Cooking has been around since the dawn of time, ever since those cave men started the first fire. They were probably looking to roast some toads or some meat that they had skilled and loved the smell of cooking meat–that charred burning of flesh from an animal that they were going to eat.
Cooking has become a way for family’s to get together and celebrate an occasion. It can be a wedding or engagement dinner or a dinner to celebrate a job promotion or a new job or any occasion–the method by which to celebrate is a well-cooked and special meal, which can also be gotten at a restaurant.
Cooking, as a skill, has become a way for a family member to cook well-designed and lustrous meals for their families. The learning of knife skills, the mixing of different herbs and spices, the slicing and dicing of onions and lettuce; they are all challenges in the present but when mastered can pave the way for new delicious flavors for the family’s meals.
Cooking has become as much of a man’s skill as a woman’s. Whereas women in the 1950s were once thought to be regulated to the kitchen (and to some degree to today), men now share the responsibilities of cooking with women and importantly so–cooking is the pathway to eating well and eat prepared food, which is essential to today’s health situations.
Cooking, in fact, has a demonstrable impact on health–for better or for worse. Cooking can mean cooking with incredibly high fat ingredients, terrible choices with meat, horribly unhealthy ways of cooking meat, even not meeting the criteria for safety in the kitchen. Still, cooking can be seen in some circles as the opportunity to eat much healthier.
Cooking has the ability to remove dangerous additives and preservatives from meals, which promotes a healthier life and healthier lifestyle. McDonald’s, for instance, is full of different additives which make eating a healthy diet there difficult. While some fast food chains are better, cooking replaces additives with natural ingredients.
Cooking adds the possibility of healthier ingredient with better flavors, though fast food chains are typically loaded up with salt, sugar and fat. This three ingredients drive our desires for food. As Michael Pollan once said, these ingredients hit our evolutionary buttons.
Cooking gives rise to several possibilities within providing sustenance for families. Today, cooks have several options of looking for recipes on the Internet. There is Allrecipes.com, Yummly, the Food Network, Southern Living, and many others. There are so many recipes that it would be difficult to read them all in a year.
Cooking helps for family occasions too. Take, for instance, Thanksgiving. There are numerous opportunities for a cook to cook meals–the dressing, the turkey, the stuffing, the cranberry sauce, the pies, the mashed potatoes, and many many more. Cooks can apply their skills at a Thanksgiving dinner and better the food for everyone.
Americans can learn cooking as a way to treat their families to a good occasion. A well constructed dish helps to instill creativity and confidence in a cook, as well as a meal at the end that is prepared from the person’s chosen ingredients.
Americans, throughout the past three decades, have used one ingredient more: microgreens. Microgreens were grown in the late 1980s, before being used in the first restaurants in the 1990s. Microgreens bear a resemblance to sprouts; however, sprouts have their roots still attached, which is a main difference.
Chefs in fine dining restaurants, where the average cost per person is $28.55, utilize microgreens as garnishes on top of soup and to add to a salad. While there are 100 types of garden flowers that are both edible and palatable, there are fewer micro green varieties.
In the 1990s before micro greens gained popularity, micro green varieties were limited to about five or six: cilantro, arugala, basil, kale and others. They were small and used in select restaurants. Today, micro green varieties number 25 or more. Micro green varieties are being used in restaurants across the country.
The popularity of micro greens has risen in the past decade. More and more restaurants are using micro green varieties. They have even grown into grocery stores. Petite microgreens and organic micro greens are growing in popularity as well.
