The way our grandparents ate is a fascinating subject. It’s inspiring to learn from our grandmothers in the way they cooked food to bring good health to their families. Today I want to do the second part of What We Can Learn from our Grandmothers about Food and Cooking.
Our grandparents’ diets were shaped by where and when they lived; the era, the region, and the availability of ingredients, but in general, they ate simple, wholesome food. It was home cooked food with seasonal ingredients, and it often tied to family traditions and recipes that were passed down the generations. They cooked with love from scratch, and they enjoyed their food in good company.
Cooking from scratch was a very important thing; avoiding processed foods. It wasn’t as easy to go to the grocery store and buy pre-made food, so they had to plan well, and cook from scratch every day. They used to make their own breads and baked goods. Rolls, pies, and everything like that were from scratch, and so they were so much healthier. That way, you can control the ingredients, and you can avoid preservatives. They would make muffins and cookies – any of those that you can make on your own at home are going to be so much better for you and so much more delicious than the pre-made ones. A homemade loaf of bread is so good. Homemade muffins, especially with freshly ground flour, taste amazing.
We also learn to embrace seasonal ingredients. Shop local, shop seasonal, visit a farmer’s market and see what’s in season, what fruit and vegetables they have, and try to use those in your meals. Our grandparents often grew their own fruit and vegetables, especially during the war times with our great-grandparents. Vegetable gardens were common, as were victory gardens and fruit trees. A lot of our grandparents even kept their own beehives for honey.
Some of them would have kept some livestock if they lived on small farms, perhaps sheep or goats, or even cows. This meant they would have had their own dairy; their own raw milk, cream, and butter. Perhaps they would have made their own cheese, and certainly a lot of our grandparents made their own butter. Before the times when oils and seed oils, shortening and margarine came into the supermarkets, they would have been making their own butter out of fresh cream from the farm nearby.
Often they’d have canned fruits and vegetables and maybe even canned meat. They’d have canned tomatoes, as well as tomato sauces and purees. They often made their own jam or pickled cucumbers.
All this sounds very overwhelming because it’s a lot of work, and we have a lot going on in other areas and it’s often difficult to spend that much time doing all those things. But I think one of the key takeaways for me is to evaluate and to think about what’s important to us and to our family, and then to see what we can do to improve the quality of our family’s food. Maybe that’ll be going to a farmer’s market weekly to get raw milk and cheese and fresh, in-season fruit and vegetables. Perhaps you can order from an online service. A farmer’s market often has a delivery of bags of fresh produce, breads, dairy, and even meat.
Just think about things that you could do to take one step towards improving your food, and making it closer to the way our grandmothers would have done it. It’s better to have fewer pesticides, less hybridized wheat and things that are messed with, fewer processed ingredients, and more home cooking, more from-scratch cooking, and more fresh ingredients and good quality ingredients.
Something I found helpful that our grandparents and grandmothers would have done is to make one-pot meals. On the stovetop or in the crock pot, our grandparents often made hearty meat stews, soups, and even casseroles. That would serve you for more than one meal. Try making a big batch of chili, beef stew, vegetable soup, or chicken soup. This is very cost effective – it’s a good way to help your budget a little bit. It’s also a great way to make sure there’s leftovers for lunch the next day.
You could make a hearty beef stew cooked on the stove from lunchtime until dinner when you need it, at a nice slow pace. It could be cooked in your crock pot and eaten for dinner, and then you could have the leftovers for lunch the next day, perhaps with some more water to make it into a soup, and there you go. I love that idea because it’s healthy in that it’s cooked for a long time. Especially if there’s bones in it, it brings that extra nutrition. You can put a bit of bone broth in there, and then it’s so easy to have it on the stove or in the crockpot the whole time, except perhaps overnight. It’s really useful to be able to use it when you need to, and eat some more the next day.
When I’m doing something like that in the crockpot, I’ll cook it until dinner time, and then I’ll let it cool until bedtime and I’ll pop it in the fridge. Sometimes even the whole crockpot can fit in the fridge. Otherwise I’ll put it in a glass dish with a lid. Then the next morning, we put it back in the crockpot on a really low setting, perhaps adding some water, and then warm it up for lunch. If it’s something like a stew and you’ve made it into a soup, then you can add some fresh bread.
Speaking of bread, our grandparents had the amazing ability to bake their own bread and rolls, as well as other side dishes. I don’t have time for that very often, but what I do like to do is find the best quality sourdough that’s artisan; home cooked, or the bread that’s least processed and refined like the grocery store bread is. Then I feel a bit less guilty giving that to my children – not that you should feel guilty, but sometimes I do.
