I think I was 6 or 7 years old when I first started to "help" my mom make cookies. I think it was one of my mother's tactics to make sure I wasn't causing mischief. "Here Becky, pour this into the bowl. Why don't you put some sprinkles on those cookies?" My sister and I would both "help." That way my mom knew where both of us were, and with my mother right there we were less likely to fight.

I also remember asking my Mom for snacks when I was young. During the summer months she'd tell me to go out into the garden and pick something. Thus, the mix of food and gardening!

I distinctly remember having strep throat when I was 3 and it hurt so much to swallow I guess I had pretty much stopped eating. The only thing my mother could get me to eat was mashed bananas. I must have turned the corner soon after that because those mashed bananas were delightful. To this day if I am making banana bread or something that uses mashed bananas I will always steal a spoonful.

As far as "cooking", my mother always had me tear the iceberg lettuce for salads from the time I could reach the table. We had salad every single night, so I got lots of practice!

Alexa

I come from a loooong line of grandmothers and a mother that did not cook very well. So my memories are of later times when I was old enough to cook what I wanted. I will always remember the first hamburger I had that was not burned to a crisp! Made by me at the age of 10 years old!

My maternal grandmother was the best cook and she made yeast dough for rolls or cinnamon rolls the same way as your grandmother Teresa, she eyed it. She used teacups for measuring cups and just dumped it all together. I remember spending the night with her and if she had dinner rolls left over from the day before she split them and made toast for breakfast, oh they were so good!

I also remember her shelling black eyes peas. She could shell a bushel of peas in no time. I can't till this day. We would pick the peas and go by and get Mammaw to help shell. Mother could shell pretty good, but not as fast as Mammaw.

Good, good memories!

My granmother lived with us and raised me during the many times in my childhood when Mother was "gone". Although she was my maternal grandmother, she'd stay with Dad and us kids at the farm while Mother was off on whatever adventure she was pursuing at that moment.

She cooked like so many other mothers and grandmothers, she never measured anything, it was all by the way it looked or felt. She taught me to bake bread when I was 7, saying that I couldn't hurt it, the more I handled it the better it would be. I still bake bread by feel and smile at what she would have thought of all the "weighing to the exact ounce" recipes. She always baked the family's bread and I remember going to school with peanut butter and homemade jam on homemade bread and thinking the other kids were lucky to have that squishy white Wonder bread. Now I don't know what the heck I was thinking. The peanut butter came out of a metal pail, it was Shedd's.

My earliest memory, though, is of standing on a chair at the kitchen sink, peeling tomatoes for canning. I was about 4, maybe younger.

That's funny about the snacks, Boo, Grandma used to tell us the same thing. I still like sweet corn raw, right off the stalk!

Annie

I can think of only 7 years when we weren't either living with a grandma or had a grandma living with us...
One of my earliest cooking memories is helping my father shape clover leaf rolls...my mother always made the dough and Daddy and I shaped rolls while she cooked ther est of the dinner.
He taught me the technique of stretching the dough to make e ball. Every so often I would get tricky and make a 4 leaf clover, and he would pretend not to notice until the rolls were cooked and on the table.
When I was just short of 8, we moved into a house with 2 very prolific apple trees, a pear tree, cherry tree and a raspberry patch.
One apple ripened in July and began dropping "greenings" about mid June....and The grandmother who lived with us at that time would insist we had to use them....so we would sit in the yard and quarter apples, and cut out any bruises for apple sauce. And later it was pears....finally the late tree got ignored because we were well stocked up on apple sauce!
Linda C

I can remember times when I was sick and Mother would soft boil an egg, then mix it with torn up white bread to eat. To this day, though it sounds silly, that is a true comfort dish for me. Also, she would make ravioli from scratch with no measuring. So good.

When I was 4, my uncle taught me how to graft a grapefruit to a lemon tree. We planted it right off the kitchen door & trained it to shade the sunroom, shade much appreciated in Fresno during August/September. One side of the tree grew lemons & the other grapefruit. After my aunt passed in 2005, I was showing the new homeowners around the half acre property pointing out grave sites of 8 beloved dogs & laughing about how my uncle had fallen off the roof landing in the apple tree resulting in the rather odd shaped tree & thought to mention how the lemon/grapefruit tree came to exist. Several months later, I received a picture of the couples' young granddaughter helping her grandpa graft roses for the gardens. I am most happy & content in a garden to this day & that tree is my earliest food memory.

/tricia

Being the oldest of 5, I had many tasks, one being responsible for making the salad every night.

My mom was from Italy so we had a lot of Italian meals but oddly enough I didn't realize it until the first time DH and I went to Italy and ate at a family style restaurant. DH pointed out that many of the dishes were what I cooked for him-thanks to what mom routinely made for us when we were kids.

I remember not eating mom's lasagna until I was 14 because it looked like she was putting "cottage cheese" in it.

I also remember her making dough for pizza and bread several times a week. Imagine how I broke her heart when I signed up for a bread baking class at an Italian restaurant; turns out I had the master of peasant bread living in my house!

I remember my paternal grandmother, who was born and raised in Sweden, making Swedish pancakes. She would make little ones in a cast iron pan with indentations for the batter to go in(I still have it), and big thin pancakes almost the size of our plate. She would cover them with whatever kind of berry she had, usually blackberries or boysenberries. I remember rolling the berry's up in the large pancakes and sprinkling powdered sugar on top. I still will make them every once in a while for my kids and granddaughters.
Donna

I helped my mom in the kitchen from as long as I can remember. There was always a job like tipping green beans, shelling peas, hulling strawberries or cutting up dried beef with scissors to keep me busy. On days when my mother baked pies, I got to roll out the scraps, spread them with jam or cinnamon and sugar, roll them up, and slice them to bake along with the pies as my special treat. It wasn't until about two years ago that my cousin found this photo of me doing that at age four. (The dough's between sheets of waxed paper, not on the floor. LOL)

Two or three times during the summer and early fall, my aunts and cousins would pack up and go to my grandmother's house for five days or a week of canning, freezing and drying the crops. When I was younger, my favorite job was slipping the skins off scalded tomatoes and peaches. That was a good way to learn how to "put up" food.

Awwwww...such a cute picture, Ruthanna!

Ruthanna, so sweet!
I wish I could add to the list of memories...I've always longed for some sort of distinct ethnic heritage and the customs that come with it, you know like the Italian neighbors had their Sunday Gravy, the Polish folks around the corner made kolachky, but no!! No such luck!
My mom was the one in the yellow Harvey Wallbanger shirt, drinking Old Style out of the can, stirring a pot of Godknowswhat, while the cigarette ash drops into it as she dances around.
Yikes...

I, too, helped make cookies at probably 5 or so.
I remember getting in trouble for pulling carrots out of the garden and eating them. Gee, mom, at least they're healthy!
I joined a 4-H cooking club at 9 or 10 and was darned proud of that first batch of Chex Mix, thank you very much!! :)
By the time I was in high school, I was making the majority of our family meals because mom worked 40 miles from home and didn't get off work until 5:00.
I remember snapping beans on my maternal grandma's porch. I still have 2 of her willow baskets we used and use them all the time in the garden to harvest. I love that it makes me think of her!
My paternal grandmother made the VERY BEST pie crust.
She insisted you MUST mix it with your hands. No forks, knives or pastry cutter.
That didn't get passed down......I still struggle with pasty dough.

Deanna