In the sixties both of my parents worked, so I was what would come to be called “a latch key kid”. I was taught and expected to cook my own basic breakfast and lunch when I was probably seven or so, just bacon and eggs kind of stuff at first but more complicated as I got older. I was single until I was 34 so before that I did all of my own cooking, pickling and preserving. Made amazing taco sauce, dill pickles, and canned smoked fish, among others. Once I got married I kept on. Because of my wife’s insane call schedule I was/am the one that cooks most meals. We like East Indian and Mexican so we do lots of that, and we were making Sushi way before it became a fad in North America. There’s been several times when at a party or gathering someone will ask my wife how she made the jelly or canned food that we have and she will say “ask my husband, he made it”.
I’ve had friends that used to joke that it’s not manly to do the cooking. I always ask them, “I killed my supper, how about you?”
Wife makes justifiably famous apple pies, and has started making the best pumpkin pies, ever.
Daughter never used to cook anything, at all, when she lived at home. When she went away to university she would get us to send down a cooler of deer or elk meat that she would cook in residence just to kind of assert her northerness. Turned into a fantastic cook.
