Do they EVER cook from scratch? or garden?

[Mrsaztx]

I was always really surprised at the "pre wedding" episodes where they would "teach the girls to cook". What? Why? Why don't you people know how to cook? And they all look so awkward in the kitchen, like they've never done anything other than slop contents of a can in a pan.   If they are able to assemble food I can guarantee none of them can actually cook, at least not intuitively without following a very simple recipe (box cake mix) to the letter. 

[Arete]

It's not just the Duggars.  Most of fundies we follow are poor cooks, poor homemakers, and overall poor parents.  The Duggars had no excuse not to grow things even before the TTH.  They could have container gardened, they had at the very least a front yard.  Easily herbs and lettuces for the kids to have salads and seasonings.  They managed both their food budget and nutrition poorly by not buying bone in roasts on sale and getting good meat plus soup out of them.  Eggs could have been an excellent cheap protein for things like frittata for dinner.  Supposedly fundie women think of themselves as excellent homemakers.  Bullshit.  They raise children the way Big Food raises feed lot cattle.

[gustava]

1 hour ago, MoonFace said:

time share a brain

New post title?

[EmCatlyn]

1 hour ago, AreteJo said:

It's not just the Duggars.  Most of fundies we follow are poor cooks, poor homemakers, and overall poor parents.  The Duggars had no excuse not to grow things even before the TTH.  They could have container gardened, they had at the very least a front yard.  Easily herbs and lettuces for the kids to have salads and seasonings.  They managed both their food budget and nutrition poorly by not buying bone in roasts on sale and getting good meat plus soup out of them.  Eggs could have been an excellent cheap protein for things like frittata for dinner.  Supposedly fundie women think of themselves as excellent homemakers.  Bullshit.  They raise children the way Big Food raises feed lot cattle.

I hate gardening (but love cooking) and I know a lot of people who are not fundies who live off convenience foods and/or otherwise eat poorly.  So I can't snark too much about what the Duggars and others do.

What I think is snarkable is how they seem to think they do everything well.  

[Bad Wolf]

Vegetable soup or stew is so easy to make. Of course, you'd need a pretty big pot for all those people. Their recipes for ttc and chickenetti make me feel a little nauseous.

[biblelandjunkie]

1 hour ago, Mrsaztx said:

I was always really surprised at the "pre wedding" episodes where they would "teach the girls to cook". What? Why? Why don't you people know how to cook? And they all look so awkward in the kitchen, like they've never done anything other than slop contents of a can in a pan.   If they are able to assemble food I can guarantee none of them can actually cook, at least not intuitively without following a very simple recipe (box cake mix) to the letter. 

yes especially the ones with Jessa....the night she cooked the oven instruction booklet was epic.  She seemed like she had no idea how to cut the sweet potato either.  What do theses young Duggar girls do all day besides work on their eye make up and curl their super long hair?  

In the most recent special where two of the long haired sisters and Anna comes to Jesses house to make meals for his holy hotness Ben baby mama Jessa can hardly slice veggies correctly with a huge ass knife....sad.

[19 cats and counting]

6 minutes ago, biblelandjunkie said:

yes especially the ones with Jessa....the night she cooked the oven instruction booklet was epic.  She seemed like she had no idea how to cut the sweet potato either.  What do theses young Duggar girls do all day besides work on their eye make up and curl their super long hair?  

In the most recent special where two of the long haired sisters and Anna comes to Jesses house to make meals for his holy hotness Ben baby mama Jessa can hardly slice veggies correctly with a huge ass knife....sad.

Yet she has all of these top of the line kitchen gadgets and appliances that many would kill for.  But then again I don't register for wedding gifts (ok I'm single as fuck) that total the amount of a new set of wheels.

[Cleopatra7]

This discussion reminds me of the American Girl books about Felicity, the girl from the colonial period who was learning how to be a "notable housewife." The Duggar girls and their ilk must be learning how to be "unnotable housewives."

[OyToTheVey]

2 hours ago, Mrsaztx said:

I was always really surprised at the "pre wedding" episodes where they would "teach the girls to cook". What? Why? Why don't you people know how to cook? And they all look so awkward in the kitchen, like they've never done anything other than slop contents of a can in a pan.   If they are able to assemble food I can guarantee none of them can actually cook, at least not intuitively without following a very simple recipe (box cake mix) to the letter. 

Jill couldn't even make rice! She couldn't figure out how to make plain white rice. Which is hysterical because the instructions are on the damn box! One cup rice, 1.5 cup water, salt, a little butter. She couldn't even do that. 

[Mrsaztx]

@OyToTheVey probably because the butter is listed as "optional" and her headship wasn't handy to tell her if she wanted to choose that option or not. I once watched my fundie cousin put a pop tart in the toaster while still in the wrapper. She was around 15 at the time. Cooking is somehow not super necessary to those people

[OyToTheVey]

@Mrsaztx I'm still new don't know if I tagged you correctly.

