Learning to Cook

When I was growing up, international cooking was the norm in our house. “Normal” food that we kids would often crave was generally frowned upon. Breakfast cereals almost always veered away from the overly-sugary varieties advertised on Saturday morning cartoons. Instead, we began our days with the somewhat less sweet Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies or Cheerios. No Wonder Bread, MacDonald’s or pizza. Even hot dogs were prohibited after a newspaper article brought some less than sanitary factory conditions to light.

However, not all was lost! Replacing some of the *banned* foods, was lamejun, boeregs. paklava, or rice pilaf from the Armenian half of the family. Eastern Lamejan or Sevan Bakery provided some of these favorites while others were best made at home. Believe me! My aunt’s paklava is head and shoulders above any version you are likely to find at a restaurant or any of the Armenian bakeries in Watertown. The German side of the family contributed delicacies such as knockwurst, liverwurst, sauerkraut or a veal stew that my father occasionally prepared.

Supplementing the German and Armenian food, were other international dishes which kept dinners interesting and our fast food cravings at bay. Even our hamburgs would occasionally have an Armenian twist to them — ground beef mixed with mint, onions and tomatoes. Take that McDonald’s!

I started cooking when I was pretty young. Nothing major, I would just scramble an egg; flip pancakes on Sunday mornings; heat soup; or fry the still legal hot dogs at first. But by junior high I started to expand my horizons a bit. Other than helping my father with Szechwan dishes, I had to run the kitchen for a few days when the rest of my family was sick. I can’t remember what I made, but everyone survived my cooking! There was a less than inspired class project for my home economics class. I was supposed to prepare an entire dinner for the family. I only remember canned peaches or pears in syrup now, but pictures do exist...

Around this time, I successfully modified a recipe for the first time. We had found an interesting version of Blue Cheese dressing in a cookbook named The People’s Choice (which was a cookbook by Volunteers for Drinan — Drinan, being our congressman at the time). Because the recipe was easy, I remember trying to make it. It only contained olive oil, blue cheese, garlic salt and sour cream, although I probably substituted yogurt. The trick was melting most, but not all of the blue cheese before adding the rest of the ingredients. After I had made it a few times, I wondered if adding a few other ingredients might improve the dressing. In went some bottled blue cheese dressing and mayonnaise. And it worked! The family liked it, and I was commissioned to prepare it for an upcoming holiday gathering.

One of the first Indian dishes I learned to make was prawn curry from Cooking the Indian Way. It was a simple dish that used ginger, garlic and yogurt along with the standard spices: chili, turmeric, coriander and cumin. Instead of prawns, we substituted canned tuna. I had no idea of what a prawn was at the time, so my mother probably pointed me in the direction of a can of tuna fish when I first made the recipe. In the cookbook, she renamed the recipe Aram’s Tuna Curry and added some notes, reducing the quantities of chili and other spices.

A second recipe that I began to make was the aforementioned keema korma recipe from The Complete Book of Oriental Cooking. Although I followed the recipe closely when preparing it for the family, I began to adjust it to my own tastes as I continued cooking this dish in the ensuing years.

The keema and prawn curries gave me my first taste of home-cooked Indian food and an initial taste of some of the standard spices. These along with the Szechwan dishes and an accident with chili con carne would focus my attention on spices as I began to cook for myself a few years later.