Why We Cook From Scratch (a chat with Angela Withers)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ค. 2024
- It's Tuesday and that means I'm chatting with a friend! In this one Angela Withers is back to talk about scratch cooking and what it means to us, plus some tips and resources if you want to change the way you eat. As always, feel free to discuss your thoughts in the comments below -- especially your favorite cookbooks or cooking resources. Thanks for watching!
Angela and her family have a channel here: / @angela292
The books we mentioned:
Nourishing Traditions -- amzn.to/2jLPNZl
Original Fast Foods -- www.amazon.com/Original-Fast-...
The Encyclopedia of Country Living -- amzn.to/2fMuOQM
You can also hop over to the Skill of the Month Club FB group to share your thoughts or brag your homework. / 363729293988483
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About the skill of the month club:
Part community, part skill-share, we're just a group of people hanging out together and trying to encourage awesomeness in every category having to do with simple living, intentional living and homestead life. Esther will do the lessons in the first month, but as we go on to different skills we'll be hearing from all sorts of experts!
Esther Emery is "the Homestead Wife" and the daughter of Carla Emery, author of The Encyclopedia of Country Living.
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Esther's book: What Falls From the Sky: How I Disconnected From the Internet and Reconnected With the God Who Made the Clouds -- www.estheremery.com/books/ and everywhere books are sold.
Esther's mom's book: The Encyclopedia of Country Living amzn.to/2fMuOQM
Enjoy! - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
This is not a slam, or sexist -- it is a general question for the population of the world.
Why is it that the women who have youtube channels on homesteading are absolutely the most open, kind, generous, and beautiful women around? Esther, you guys have got me so excited about cooking for myself that I went out a purchased a foodsaver vacuum sealer. Now that I have all my socks vacuum sealed to 1/8 their original size, I am starting to cook and put the leftovers in the freezer after they have been sealed. Soon (in 10 to 20 years) I will no longer be gnawing on 3 day old pizza crust!!!!
I am going to really enjoy this month. Wonderful, great, awesome, spectacular topic.
Thank you for going to all the effort that it takes to plan and produce these lessons. They truly are going to change my life.
lol
Story goes there was a lady in the supermarket asking the employees where they kept the "scratch". She said everything her mom cooked was made from this key ingredient so she needed it for her cooking.
Opening a can of "scratch" and cooking with it sounds nice and easy (and sort of like we are chickens or something)! Love it, thanks for sharing! :)
Scratch makes everything doesn't it.
Mate2Frio 😅
Lol
Kindred Spirits! I'm 60 yrs. old and have spent my life learning and keeping ole' skills alive and I can't tell you how many enjoyable days I have spent learning. Many women my age have little to no skills and truly live a sad life. I pray that you are reaching those who hunger for more. You both are a blessing.
Thank you! Your comment is very touching and very appreciated. :) Angela
Thank you, I'm trying to teach my kids these skills and they think I'm crazy. I laugh because canning, quilting and cooking from scratch according to them is from the ice age. Gotta love kids :-)
I'm in my 60's and I am learning more and more about cooking with whole foods. It's never too late to start. My intuition told me that! I've got a pantry and freezer full of veggies that I raised myself this last summer. I even started most of them from seed. Making bread is next. I've got bone broth simmering in the crockpot today! I so enjoyed this video!
Hi Esther and Angela. I am of an older generation, I learned how to cook 'from scratch' from my mother. But my mother did not learn that skill at home herself. She was from a family with a 'maid' for the household and the cooking. Before she married she first did a 'household course'! (in the 1950's). She then found out she was very interested in the 'chemistry' of cooking and the 'biology' of where ingredients came from (she worked at a bio-chemical lab before). And so she learned us, her daughters too. We knew about all chemicals factories put in the food, and we did not want those chemicals. I always do my best to cook as 'natural' as possible. In the 1980's we had our first vegetable garden.
There was a time when I went to work at an office (after the children grew up). I was shocked to hear my collegues talk about 'what to eat for dinner'... they cooked all 'from a box'! (all ingredients are in the box, only add some chicken or meat and follow the directions on the box)
Thanks for sharing! What a good mom you had to proactively learn and then teach you! I have found that the biology and the chemistry of the food has becoming more and more intriguing to me as I have journeyed along!
:) Angela
Natural balance in nature! I love it. Great job ladies!!
Great anything that empowers us to be not reliant on the corporate dictatorship.
I like to start with a tried and true recipe so that I understand the chemistry behind it and, when I nail it down I feel like I can make the recipe my own.
Thank you for this chat. I didn't understand what "eating local" meant until we moved to Washington last month. Where we lived in Texas, nothing is local. Even the vendors at the farmer's markets drove an hour or more away or they bought and re-sold from grocery stores.
