Cooking for our families can be fun, even if it often seems like work

Cooking for our relatives, even foreigners, can be a real pain. Most of these relatives and foreigners worry about sanitation and even styles that are different from their experience. So what is new? Too many mothers look askance at visitors, as if visitors are dirty or will make their family sick, even by just using glasses to drink from. So what’s new?

Being a macho Marine who dares all and does all, I had a buddy who attended a wedding in the Asian side of Istanbul, and at the reception the treats included a cold soup with chopped lambs intestines, a real treat that cost extra for the hosts. Well our Marine and fellow American proceeded to blow chow all over the place. How embarrassing, and so reducing in our fear factor.

Transport quickly to the Philippines and try baloot (baluge in the local term), a real delicacy from a fifteen or sixteen day fertilized chicken egg. A whole nation eats this and honors it. I have only had it drunk, so be it.

How about Taiwan birds nest soup. Or eastern European peppers. Or rotten seal meat dishes from Iceland. The whole idea of “pungent” can take on a whole new meaning to many Americans. How about when my grandma got a chicken out of the chicken coop in Tennessee and did the rest of things like normal. Me and my brother wouldn’t eat it, even if in retrospect, it was cleaner than “store-bought” chicken.

Last, it seemed funny when we Marines had one day a week soul-food meals in the mess halls decades ago as an effort in racial harmonization, but one main item of “chitterlings” was introduced by social dummies where country and not city, came to friction. and so many Marines just hated it as I did. Chitterlings are cleaned and fried pig’s intestines, and the stripping process alone is enough to make one leave the house, or throw up. Think of boiled poop. City Marines of all races had not even heard of this “meal”, and hated it. I have being from the country in Tennessee hated it too, and I left the house when my mother did her preparation. And as in “Marine mess halls”, most day to day food should be generic, and mess hall style. Our kids thrive on all this, of course. So do we adults.

For those who want to be cooks, as in cooks for their families and relatives and even foreign guests, go for it. We have such a rich and American blend of cultures and foods, we have a wonderful opportunity. Many cooks are worried about failing or being embarrassed, which is normal. Rather, cooks should try, and be willing to fail or even be embarrassed. And keep in mind that presentation counts, too. After all cooks are inventing our American future, even if they don’t know it at the time. What a shame saying this. Let us just enjoy meals together, and talk.

Kick back, cook, present, eat, drink, and enjoy our America that we invent.