I tucked my baby in her high chair as my toddler climbed up in the chair next to mine, ready for breakfast. Most mornings we have old-fashioned oatmeal mixed with blueberries and peanut butter. After we were all situated, I reached for my new book, Forgotten Skills of Cooking: The Time Honored Ways Are Best, by Darina Allen, to read out loud as we ate:
“The art of thrifty housekeeping has gradually petered out and become strangely unfashionable. Our mothers and grandmothers knew how to eke out a small budget to feed a family, and how to make a delicious meal from meager leftovers. Given a chicken or a fish, they would have simply rolled up their sleeves and got on with eviscerating or fileting it. It mightn’t have been perfect but they just did it in their pragmatic way.”
I am certain that my three-year-old and one-year-old daughter are not as interested in this topic as I am, but I’ve discovered that one of the best times to read is while we are eating together. My girls are usually too distracted with feeding their food to our dog to pay close attention, and I get to sneak in time to read a few pages of this fabulous book in hopes that some information is absorbed by my toddlers. This morning, for example, we read the section about picking berries and using them in recipes: we only read two pages together because my toddlers started asking questions about blackberries. (Provoking her curiosity while we read is always a win!)
My interest in this book was sparked by my desire to learn how to forage and use more wild plants in my cooking. I told my mom about my goal and she thrust this book into my hands with enthusiasm: You HAVE to read this book!
Forgotten Skills has sent me on a mission to soak up as much knowledge as I can in and out of the kitchen, as well as skills that I already know and will intentionally teach my girls. On this lovely quest, we get to spend meaningful time with the people we love.
These are the six skills that I am actively pursuing and sharing with my daughters.
Baking and Cooking (old school!)
My family could tell you several stories about my kitchen mishaps…I once threw a flaming pot outside in the snow after an attempt to make stovetop popcorn. I admit that I am not talented in the kitchen, but I’m learning! I;m particularly interested in learning how to make old family recipes. I shared this pursuit with my husband’s step mom and she volunteered to teach me how to make homemade biscuits. The recipe that we followed is from her grandmother.
I tucked my baby into her baby carrier and my toddler and I helped Gram to whip up an easy and delicious batch of biscuits made from scratch. We used a jar as a cookie cutter, grated butter over a cheese grater, and I learned that buttermilk tastes and smells terrible.
As we baked and applauded my toddler’s biscuit making skills, I thought about Darina’s words on this lost art:
“The loss of these and other such skills [cooking and baking] over subsequent generations is partly a consequence of the availability of convenience foods. Every time we go to the supermarket, an increasing number of items are oven-ready or ready-to-eat: cheese is grated, mushrooms sliced, fruit segmented – I swear if they sold toast we’d buy it.”
I don’t plan on making everything from scratch every time I cook, but I will prioritize rolling up my sleeves and doing it the old fashioned way more often, both for the enjoyment and the health benefits.
I put the word out to my family members that I am interested in learning to make old family recipes and it’s heartwarming to know I have so many willing teachers. Next week we have a date with my mom to bake some German cookies following my great grandmother’s recipe. I can’t wait!
Raising Chickens
Have you ever eaten a fresh, free range chicken egg? My mom has had chickens for about 12 years, and I can tell you that the difference between her eggs and grocery store bought eggs is night and day. The color of the eggs and the taste is a loud reminder of what food should look and taste like. Allen mentioned in her book that “thousands of people have rediscovered the joy of keeping hens and recycling their food scraps to produce the kind of egg that are, for many, almost a forgotten flavor.” This is so true!
My mom’s chickens are our pets, each one has a name and is fed table scraps, kale, and grapes that are cut into quarters so the chickens don’t choke. (Seriously!)
My girls and I spend a lot of time with our beloved chickens. When my mom travels, we stay at her house to hold down the farm. My toddler loves feeding the chickens, collecting the eggs, and guarding them from hawks and other wildlife as they graze in the garden. The last time we stayed there we accidentally left a basket of eggs outside. When we realized our mistake, my toddler ran outside to retrieve the eggs with urgency. Seeing how she valued each prized egg made me so proud. We also save our leftover food for the chickens so that we don’t waste anything, another meaningful lesson that we’ve learned from raising chickens. I want my girls to know that food doesn’t come from the grocery store, but from gardens, farms, and the hard work of others.
As Allen said, “even many country dwellers have lost the connection with how their food is produced.” My hope is to be more connected with how our food is produced, to produce as much of our food as we can, and to inspire my daughters to feel the same.
Writing Letters
This will be the easiest skill for me to teach my daughters because it is already so ingrained into our routine. We regularly write Thank You notes and letters because my Nannie and mom were so insistent on this gesture every time we received a gift. Now, my toddler often helps me by decorating the envelope with stickers and by placing the stamp in the corner. We send valentines to our loved ones each year and hand drawn pictures and notes on birthdays. We also know our mailman by name and often meet him out front to retrieve our mail and say thank you. Sending letters and receiving a response is an absolute joy, and my excitement for this activity has rubbed off on my girls. I bet there is a family member or friend who would love to receive a letter from you and your children!
Mending
I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t know how to mend. My sister is a sewing teacher and my mom is excellent at mending,…which is why I never bothered learning. In the past, if I needed something mended, I kindly asked one of them to help me. Not anymore! My daughter has a hole in one of her favorite shirts. (She loves it because it has tulle at the bottom and twirls.) Instead of replacing it, we will mend it together. I want to model the importance of taking care of our clothes so they last, instead of just throwing it out and replacing it. In our world of next-day-delivery, influencers, and outfits that are worn once and then collect dust, I want to teach my daughters to wear what they love, what is comfortable, and to take care of these items.
Plant Identification
This is the topic that brought Allen’s lovely book into my home. It would thrill me to be able to go on a walk through the woods and identify plants that I see: mushrooms, trees, plants to incorporate into a salad, or to grow in my own garden at home. To accomplish this goal, I’ve been doing my own research and growing herbs in my kitchen to use in our cooking. My toddler loves to rip up a basil leaf to add to our pasta or sprinkle oregano leaves on homemade pizza. We are also learning from a herbalism coloring book that we read and color together. In the spring I hope to take a class to gain further knowledge that I can pass down to my kids as we continue to expand our garden and these practical skills. Allen said it best when she said that “To tend, harvest, and finally eat a crop you’ve planted is a delight to that frustrated farmer in all of us, and you’ll be amazed by the proud glow you get when you survey your shelf of jam or pickles.”
Setting a Table
One of my responsibilities as a little girl was setting the table before dinner. My Nannie had beautiful blue and white dishes that she gave to my mom and are still in use today. Forks on the left next to the napkin, spoon and knives on the right, blade facing towards the plate. Allen described her mom’s place setting like this: “She always laid the table properly, with a little vase of flowers, as if the Queen of England was coming to dine!…There’s no reason why every meal shouldn’t be a celebration.” Hear hear!
Learning how to set the table and regularly doing so also encourages more family meals together, a special time that I think is so important.
I am grateful for the introduction to Forgotten Skills because it promotes slow, intentional living and practical skills. It has not only reaffirmed my interest in foraging and cooking, but ignited many others. It has prompted self reflection on the skills that I want my daughters to learn, and skills that I wish I would have learned from my grandmothers.
Both of my grandmothers have passed, and I often think about them and the many things I would like to ask my Nannie and my Grandma. They were both excellent cooks and had so much wisdom to share. I miss them dearly and this ache motivates me to seize every opportunity to learn from other cherished family members.