Old Style Skills

gerretl

The thing I enjoy about cooking is I know what is going into my body. Anyone can buy some packet meal, but the crap on the ingredietns has to be seen to be belived.
Heres a challenge. Buy a packet meal, pick out the six most important ingredients, and make the same thing from scratch.
Do a taste test, and see if your cooking is as good, if not better than Uncle Bens/ Homepride/ Knorr. If it isn't keep on the packet mixes, and learn to cook, if it is save your cash and do it yourself.

Whistling_Gypsy

The thing I enjoy about cooking is I know what is going into my body. Anyone can buy some packet meal, but the crap on the ingredietns has to be seen to be belived.
Heres a challenge. Buy a packet meal, pick out the six most important ingredients, and make the same thing from scratch.
Do a taste test, and see if your cooking is as good, if not better than Uncle Bens/ Homepride/ Knorr. If it isn't keep on the packet mixes, and learn to cook, if it is save your cash and do it yourself.

I totally agree Gerrettl (even if i haven't quite grasped the 'quote' thingy yet!!)
I think it's such a shame that we are losing so many of our OS skills. I may be a Newbie to the site - but I have been a money saver all my life by necessity. Learnt most of what i know by necessity -but haven't half learnt a lot here!!
Mother taught me the basics of cooking- but anything more adventurous (e.g. seasonings , not to boil veg to bu**ery (ain't Woks brilliant!!), Chocolate Yoghurt cake etc- I have found out by trial and error (oh yes - and mrbadexample!! :wave:)
I hate 'ready meals' and very rarely buy them- quicker to pop some pasta in a pan/tatie in the oven and nuke a tin of tomatoes/HM chicken curry (etc) on to make a cheaper, more filling and more 'ethical' meal (e.e I know exactly whats gone in there and how many e-numbers/calories etc)

This afternoon - 6 portions of chicken curry (Supermarket reduced chicken), 6 portions of braised steak (Car Boot Fair Meat Seller [local bloke - quizzed him first!]- never tried before but was well impressed), 6 portions of bacon, chilli and mushroom pasta sauce - £7.50 for the lot!! (can't be a%%ed to do the maths - but seems canny good to me!!)

Queenie

Sarahsaver wrote:

....
In the past different tasks for men and women made sense, and I would say it still does today if a woman is a stop at home mum/housewife (hate that word but you know what I mean) then its only fair that she sews on buttons, mends, irons and so on. My OH is out of the house from 7.30 til 5.30, he hasnt got the time to do all that. .

I'm going to strongly disagree with that statement :rotfl:

What on earth do you mean " he hasn't got the time to do all that "? and what's this "it's only fair that she .... "?? :wall: Fair be damned!!!!
He can do mending/ironing and sew on buttons while he watches TV/reads the children a story just as women (SAHM's and working one's) have to do!!!
Sarah, hear what you are saying, woman!!! :rolleyes: So, if I don my stay at home parent hat at 0730 and spend all day doing SAHM stuff then, by your standards, I should give myself permission to down tools at 1730hrs??? Nonsense! So why is it "ok" for that to apply to a man who goes out to work?

Listen up all you working women :wave: ... you are now absolved from doing any housework/mending by virtue of the fact you go to work!
All you SAHM ... *you* have no entitlement to an end of shift and must continue to sew/mend/iron et all even after your partner/dearly beloved comes home because obviously *their* work outside the house is of far more value and importance than your potterings around the home and by virtue of them being OUT of the house for 10hrs means they do not have any time at all and YOU clearly have all the time in the world

It is precisely that draconian attitude that my mother (born before your father Sarah ) tried to alter when she taught my 4 brothers and myself, how to knit, sew, crochet, cook, make rag rugs, clean, laundry, iron - and whichever 'skill' she may have overlooked when teaching my brothers, the Army and RAF made up any shortfall.
Likewise I have taught my 4 sons and daughter the same!