Using leftovers creatively to create new meals is something our grandmothers did. If there was leftover roast meat like chicken, it could be turned into chicken salad or chicken soup, or used in grilled chicken sandwiches with cheese. Leftover mashed potatoes could become potato cakes, and could be fried, or added to soups or stews to thicken them.
They would add beans, lentils, or whole grains like barley to add to something and bulk it up, or to make a soup after you’ve cooked something like a stew. Dishes like bean soups, vegetable stews, and grain-based salads were also common. My mother-in-law makes a great lentil barley soup. She uses a cup of red lentils, which cook into nothing – they kind of thicken the soup, and the barley cooks until it’s tender. She uses grated carrot, grated potato, and broth. and it’s so delicious and so easy. It also uses such cheap, simple ingredients.
Something else I have enjoyed learning from thinking about the way our grandmothers cooked is the way they used meat. I enjoy cooking meat, but often I will make meat the main focus of the dish, which is fine, but it does get expensive. I think our grandparents used meat sparingly because of the time they lived in, either because of rationing, or just things not being as freely available. Meat was a staple in their diets, but they often used it sparingly in stews and soups and casseroles rather than as the main item. As I’ve already mentioned, they had things like soup or stew with meat in it, but also vegetables, grains and legumes. I think they were masters at stretching ingredients.
When using a leftover roast chicken or roast beef, they would turn it into a stew, or sandwiches, or even incorporating it into a breakfast pie or bubble and squeak, which is like a frittata with leftover meat and veg. Those were all masterful things to do. They would buy less expensive cuts of meat, like chicken thighs or pork shoulder, and then cook them slowly in the crock pot. This can help to make meals that are very flavorful, but less expensive. Cooking meat in the instant pot also really helps because it becomes so tender. I find that cuts of meat, especially beef, that are harder to make tender, do really well in the instant pot.
Our grandparents didn’t waste money on sugary drinks and sodas. They generally drank water, and tea or coffee as a break for the afternoon. It was a way to fill them up a bit in the afternoon without having to have a whole extra snack meal. Sugary sodas just weren’t that common. They would also have drunk raw milk if they could get hold of it, either from their own place, or from a nearby farm, and then that was it. They didn’t need all the extra drinks, sodas, fruit juices, etc. that we sometimes have today.
They would definitely have made some homemade fruit juices, and perhaps lemonade or iced tea as a good summer beverage. Even homemade wine or cider might have been part of their meals, but these would have all been from fresh ingredients, and much healthier than the sodas we have today.
Also, they would have baked their own sweets; cookies, cakes, pies, banana bread, making it less easily available, and so more of a treat. Therefore you wouldn’t eat as much as you would if you could just always buy your crackers or cookies from the grocery store. Meals were designed to be filling and to provide energy for hard work, so they wouldn’t have just had a salad for lunch. They would have made sure there was hearty meat, like in stews and soups, and they would have added beans and lentils as well as the meat.
Bread would have been a staple, and it was often homemade, to go with the rest of the food and make it hearty with some good homemade butter. They had all the food groups – the good protein, the good healthy fats, the good carbohydrates, the good fruit and veg, and the good grains. They were never processed and refined, and never dangerous to health. They were able to take that energy for the day, whether it was for hard physical labor, or walking or cycling far to get to work, and that would have helped them throughout the day.
In European cultures and Asian cultures, pasta or noodles were a common meal base, often served with a broth or a simple sauce. Noodles were added to their soup. Often in Italy, pasta would be homemade with a special family recipe. In coastal or fishing communities, fish would be a key part of the diet, whether fresh or preserved. Wherever they lived, they would use produce available from there that they could get fresh; good quality, local ingredients.
I think it’s important to remember that we should learn not to put too much pressure on ourselves, or expect too much, because often our grandparents had maids or helpers to cook, to tend the gardens or even the farms, and though they had a big workload, they didn’t do everything themselves. These days we often don’t have maids – we prefer to do things in our own family; whether it’s cooking or cleaning, we prefer to do it ourselves. Obviously, it’s going to be harder to manage to do as much as you would if you had a helper or a cook. so don’t feel like you have to do everything your grandparents or great-grandparents did. The idea is to be inspired more than to be pressurized into things. For me, that means trying to make more homemade broth and stock, trying to make more healthy soups and stews with those good broths in them, trying to make more things from scratch, and also to source good quality local fresh ingredients as much as possible.
