In the Kitchen All Day

Sometimes you just don’t have time to cook.

With only 2 weeks until school starts, the school functions begin…registration, orientation, classroom visits, etc. Most of these happen to be scheduled for the same nights as my daughter’s gymnastics class. So we are off and running as soon as our workday is done.

Last night was one of those nights. No gymnastics class, but we did have school registration. According to the paperwork we were given to fill out, we anticipated it would take a couple of hours to get through all the booths that required some action on our part: registration, uniforms, PTC, lunch, after school care, etc. So we knew we wouldn’t have time for a home-cooked meal.

fried chicken. (photo credit: Wikipedia)

So I decided to stop at Publix for some fried chicken and macaroni and cheese on the way home.

We sat down to eat and as usual, my husband thanked me for dinner. I joked saying how it took me so long because I had to go chase the chicken, pluck the feathers, bake the bread, make the elbow pasta, churn the butter. And it really got me to thinking.

It’s no wonder women of the past spent all day cooking, literally, starting in the morning just for one meal late in the day. Just think how long it would take to make the meal from scratch! A few pieces of fried chicken, a spoonful of macaroni and cheese and a roll or two. Sounds simple enough, but there’s a lot going on there, that we fail to remember in this day and age.

Plucking a chicken, milking cows or goats, allowing that milk to curdle for cheese, churning butter, pressing vegetables for oil, allowing the dough to rise, rolling the pasta, and who knows what else. If I had to make this simple meal from scratch the way the did hundreds of years ago, it could certainly take all day (possibly longer, depending on how much was done in the days before and how many I had to feed). I do not envy my ancestors.

Thank goodness for modern conveniences and Publix.