No, no, no, no, NO!!!!!! Just because a man may well go out to work between 7 and 5 does *not* absolve him from responsibilites around the home/family. Just because a woman does not go *out* to work doesn't make her chief slave/do-it-all.

All the while people are promoting that attitude it puts women back to a Dickensian level. I'm shocked Sarah! :rotfl:

dolly_day_dream

I was sewing from a very young age cos I just love textiles and clothing. My mother had been bought a sewing machine by my father just after I was born and she had only made one pair of curtains on it. Her mother used to sit up till 2 in the morning sewing (by hand) dresses for her 6 daughters to wear. Likewise all of my children wore homemade clothes for most of their childhood. I agree though that now it is becoming more expensive to buy the fabric/wool etc to make the clothes for a reasonable price. I am returning to buying sheets and bed linen and using that as fabric. I used to buy clothes at jumble sales and cut them up to make into other clothes. I still sew but none of my children have taken this skill on board although they all know how to sew on a button and put a new zip in. They are necessities as far as I am concerned. A neighbour of mine used to throw shirts out if they had lost a button:eek: :eek: Come on how difficult is it to work out given a button, thread and a needle:rolleyes:

All of my children can cook - learnt from an early age by being with me in the kitchen. As a family and helping each other we muddle through DIY calling out the experts only when we have finally been defeated which is not that often.

I think we are missing the point a little though. Cooking, sewing, gardening used to be the skills that were needed to see you through. Everyone does still need to cook I consider that to be an essential life skill. Sewing although enjoyable and creative is no longer essential because as already stated you can buy clothes far cheaper than you can make them now. Gardening I have come to believe is not a skill but an inherent ability. My grandfather grew everything he ate, my father always had a vegetable plot, I have had plenty of training but I just can't get anything to grow at all:o I know what to do but it just doesn't work.

However DS2 can set up just about any sort of electronic equipment you can think of. He just has to look at it and 'knows' what to do. This skill has saved our friends and relatives lots of money from calling out engineers to help. DS1 is a wizzard at creating music from the computer - the equivalent of playing a musical instrument - and is able to make his own and others entertainment - surely that is OS? Whilst not negating the more traditional OS skills we should accept that others need to be learnt - after all we are not communicating with each other using letters or pigeon post are we?

dolly_day_dream

I have just realised what skills we need to be teaching. It is not sewing, cooking, etc it is the realisation that we can do things for ourselves. Whatever that may be. Our children are growing up in a fast changing world and they are going to need skills that we haven't even thought of yet but if we can give them the can do attitude as opposed to 'who will do it for me?' attiude they will remain OS

Do these skills need to be sexist - of course not - hey if you want to eat you cook it doesn't matter what sex you are. If you need your computer fixed you fix it. As my DD once so beautifully put it "having a penis doesn't genetically enable you to understand how a computer works!":o

Queenie

dolly_day_dream wrote:

if we can give them the can do attitude as opposed to 'who will do it for me?' attiude they will remain OS

Quite agree, very well put :T

dolly_day_dream wrote:

... As my DD once so beautifully put it "having a penis doesn't genetically enable you to understand how a computer works!":o

:rotfl: :T :rotfl:

purpleimp

Helll Ladies and Gents,

I have to confess that I am by no stretch of the imagination the perfect house wife, I work full time and have no children but there are another couple of points I'd like to make, I have a fair ammount of OS tendancies and although I could have paid a lot more attention while growing up things are falling into place now and if I don't know how to do something I'll call my mum or dad and get told how, probably my most OS skill is nowing how to salt meat which was always a base for the staple meals round these parts but I digress.

