I'm jealous of this generation of high school kids.
There, I said it.
When I was a kid, my mom was the chef in the household. When I became a teenager, I watched her like a hawk in the kitchen and then I'd adapt what she did into my own culinary creations.
I wasn't bad. I mean, I was certainly no Lynda Ruttle, but I showed a knack for it.
Today, I like to think I'm a pretty good cook in the kitchen, and I'm always watching videos on YouTube to help inspire me for new recipe ideas. Looking for a recommendation to watch? Check out the Food Wishes channel on YouTube. Chef John has created some incredible dishes over the years!
Of course, some of that kitchen education came from school when I was growing up. I'm a product of Outlook High School (Class of '04 still rules), and we had Home Economics class on our schedules. It was a cool class, and Miss Tam was a great teacher, but looking back, I guess the problem I see now was that Home Ec worked itself out to being held only once every six days on our class schedule, and it was somewhat limiting in that it was strictly a baking class. Cakes, muffins, cookies, you get the routine.
Absolutely nothing wrong with that at the time, but I look at what kids in school are doing today and I can't help but feel envious.
Over time, the Home Economics class at OHS grew, expanded and morphed into what's known today as Commercial Cooking, where students work in a gorgeous kitchen setting that resembles the back end of some restaurants. Kids have gone from strictly baking things to cooking dishes like tomato macaroni soup, perogies and sausages, taco chili, and even lasagna.
Are you kidding me? Kids get to cook these delicious things, get graded on them, AND then get to eat them?!?!?
Where do I sign up? Or perhaps, where do I find Doc Brown to send me back in a time-traveling DeLorean to the year 1998?
Comedic jealousy aside, it's very cool to see kids today being taught how to cook for themselves and others by way of classes like Commercial Cooking. Teachers are showing kids that they don't have to rely solely on Mom or Dad to cook supper or even prepare their school lunches the next day. Just pay attention in class, and you can whip up your very own pan of Hamburger Helper or chicken casserole.
Hell, if you're good enough, you just might be having Mom and Dad salivating at what you create in the kitchen.
It's also great to see kids being taught a basic fundamental skill that dates back for us humans all the way to the stone age.
Hmmm, how can man cook animal? Animal no taste good cold. Wonder if animal taste gooder after sitting over fire? Oohhh, that much better!
It's also nice seeing kids being shown the ins and outs of the kitchen and how to prepare food in a world that is seemingly obsessed with keeping them indoors and dependent on food services like Skip the Dishes, Uber Eats, and DoorDash. Seriously, have you seen some of the commercials for these services? 'Ohhhh, life is a wasteland of mediocrity! I can't bring myself to throw together a bowl of mac and cheese for myself! I must spend $40 on delivery from a chain restaurant downtown!'
Good grief.
Still, it's hard to ignore the success of such businesses. Take any city in Canada and there's your prime audience; workaday city folks who didn't take something out of the freezer to thaw out and who now have to rely on their choice of either chain or family-owned restaurants, and that restaurant's delivery carrier to get their evening meals to them.
All while paying the delivery fees on top of the taxes on top of the actual menu costs of said meals.
The flip side of that success is the knowledge that some of these delivery services have a sort of hold over some of the restaurants they work with. I've read that if you go to some restaurants in Saskatoon and they're listed as a DoorDash establishment, you have to walk in knowing that deliveries for that service take precedent over the restaurant's own sit-in customers. That's because if someone complains over their delivery being cold or incorrect, the service will penalize the restaurant financially.
That's unfortunate. It's also too bad that some of the more mid-size restaurants that don't make as much money as others have no choice but to use these services in order to get their food to people wanting delivery.
I guess in the end, it's a good thing we live in a small town area, where such services don't exist aside from local pizza delivery.
Now, OHS, back to the question at hand: Where does my hungry self sign up to be a taste tester for that Commercial Cooking class...?
For this week, that's been the Ruttle Report.
