lamp). I've been working on reconstructing the fabulous meringue-ish french toast - I'm almost there. It was sooooo good, and not really high calorie or fat.
True - who would've thought it. I still am at times in touch with one of my classmates - who lives in Denver. I should ping her about "Mrs. O'Brien" and the vanilla. We called the teacher Mrs. Obie - poor thing - she probably was neurotic from all those adolescent/young teen girls. As I recall she must've been in her mid-60s when I took the class, and was reed-thin, chain-smoking (during breaks), always wearing little sheath dresses, with red hair, and the perpetual scent of vanilla. She did get a bit shaky in the afternoons - of course attributed to the consumption of massive quantities of vanilla extract. Gosh - what idiots we were.
Boy, all these discussions are bringing back some memories, many I'd just as soon leave in the past.
I think our courses in junior hi were 9 weeks of cooking, 9 weeks of sewing, and the other semester was art and music. All I remember of cooking is making applesauce from scratch and maybe cinnamon toast in 7th grade. In 9th grade we had to plan an entire meal for our family. I made the mistake of trying ham loaf. It wasn't bad but DM would always suggest I cook that for the family after that. The sewing was a blouse in 7th, a skirt in 8th and a dress in 9th. The cooking teacher was a doll, the sewing teacher a sourpuss, and the music teacher was the older brother of a classmate.
The closest I ever got to shop was the year they added on to the junior high and didn't get finished by the start of school so the first couple weeks I had French in one of the shop classrooms.
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