Every time I make pancakes, I think of Home Ec class. You may be too young (or too imaginary) to have ever had to endure Home Economics class in High School, but once upon a time they gave you credits for sewing a pillow case.
It wasn't always this way: At one point Home Ec was a class that taught teen girls how to manage a household so that their families wouldn't go broke or all die of scurvy. While the girls were learning to balance budgets and meals, the boys were in shop class, learning how to best sever their limbs.
By the time I hit High School, though, Home Ec and shop were both co-ed affairs, where everyone learned the absolutely useless skills of building a bird house and making pancakes.
OK, fine, making pancakes is not a useless skill as the proper preparation of morning-after pancakes is an important part of the courtship process. But the pancakes we made that fateful, random day in Home Ec were never going to get anyone laid a second time. They were made with margarine instead of butter, for one thing. At the time everyone thought that trans-fatty margarine was better for you than butter and it was the duty of our Home Ec teacher -- a woman who had once taught Canadian Pop Sensation, Luba -- to teach us about healthy choices. For another thing, the pancakes we made were about 3 inches thick and never fully cooked in the middle. They were a revolting, gooey mess and we all got As for them even though none of us agreed to eat them.
The pancakes I made today, though, were fluffy, tasty, and made with butter. We ran out of maple syrup, so we ate them with blueberry yogourt. I think Luba would have approved.
No comments:
Post a Comment