Now, stores do not provide the information that many of us could use when first starting up our own household. When I was first married, there was still much that my Mother had not taught me about cooking so one of the early meals I provided for my new husband was quite a disaster!
I bought a chicken to roast for us to celebrate our 1 month anniversary. Now I had no problem cooking some potatoes and mashing them adding a bit of butter and milk and salt and pepper to make very smooth mashed potatoes. Warming up a can of corn was pretty basic as it was just, well, warming up the corn in a small pot on the stove....
But the chicken... I am not sure why I had not up to that point in life learned anything about cooking meat. I bought the chicken from the local grocery store, washed it, put it in a small roaster pan that had been a wedding shower gift and popped it in the oven for 4 hours.... Yeah, 4 hours! This was alot of years ago, so I cannot remember if I took the time to baste the chicken or even if I checked how it was cooking in that time... It actually looked very nice when it came out of the oven and I put it on a serving plate. In my childhood home, my father always took on the task of carving the roast, whether chicken, or beef or pork or whatever else might be on the dinner table, so I handed the knife to my new husband and even though he said he had not done it before I explained the way I could remember my Dad doing the job.
(this is not the chicken I cooked - it is a photo from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Book - 2009 which is beautifully illustrated and excellent explanations for good family meals)
Knife and big fork in hand my husband tried to saw through that chicken.... And he sawed, and sawed and sawed... it sort of crumbled like dried out bread, it definately did not slice at all! Good thing we were young and in love cause that chicken was obviously not at all edible. Laughter and even the refusal of our cat to eat that Roast Chicken is still a funny memory between me and my Hubby.
It took me awhile to learn why -- I did not dare to ask my mother what might have gone wrong with that roast because my mother tended to use mistakes as a way to make fun that was not funny and if she knew of it, the story would have haunted me for years.... So I had to figure out what happened for myself.... I soon after discovered the first big error with that chicken was that I bought a "stewing hen". Next was that roasting it for 4 hours just toughened the already tough meat. What a way to learn about cooking! But I must say I did learn that lesson very well! I don't think I ever had the same knack of roasting a chicken or a turkey as well as my mother, but then I did not have the advantage of taking a Household Sciences course as an extra choice in my school years. Yes, we had Home Ec, but the detail in our cooking classes never included the details needed to understand MEAT.
In my Mother's Household Sciences Textbook are a couple of pages that are rarely explained or shown to new home cooks...
These two pages explain quite clearly where certain 'cuts' of meat come from on an animal. A more modern and a very detailed explanation of what to look for in your supermarket when you shop for beef can be found at the following links...
and for chicken or turkey...
There are alot of wonderful sources of information on the internet when it comes to understanding cooking and choosing meat. It is to a home cook's advantage to learn about how and what methods to cook various cuts.
I also want to point out that the FOOD NETWORK and most of the shows they feature DO NOT give instruction on choice of ingredients. If you discover an idea from one of the celebrity chefs it is a good idea to research the recipe and methods of cooking by going to that chef's web page...
Have fun with your adventure in home cooking because everytime you try something new you learn so many things about what it is to be a home cook!
Oh and PS, don't fall for that current trend -- Restaurant Quality - Home Cooked Meals are so much more satisfying because YOU did it and it tastes GREAT!
Oh and PS, don't fall for that current trend -- Restaurant Quality - Home Cooked Meals are so much more satisfying because YOU did it and it tastes GREAT!
