Back to basics: Young cooks learning old tricks

Published 6:30 am Wednesday, April 15, 2020

With the ever-growing shortage of supplies in grocery stores, younger generations of cooks have gone back to basics in the kitchen.

From fresh baked bread to vegetables from home-grown gardens, curating your own food has become popular as of late.

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Jay Bourque has been cooking since the 1980s, and during that time, he’s learned to cook traditional meals passed on from his family.

Even to this day, Bourque still enjoys smothered potatoes on top of rice, and since the pandemic started, he’s been eating as much shrimp as he could.

Now he’s using what he’s learned to pass down to younger cooks, as they too want to learn how to make home-grown meals from home. And with COVID-19 still affecting them, people are seeing a limited number of groceries in stores.

As part of the Cajun cooking club

And Lake N Sunset Pics Facebook group, Bourque, a Bayou Blue resident, has noticed an increase in interest in making their own food.

“I noticed a lot of people have asked for bread recipes,” Bourque said. “ A lot of people who have never cooked bread before.”

As a member of 200 different Facebook groups, Bourque noticed younger cooks were interested in learning to make breads, as well as growing vegetables.

“Maybe they were thinking that they should start growing gardens and tomatoes,” Bourque said. “And I noticed since this pandemic, a lot more people have been asking.

For people who haven’t before, Bourque said it’s amazing that they are now taking a liking to making their own foods rather than relying on processed meals.

“People get so used to buying everything commercially and you get in a situation if you don’t know it’s going to be there,” Bourque said. “If you shut down a bunch of factories and stores, eventually, that stuff is going to run out.”

When it comes to wanting to learn to make their own food, Bourque said it’s the uncertainty of the matter.

“Not having more supplies in the grocery store, the more people are starting to realize our system is fragile,” Bourque said.

Though people are wanting to go back to the basics, Bourque belvies many of them don’t know how, based on the convenience of ready-made meals and fast food restaurants — so he’s doing his part to teach the fundamentals of food.

It’s something he wants to pass on, as his father has done for him, as it’s easy to make as well as cheap.

According to Bourque, it’s strange that younger cooks are asking for more help, but he believes it’s best to learn for from older generations.

When it comes to easy and cheap meals, Bourque said rice is a great alternative, too, as it fills you up and gives you nutrients throughout the day.

“And that’s what you want,” Bourque said. “Meals like that can and will fill you up.”