As for the old ladies in your family–once again, I say, “Age before beauty.” Actually, if you ask me, age -is- beauty because there is nothing more beautiful than wisdom. And the ladies in your family sound like my grandmothers who taught all of these points well to me, even if they didn’t know what the word “umami” was.

They just knew how to make things taste good.

As for why people today don’t do these things? I don’t know–they don’t have time–that is a big one. Without someone staying home to cook all the time, and clean up and keep house, I guess no one has time to make stocks and such, except for crazy, driven people like myself who works from home, and so can run into the kitchen to check on the stockpot or the bones in the oven.

I think that there might be a bit of that, “Oooh, bones, yuck!” thing going on, too. I have very little patience for that, but I suppose you could figure that one out without me saying so.

I will stop ranting now, too!

Oh, and you are welcome for the post–and thank you for the rant! It was a good one.

This is an excellent post!

First of all, if I didn’t know a single thing about you I would immediately guess that you were an instructor or teacher. You have a way of presenting information that is very enlightening.

Secondly, it’s funny because all those points you made (1 through 7) are all things that many of the older women in my family did on a regular basis! For example, my grandmother always saved bones and used them for broths.

And I know that in Italy, they always older fowl for soups.

And yet why is it that today, so many people disdain the idea of using these types of foods??? It’s beyond me!

Ok now that my rant is over … thanks again for your post!