Stale Scone Jokes

As I was reaching out for a delicious smelling freshly baked scone my mum yelled out “Don’t touch them! They’re for the CWA!”

That was a common line in our kitchen when I was a kid.  Don’t get me wrong, we ate very well but all the best looking stuff seemed to be reserved for the CWA (Country Women’s Association). It used to be a compliment to talk about great scones and being able to whip up a meal virtually out of nothing. Now, in certain circles, it is a cause for snide remarks and/or superior giggles.  It seems that many of us are too sophisticated for the antiquated views of the CWA.  Not me!

Last year I attended the CWA of WA State Conference in Fremantle. At 45 years old, I was one of the youngest of the 200 plus women in the room. While I was listened to all the remarkable (non food) achievements of the CWA ,I was struck by an overwhelming sense of loss. I thought about the wealth of accumulated food knowledge in that room and how our generation is letting that treasure slip through our takeaway packet food hands.

I thought about the (not so) delicious irony that I help women make food less complicated and confusing yet here was 200 women who have been doing that every day of their lives.

• How did they know what to do without reading wellness warrior blogs?
• How did they even survive without superfoods?
• How did they possibly feed their families without Facebook food porn?

Many of them were (like me) fortunate to learn cooking skills from their own mums. I know this is not the case for lots of the women I speak to; women who don’t like cooking or who are confused about how and what to cook. Sometimes it is because they haven’t been taught though more often than not it is the pressure that comes with cooking. The 21st century pressure of creating a gourmet meal every night and plating it up to make it Insta worthy. 

There’s also the pressure of knowing what to cook because the food and diet industry works hard to make us think eating is complicated. The CWA ladies didn’t have all these dramas. Their priority was in providing nourishing meals to their families, meals made with real food.

My mum sent four kids off to school every day yet can’t ever remember having a “what to pack in their lunchbox “ conversation with her friends. In contrast we’ve made school lunch boxes a national competition for overwhelmed mums, who can be seen frantically pinning Pinterest images in the carpark. We’ve complicated and questioned and stressed about packing the perfect (or Facebook perfect) lunchbox.  My CWA recipe book has this advice for preparing a school lunch  “see that it is not only nutritious, but also designed to prevent dental decay”. Packing suggestions include a sandwich, a bran scone and an apple or orange. Simple!

Recently I spoke at event and was asked how to get fussy kids to eat. I handballed the question to a 75yo CWA lady in the audience “What did you used to tell your kids when they didn’t like what you had served for dinner? “ 

Her immediate answer? “Well your brother will eat it and you’ll be hungry.”  Simple and straightforward advice without any drama and agony. (I have it on good authority that both boys grew up to be strapping young men, in spite of occasionally missing dinner).

Many homes throughout Australia have one of these treasured recipe books in their collection. They’re the recipes we turn to when we need some common sense, some simplicity or a good dose of nostalgia. Remember the fruit cake Aunty Marg used to make every winter?  Often there is a story about how the recipe book came to be in this particular kitchen – it was my Gran’s/my mum’s/it was given to me by my neighbour when I left home. Food invokes powerful shared memories and connections and I believe we should be fiercely protecting that .

Now before the feminists get up in arms about this being a piece advocating sending women back into the kitchen, I assure you it’s not. It’s simply voicing my concern that important cooking skills are being lost – by women AND men. I don’t care who’s in the kitchen but it is vital for our kids and our families that SOMEBODY is.

Home cooks are fast disappearing and if the skills are lost then who can we blame?

Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food describes cooking real food as “the beginning of health and happiness around food. When you cook, you’re going to want to cook for other people. So you’re going to eat a meal with other people at a table. And that’s the beginning of a real revolution in our culture.”

If we continue to deride the CWA as nothing more than scone makers then we do so at our own peril because it will be a great travesty if those kitchen skills are lost. In the not too distant future, the ability to cook anything at all will be a rare and prized asset indeed. Shouldn’t we start a cooking revolution before then?