Thank feck - I don't have to go into work today....

[boglin]

I will however, be spending this morning/afternoon putting together a bank of speaking and listening material for Level 2 courses, and then doing two sets of marking. By 'eck, we teachers are slackers...

I've been giving some thought to baking - not actually *doing* it, but the activity as a pastime. I find the idea of recreational baking rather odd. I never baked as a child, and family baking was quite limited. If the oven was on for dinner, then we'd have crumble for afters, or sometime pie, but there was never baking for baking's sake.

I'm puzzling over whether it is in fact a class thing? I suspect that recreational baking might be a middle class thing, but I'm not sure. What do other people think? Did you come from a middle or working class background? Did you bake as a child? Did your parents bake? Do you bake now?

Comments

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

When a child I used to make all manner of things, though brandysnaps were my speciality. As an adult the cake mix rarely gets to the oven, as I prefer it raw. In the last two decades I think I've baked a total of two birthday cakes (well, cakes for birthdays) and a couple of dozen jam tarts.

[faelis.livejournal.com]

I bake just for the sake of it sometimes! But maybe that's because i'm too fond of cake! I don't bake as much as I did, but that's because I used to live with someone less fussy over what they ate. I used to bake as a kid with my mum, we're a working class family. My mum likes baking for people coming round and I think she's sort of passed that onto me. I feel all put out if I go and see her and she hasn't done any baking because we've all come to expect it now!

[bridiep.livejournal.com]

I bake a lot, as you know!

My mum used to bake; she put it down to my Viennese dad always liking cake for afters. Her mother baked a lot too, and had my mum in the kitchen with her to keep her out of trouble as a child. I have recollections of sitting in my high chair playing with bits of dough.

I bake a lot with Kyle, and I try to have cookie dough in the fridge for when his little chums come round. Nigella's 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' is one of my bibles, and if I had any inclination to 'otherkin' I would probably be a hobbit.

Is is a class thing? Quite possibly, although I think it's maybe more of a generational thing, and whether or not both your parents went out to work. Baking takes up a lot of time, and it's quicker to buy cake than to make it, regardless of cost. I'd think I'd need more data to make a more informed opinion. My upbringing was undoubtedly middle-class, but am I middle-class now? Income-wise, most certainly not!

[dreamfire.livejournal.com]

Both sets of grandparents taught me to bake.

One set is working class - tenant farmers or farm workers the generation before them, moved to town and worked in shoe factories (grandad) and shops (nan) themselves.
The other set is almost but not quite upper middle - banking middle manager and doctors secretary and a north London suburb.

Baking was more pie focused with the first, and cake focused with the latter. And my aunt from the former set of grandparents is the best cake person in the family - in fact both her and her sister to masses of cake and flower arranging - which I guess might be considered part of their tradition across class boundaries? Not sure really.

My mother - child of the middle class side actually really doesn't like baking very much - although she can do it perfectly well - so I think its very much a personality thing as well as a class and generation thing

Mmm cake

[nollipop.livejournal.com]

I bake when I have time, which isn't really too often these days! I love making vegan cakes and biscuits and then challenging people to 'taste the difference'.

Ours was a working class family, of Yorkshire/Irish tradition and baking was done weekly on a sunday to last into the next week. We couldn't afford to eat out or buy convenience food, plus there's a strong family tradition of passing on recipes such as the Irish stew with everything in, Bubble and Squeak and Steak and Kidney Pie (yeuch)

I'm now disowned as I refuse to either stop vegan-ifying the recipes or reproduce. Pah.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

I think of it as a rustic thing. Family that live out in the wilds all bake regularly (for otherwise how would pies and cakes appear?). Family that lives in town go to a shop. My ex-wife (imagine the Archers, set in Northern Ireland) has been known to wear an oven out by excessive baking.

And what is "class" these days ? My more "working class" rellies are rustic peasants who happened to own the sod hut they were brought up in because no landlord would bother with it. Now they're gazillionaires through property prices.

[doglets.livejournal.com]

I baked as a child, taught by my Mum and my Nain. Working class Welsh. We had baking day. Don't bake cakes now as I don't particularly like cake or puddings.

I quite enjoy cooking now - think that was a hitting 40 thing - and a renewed interest in food.

[november-girl.livejournal.com]

I think of baking in much the same way as I think of drawing or writing creatively - spending some time throwing stuff around to prove that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

As a child I never baked at home because I never had an opportunity - Mum was generally out at the stables at any time that there might have been time to bake anything, and due to various amounts of bad behaviour I wasn't allowed to be left alone in the house until I was about 16, by which time I was far more interested in playing loud music and nicking the vodka out of the drinks cabinet. I don't think that this not baking is due to my having a working class background, but who knows? I probably became more middle class at some point during my late teens I think, but my baking started when I was a post grad student, as a direct result of getting a great recipe card collection and lodging somewhere with a great kitchen and a child who also wanted to bake. So we'd spend Saturday afternoons baking biscuits and bread, and attempting cake (which I'm so bad at I think that Dunlop should hire me for their research for tyre compounds).