Food Glorious Food!

Disclaimer** Do NOT read this post while hungry, waiting for dinner or warm, yeasty delicious fresh out of the oven delicious bread.

I love food. I love eating. And I HATE.LOATHE.ABHOR.DETEST. cooking. Get the picture? There is something about splitting open a bag off something, pouring it into a vessel and heating in some form of human conducted box that bores me to tears. Because let's face it, this is what passes for "home cooked food" in today's day and age.
I have been reading the book "Cooked" by Michael Pollan, who is my favourite common sense food writer. The book chronicles his decision to take an active role in the art of cooking. After all, cooking, as Pollan describes it, is the one thing that sets us apart fundamentally from all other species. No other mammal, reptile or bird breaks out a Zippo to light up the barbie and throw on a slab of meat. We cook, because with the advent of fire, many things became digestable to us that were not before (ie/pork) also because using the energy from the fire (cooking) to kick start the digestion and allow us to use less energy than we would to process raw meat. This freed up our genetic ancestors to consume this extra energy to evolve our brains, and less time chewing made for a more civilized society - community building, inventions etc...... So, inventing fire and figuring out how to cook actually played a role in our evolutionary process.
Pollan is revisiting 4 popular methods of cooking: grilling, boiling, baking bread and fermenting. He takes the reader through the history of each, how to, and more. Well worth the read, as are all his books. Get them on your summer reading lists!
It got me thinking about how little we actually do for ourselves in the kitchen. So many of our foods are processed, manufactured, bagged, shipped and slung into our grocery carts without a second thought. I pride myself on avoiding much processed food, but realized that the meatballs I had for dinner came from a box, the sauce from a tin and the pasta from a bag. Hmmmmm.
So this weekend the Tiffin girls are embarking on Operation Bake The Bread. Yes - Amy and I are going to bake bread. We are going to mix, roll, knead, rise and bake bread.Together. Without killing each other - but that is a whole other blog. I'll keep you posted.
Find Your CORE!