The Times 24 July 1913 page 5
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It may be true, but why take the risk?August 14th, 2013 |
 7 comments to It may be true, but why take the risk? |
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Nice – in lots of ways.
“It takes a patient, long-suffering genius to cook with a coal fire”
The Guardian considers that a sexist remark: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/19/barbecue-normal-men-sexist
Funny, when it comes time for “grilling out” that my promotion to chef is usually not something that I have initiated. I’m much more at home in the kitchen with all the conveniences that bring a bit of sophistication to the culinary experience rather than throwing a couple of slabs of meat on the grille. (And yes, I know that it is possible to take much of that sophistication outside but why?)
I have done much of the cooking over the years, especially when the kids were young and we had big family dinners, and on weekends. I’ve always liked gas stoves better than electric, but those are the only two I’ve ever used.
My grandmother, who taught me to cook and shop as her kitchen helper after school, and grocery carrier when she went to the store, loved gas cooking, and many times talked about how much nicer and easier it was than the wood-burning stove she had on the farm in Montana where my mother was born, early 1920’s, or the coal stoves she used in various other places they lived until they settled in the “big city”.
Most younger people now are lacking in knowledge about both food itself and cooking skills. It’s becoming a form of lost art, as everything is sold pre-packaged, pre-mixed, and even pre-cooked in the stores, and various forms of eating out take a bigger and bigger piece of the action.
That’s a shame. Some of my favorite memories are around dinner tables, when I was a child at my grandparents’, and around our own table as my family gathered for meals.
All my kids, boys and girl, know how to shop for meats and produce, how to cook basic dishes, and are not afraid of experimentation with new recipes or techniques. I simply treated them as my helpers when their ages were appropriate, and they soon learned how to mix and stir, bake, saute’, and broil, and how different spices worked in cooking.
When the last one was in college, and we sold the big old barn a few years ago that we’d lived in for 27 years while we raised our family, I sat in the empty dining room on one of our chairs and just remembered for awhile—all the meals, the holidays, the family moments that will never come again.
Then it was time to put the chair on the truck, and move on.
Well, I’m a bloke and have been cooking with gas for the last 20 years (indoors and out; I know gas barbecues are derided by purists, but hey, they work just fine) and have no problem with it – much more controllable than an electric hob, unless you have induction burners, but an electric oven still has an edge on a gas one, in my view.
I certainly wouldn’t have the time to deal with coal.
Anyway, it’s time I got my dinner.
This invites a question:
Cooking/heating gas vs. illuminating gas. AFAIK, the latter wasn’t suitable for cooking and heating.
When did the former appear, and how was it distributed? Was there a point at which all remaining “gaslight” was shut down, and the gas infrastructure was converted to cooking/heating?
Rich, limelight involved heating lime with a hydrogen/oxygen flame, which is very hot (like oxy/acetylene) but would cut through pans etc. if used in cooking. Hydrogen is difficult to store, transport and so on.
Coal gas was used in homes, hydrogen and carbon monoxide and burned in air with a cooler flame, but might kill you if it escaped. Now n the UK domestic gas is mainly methane, with mercaptans added to make it smell, but the hazard is only explosive not poison.