The other day, I decided to teach my kids how to cook. What I expected to be a simple, maybe even chaotic lesson in flipping pancakes or chopping onions turned into a full day’s worth of learning packed in one setting I discovered—school-style, but without the desks and textbooks.
At first, it was just about safety: don’t ever turn the burner higher than medium heat, unless you’re boiling water. Simple, right? But as we moved deeper into the process, it quickly became clear that cooking is more than just feeding your stomach; it’s a crash course in life skills, math, history, and more, too.
Food science made its way in almost immediately. We ran out of eggs—because of course we did—and so I showed them how applesauce works just as well in a cake or cookie recipe. Why? Because eggs bind and add moisture, and applesauce can mimic those aspects, too, especially in baking. The kids looked at me like I’d pulled off a magic trick. But really, it was just a little kitchen chemistry, the kind that generations before us learned by necessity and passed down to us.
Then came math, because recipes really don’t care if you hate fractions. Want to double the batch of cookies? Now you’re working with 1½ teaspoons times two. What’s half of 2/3 cup? Now we’re doing conversions. And when we ran out of measuring cups, they started eyeballing it—guess what? That’s estimation, problem-solving, and calculated risk-taking rolled into one.
History was simmering quietly in the background the whole time. Cooking has always been shaped by the poor and the marginalized. Aristocrats in the Middle-Ages believed tomatoes were poisonous—because the plant is part of the nightshade family—so it was peasants who took the risk of turning them into the culinary staples we enjoy today. Pizza anyone?
And let’s not forget chicken wings. Once discarded by the local butcher and salvaged by the kids of families just trying to feed all ten of their mouths with a few scraps. Now they’re sold by the dozen for the cost of a decent steak, and nationwide franchises serve them up to crowds while raking in millions of dollars in annual revenues.
Barbecue—that all-American summer classic—traces its roots to the ingenuity of enslaved people and the working poor, who were handed the least desirable cuts of the hog and told to make do. Through slow, deliberate care, they turned these then-perceived “trash cuts” into gastro-treasure. Brisket, ribs, pulled pork—these are comfort foods with uncomfortable backstories, no doubt. But the truth makes the taste all the more meaningful today.
Cooking, in that one afternoon with my kids, became a lesson in economics, creativity, resourcefulness, and resilience, among others. It reminded me that what happens in a kitchen often mirrors what happens in life: working with what you have, making adjustments on the fly, and occasionally making a few errors along the way.
We live in small-town, rural America, where folks know the value of a dollar and the weight of a hard day’s work. It’s a place where skills like these aren’t just “nice to have”—they’re often even essential. Maybe that’s why the kitchen is one of the most important rooms in the house still today. Not because it feeds us, but because it teaches us who we are, and where we’ve been, historically.
So, next time you cook, especially with your kids or grandkids, don’t underestimate the power of the moment. You’re not just teaching them how to stir the pot. You’re giving them a recipe for life, as well.
—
There’s plenty of practical, down-to-earth recipes your family can actually use—visit the Recipes page on The Lintonian. From scratch-made favorites to local classics passed down through generations, it’s where tradition meets the dinner table.