When I was in the store yesterday, I noticed a shopping cart laden with holiday baking supplies. 'Getting ready for holiday baking?' the friendly clerk remarked. Only, it dawned on me that most of the boxes, cans, and pre-baked pie shells required very little actual mixing and measuring. And while I'm all for convenience and efficiency, I still can't accept the notion that merely opening cans and setting a timer on an oven qualifies as baking. It's shortcut cookery!
Once, when in a hurry, I made brownies from a mix and brought them to a dinner where they received compliments. And while I appreciated the good reviews, it put me in a quandary as to how to respond. There were several competing codes of conduct dictating a possible response:
1) The Institute programming that dictates that you never, ever accept praise for anything, because that leads to pride and selfish vainglory. Instead, you deflect every compliment to others so that God gets the glory and others get the credit. This keeps you humble (but not always, alas, honest).
2) Miss Manners' ruling that you accept sincere compliments with a gracious and demure 'Thank you,' as any attempt to deny the praise quickly degenerates into apparent compliments-fishing and shameless self-promotion. The harder you try to convince people that it was really nothing, the more insecure you look and the sillier they feel in their attempts to press one little consoling bit of positive feedback on you.
3) The simple fact that in this case, it was really, truly, honestly nothing. I opened a box, dumped in eggs and milk, and stuck in the oven. No talent, no effort, no cleverness required. So why should I accept credit for praise unearned?
But, alas, if I try to explain how I really feel about it, then I look like I'm taking Option A. Most people are too good-hearted to care about the details, and therefore wouldn't catch the shades of nuance between the obligatory, 'Oh, it was really nothing,' and an earnest explanation along the lines of 'This? Ha! That's nothing. It takes no talent whatsoever to stagger to the cupboard and throw together this instant brownie mix, so I can't leave you under the impression that this dish reflects my level of talent. Now, last week I tried out this new recipe that was really complicated, and that, I daresay, would have merited approval if it had turned out. I'll make it for you sometime, and if it turns out, you can rave about that instead. But don't waste your appreciation on this cheap cop-out.' No, that wouldn't go over so well. So I just smiled and said, 'I'm glad you liked it.' But it's NOT real baking!!
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2 comments:
Oh good grief! Just say "thank you" with sincerity and be done with it! Anything else is simply a pride issue, whether it's a false sense of humility OR pride. I mean, there's no moral quandry to it. You did something. Someone appreciated it. You say thank you. End of discussion. It's good manners. It's humble. It's OK to be "proud" of something you did.
Yeah, what Janice said.
Baking is the one part of cooking that intimidates me. Frying, boiling, grilling, stir-frying, baking...all those are fine. But when it comes to actually mixing wet and dry ingredients and putting them in the oven, something seems rather mysterious and intimidating.
But I can at least bake a good (sweet) cornbread, and my kids delight in "helping" me do it.
--DJ
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