I, on the other hand, learned how to begin with a live chicken or some other creature, some freshly dug spuds & green beans or other things things from the garden, flour, a couple eggs, some milk, and salt & pepper and some of yesterday's leftover grease or maybe LARD, and turn it onto a royal feast in the simple and very old fashioned ways.
I was influenced by being born into an entirely off the grid lifestyle and other subsequent settings more modern but still remote and subject to periods of living without benefit of the public infrastructure. Besides a lot of other things, I learned about the durability and versatility of the old cast iron stuff from first hand use on all kinds of heat sources. There is just nothing else that works so well without regard to working conditions.
I have been lurking and archiving this thread for a while. It contains, and has links to, a lot of really useful information.
Thank you for lurking and finding information that you can use, you are welcome to join in, any time, it was never planned to be a granny doing all the posting site.
Your background sounds like mine, a dirt sharecroppers farm in Texas.
Do some research on Teflon skillets and pans, they now accept that they are not good for you.
The Parrot breeders knew 30 plus years ago, that all your birds would die, if you forgot a teflon skillet on the stove and let it burn up.
I always figured that anything that was instant death to a parrot, would not be good for me........
LOL, I never figured out where all those chemicals went when you scratched the pan.
Lard, there are some things that just do not taste like they should, without lard or bacon drippings........fried potatoes and lard to make crisp Peanut butter cookies.
Nor, do I make gravy [milk] without bacon drippings.
At times, I am tempted to laugh, so many who a few years ago, thought I was too old fashioned, now want to know how to “Make do”....it had to come, if we could get the young to learn the old ways, they would not need all those credit cards.
We went to town when and if a crop went in and shopped for the year, maybe a trip or two in between, and I still do not understand how people do so much shopping, every day.
I too could wring a chicken’s neck and cook it, by about 10 years old, but will admit that I hate the smell of wet feathers and raw chicken and eggs.
It is a good day, when people learn something new, for me at least.