Why cook?

Why bother? Why not Uber Eats every day?

I was going to post an entry about the classic Italian Nonna, and how traditionally they cook up a storm in the kitchen, and how it draws everyone together in a big, happy family.

But I don’t have a Nonna. I’m about as Italian as a pint of Guinness. Well, technically more Bass or Boddingtons, but my point stands. One of my grandmothers died when I was very young, and the other was as British as you could get. Her specialty was pastry. My God, she could make a pie.

But I don’t want to speculate (yet) on why she worked so hard to make such lovely pies and meals for us. Perhaps it was because she had some pressing need to feed her grandchildren, even though she was in rather poor health (Measles when she was 3 and she lost an eye; the Second World War, when they levelled Birmingham because it was an industrial centre; tuberculosis, which was why she really struggled to hug us, as she only had one lung and was rather frail – God, it’s a miracle she lasted as long as she did). Given her history, she didn’t need to lift a finger for us and we would have been ok with that. She had her great British reserve and never berated us with, ‘eat, eat, eat!’ as far as I can remember. The food was always just… There. Her cooking was fine, but the memory of her pastry can bring me directly to a backyard in Salmon Arm in the summertime with a slice of cherry or apple pie ready for my appetite.

Speaking personally, why do I spend so much effort cooking for my family? Here’s a secret – when I’m cooking alone I can barely get a baked potato on the table. For the family, I’ll pull out all the stops. Or most of them, anyway.

But why?

I have no clear idea, but as I have noted before, we all have to eat. More than that, though, I’m a middle child. They say middle children are pleasers. It’s in my nature to want to make sure that everything is OK and that everyone is fed. Certainly the dinner table is one of the last areas where a family can safely gather and talk. Even if no one wants to really get into issues, most people are able to put down their phones and make small talk for the duration of eating a meal. I really celebrate that and as much as possible, dinner is on the table at 6. The only other place that you have great conversations is in the car.

Further to my style of being a pleaser, my mom just wasn’t that interested in cooking. She had an immaculately planned kitchen (still does – Tupperware everywhere, everything labelled) and she always knew what we were eating. She just wasn’t that enthused with the prospect of putting dinner on the table every night. My sister was off doing her thing; as was my brother. I was the only one regularly around the house and my foods class in grade 8 along with a couple of years being a busboy at a restaurant meant that all of sudden the cooking fell to me. I didn’t mind. Heck, I was eating it anyway. What is more, my dad always appreciated a good meal, and he is incredibly capable, but he doesn’t cook much.

One more thing: One of my aunts, one who is endlessly kind and the sort of person who will be remembered by all as loveliness personified, told me that if I wanted to impress a quality woman I had to learn how to cook. That advice has helped me greatly in keeping my wife blissfully unaware at just how out of my league she really is.