Technology can’t match grandma in the kitchen
One of the things people often overlook is just how far we have come today in terms of the way people select and prepare the foods they eat on a daily basis.
Just take a moment to consider how food selection and preparation was different in the past from the high-tech food selection and preparation existing today. In the beginning, taste didn't matter much and it was more a case that food translated into survival.
If you want to go way back to cavemen (maybe the Bobby Flay's and Emeril Lagasse's of their time) and cavewomen, it was simply a matter of clubbing something over the head before building a bonfire at the edge of the cave to cook it.
Obviously, that meat wasn't prepared in a non-stick pan or with the assistance of any fancy marinades or seasonings. It was the basic, "You got to kill it before you grill it" thought process to get food for survival.
Even in the pioneer years of our country, many times it came down to a few rudimentary vegetables or fruits that people could grow mixed in with whatever wild game they were able shoot. It was still cooked over an open fire, many times only it was in a fire place located in a cabin.
Along came the invention of ovens, pressure cookers, roasting ovens and so much more that was used for decades by the generations of my great-grandmothers, grandmothers and mother. It took on the warm and fuzzy name of “home cooking” featuring lots of meat, potatoes and vegetables.
Many of us still have those old recipes written down, and from time to time prepare them to enjoy not only for the taste, but the aroma and memories they bring with them. It was a time of chopping and dicing by hand using metal pots, pans, kettles along with a cast iron frying pan to be prepared on or in an oven.
Since those days, technology has now entered the cooking picture changing the way we prepare and select food. The amazing thing is those long-gone relatives wouldn’t even recognize some of the technology men and women use in the kitchen today to prepare food.
Just looking around my kitchen, I see the likes of things my grandmothers and mother didn’t have at their disposal like microwaves, hot air fryers, George Foreman grills, blenders and much more.
I also can still hear my grandmother’s voice talking about how ice boxes were a real game changer back in the day for preserving food. No, I am not talking about refrigerators or freezers, but what predated them, which was an insulated metal box kept cool with real blocks of ice cut from Manistee Lake in the winter.
Think about that when you go to the refrigerator today with a glass to press a tab on the outside to get ice cubes or crushed ice followed up with water from the unit’s dispenser. Back then, the only water coming from the ice box was when it melted on a hot day into a pan located below.
What was also interesting is food back then was many times simply a way of providing sustenance to those eating it. Today with all the ingredients and fancy ways to prepare it shown to us by the television cooking shows, it has pretty much taken on an entertainment value.
However, reading an article about some of the high-tech kitchen gadgets displayed at the recent CES Tech Show in Las Vegas gave me a good perspective of what my great-grandmas and grandmas would feel like looking at my kitchen cooking items today.
For example, General Electric unveiled a smart mixer that includes a sensor to allow the cook to weigh your ingredients in the bowl while working. You know, my grandmas had a sensor as well that they called, “You need to add a pinch of this and a smidgen of that.”
Even today Emeril Lagasse has his “Bam Sensor” when determining how much of an ingredient to add to a dish.
The smart mixer has an auto sensor that can monitor changes in texture and viscosity to avoid overmixing. My mom had the same built in sensor within when she would be mixing something and promptly say, ”That looks good.” What was amazing was she was always spot on.
The Dutch OneThird Company unveiled a scanner that can now tell you in a supermarket if avocados, berries, tomatoes and melons are ripe. Grandma had one as well, but it was called her fingers.
A couple good squeezes would result in her pointing at one and saying “Take that one, it’s ripe.” And by golly it was ripe.
Versa Ware came out with a phone-sized device capable of attaching to a cutting board or mixing bowl displaying the recipe and tracking the nutrition. My grandmas and mom had a device as well called “their brain” to remember the recipe. And as for being nutritional, that came in the words, “Eat it, it’s good for you.”
Another new face of cooking technology is Samsung’s bespoke A1 Oven that comes with a camera inside to warn you if your food is burning. Grandma used something a little different; she would sniff the air and promptly say, “Get that out of there it’s starting to burn.”
Yes, today’s high-tech cooking world probably is better at testing for ripeness, putting in the exact ingredients and making sure it doesn’t burn when cooking. But one thing high-tech devices can’t and never will match is the true love and memories our moms and grandparents created in their cooking.
It’s something that will remain that way long after I see you again on Thursday.
Ken Grabowski is the retired associate editor at the Manistee News Advocate who spent more than 36 years in the newspaper business.
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