What is your definition of 'cooking from scratch'?
 

I must have been mislead and misinformed for the better part of my life about the term 'cooking from scratch'.

You see, in the world that I grew up in, 'cooking from scratch' meant that you started with the basic ingredients, and made a meal from those items. For instance, I've always been told that making a cake from scratch included flour, baking powder, salt, eggs, milk and butter. Biscuits made from scratch includes flour, shortening, baking powder, milk, and sugar.

But I have to tell you, I keep meeting people who say to me, usually boastfully and arrogantly, as if I was the dumbest person on earth, that they cook from scratch. "We cook all of our meals from scratch", they generally say first. "It is so easy to cook from scratch. Just cook 16 ounces of Creamette pasta in water, and heat a jar of Ragu. Add a side of Green Giant corn from the freezer as a side. You could cook all of it in a microwave" they say, making sure they add a bit of sneer to the tail end of their comment, just to make it sting a little.

At that point, I usually start tuning these people out, and simply bite my tongue. Sometimes, during these conversations, my mind will drift to more important things, like who might win the 2013 Indianapolis 500, or whether the extra money the stores charge for Michelin tires is really worth it.

So, what is your definition of cooking from scratch?

My definition is the same as yours.

I do count opening my own jars of home canned pasta sauce as 'from scratch' though. :p

I'm with you. Cooking from scratch means chopping tomatoes, herbs, garlic, onions, and etc.

Since we've improved our diet and gone Paleo/Primal, the grocery store is 90% useless. Go in the door, hang a right, cruise the veggie/fruit aisle, turn left along the back of the store, pick up a dozen eggs and some bacon, look for meat on sale (we have quite a bit of grass fed beef etc in the freezer already), pick up some kleenexes, and I'm DONE in the store. Kind of amazing how much is in there that I don't even need to look at. :D

It is truly amazing to watch other folks check out and see that there is no real food in their carts. :(

I don't consider any recipe that says "take a box of x and add a can of y and a bottle of z" as cooking from scratch.

At my house, the joke is that cooking a chicken dinner from scratch means waiting for the eggs to incubate, 6-8 weeks for the chick to grow up after hatching, then butchering it, cutting it up, cooking it. . . .

Well, if I want chicken I go out and shoot a rooster that I raised from a chick one of my hens hatched......

I didn't raise the grain I fed the chickens though.

I grind grains and make my breads. If the garden was productive, I process the produce, otherwise I'm likely to buy frozen veggies to use. My goats produce our dairy so to have milk I have to persuade them to relinquish it.

How am I doing? LOL

I think there are degrees of scratch cooking and if some people can only manage to cook boxed pasta and put canned sauce on it, at least they didn't bring home McDonald's again.

I was raised on the popular definition. My mother baked cakes from scratch out the box all the time. And her frosting, where she mixed can frosting with a synthetic flavouring? Man, it was real cooking. And on holidays, watch out - she could make a mean canned pumpkin store-bought freezer burnt frozen pastry pie. This was the days before that fancy 'scratch' stuff like pre-rolled pastry sheets. You had to buy your scratch ingredients frozen and assembled, darn it!

I somehow ended up on the other side. One day I figured out I could make a poor man's worchestershire sauce and tomato sauce/ketchup. I brew my own vinegar because why not... grow my own meat. Cure my own meat. Now THERE is scratch. Generic days where I use market things the worst is pasta - but I usually make that too. Just when I feel 'off' or not up to it. I even try to avoid it and use lentils or polenta or cous cous instead. I just prefer whole food. If I can grind my own grain - the better!

If I'm at someone else's house eating dinner 'scratch' is whatever they made - because there ain't no way I am lookin' a gift meal in the mouth. My mama may have not taught me what food was, but she taught me to appreciate it.

Like yours, Clovis... anything that comes in a packet is not "scratch". It may take more time and effort than popping a ready-made, frozen entree in the microwave, and is certainly preferable to that option, but true "from scratch" cooking requires basic ingredients combined in different ways to make real food.

I had a friend once who very proudly told me of making a cake "from scratch". Turned out, Betty Crocker had a hand in it, and pretty much all she did was add eggs, oil and water, and bake the darned thing. Nice cake, but not "scratch". And yes, you *CAN* taste the difference!

yea. from scratch has come to mean that you didn't eat out, I guess. But I am with you on the definition. We cook "from scratch" too. But I wonder where the term came from. Do you think it used to mean from raising and feeding the chicken "scratch" to butchering it to cooking it? I wonder... anybody know? maybe we inherited an already watered down version of the term. But even so, many of use would still be able to say they cook "from scratch" much of the time.

Folks have to start somewhere - and if boxed foods help them rediscover or discover that they do have the power to make food magic - then good for the boxes and good for the folks just discovering that they can make food.

We cook from scratch almost exclusively. I will buy some canned tomatoes, tuna, and mayo. That's about it.

My definition of cooking from scratch is like yours. But in all honesty, if someone was just looking at what's in my grocery cart, they wouldn't think I could cook at all. The things I buy at the store are to supplement the meat, vegetables, fruit, eggs, and milk I've grown and put up myself.