Butter makes everything better!

Oh damn! A 15 year old that doesn't know how to heat a pop tart? Even my 15 year old nephew knows how to do that. And he's as lazy as they come. Typical angsty teenager. 

I'm still surprised that these people have super enormous families and can't feed them. 

[Valerie3kids]

I am surprised none of them have developed scurvy from the lack of vegetables. Their diet(s) are horrendous. I was grossed out at the amount of food Anna was cooking the morning Josh's trainer showed up unexpectedly in Va. It looked like she was feeding the 19! I can see why Josh can't keep his weight down.

Plus, they have the all time soda dispenser in the house. Do they drink any water? Or just soda?

All you see in the food storage room in can after can after can of prepackaged stuff. Soup or stew would be excellent. A nice chili. There are so many options you could do for a large family of that size. But, it takes a little planning and little fore thought of which they have none.

[DuggarsTheEndIsNear]

2 hours ago, Mrsaztx said:

I was always really surprised at the "pre wedding" episodes where they would "teach the girls to cook". What? Why? Why don't you people know how to cook? And they all look so awkward in the kitchen, like they've never done anything other than slop contents of a can in a pan.   If they are able to assemble food I can guarantee none of them can actually cook, at least not intuitively without following a very simple recipe (box cake mix) to the letter. 

Well the instructional cooking episodes  were definitely done for the cameras, not the girls. Likely a lot of it was staged. 

That said, the number one priority for mega families like there's is to pop out as many kids as possible. The number 2 priority is to make sure no one does anything outside of the house where they could be under the influence of heathens. And the number 3 priority is to keep costs down because you can't have number 1 and 2 while still spending lots of money. Therefore, it's all about keeping it cheap, not keeping it healthy. And, since the girls are all raised to have their own mega families, they're taught to make the cheapest food possible and everyone is taught to stomach whatever is before them. 

Eta: as far as the amount of food Anna made is concerned, the girls are taught to make lots of food so they can feed everyone. They are not taught things like how to scale back recipes for a couple or even a handful of people to eat 

[Mrsaztx]

I don't even know how much forethought it takes. I'm completely terrible at cooking reasonable amounts of food and will often end up with a meal for around 8 or 10 (there are 2 people in my household) on accident. 2 2lb bags of beans and a 2 pack smoked ham hock at Walmart runs about $8 total and can feed all of them easily. Add in some veggies from a theoretical garden, done.

[freealljs]

Some people can't grow "easy" vegetables or fruit. I know I can't.  I've tried. Despite all the tending and caring, everything I've gardened dies. The running joke in my family is that I kill gardens just by looking at them  lol

Thats still no excuse for the the Duggars. There are nineteen kids. Surely one of them can make something grow. Also, writing of the fruit trees planted in a previous episode, I don't remember seeing any of those trees in the following episodes or even in recent pics. The trees disappeared once the story ran its course.

[SledCat]

I'm just visualizing the poor Duggar kids "learning to cook" at Ye Old Duggar Homestead. Jim Bob's idea of good eats in one episode was slicing open a can of veggies, and then eating the contents of said can of veggies.

[TeaGrannie]

It's hard to believe they'd miss a chance to be "better" than the masses. "We support our family of 21 by growing our own vegetables! It's part of our homeschooling." (Read in Michelle baby voice).  Then explain what job everyone has and what each child grows best  

[Full enough quiver]

I hate to cook, so on Sundays, I make a big pot of soup or chili, I chop veggies for salad, I cook a veggie and a starch such as rice or pasta, and some plain chicken. I also will brown and freeze ground turkey. Then during the week, dinner is super easy, and my family can easily feed themselves. Our meals are simple and plain, but healthy. I buy oatmeal, beans, potatoes, rice, pasta, frozen veggies, and fresh fruit. I have chickens for eggs. None of these things are super expensive. Sure, we only have two kids, but Michelle has two kitchens and tons of helpers. One day a week of cooking in bulk could make life easier the rest of the week, and everyone would eat better.

[ShepherdontheRock]

I believe there was an episode where the Duggars showed themselves making pickles from scratch. Well, if gathering cucumbers and seasoning into jars is actually cooking. And getting peppercorns out of a pepper mill was turned into a plot line. And they prefer store-bought pickles anyway.

25 minutes ago, Valerie3kids said:

I am surprised none of them have developed scurvy from the lack of vegetables. Their diet(s) are horrendous. I was grossed out at the amount of food Anna was cooking the morning Josh's trainer showed up unexpectedly in Va. It looked like she was feeding the 19! I can see why Josh can't keep his weight down.

Plus, they have the all time soda dispenser in the house. Do they drink any water? Or just soda?

