(image by eyeliam via flickr)

A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to score an invitation to my great-aunt Beulah’s. Invitations to Beulah’s are an exciting thing for many reasons, not the least of which is the food.

“We’re not going to fuss, sweetie,” she always says, “We’ll just throw a little something together and keep it simple.”

And yet the food is always to die for. The secret to Beulah’s cooking, she and I agreed recently, is that everything is made from scratch. The bigger secret is that cooking many things from scratch is easier than it seems.

And, of course, when you cook from scratch, you know what you are eating! We care about the environment, our health, and the health of the workers who grow and harvest our food, so we are eating more and more organics, something we’d never be able to afford if we relied on organic convenience foods. Knowing how to cook is key to being able to eat well on a budget.

I have been cooking for as long as I can remember. As soon as I could stand on a chair I was in the kitchen “helping” my mom and dad. I was eight when I attempted my first solo cooking experiment, a memorable batch of brownies that I made with olive oil. The recipe called for vegetable oil, and olives seemed more like vegetables than whatever “canola” might be.

By the age of 12, I was planning and cooking whole meals. For extra credit homework in Home Ec, I made petits fours for the whole eighth grade class. That was memorable too. As I made the first batch of icing, it fell on the floor, directly onto the dog who was begging at my feet. The food coloring from the icing dyed his fur blue for a week.

In spite of these occasional mishaps, I learned a lot from my childhood attempts at cooking.

Indeed there was a time in our history when learning how to cook was a part of growing up. As families got busier, and convenience foods became an increasingly large part of our food culture, fewer and fewer kids learned basic cooking skills. Without these skills, people now rely on prepackaged foods, fast food, and convenience foods, which are hard on their health and on the environment.

Benefits Beyond the Obvious

I’d like to see us reverse this trend and raise a generation of young people who know their way around a kitchen. Teaching kids to cook has benefits beyond the obvious.

Involving children in food preparation is a great time to talk to them about where food comes from, and the environmental and social impact of our food choices. It’s the perfect opportunity to explain the benefits of eating organic, locally-grown, or fair trade products in a way that actually means something to them.

Kids have an easier time understanding a concept if they have hands-on experience with it. When they are allowed to help in the planning and preparing of a meal it awakens their interest in a way that simply talking about your values does not. Without some concrete connection to the subject, these conversations can become little more than the modern day version of “eat all your food, because kids are starving in China.” It goes over their heads. When a child feels like there is something concrete she can do about a problem, she is much more likely to take an interest.

Another benefit of letting kids help with the cooking is that it makes them more likely to eat a wider variety of foods. A kid who regularly turns his nose up at peppers might happily eat them in a dip he has helped prepare, or as the smile on smiley face pizza.

Getting kids in the kitchen

My kids are small, but they have been helping me in the kitchen for quite a while now. They love to do simple things like dumping ingredients into bowls, stirring batters and mixes, and putting toppings on pizza. They get so excited when I ask them to help me cook. Cheyenne was two years old when she made her first batch of salsa. I chopped up the veggies and put each one, plus the herbs and spices in separate bowls. I let her dump it in and stir. Ever since then she eats salsa all by itself. She doesn’t even need the chips.

Pizza is another good first project. Younger kids will get a kick out of choosing different foods to top their own pizzas. Older kids can do everything from kneading and tossing the dough to spreading the sauce and topping the pizza. You can make smiley faces or designs on the pizzas using the toppings for some extra fun.

Salad is another thing kids can help make. Cheyenne likes to help me pick out veggies for the salad and Isabella likes to toss it. I’m not sure either of them would eat salad if they hadn’t made it first, but being involved in the process makes it fun for them.

One of my favorite rainy-day projects to do with my kids is to make pretzel or bread dough shapes. My mom used to do make these with my sister and me when we were younger and I just loved it. I tried this project recently with my 12-year-old cousin and we had a blast. We both agreed that kneading bread dough is very therapeutic when you are feeling squirrelly. You can make pretzels into snakes or hearts, or make bread dough animals with raisins for eyes. My cousin and I made cinnamon raisin turtles. Yum!

In addition to cooking, it can be fun to involve kids in the planning of meals. Take them to the farmers market and let them pick out some new fruits and vegetables to try. Getting to try new and interesting foods is one of the best things about farmers markets. Last year we got hooked on ground cherries, yellow doll watermelon, water spinach, and smoked trout. It’s tough to find those kinds of foods at the supermarket. You could also pick a theme, like an ethnic cuisine or a color, and let your kids come up with menus based around it.

Food is such a wonderful thing. It nourishes us and bonds us in so many ways. I can’t tell you how many friends I have made by bringing over a basket of muffins or inviting someone over for dinner. We use food to express caring, like bringing soup to a sick friend or a casserole to a loved one who has had a baby. It gives us an easy starting point for conversation with people we don’t know, or don’t think we have much in common with. My mom was at a meeting once with a group of people from all over the world, who had never met before. Halfway through the day they discovered that each of their grandmas had a good recipe for rice pudding.

Our world may comprise a multiverse of different cultures and religions, but we all like to eat. That shared passion is something I want to pass on to my kids.