Cooking is Self- Determination Empowering Our Youth with Tools for a Healthy Future!

Why is it important to pass on tradition? I was talking to my family last night and remembering how when growing up we had a vegetable garden, with plenty of fruit trees, and nut trees on our property. We ate out of this garden all season. I watched my mother, and learned how to can fruits, and vegetables so we would have food during the winter. This was in the 60's, but I hold on to the childhood memories, because they gave me the tools I needed to survive and raise my own family with at times $60 a month for food is all I had being a college student.

We talked about how this generation of micro-wave, instant meals have not given our youth the power tools to survive. Like why by Jell-O cups, when you can buy one small box of Jell-O, or Knox and 50 small plastic cups and make your own for pennies on the dime. My mother equipped the kitchen with recipes for magazines, and cookbooks, and clipping files. We would have baking competitions during the holidays of who could make the best cake, or who could make the best dish that everyone would have bragging rights to. This is why it is important to pass on tradition.