All you see in the food storage room in can after can after can of prepackaged stuff. Soup or stew would be excellent. A nice chili. There are so many options you could do for a large family of that size. But, it takes a little planning and little fore thought of which they have none.

 

 

Now I'm just thinking about that damn Kid Farm episode (anyone know which one I'm talking about?) where they go shopping, and one of the kids wants Broccoli instead of something that's bulk because "sometimes my bones hurt."

3 minutes ago, freealljs said:

Some people can't grow "easy" vegetables or fruit. I know I can't.  I've tried. Despite all the tending and caring, everything I've gardened dies. The running joke in my family is that I kill gardens just by looking at them  lol

Thats still no excuse for the the Duggars. There are nineteen kids. Surely one of them can make something grow. Also, writing of the fruit trees planted in a previous episode, I don't remember seeing any of those trees in the following episodes or even in recent pics. The trees disappeared once the story ran its course.

Haha, I'm awful at gardening, too. My dad used to have us each have a little garden patch, where we could get a mismatch of all kinds of herbs, flowers, whatnot. I eventually learned to pick easy ones. My herbs were rosemary, garlic chives, and mint.

They were all delicious, but the chives were an annual, and the rosemary couldn't survive a particularly hardy winter. The mint, however, grew out of control. It's a good thing we liked cooking with it, and I like mint tea.

But somehow, I think the Duggars would manage to fuck mint up. Not that I can imagine them enjoying anything with actual flavor, besides pickles.

[DuggarsTheEndIsNear]

11 minutes ago, freealljs said:

Some people can't grow "easy" vegetables or fruit. I know I can't.  I've tried. Despite all the tending and caring, everything I've gardened dies. The running joke in my family is that I kill gardens just by looking at them  lol

Thats still no excuse for the the Duggars. There are nineteen kids. Surely one of them can make something grow. Also, writing of the fruit trees planted in a previous episode, I don't remember seeing any of those trees in the following episodes or even in recent pics. The trees disappeared once the story ran its course.

Theres a lot that goes into successful gardening. First you have to know your soil's pH, movement of the sun and shadows, wind patterns, animal and insect patterns/threats, growing zones, drainage and water patterns, and other natural elements of your plot of land. Then, you have to make sure you have a healthy soil full of healthy soil organisms because soil organisms need to be fed first before the plants can benefit from any kind of fertilizer (man made or natural). You also have to make sure you're growing the right plants during the right part of the year -- a cool weather plant will either whither or bolt if it gets too hot. And, you have to make sure that the plants are in soil with the right drainage -- some plants need much wetter soils while other plants need much dryer ones -- and getting the right amount of sun throughout the day. Proper spacing is also important, as is understanding how the plant pollinates (for instance, corn should be grown in circles or squares to ensure the best chance of successful pollination of all the ears). And, you have to make sure that your pH levels of the soil AND any kind of fertilizer you use match the plant's requirements. 

So, failing at gardening really isn't that difficult because it is so complicated. Yea, some people get lucky and have gardens that thrive despite the fact that they have no idea what they're doing, but that's not a common trait. Lol

As far as the Duggar kids are concerned, they're barely taught the essentials (I guarantee they know very little about science in general, forget complex ideas like chemistry and micro organisms), and they're definitely not taught how to think for themselves or how to look up answers (hell, not even JB would look up the answer to a question he didn't know when he was hiking through the woods with some of the kids -- he just spouted off some nonsense or another). Sure, the older girls MIGHT figure out some of it if they're in the right areas of Pinterest; but they probably won't learn the important things, just the aesthetic things. 

[candygirl200413]

So I don't necessarily garden cause my allergies are just a mess but I defintely appreciate it and I love when my parents grow veggies in our backyard cause it's just awesome eating something that you produced.

 

Also when they mention that everything they grow dies, I know I've read that you can grow certain vegetables in like their kitchen and not necessarily outside? But I doubt they'll ever try that either cause it's the duggars obviously. I also just wonder how they appear to look pretty healthy.

[samira_catlover]

1 hour ago, Bad Wolf said:

Vegetable soup or stew is so easy to make. Of course, you'd need a pretty big pot for all those people. Their recipes for ttc and chickenetti make me feel a little nauseous.

Four to six crockpots would do just as well----and heck, they're inexpensive brand-new, and ridiculously cheap secondhand. (TOTALLY fantastic for potroasted hunks of meat.) Wouldn't a nice big 25-pound turkey, roasted or boiled, every couple weeks work? 

Charter member of the Wither and Kill Garden Club over here, but for freak's sake, green beans or zucchini are almost impossible to screw up. (Someday, there will be a zucchini/kudzu crossbreed plant, and the world food shortage will be solved...in 100 acres.)

Doesn't anyone read the food section of the paper, or browse through cookbooks, or look at pretty pictures of dishes on the internet, and say "yum, that looks/sounds good"? What happened to creativity? 

