History Can Teach Us How to Reduce Our Dependency on Convenience
Modern culinary traditions often hold onto techniques that we learned from our mothers and grandmothers. Taking recipes that were passed down and adding a spin that makes it our own is a right of passage. But, with the evolution of food products and the rise of women in the workforce, convenience became key to ensuring that a homemade dinner was always on the table.
Boxed feasts, drive-thru's, frozen dinners, and ‘just add water’ meals made getting food in the bellies of your family easier than ever. For a while, these conveniences worked. It was real food and mom didn’t have to spend hours at the stove after a long day. Unfortunately, various factors have caused many companies to cut corners, resulting in more ultra processed convenience foods with little to no natural ingredients or nutritional value. Time was saved, but at the expense of our health.
While some women went to work in droves, many Black women were already in the work force. Domestic workers, teachers, nurses, and manufacturing positions often meant long hours which left little to no time for cooking fresh, complicated meals nightly. Without the convenience of pre-made meals, shortcuts had to be creative.
Growing up my mother would take such short-cuts when she didn’t have the time or the energy to cook after a long day. A bucket of fried chicken would be paired with some vegetables and rice or potatoes and we had a meal in a fraction of the time. I wondered how her mother, a single mother of five who worked a full-time job, managed to feed her children every night. The answer helped me understand my own culinary instincts.
While my grandmother is a good cook in her own right, my mother being the eldest, was the one who cooked. Growing up in a food desert with one small grocery store in the 70s meant a lot of corner-cutting ingredients. Boxed and canned items filled in when the fresh produce was sub-par (which was all the time). My mother elevated what she had to make meals for her mother and siblings. When I was growing up, she used the same practices that she grew up with, until she realized the toll it was taking on her health. So, we all but eliminated pre-made ingredients and she, for a few years, followed a pescetarian diet.
Being mindful of what we ate and adding fresh vegetables to every meal became common practice for us. As I’ve grown older, and often struggle with juggling multiple responsibilities as an entrepreneur, I found myself falling into the trap of convenience. In a quest to get in touch with my roots, I began to research just how Black women of the mid-century and earlier, managed to feed their families after spending the entire day working. The answer is a mix of practices we know, and already use, and instincts we have lost over time.
MEAL PREPPING
Sunday has always been the only day that we have had to rest. And as a result, it has become a part of our culture that sits in our spirit. Large family meals on Sunday was a tradition I grew up with. My mother or grandmother would spend the day cooking, not only food for us to eat that day, but items we could reheat and eat during the week, lightening her load. Sunday dinner is not just a sacred family event, it was the one day where our mothers and grandmothers could get into the kitchen and take their time, pouring the love we knew into every ingredient. Sunday dinner or “meal-prepping” was the foundation for the week. One ingredient could lend itself to multiple new dishes with a little creativity and ingenuity.
ONE-POT MEALS
Throwing smoked meat into a pot of water and letting it simmer until it falls off the bone, then adding in beans or veggies that could be smothered slow made a meal that you can eat over rice, with cornbread, or by itself. Something that could be put in a heavy pot on the stove on low heat, or in a slow cooker, ready just in time for dinner. Spaghetti is one of our community’s favorite go to foods because of its low cost and opportunity for creativity. Whether you cook low and slow all day or you put together a one-pot classic in 30 minutes to an hour, one-pot meals are a time-saving technique that couples tradition with necessity.
UTILIZE ALL INGREDIENTS
The bones from a roasted chicken can easily become broth for another dish. Leftover pieces of meat were turned into a sandwich or salad. Versatility is something that our ancestors learned so long ago that instincts take over when we don’t have any other direction. Potato skins became a fried treat or an all new dish entirely. Vegetable scraps became seasoning and pan drippings became gravy. The genius of our cultural heritage is our ability to take nothing and turn it into a culinary masterpiece. Something that financial hardships and ancestral guidance instilled in me.
FOOD STAPLES
Rice, beans, and bread are staples in the household of cultures across the globe. These filling foods could make a full meal out of the paltriest of ingredients, stretching small amounts of vegetables and meat amongst the largest of families. Quick fried or baked bread like hoecakes, corn bread, or biscuits were the perfect addition to any meal, in a fraction of the time. Beans could be cooked low and slow in the morning, ready just in time for dinner and rice rounded out a meal with ease.
CANNED AND PRESERVED FOOD
Before modern canned goods with elevated levels of sodium, women pickled and canned vegetables, and preserved or froze seasonal fruit. A biscuit that took 30 minutes to prepare, spread with fruit preserves was a quick and filling breakfast. Pickled vegetables added flavor and nutrition to a meal and properly canned or jarred vegetables came through when the day was long and the effort needed to be low. While these ingredients weren’t meant to be used daily, they came through in the clutch when they were needed.
MAKE IT A FAMILY AFFAIR
As an eldest daughter I understand the nuance around giving your child more responsibility than they should have. In single parent households eldest children, often the daughter, were treated as an additional parent. Someone that took on tasks that mothers fell short on while at work. It is important to find ways to divide tasks and responsibilities so no one person is carrying more weight than another. Setting the table, clearing and washing dishes, and helping with meal preparation should be a family affair so everyone helps, everyone learns, and everyone can pass traditions on.
We often assume that our grandmothers and great grandmothers toiled tirelessly in front of the stove night after night when, in reality, many Black women were not stay at home moms. And, after a long day of work, shortcuts had to be taken because mom was tired. Our elders and ancestors did what they had to do because they had no other options. Today, we are being faced with food uncertainty that has now made self-agency imperative. Convenience has been helpful but the cost is outweighing the benefit. Reaching back to our not so distant history is a key component in ensuring we thrive no matter what season we are in.
