Learning to Cook : First Courses : Wonder Years Home Ec

Some of us learned to cook from our mothers. Some of us learned to cook in spite of our mothers. Actually, our mothers didn’t have all that much to do with the process--as the following stories prove.

Although we all came to cooking via different paths, all of us vividly remember the first foods that we cooked. And while they’re not generally dishes that we find ourselves cooking up every day, when we recently tested these recipes, we found, somewhat to our surprise, that they are all delicious.

“Kath-LEEN, what in the world are you doing?” screeched my home economics teacher, pointing a long wooden spoon at me from across the room. “Just testing it,” I managed to mumble around the entire meatball that filled my mouth.

Our class had been assigned to cook spaghetti and meatballs for a PTA meeting. Miss Gillach had sharper eyes than I’d thought.

I was 13, and I had certainly never planned on taking cooking classes. I just figured it was something I’d know how to do when I grew up and got married. The school system knew better: For two years, in the 7th and 8th grades, girls were required to take half a semester of cooking and half a semester of sewing. The boys, of course, took shop.

Our cooking classes were held in a room containing six complete kitchens. In each kitchen was a crew of four girls, each in a white apron and a hairnet. Thus attired, we spent most of our time neatly copying recipes in round penmanship, each “i” dotted with a perfect circle, onto cards and into notebooks--recipes for cocoa, broiled grapefruit, Welsh rarebit, and cherry cha cha (don’t ask). Sometimes we actually got to cook. In those days Miss Gillach’s recipe for molasses crinkles was one of my favorites--and it still is.

MOLASSES CRINKLES

3/4 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1 egg

1/4 cup molasses

2 1/4 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon grated ginger root

Granulated sugar

Cream butter and brown sugar until light. Add egg. Beat in molasses. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, cloves and cinnamon. Stir into molasses mixture. Add ginger. Chill dough until firm.

Form into balls and roll in granulated sugar. Flatten slightly with palm of hand. Sprinkle each cookie with 2 to 3 drops water (produces crackle surface). Bake at 375 degrees 10 to 12 minutes, until set but not hard. Makes about 4 dozen.