Love love love this!!! Thank you ladies for talking about this, this talks right to my soul!!!
Guys love this too , many of us are bachelors .
I love that you ladies talked about the heart of all of this! Beautiful talk!
As a Nutrition Consultant, I find my clients know why they should eat differently....but they are baffled and frustrated by the HOW. I offer baby steps to them...to help them transition. I have always said that bread baking was an "earthy" experience for me. I simply LOVE knowing what is in my food...and the experience (and creativity) of putting it there :)
I love this. Thank you. :)
Really am enjoying these Homestead wives, interview.....very valueable to all husbands, to hear the thoughts of the wives, concerns and praises. about this amazing lifestyle. cheers
My sweet friend Sharon has been my biggest inspiration in doing finally doing the big "swap out" in my kitchen and pantries. its much harder then one might think. the cost and the bulk. but in the end in my opinion its prettier and healthier. Great video ladies. thank you so much. Today will be bread day !!!
Would love to see her kitchen!
I love the cooking locally section you talked about. Cooking close to home is important environmentally, too. To get that coconut oil, aside from the fact it's not local, think of the amount of energy it took to even get it to the U.S., the fossil fuels required to power the ship that got it here, etc. I try to think back, what would my great-grandmother have used? (I come from a looong line of farmers) I'm glad you brought up that line of thinking. It's important and most people don't even think about the fact that something they use regularly came from across the world, at a great price. Thanks for your videos!
I enjoyed today's video. Going to make bread now.
I've always said that if you can't cook from scratch, you can't cook. I asked my mother to teach me cook several things when I was 16. After leaving home I bought the cook book set "Company's Coming". Those books have mostly whole foods. When you made several recipes, don't be afraid to modify them. I don't need a recipe now, can select herbs by smell, and make my own recipes of whole foods after reading several new age recipes to get the basics.
I've been baking bread up a storm the last couple days! I use it to help supplement my family's income. Last night for dinner, we had homemade chicken and noodles (from scratch). It truly is wonderful learning some of these "simple" skills and learning how the basic ingredients work so you can modify your recipes for what you need.
I was very fortunate to be taught how to cook "from scratch" using the "summa" method, as my great gran used to call it. She'd say you take "summa" this and "summa" that and put em together to make whatever it was she was making at the time. I regularly practice this form of cooking and have *knock on wood* come out ahead most of the time. lol. But, there was the "Great Tofu Incident" which will have to be a story for another time! HAHAHAHA!
Thanks so much for another fabulous video Esther and Thank you also Miss Angela!
The "summa" method made me laugh out loud. I love it!!
Sullivan Family Homestead the way my mother taught me was more exact, it was my second husband who used the 'summa' method, he was very good at it!
My husband is amazing at the "summa" method. I will ask him how he made a meal so I can copy it later (because it's SO good!) and he's like, "summa this, summa that" - can you be more exact?! LOL I'm way too type-A.
The Pressnell Homestead what you have to do is actually cook with him when he makes that recipe so you can get the feel of what a some of this and some of that is size
Sullivan Family Homestead zaaZ
I have pretty much always cooked from scratch, because that's the way my momma, my grannies and my mother-in-law cooked--and they taught me to cook. I have fairly recently started studying the Weston Price philosophy of cooking and eating, which is the basis of "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon. A lot of what she points out I have been aware of and had incorporated my way of cooking since my kids were little--they are now ages 30 to 38. But the recipes seem very foreign to me. Like you, I want to try some, but basically want to let go of the items I depend upon that grow thousands of miles away. (How in the world do you give up bananas, coffee and tea without a greenhouse?!) This goes along with the "prepping" frame of mind, too. When and if society breaks down we will have to depend on local. Thanks for all you do, Esther.
PilgrimLJC yes it's difficult to give up bananas and coffee .... that is another reason to think of moving to the Caribbean 😀
Great video! Thank you both very much.
Angela, a great suggestion to learn what grows/is available in your area and seasonal. Being in the desert Southwest, it is very different from where my parents grew up. Fortunately I was raised on local home cooking and have been able to adapt what I learned by cooking Southern fair from scratch to local food.
Home cooked is always yummier!
What a wonderful video, Esther! I subscribed to Angela's channel because so much of what she said resonated with me. I love the ideas of eating seasonally and locally. So much so, I've now looked up what grows well in my zone to know what to plant as well as what to eat when it's in season. I'm loving the series so far. Thanks for being such a gracious host.
Thanks for your informative videos! As far as cooking from scratch, I cook with raw 'ingredients' (otherwise known as food) and nothing that is processed. It's the only way to go!
