One thing that is often overlooked is how far we have come today in terms of the way people choose and prepare food every day.
Take a moment to think about how food selection and preparation used to be different from today’s high-tech food selection and preparation. In the beginning, taste was less important and more about food translating into survival.
If you want to go back to cavemen (perhaps the days of Bobby Flay and Emeril Lagasse in their day) and cave women, it’s just a matter of banging the top of your head with a stick before building a bonfire on the edge of your cave and cooking.
Obviously the meat was not cooked in a non-stick pan or with the aid of any fancy marinade or seasoning. This is the basic, “you have to kill it before you grill it” thought process for survival food.
Even in the pioneering days of our country, a lot of the time it boiled down to a few basic vegetables or fruits that people could grow mixed with whatever game they could shoot. It is still cooked over an open fire, many times just on the stove in the cottage.
Then came the invention of the oven, pressure cooker, oven, etc., which my great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother have used for decades for generations. It adopts the warm and fuzzy name of “home cooked food” featuring lots of meat, potatoes and vegetables.
Many of us still have those old recipes written down and prepare them from time to time, not just for the taste but the aromas and memories they bring. It was an era of hand chopping and dicing on or in the oven using metal pots, pans, kettles, and cast iron skillets.
Since then, technology has entered the culinary realm, changing the way we prepare and choose food. It’s amazing how long-gone relatives don’t even recognize some of the techniques people use in the kitchen today to prepare food.
Looking around my kitchen, I see things that my grandmother and mother didn’t have free access to, such as microwaves, hot air fryers, George Foreman grills, blenders, and more.
I can also hear my grandmother’s voice talking about how ice boxes have been a real game-changer in terms of preserving food in the past. No, I’m not talking about refrigerators or freezers, but what came before them, which was an insulated metal box kept cool with real ice cut from Lake Manistee in the winter.
Think about it, when you take your glass to the fridge today, press a tab on the outside, remove ice cubes or crushed ice from the unit’s dispenser, and add water. Back then, the only water in the fridge was when it melted into the pot below on a hot day.
It’s also interesting how food at the time was a lot of the time just a way of feeding the people who ate it. Today, it has almost entertainment value as TV cooking shows show us all the ingredients and fancy ways to make it.
However, reading an article about some of the high-tech kitchen gadgets on display at the recent CES tech show in Las Vegas gave me a good idea of what my great-grandmother and grandmother look at cooking in my kitchen today How will it feel.
General Electric, for example, has a smart mixer that includes a sensor that allows chefs to weigh ingredients in bowls as they work. You know, my grandmother also had a sensor that they called, “You need to add a little bit of this and a little bit of that.”
Even today, Emeril Lagasse has his “Bam sensor” when determining how much ingredient to add to a dish.
The Smart Blender has an automatic sensor that monitors changes in texture and viscosity to avoid over-blending. My mom has the same built-in sensor when she mixes things up and immediately says, “Looks good.” It’s amazing how she’s always there.
Dutch company OneThird has launched a scanner that can now tell you in supermarkets whether avocados, berries, tomatoes and melons are ripe. Grandma has one too, but it’s called her finger.
A few good squeezes would result in her pointing to one and saying “take that, it’s ripe.” OMG, it’s ripe.
Versa Ware has launched a phone-sized device that attaches to a cutting board or mixing bowl to display recipes and track nutrition. My grandmother and mom had a device called “their brain” to remember recipes. As for nutrition, it’s “eat it, it’s good for you”.
Another new face in cooking technology is Samsung’s custom A1 oven, which has a built-in camera that warns when food is burning. Grandma used something a little different; she would sniff the air and immediately say, “Get it out of there, it’s starting to burn.”
Yes, today’s high-tech culinary world is probably better at testing for doneness, putting in the exact ingredients, and making sure you cook without burning. But what high-tech gadgets can’t and never will be able to match are the true love and memories our mothers and grandparents created in their cooking.
It will stay that way after I see you again on Thursday.
Ken Grabowski is retired associate editor of the Manistee News Advocate, with more than 36 years in the newspaper industry.