I learned most of the rules of cooking during two years of torturing Home Economics classes when I was in junior high school. It was compulsory for all girls to suffer through these years in order to learn to be good wives and mothers. I remember when we were being taught to make omelettes, the teacher said that we would be making them for our husbands on weekends and he would love us more for it. You can just imagine how this went down with me at the time! I was a politically left wing feminist who never shut up about it. But now, several decades later, I have to admit that of all my high school education, the most useful to me has been those home ec classes. It was there that I learned the importance of precision measuring and following a recipe like a scientific experimental protocol. Skills I use in the lab every day in my day job, and had not learned in my science class.
Some of the things I made in those cookery classes I still make today. Like peppery cheese scones. Once I learned to make them, my family made me bake them almost every weekend until I grew so tired of it, I went on a twenty year long cheese scone strike. A few years ago, I went cap in hand back to my mom and she found the recipe for me again, which is once again a family favourite and I make them with love now, not typical teenage resentment. We were also taught how to make swiss roll. WHAT A WASTE of effort. They are so much quicker to buy, and tastier too. And there is no way I would put all that effort into a trifle!
There was a horror story from those classes too. It was the day we made fish cakes from tinned pilchards. This recipe turned nearly all of us off cooking. We made a mush of mashed potato and pilchards, formed them into fish cakes and fried them in at least a centimetre of oil. Stomach turning! And what made it worse for me, is that I only eat pilchards after I have halved them and removed the bone and any roe that might be inside, but we were made to mash the whole fish, eggs, bones and all and that was vile! I cannot bare crunchy pilchard bones! The crackle between my teeth grosses me out. My toes are turning up as I write this out of abhorrence.
Which brings me finally to tonight’s dish. Still being temporarily ovenless, we swapped the chicken pie of Tuesday with Friday’s meal. Salmon (out of a tin) fish cakes made with mashed potato. I am a little older now, with a more accepting nature and willing to try more than I used to before, but I have to admit, I felt trepidation! Son started dinner before I got home (I love him more and more each day, as I do his boet) so I left him to it. I ran around the backyard picking fresh parsley for garnish to make up for my deliberate non-involvement in the preparation. I watched as he prepared the bread crumbs in the food processor, shaped the fishy goo into balls, floured them, egged them then finally crumbed them. He fried them in the thinnest layer of canola oil in our Family Frying Pan while Boet made a green salad.
I had written lemons down on the shopping list on Saturday, but while shopping forgot what they were for, remembered that we have plenty of lemon juice in the fridge so I crossed off the lemons. Son pointed out that the zest of the lemon, as included in the recipe, would have made an important contribution to the flavour and that I should not have been so remiss! Mea culpa! Next time. And there will be a next time, because these fish cakes were droolicious! And very inexpensive as a family supper. Son scored the dish as a 6/10 without the lemon zest, but he would have given it an 8 had the lemon zest been there! I feel like I need to go to confession…
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