Wonderful!!!
I am SO excited that I found this video today. Thank you for sharing!
I remember being with my grandparents, survivors of the depression and WWII, watching them garden, raise animals, and preserve their harvest. I sat and snapped beans with my grandmother! But as a teen I was sure I was going to end up urban so I distained the lifestyle. Where am I now? For the past 5/6 years I have been relearning everything they did. My grandparents are both gone now so I look to the homestead community for answers when I need them. Now I have made sure my children are learning these skills, though my teenage daughter is now the distainful one.
Ashley, I grew up on a farm but sure didn't take advantage of the opportunities to learn and embrace those skills while I had the chance either. I thought it was simpler to just buy something rather than grow, harvest, preserve, and cook it myself. Then I started paying the real price of the "easier" route with my children's health. Nothing motivated me more than that to get back to my roots. Keep being a good example for your daughter and she will come around. :) Angela
inspiring ladies
I grew up on an island in the northwest. It was a beautiful place to grow up, but we struggled financially. When I was young my friends would come over and comment on how lucky I was to have a mother who cooked everything from scratch. These comments always puzzled me. One day when my mother asked me to retrieve the last bag of beans from our near empty pantry I asked her what was so good about cooking from scratch. She went on to explain just what you addressed in your talk. Finally I understood what cooking from scratch meant....because for years I had thought that scratch cooking meant piecing together meals from the sparse contents of our cupboards. As an adult I never take a full pantry for granted and rejoice in every meal I have the privilege to cook from scratch. Thank you for your talks!
What a beautiful memory of an incredible mother. Thank you for sharing!
Really enjoyed this video.
Really great advice about transitioning slowly - step by step. It would beat overwhelm that way as well.
...I have been reading Nourishing Traditions today and it really opened my eyes to the skills we have lost in Western society. I felt great motivation for my health, my family & friends and for community as a whole to learn and adapt these way into my life. Thank you for a great video!
Absolutely wonderful conversation with great tips. I do not feel so overwhelmed I cook from scratch. That was the way my mom taught me. But we did not make bread or can food. I will be canning food again. Some of f it will be from my garden and meats will be from store. I cannot raise chickens where I live.
If you want to make bread perfectly find Esters video on making bread. Her bread is a bit more dense so it hold spreaded food better like PB and hers turns out beautiful!
As cookbooks go, I have always loved "The Joy of Cooking"... Tons of recipes, but even more important, information about the foods and ingredients themselves, that lead one to be better able to cook those foods, even without the actual recipes themselves.
I've been looking for the original version since you mentioned this. I read on one of the Amazon reviews that the newer versions have omitted some of the helpful information. Do you mind looking at the year yours was printed and I will look for that same copy? Thanks, :) Angela
I think this one's a revised edition, there's a mess of copyright dates... 1997, I think is the print date. ISBN on this copy (hardcover) is: ISBN 0-684-81870-1
Thank you!!
Lord, I would love an informative kitchen tour from each of you. Great talk, as usual. Thanks.
Check out Angela's channel, she shows parts of her kitchen and has recipe video's on there.
Check out Angela's channel, she shows parts of her kitchen and has recipe video's on there.
It would be nice if you could show the kitchen that is mentioned. I have a similar mission: to use almost no plastic around my foods and body. I would love to see how yours is displayed and arranged!
I would like to learn to make my own sourdough bread. I don't eat bread often as a pre diabetic. I love the book Nourishing Traditions. You encouraged me to try making more of my own pantry items.
I think I'm on my 13th attempt at sour dough (making my own starter). It's a lot harder then the books make it out to be. Don't give up, I'm rooting for you and all the other hopefuls.
One of the hard things about my journey with allergies was that I was totally forced to cook from scratch and cut out a lot of foods cold-turkey. 2016 was a year where my "WAAAAAAA I can't eat chocolate" coping strategy was: eat sugar. Like crystal rock sugar, straight, at first. Now, a year later, I know a lot more about cooking sweets... but I'm hoping to pare back the sugar a little in 2017 (especially as I might get to try chocolate again this week!!!).
-Janice
Thanks
A book I love is "An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace" by Tamar Adler.
Let's hear it for Nourishing Traditions cookbook!!!! It WILL radically change your practices in the kitchen!
Some other things I have found interesting & helpful are the old cookbooks from the 18th & 19th century. They are less on following exact recipes & more on the methods. One helpful one is The Virginia Housewife. Also, Jas Townsend & Son has an 18th century TH-cam cooking channel - really interesting stuff!
Thank you! I am definitely going to look into both of those!
