Cooking Like a TV Chef

To a large extent, I think our food preferences are dictated by the foods of our childhood. That's not to say we can't learn to love foods that we never tasted until adulthood, but I think when it comes down to comfort food, we hearken back to foods that are associated with comfortable memories of our early years. For me, there are two particular culinary memories that I recall. Both involve my grandmother, who was born in 1911 and lived through two World Wars and the Great Depression. She was, let's say, more than a little frugal. One of the first food memories that I have was a coffee can full of used grease, bacon grease mostly, that my grandmother kept. Whenever she fried anything or needed to grease a pan (except for baking, of course), she would take the can out from the storage bin under the stove and spoon out a big portion of grease. Likewise, whenever she cooked bacon or hamburgers or anything that left grease in the pan, it would be poured into the coffee can