Lost Foods

I've always tinkered around with food. Not all my early creations were successes - the cake topped with half walnuts and half shells and the apple pie made with unpeeled apples come to mind. Good food has always been high on my list of priorities for a happy life.

Then came college and dorm food. There were no kitchens to cook in and it mattered little, because there were no pots to cook in either. Food consisted of whatever seemed edible in the cafeteria, ramen noodles and really good coffee.

By the time I got my first apartment, the urge to explore my culinary horizons resurfaced. I clearly remember my first meal. It was boxed mac and cheese. This was not because that was what I wanted to make, but because I discovered that when I bought my first cheapo set of pots and pans, I neglected to buy a cookbook. I knew how to make nothing.

The first book I chose was the now out-of-print Frugal Gourmet by Jeff Smith. Mr. Smith had a PBS show and made things that appealed to me. The next book I bought was Natalie Haughton's 365 Easy One Dish Meals. This appealed to my sense of having fewer dishes to clean up when the meal was done.

These first books of course gave way to the general purpose Fanny Farmers Cookbook and The Joy of Cooking, the cookbooks just about cheese or peppers or fondue, all the way to the technical The New Professional Chef from the Cooking Institute of America. Now, some 126 cookbooks and thousands of meals later, I can say with confidence that I am a respectable home cook. I can take whatever is in the fridge and turn it into a meal.

Every once in a while, usually while pondering what's for dinner, I wonder what happened to the "Old Standbys" of the dinnertable. I know there was a dish made with chicken and linguini, but I can't remember the details. There was another dish too, something with sausage in a stew-like configuration. I can't remember it now to save my life. Some recipes were made up on the spur of the moment, never to be created again. Some recipes live on in long forgotten cookbooks waiting to be rediscovered.

Times change, tastes change, even food changes. Sixteen years of cooking on my own is a lot of different recipes. Too many to sit around and ask "What's for dinner?" I should know the answer to that, but so much food has been forgotten.

I now present my digital memory of eating, so that the good things from my kitchen aren't forgotten.