I agree that cooking from scratch means starting with the basic ingredients...and even better if you grew or raised it as well....I have never found anything pre-made that is even "close" to homemade or from scratch...there is a cooking show called "Semi-homemade" with (Sandra somebody)..I had to laugh because I saw her take a store bought pie, put it in a pretty pie plate, crush it to fit the pie plate and heat in the oven...LOL...not my idea at all...

My wife makes a gazillion cookies for Christmas every year as gifts, she had been talking with a neighbor and and the woman asked if they could get together and make homemade cookies . Well that morning I drag out the kitchen aid, all the bins of flour,sugar and all the other stuff that goes into cookies and my wife goes to work making the annual holiday mess :D. Well then the neighbor shows up with about 20 packets of cookie mix. After a couple hours of my wife showing her how to make cookies from scratch she had seen enough. I guess dumping a packet into a bowl and adding water was homemade enough for her.

Sandra Lee. She is well-mocked in the cooking community. Google "Kwanzaa Cake". Seriously. Do it.

I decided I couldn't risk you guys not googling it:

Cooking from scratch here means the same as it does at your house.

I've found that I have to scratch for a very long time before I can come up with enough to make even a couple of decent-size biscuits.

I was in my 20's before I even knew there was such a thing as boxed cake mix! lol Luckily for me all the women in my family cook (and sew and knit and grow their own vegetables) so all I have to do is continue the way I saw everyone else do things. My boys cook from scratch too (but we don't call it that, we call it cooking) - you walk through my kitchen when I am cooking and you will be asked to stir this or measure that and they picked it up just the same as I did. The only thing I can think of that I buy for convenience is tacos - I make corn and flour torts but I hate frying taco shells.

Scratch means zero pre-made components to me.

No mixes, no seasoning packages, no pre-made pie crusts, no jars or cans of sauces.

Well, ya see, you go down to the feed store and you buy a bag of scratch....


LOL, cakes from scratch do not come out of a box, pasta sauce from scratch does not come out of a can or a jar, and no meal should ever come in a bag from the frozen section.

Grandma always said near dinner time "Guess I better go see what I can scratch up, my backbone is rubbing on my belly". Since when is using a microwave...cooking? I am 56 and never owned one....Yet. We scratch cook everything here, we make the bread, noodles, cottage cheese, icecream, yogurt, cheese and butter. Grind the meat, nuts and grain. Not much this old country boy can't do....James

-Anything over 4 ingredients.
-If it's just me and the (3) kids- anything that needs any prep at all (microwaved, cut up, unwrapped, etc)

MILs favorite clam chowder recipe (and she was dead serious) that she got from a readers digest ad consisted entirely of 1 can of Campbell's clam chowder, and 1 can of Campbell's potato soup. That was her idea of "from scratch". Seriously, she would even make Sandra Lee roll her eyes. After training her up well on the virtues of eating well to improve longevity, she now is quite competent with rare, esoteric ingredients like "flour" and "eggs".

I'd define "from scratch" as using mostly ingredients that aren't made up of other ingredients.

What brings pure joy is when those ingredients come from your own homestead.

I am going to make an angelfood cake! I am doing this because I am a masochist!

On my kitchen counter you will find: A large mixing bowl, a small mixing bowl, a regular bowl, a hand mixer, a spatula, a sifter, an angelfood cake pan, and a food processor.

For ingredients I have: a dozen eggs (from my chickens), cake flour, granulated sugar, vanilla, baking powder, and a couple other things, depending upon my mood.

In an hour, the batter will be in the pan, ready to bake. In two hours, you can have some.
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I am going to make gravy from scratch! Luckily, I don't have to be a masochist to do this!

I have: a pan, broth I have saved from cooking meat, some cornstarch, and a whisk. In 15 minutes, you can enjoy some gravy on your potatoes!

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I am going to make.....

Nah, I figure ya'll get the picture. :D

"Gravy is magic." ~ my youngest son
(who is picky about which whisk to use)

:p

:eek: Kwanzaa Cake. Horrifying on so many levels.

Agreeing that scratch is scratch. I don't care what other people do, though, so clovis- ee-yeesh, whoever that is, tell them to take a hike if they're going to act like such a snot.

I understand that scratch means base ingredients, yet, sometimes if there are several different things to make, I'll use some of the less scratch products. I don't appologize if not every dish at any giving meal is not scratch. While I have a cornbread recipe that I like, sometimes when it's my time to make supper and I am in a hurry, it might be Jiffy brand corn bread getting served, or what not. I'ld like to say that I'ld never do anything of the sort, yet, it wouldn't be true. Sometimes we have visitors that I really don't think are worth my time to make a chocolate cheesecake from scratch, and they'll be eating a some instant mix with a dab of cream cheese added and chilled in one of those store bought crust. I make a well recieved chocolate cheesecake that involves scrapping the centers out of generic Oreos, double boiling chocolate squares and forming my springform. I make it, but I also make a quick mix and chill. I can make some great cressants. I make my laminated dough the night before I make the cresants. I fold and roll etc. I use a small amount of sugar in with the butter and flour between the layers. If you use a fine sugar, like powdered sugar, it helps push the layers apart. It's a lot of work, so frequently I twist a the cardboard tube and deal with it. Sorry, but one thing commercial cooks tell me is that it is just as important to have that meal served in a reasonable amount of time. I no it isn't officailly scratch, but it is necessary sometimes to do what has to be done.