For special occasions and close gatherings, they would have enjoyed baked goods like pies, cakes, or cobblers made with fruit, or they would even have simply baked or stewed fruit. Sweeteners like honey or sugar were used sparingly. Desserts were made from scratch with basic ingredients, which also made them healthier. The pies like apple pie, peach pie, cherry pie, blueberry pie, always with a homemade flaky crust with some whipped cream, were definitely favorites that I think are a bit of a lost art. For me though, they also do take more time. I find that some of my older children who enjoy cooking are keen to make pies and they don’t seem to find them a burden, so that’s great, but I often don’t have time for this kind of dessert, but I think it’s a great thing to do when you have a gathering with family or friends, or a special occasion.
Roast meats were also a great favorite, and something our grandparents would have done often. They’re pretty much the easiest meat. You just have to put it into the crock pot with a little bit of broth in the bottom, and put on some good seasoning. If you’d like to do it in the oven, that’s great, but I struggle with that because it doesn’t seem to cook through without getting dry. For me, roasts in the crockpot work very well. Then I just make a gravy from the broth and the meat juices at the end. Whether it’s roast chicken or roast lamb, it’s amazing. That makes the meal really hearty, rich, and indulgent without it being too much work – I find casseroles a huge amount of work compared to a roast. Then I’ll make roast potatoes, roast carrots, and gravy to have with that, and there we have it. So, roast meats are great.
Another thing to note is that our grandparents cooked with healthier fats and oils. I did mention that briefly, but they would have cooked with lard, and sometimes butter or ghee – definitely not seed oils or unhealthy oils, which weren’t even around back then.
Also, I believe that our grandparents were better at being patient with things, whether it was gardening or cooking. Our grandmothers would take the time to chop the ingredients and to put everything into the pot to get it going. They would allow time in cooking for flavors to develop, and they wouldn’t be rushing around trying to do ten things at the same time like I tend to do. I’m always doing homeschool, unpacking shopping, doing a bit of work on my laptop, or doing the budget. Somehow, there was time for focusing on what you were doing, and spending that time. I think it’s a good thing to cook with patience, because somehow you enjoy the process more than if you’re in a rush and you’re distracted by multiple things. That’s something I want to do – focus on cooking when I’m cooking, and focus on eating with my family, and being present when I’m eating, and not dividing my attention.
Our grandparents were good at celebrating with food. They often made meals an occasion, whether it was for a holiday, a birthday, or a family gathering. They would cook special meals, and parts of that meal would be being made for days in advance. I find that it really helps me, whether it’s a Christmas, or a Thanksgiving, or a special Easter meal, to take the time to plan early in the week, and then to cook some of the food in advance.
I’ll start with the desserts, because they can be put in the freezer or the fridge. The side dishes can be done a couple of days before. I’ll defrost the meat and do the gravy a day in advance. I’ll even cook the meat a day in advance, and warm it on the day if that works well. Cooking it on the day is fine if it’s needed, but I find it helpful to have everything else done.
Our grandmothers cooked a lot of things from scratch. I’m definitely not able to do that a whole lot, but what I like to do is think of what’s most important to me, and do that from scratch. As I mentioned, maybe that’ll be something like bone broth. Either getting a really good quality source or making it myself is important to me. Perhaps you could choose something like salad dressings, where they often use the wrong oils. You could make your own olive oil and balsamic or greek salad dressing. Just choose something that’s important to you, and practice making that from scratch, and then as you do that, it becomes easier, and you can do it very quickly.
My kids like to make our own barbecue sauce to add to grilled meats, and that’s always delicious. Choose what works for you and start with that, and then you can add another thing, and another thing to make from scratch. Some families love to make their own bread and they have a good routine for sourdough, and that works well for them. We like to grind our own flour to use in muffins and breads, although we don’t bake bread very much, and other snacks, and that ups the nutrient level and the health.
So, in summary, to eat like our grandparents, focus on simplicity – simple ingredients, simple meals, home cooked meals, and wholesome seasonal ingredients. Take time to slow down, and make the meals hearty so you can work hard without needing to snack. Cook from scratch, but use what you have. Create meals that bring people together, and use meat sparingly. Make the food taste good, which builds strong family bonds, and connects us to the past in meaningful ways. We can especially use some of our old family recipes and methods of cooking that we’ve learnt, and keep that tradition alive. I also think our grandmothers remind us of the value of food, not just as sustenance, but as an expression of care and creativity. It’s important to cook with love, appreciate our food, and enjoy it together.
