Wednesday, July 15, 2009

What Did We Do Before All The Safety Rules?

What in the world did we do before all the safety rules came along? I thinking of one in particular.

Don't eat raw cake batter!

Understand I can see all the reasons for this warning, and as a mother, I enforce it with no exceptions. But as my granny used to say: What you don't know most of the time won't hurt you. It is the word 'most' we stress about now. Once of my best memories from childhood is mixing cake batter in my granny's small kitchen with my younger brother. Granny gave us all the ingredients--no box mixes for us--and stood back.

"Whoever runs the mixer gets to lick the beaters." I called out first, grabbing the mixer.

"I get the bowl," yelled my brother. Of course everyone knows that the bowl has more left over batter, but there was something about running my tongue over the beater, savoring the buttery tasting concoction. My brother would have to use a civilized spoon and not drip it on anything. Me, I would stand over the big kitchen sink licking my fingers along with the batter.

In all my years of cake batter licking, I never became sick, neither did my brother. And to be honest, in all my years of licking, I never knew anyone who became sick from cake batter. Why is that? Were we just lucky or was it a different time when our food was handled more carefully? Nowadays it breaks my heart to tell my nine year old daughter she can't lick. I'm a good mom.

But hey, when she leaves the kitchen, I have been known to hold a beater to my mouth and lick until my heart's content.

Are you a cake batter licker? Isn't it funny where our joy springs?

Ann

2 comments:

Unknown said...

You're a better Mom than I am. Even though I actually prepared a safety presentation about food safety. When in doubt, I do throw it out, but cake batter is an experience I couldn't take just for myself. It is too big a part of my memories of my Mom.

On another note ...

I was just realizing how the drought has kept my kids from experiencing a driveway carwash until they recently lifted the ban. Thank God. I thought they would go through life with out the experience of getting hosed while washing the doors.

Great post. I enjoyed it.

Nardeeisms said...

Re: Cake batter...According to the "rules"...my siblings and I should've been dead a long time ago. I place my son in similar peril at least once a month when I bake a cake. We lick the batter together. I guess you could say that we enjoy living on the edge. Thanks for the memories.