When going through the education system I learned NO life skills (by that I mean nhigh school) we had guidance(PSD) classes which told you you could either go to university or be stuck in a dead end job for the rest of your life, with a laughable sprinkling of sex ed thrown into the mix, you were almost forced to apply to uni wheter you had the grades or not, whether you wanted to go or not and there was NO information given about surviving on your own on a bursary or loan, and as for home ecc, that was even worse, I sewed once for a school prject in primary school, and as for cooking the only thing i remember making was rock buns!nothing that was of any use to me came out of these classes

The education system has a lot to answer for with regards to the debt or our young people (not even those who dont go to university) there are essential life skills that should be taught and are being ignored, now undoubtedly the government would say these are skills to be learned in the home, but a lot of homes these days never cook from scratch or mend or repair and would never dream of discussing money with their chldren and I think that somethin will have to change.

These are the skills that save young people from finishing uni with upwards of 20k worth of debt before they even get a job, I'm not so niaive to say it would eliminate dabt but giving us these skills would certainly help to reduce the debt that faces people.

Here endeth my lesson!xxx

Sarahsaver

Queenie wrote:

I'm going to strongly disagree with that statement :rotfl:

What on earth do you mean " he hasn't got the time to do all that "? and what's this "it's only fair that she .... "?? :wall: Fair be damned!!!!
He can do mending/ironing and sew on buttons while he watches TV/reads the children a story just as women (SAHM's and working one's) have to do!!!
Sarah, hear what you are saying, woman!!! :rolleyes: So, if I don my stay at home parent hat at 0730 and spend all day doing SAHM stuff then, by your standards, I should give myself permission to down tools at 1730hrs??? Nonsense! So why is it "ok" for that to apply to a man who goes out to work?

....
....All the while people are promoting that attitude it puts women back to a Dickensian level. I'm shocked Sarah! :rotfl:

ROTFLMAO Glad I gave you the chance to let off a bit of steam

And BTW OH has plenty of responsibilities around the home and I can take as long as I want for lunch whereas he only has half an hour if that. He reads with the children, seeing as you used that as an example, but tooo many other things to list.
In the future I will take a more 'dickensian' stance and not have opinions, at least not air them on here.

sophiesmum_2

purpleimp wrote:

When going through the education system I learned NO life skills (by that I mean nhigh school) we had guidance(PSD) classes which told you you could either go to university or be stuck in a dead end job for the rest of your life, with a laughable sprinkling of sex ed thrown into the mix, you were almost forced to apply to uni wheter you had the grades or not, whether you wanted to go or not and there was NO information given about surviving on your own on a bursary or loan, and as for home ecc, that was even worse, I sewed once for a school prject in primary school, and as for cooking the only thing i remember making was rock buns!nothing that was of any use to me came out of these classes

My dd who has been brought up with os values recently had a cookery lesson where they were making pizza, she was looking forward to this until the teacher gave them the list of "ingredients"
packet of pizza bases
jar of pizza topping
bag of grated cheese:eek: :eek: :eek:
she had a conversation with her teacher and asked why they weren't making pizza dough as it was so easy, could they not use home made toppings or at least bring a block of cheese to grate - teacher laughed and said no one cooks any more. DD said in her home we cooked everything from scratch and it was much healthier and better value for money etc. Teacher seemed interested but task for the following week- make a cheese salad sandwich- white sliced bread, bagged salad and grated cheese in a bag. :eek::mad: I wrote to teacher and requested DD move to woodwork classes instead as she has been capable of making a cheese salad sandwich, including cutting and washing salad and grating cheese since she was 6 years old, she is almost 15 now.
I think schools need to think about what they are teaching our children in terms of survival skills and skills for life.Teaching reliance on expensive packaged food and ready meals is not good advice and only leading them down the road to overspending and a poor diet.
DD is now making a bird box and enjoying every minute in a class with 26 boys and 1 other girl.
sophiesmum

skintchick

Sarahsaver - I am out of the house from 7.30am till 8pm but I still have to run my household! (No-one else to do it)

On topic, I was taught to cook, sew and knit by my mum. My brother who is older asked to learn too, but he is left handed and found sewing and knitting hard, and he rarely cooks either.