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Photo by Gail Harvey, no reproduction without permission
A Cook's Progress We decided to get the new year off to a fabulous start and make a cheese soufflé for breakfast. I did not learn about soufflé from summers up at the old English manor, nor during my stint as an au pair in Paris. No, it was 4-H, that little-known culinary academy that offers young girls a thrilling alternative to ugly brown dresses, badges and humiliating chant-rituals. You had to be 12 to join 4-H but I had my agent at the time [my mother] get me in the door a few months ahead of schedule. [They seem to have dropped the starting age down to 10. Good idea. That way the pledge, which begins with “I pledge my head to clearer thinking” will have time to soak in before hormones come and erase all such promises.]
Anyway! Poor Mrs. S: by the time I landed in her ninth grade home economics class I was a seasoned chef trained at the 4-H Culinary Institute, complete with Teen Chef Attitude. It was hard to sit back and deal with remedial muffin recipes and the sickening suspicion that we were all being prepped for marriage. The first tip-off being the subtle course name: “Family Studies.” Down the hall, in shop class, truly useful things were being learned by the male species of the teen animal: birdhouse building and small engine dismantlement and so on. While they would know why steam or flames were pouring from the engines of their cars, I would be a licensed Jello expert. To this day I am a great admirer of Judy House, the only girl who took auto-shop all the way through school. I bet she never has to stand on the side of the road screeching, “That big round thing is burning! That wire should not be poking out, should it?” In fact, I heard she had her own garage. By now she probably has a chain of them, or so I dream.
Yes, I was a resentful student of “Family Studies” and not just because of my early-onset feminism. My bitterness stemmed from the fact that I had the 4-H egg, bread-making AND the international cooking units under my belt by the time I hit high school. Not to mention a beauty and fitness unit wherein avocadoes and other not-so-handy-or-cheap items were slathered across one’s face in the pursuit of wrinkle-free femininity, all between rounds of sit-ups and mind-numbing chats about kilojoules. AND I had made my own fruit leather. I was cocky with the knowledge that I could, if need be, survive in the wilderness on a diet of dandelion greens and potatoes baked in the ground. WHY cook food in the dirt, you might ask? Because you never know when a bear might turn up with a pot of sour cream and chives and killing on his mind. Or something like that. Making sure one always gets lost with a few potatoes in her purse and during dandelion season is key. How exactly you prevented the homicidal bears from smelling your dirt-baked spuds was never mentioned. But still, even that seemingly far-out line of study stoked my passion for things culinary. Far, far from the stainless steel kitchens of Cordon Bleu, a food adventurer was born. Most people think of cows and crops when they think of 4-H. Most urban people never think of 4-H at all, because it’s one of the good things about a small-town upbringing. That and the chance to get drunk with Pentecostal actresses—but that’s another story. 4-H has awesome cooking and nutrition units. I’m not sure why I dropped out well before my 21st birthday. One too many sewing units on the roster? Other passions? Although I pledged my head to clearer thinking I made no promises in blood about having a good memory. But I carted that binder of recipes with me well into my 20s. Still regret the day I let go of those stained pink pages. Especially the one for Chicken With A Chinese Accent which if my mother was to find herself on Death Row [an unlikely event] she would probably request.
I heard a dirty rumour that Home Ec had been cancelled from high school curriculum, or re-named something completely unappealing, along the lines of Feeding Yourself Is Fun! Likely they have gone and added even more math to the curriculum so as to squeeze any remaining pleasure from school. I guess the argument would be that with all that helpful-to-a-medical-career calculus in your brain you can simply pay someone else to make your dinner for you, make you some art, hell, even exercise for you for the right price. I do find it somewhat interesting that I know more men in my age range who cook than I do women. And with Home Ec no longer mandatory, Female Refrigerator Blindness is now rampant in our equality-obsessed society. But 4-H, you’re still with me every time I separate eggs for soufflé and for that I will always be eternally grateful. And to my mom, of course, who sewed all my skirts for Home Ec because she felt bad for not letting me take shop. Thanks, Mom.
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