[church_of_dog]

20 minutes ago, DuggarsTheEndIsNear said:

Theres a lot that goes into successful gardening. First you have to know your soil's pH, movement of the sun and shadows, wind patterns, animal and insect patterns/threats, growing zones, drainage and water patterns, and other natural elements of your plot of land. Then, you have to make sure you have a healthy soil full of healthy soil organisms because soil organisms need to be fed first before the plants can benefit from any kind of fertilizer (man made or natural). You also have to make sure you're growing the right plants during the right part of the year -- a cool weather plant will either whither or bolt if it gets too hot. And, you have to make sure that the plants are in soil with the right drainage -- some plants need much wetter soils while other plants need much dryer ones -- and getting the right amount of sun throughout the day. Proper spacing is also important, as is understanding how the plant pollinates (for instance, corn should be grown in circles or squares to ensure the best chance of successful pollination of all the ears). And, you have to make sure that your pH levels of the soil AND any kind of fertilizer you use match the plant's requirements. 

So, failing at gardening really isn't that difficult because it is so complicated. Yea, some people get lucky and have gardens that thrive despite the fact that they have no idea what they're doing, but that's not a common trait. Lol

As far as the Duggar kids are concerned, they're barely taught the essentials (I guarantee they know very little about science in general, forget complex ideas like chemistry and micro organisms), and they're definitely not taught how to think for themselves or how to look up answers (hell, not even JB would look up the answer to a question he didn't know when he was hiking through the woods with some of the kids -- he just spouted off some nonsense or another). Sure, the older girls MIGHT figure out some of it if they're in the right areas of Pinterest; but they probably won't learn the important things, just the aesthetic things. 

Sad but true.  However, if this was an authentic "see how we manage such a large family" reality show, it would have made a great sub-plot for an actual garden expert from their area to come and oversee the building or digging of some garden beds and a drip irrigation system, and a basic layout of what to plant where for a basic summer garden, at least.  Even if the expert had to come back a few times each year to discuss dealing with pests, or harvesting methods, or fall garden, etc. or at least leave them with diagrams and lists.  Even with all those details and potential fails, they would still have most likely had some successes that would have gone well on the show.

I'm in my 5th or so year of gardening at my house, with a few years of sporadic gardens in previous locations, and while I didn't start out knowing all those things, and I still don't have them all down, I've had plenty of successes alongside my failures, as I learn and adjust.  They have (had) TV cameras -- they could easily have shown at least a few successful things ("Hey, we've got radishes!  Carrots!  One beautiful tomato that we will slice 19 ways!") whether or not they wanted to show the failures.

ETA:  OMG, @samira_catlover, how could I have forgotten zucchini!?!?

[Catey]

I think that every child male or female should be taught how to cook. It is a basic life skill that we all need to know.

That being said, I would not judge anyone who had a BUSY life for their lack of effort in the kitchen. We all only have so many hours in a day and if your days are full you may have other priorities. Not to mention cooking is not something that everyone enjoys.

But,

If your whole role in life is super wife/super mom you should damm well be able to bake a cake from scratch. Part of your "role" is taking care of the family, well cooking is the most basic of those duties. They should be consulting a guide with the food groups on it daily, right after the bible. How do you get your validation as a domestic goddess if your children and or husband are not being properly fed.

These days with the internet there is nothing that you should have all that much trouble cooking, I see all these incredible recipes all the time, anything you want to cook there is a recipe or tutorial at the touch of a mouse. I would totally be trying to "outcook" my sisters on a regular basis.

Also, I am surprised that all the girls are able to stay in such good shape on such a diet of crap.

[DuggarsTheEndIsNear]

35 minutes ago, Catey said:

I think that every child male or female should be taught how to cook. It is a basic life skill that we all need to know.

That being said, I would not judge anyone who had a BUSY life for their lack of effort in the kitchen. We all only have so many hours in a day and if your days are full you may have other priorities. Not to mention cooking is not something that everyone enjoys.

But,

If your whole role in life is super wife/super mom you should damm well be able to bake a cake from scratch. Part of your "role" is taking care of the family, well cooking is the most basic of those duties. They should be consulting a guide with the food groups on it daily, right after the bible. How do you get your validation as a domestic goddess if your children and or husband are not being properly fed.

These days with the internet there is nothing that you should have all that much trouble cooking, I see all these incredible recipes all the time, anything you want to cook there is a recipe or tutorial at the touch of a mouse. I would totally be trying to "outcook" my sisters on a regular basis.

Also, I am surprised that all the girls are able to stay in such good shape on such a diet of crap.

The girls don't eat the same crap as the rest of the family. There have been many shots of them, especially Jana, eating greens (usually in the form of salads) while everyone is scarfing down TTC or pizza. 

Eta: are the girls allowed to be competitive? Isn't that like super frowned upon cause it shows she has a strong will? Lol