Cooking -- REALLY cooking

I was delighted to hear two new friends describe their grandmothers' cooking methods, one in Uganda, the other in St. Croix, both illiterate, both expert in their lost art.

It rang many bells for me as I recalled watching my mother-in-law, also illiterate, raised in a Polish shtetl, who, with no utensils beyond ordinary tableware, produced culinary wonders the memory of which still astonishes me.

The in-between generation was in too much of a hurry to "improve" themselves to take the time to stand still and watch these miracles take place and now the art is lost.

Sounds like music, doesn't it?