My son (who is in his 40's now) was hyperactive and I didn't like the idea of putting him on Ritalin so I turned to the Feingold diet. I got a lot of flak from family and friends for doing this, they thought it was all hype. But that was my start to scratch cooking. Just goes to show that additives in foods were an issue even back then.
Thank you for this. I would love to know what Angela cooks for her family :)
She'll be back next week!
Eating seasonally is a good idea and eating meals made from whole foods is the best thing for you. Besides, homemade taste the best. I’m not sure I agree with worrying about trying to only eat locally. You should not feel bad or guilty for having coconut oil year round. Food trade has been part of the human experience for many thousands of years (Jacob went to Egypt for corn). In the past this trade was for long term storage type foods; think grains and oils. Now days though, the “fresh” food trade is kind of gone wacky and the shipping process robs the foods of their nutritional value, but I don’t worry about grains and oils.
great video! i totally agree with going slowly, not being to had on yourself while you transition. it should be fun and it will be fun, but you cant do everything at once. give yourself time =)
now, totally off topic: i see you have one of those eco fans on your wood stove. are they worth buying? we are thinking about one, but the price is kind of hefty so we have not decided yet...
looking forward to this month =)
wrap your troubles in dreams 0
i dont seem to understand your comment @oingoo...
What upsets me is the refusal of health professionals to admit the deleterious health effects of processed foods. I have sooo many health issues, and by process of elimination I found, while I am not allergic to any whole food, its in the food. Watching self reliant living videos, I've found that thousands and thousands of people are reporting the same thing.
People get so annoyed with me when they have something I made they enjoy it and they ask for a recipe and I don't have one, I learned cooking basics as a high school student in home economics, and how to follow a recipe and I loved to create in the kitchen, but as you go along the more you cook by a recipe the more you get to know what the right ratios are by instinct you "know" what that bread dough should feel like and how long to knead, you just "know" that stickiness will go away as you knead, what's too wet or too dry, you just know how fast or slow to add that steam of oil in your mayo so it won't break, you use your eyes and sense of smell and taste to "know" what a dish needs, you learn how much salt to add to cabbage to make sauerkraut by tasting it, it should taste like salted cabbage, but the salt should not be so much it tastes salty. You measure things with your palm or a pinch or a regular bowl or cup Yes she is right you go with your gut instincts maybe people need to get back to trusting their own intuition. Have you ladies tried your hand at sourdough for leavening in place of commercial yeast?
Angela is all sourdough! And she's really good at it! I have done sourdough before but I stopped when I moved off-grid and I haven't ever gotten my system back in place. Maybe this is the year. :)
I have a question for Angela. I've had the same thought as you when using coconut oil. I live a little farther south in the us but we still don't grow coconuts here either. What oils do you use? I like olive oil but if we're talking local that's not an option either. I have worked hard to get GMOs out of our house but my only local oil options are GMO.
Melissa Jones I live in the Netherlands and the only local oil here is rapeseed oil ... I don't like the taste of it
I'm new to the Pacific Northwest, which is where Esther and Angela are too, but from what I gather, people generally make their own butter or cook with lard/fats (it's a DIY, farming area). When we were in Texas, everything was trucked in (nothing local), so if I wanted to eat local I had to raise it or make it myself. I didn't understand the term "eat local" until we moved to Washington.
I still have a large amount of coconut oil in my pantry because I had stocked up when we switched to whole foods, and we do use it as well as olive oil and avocado oil. But I had become very dependent in using those oils for my cooking, frying, baking, and in making salves, soaps, and lotions. There is nothing wrong with them, they are super healthy. But my intuition kept telling me that I needed to be more self-sufficient and well practiced in using the local oils of my climate. So yes, as The Pressnell Homestead said below, I've been practicing the past year with butter, lard, tallow, fish-oil, nut-oils, beeswax, and lanolin (the last two are for my salves). Good for you for all the work you have done to remove the GMO's! Keep following your intuition and you will find what feels right! :) Angela
of course! why didn't I think of it? Butter is local here!
That's a great question. I hope the answer isn't animal fat because I'm a vegetarian and that won't be happening haha.
I found easing in to whole foods didn't work. My 12 yo ds refused to eat home made whole wheat bread. Since it was the only bread available, he soon caved and ate it. I don't think he would have converted as long as he had a choice. I was never able to go completely whole food because dh and ds absolutely would not cooperate. I just did as much as possible and didn't stress about not being 100%.
Yes! We're going to talk with Melanie of Road to the Farm here in a couple of weeks, and that was her experience, too. They just went clean all in one stroke and that has worked for them, too. Thank your for sharing your experience.
Deep South sent me :-)
Awesome! Good luck!
dew u guys smoke the herb u remind me so much of my old girlfriends......... peace