basil.

Yesterday, I came home and found this in the kitchen.

(it’s basil)

For most of you, that is probably not a particularly odd thing to find in a kitchen. However, in my kitchen, its probably about as peculiar as buying a beefburger and finding it's actually made of horse...oh wait...scratch that. I asked my mother if she knew what she’d bought and she proudly told me it was basil. I then asked if she intended to cook with it and if so, what was she planning on rustling up(at this point our fridge contained cheese, some out of date ham, milk and several jars of pickle, so what she thought basil would add to that concoction I have no idea). “No…,” she said sadly. “I just thought it would make the kitchen smell nice.” Well. You can’t fault her practicality I suppose.

Herbs seem to play a huge part in cooking. Well, in most cooking, not so much the cooking that happens in my house. I have vivid memories of watching Jamie Oliver in his early days of The Naked Chef pulling herbs from his window ledge herb garden. Although I couldn't find that clip, he has since created a nice little film on herbs:

Jamie Oliver is enthusiastic about pretty much everything, but he seems to really love those herbs. He describes basil as "the most incredible herb." My mum described basil as "smelly." Not quite the same enthusiasm there. In fact, Jamie seems to neglect the "smelly" properties of basil and focuses on the more practical aspects such as the fact that "It makes you salivate more and it helps digestion" and that it's "delicate to eat." He informs us that rosemary is an anti-depressant and herbs have been used for thousands of years to kill bacteria showing us the versatility of herbs, and he enthuses about how easy it is to grow a herb garden. Elizabeth Gaskell's "Cranford" shows the healing properties Jamie talks about. After her sister dies, Miss Jessie is given "a basin of delicately-made arrowroot" to calm her down.

Although Jamie is probably addressing adults, there are lots of websites and videos promoting making a herb garden as something fun to do with children. A quick search on youtube threw up a video from a user called 2kidscooking. Once you get over the fact that they insist on calling them "urbs" instead of herbs, the kids and their mum actually give some very detailed instructions on making a herb garden. 

The kids seem really excited to plant their herb garden and although this family clearly do this kind of thing a lot, it does make it seem like an easy and fun way for a family to bond over food.
Another website ( Ready for Ten ) states that "Children and herbs go together like strawberries and cream." All these enthusiastic phrases and comparisons and videos of happy children really promote the idea of using herbs to bond with your kids.

There's even an old television show from Michael Bond called The Herbs.

My favourite character is Constable Knapweed.
According to the reliable source that is Wikipedia, "Each character was the personification of an herb. It is said that Bond used quotes from Nicholas Culpeper's 17th Century book, Culpeper's Complete Herbal, to find the herbs whose botanical traits he could best reflect in the individual characters." Although the show doesn't really educate you about herbs, it probably got children interested in herbs and was something they could watch with their parents. Even if they didn't learn anything, the stories are nice and there are some good songs, so at the very least households across the nation would be full of children singing about herbs.

Clearly, herbs are a good food for parents to use to entertain children, from cooking with them to making your own herb garden to singing songs about them.

In the words of Jamie Oliver, "herbs are where it's at." Unfortunately not in my house. For now, that sad little basil plant that sits on the window ledge is the closest we will come to having a herb garden.

jelly.

I asked my mum if we had ever cooked anything together. After an extended period of silence, she decided we must have cooked something. After failing to come up with anything, I left her with a glum look on her face. A few minutes later I hear her yell "JELLY! WE HAVE MADE JELLY TOGETHER!" Erm Mum, I hate to break it to you but that's not cooking. That's opening a packet and boiling a kettle, to which she replied, "Yes. And that's cooking! And we did it together!" This is what I'm up against. 

My mother does not cook. Well, she claims she cooks but she is yet to find anyone who will agree with her that stabbing an M&S ready meal and putting it in the microwave constitutes cooking. 

It has been like this for as long as I can remember. 

In July she retired from a "full time professional career" (her words, not mine. She was a teacher, this was her excuse for not cooking) and she has vowed to cook once a month. July and August were her summer holidays so they couldn't count, and September was her birthday and retirement month, so no cooking there either. But from October, she has remained true to her word and has cooked a meal once a month. She has bought many foods she has never bought before including a leek, garlic and herbs, (two out of those three never to be bought again due to the godawful smell they left in the house). 

I asked her what her favourite meal to cook was and this was her response:

(please forgive the outfit she is wearing, it was bought as a joke but sadly she actually likes it and insists on wearing it around the house as her "Lucy Couture" tracksuit). (Also note we haven't used Lucy Couture as an ironic name, she genuinely thinks that's what Juicy Couture is called).

Perusing the internet, I found countless sites for "family cooking" or "cooking with mother." There's even a band called Limmie & the Family Cooking. Personalities such as Martha Stewart and Jane Asher have promoted family cooking in countless books and television shows. 

I remembered Jacquline Wilson books having scenes of mothers and daughters cooking together. I found that in "Sleep-Overs," the protagonist, Daisy, cooks her birthday cake with her mum: 

"Mum let me stir the mixture and spoon it out into the cake tin. She let me scrape the mixing bowl with the spoon (and then my finger and then my tongue!). We made white chocolate crunch biscuits while the cake was cooling and then we did the decorating."

From this extract it is clear that for Daisy, cooking with her mum is a privilege, something that is probably felt by many children. Daisy's mother has let her into her kitchen, the magical place where Daisy feels lucky to be helping. 

Sadly, my mum's kitchen is not like that. We did not bake my birthday cakes together. In fact, I baked mine by myself.

  

My 10th birthday. It was supposed to be a dinosaur from a kids cookery book. I thought it was a pretty good effort.

Lots of Jaqueline Wilson's stories have children cooking by themselves, standing in for their mothers. Elsa in "The Bed and Breakfast Star" is a prime example.

"Mum was asleep and Mack was out...I hunted round the room for food and found some stale sliced bread and a pot of raspberry jam...I made a clown jam sandwich for Hank. I made a teddy jam sandwich for Pippa and Baby Pillow. And I made a great red movie-star lip jam sandwich for me."

Wilson explores the problems of children having to cook for themselves when their mothers are incapable due to hangovers or staying with boyfriends. My mother was not incapable, she just really hated cooking. 

Don't get me wrong, I never went hungry. In fact, if anything I ate a bit too much (potentially daily after school trips to the sweet shop followed by an apple coated in sugar and a warm milk with sugar were to blame?). But clearly, from the amount of literature out there about family cooking and mothers cooking with their children, I can't help but wonder, did I miss out?

After showing this to my mum, she felt guilty, so we're going to make another jelly together tomorrow.