A friend of mine, trapped at home with her kid due to extreme weather conditions, decided to apply “grandma” wisdom. She had to get creative with what was in the kitchen. This way she wouldn’t have to go out in the bad weather. First, she whipped up some tasty looking banana fritters, even improvising for a few ingredients she didn’t have. This is similar to something our grandmas would have done.
She sent me the recipe. I’m excited to try it! However, I couldn’t help but feel that we lose out on some of this “grandma” wisdom with the convenience of the internet. When I was growing up, if we didn’t know something, we had to ask someone. Or, go to the library and look it up in a reference book. Now, even if you ask someone, the internet is bound to provide alternative viewpoints in the form of misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, generative AI hallucinations, mixed in with a few things that may be accurate and correct. Even if you want to figure something out, the quality of the information is questionable.
I trusted what my grandmother told me. I believed the things she said. My grandmother may not have known everything, but what she didn’t know, she knew how to figure out. When she was growing up, she learned to be creative. Her life was full of improvisation and working with what was available.
I have many fond memories of my grandmother, especially cooking with her. I recall sitting on the kitchen counter watching her whip up lots of different dishes from memory. One of my favorites was her apple tarts. She used to roll out (homemade) dough and cut it into squares. She placed half of a cored apple with some spices on each square. Then folded the corners in towards the middle and baked them. She used to make little treats for us from the leftover scraps.
One of my favorite things in her kitchen was the flour drawer. A special drawer hung from the underside of a cupboard. White and funnel shaped, it had a sifter at the base, with a cover. The right side had a small crank with a small wooden ball at the end. When baking she uncapped the drawer, turned the crank and sifted directly into her measuring cup. You’re not going to find that on the internet!
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