I cook "from scratch" which amazes most of my friends. Mom didn't teach me much about cooking, she preferred to do it herself so when I got married 2 years ago to a guy who loves to eat, I jumped in and figured it out. He also loves to cook and we consider scratch to be prepared from mostly basic ingredients. I'd love to buy fewer and make more myself but its just the two of us and without a few preservatives, we would never be able to keep anything on hand. We just don't use it fast enough. So, I don't consider buying pasta for spaghetti cheating but I draw the line at opening the can. I make a mean spaghetti sauce, even if I didn't can the tomato sauce myself (an issue which I hope to learn to fix this season!)

Since when is using a microwave NOT cooking? It's just another appliance. Or do you only cook outside, over a wood fire that you started by rubbing sticks together? Just kidding, but a microwave is a useful kitchen appliance.

To me, cooking from scratch means using commonly available raw ingredients. I make bread from scratch, but I don't grow and grind my own wheat. A better term for much of today's cooking might be 'home made'. To me, that would go up to, but not include, completely premade 'meals' that you heat and eat. I do a lot of 'home made' cooking that involves canned/packaged ingredients. I rarely have the time and resources to do 'made from scratch'.

NOTHING from a box

NOTHING from a can or jar

NOTHING from a bag.

Pancakes from "scratch" means you get out the flour, baking soda, salt, eggs, oil, milk, vanilla. You put them in a bowl and mix.

Cake from 'scratch' means you get out the flour, sugar, eggs, etc, mix it in a bowl and pour it in the pans.

Opening a box of bisquick and adding eggs and water IS NOT from scratch.

That's just my opinion.

How about canned broth? If I make a make a potato/leek soup- cut up and saute raw vegetables, then use canned chicken broth, I consider that from scratch. But then I don't raise birds, or buy whole chickens to make broth.

My SIL asked me why there was so many dishes after I made dinner one night when they came over to eat. We do use boxed spaghetti and things. I have to purchase corn meal, flour etc. we can the small amount of leftover garden, freeze the extra berries if there are any, but I live in the city and don't have room to grow everything we need. We do can our own sauces and salsas, peppers, leftover soups etc but we do purchase meat from the butcher. I consider it from scratch even though we end up purchasing our bulk items from the store. I don't think opening a box is from scratch, and our microwave is for leftovers.

Our family looks at us like we're nuts because it just takes to long to cook like us everyday. We both work full time, have two kids and still manage so I don't understand why everyone can't do it. Plus it tastes better and isn't loaded with salt.

We cook from scratch using flour, baking powder, all the individual ingredients. Started this L-O-N-G ago. Found it to be cheaper actually than buying all those mixes and processed foods. No other definition applies.....

Flour comes in a bag. Sugar comes in a bag. Salt comes in a box or bag...
I like to use store bought pasta. Ingredient list says "organic whole wheat", and nothing else. Making pasta from scratch is a lot of work, especially for one person for one meal. I can, and have, made pasta, but usually I use the pasta from the store. OTOH, the sauce has multiple ingredients and is much better freshly made without preservatives and other unpronounceable ingredients.

I wouldn't dream of using hamburger helper or boxed mac and cheese, but I'm not going to condemn someone else for using those things. I think they would be healthier not putting that into their bodies, but it is their bodies, not mine.

I grind my own flour and cornmeal then I make my mixes from that I make a cornbread mix and a whole wheat bread mix I make pancake mix I also use store bought pasta because of the ease of it just can't make time for everything cooking from scratch does take longer but is so much better tasting and better for you

After cooking and baking for about 50 years now, I like anything that gets a meal on the table FAST and easy!

The boss makes some things from scratch but a lot is from jars as well. Years ago when I first met her I made some Spaghetti from scratch for her. I used things from my garden including tomatoes, peppers and onions to make the sauce. She was quite impressed with my sauce and I suspect she had never seen any made with fresh ingredients before.

Nomad

While scratch is the best (if the cook knows what they are doing), I'd sure prefer semi-homemade over McDonald's.
Some stuff from the store is pretty good. Frankly at 7AM on a weekday morning when getting ready for work, I'm not going to spend the time to make 'from scratch' biscuits, when the refrigerator type is almost as good.

Say what you want about Sandra - she makes the best cocktails EVER!

Wow! I googled it and watched the video. Just Wow! That has to be the most disgusting thing I've ever seen "made". She really has a show doing things like this? Opening a can of apple filling? Wow, don't know what else to say. Towards the end of the video when she is adding corn nuts it crossed my mind that maybe this was a saturday night live skit.

Would you teach me, please? :) I'd love to know how.