How the Blind Learn the Art of Cooking

How the Blind Learn the Art of Cooking
Publication Unknown
1971
By Patricia Cooney

The two big modern classroom kitchens have all the latest appliances--gleaming automatic ovens, electric fry pans, blenders and beaters--every gadget found in the up-to-date home kitchen.
There's one difference. The women working in these two kitchens do their cooking without looking.
They're blind. So is their instructor.
For a sighted woman, it's difficult to imagine turning out meals in a kitchen of darkness. For sightless women enrolled in the Iowa Commission for the Blind's orientation program, cooking is almost as natural as eating.
After all, blind persons can learn alternative cooking techniques to turn out as fancy a cooky [sic] or as savoury a pork chop dinner as their sighted sisters.
Home economics is but a part of the orientation program of the Commission for the Blind, the heart of which is the rehabilitation center at Fourth Street and Keosauqua way in Des Moines.
There the blind learn such skills as Braille, travel, typing, shop and home economics. And cooking is the center of home economics. 
"We push cooking here," says Mrs. Ruth Schroeder, instructor who has been blind since infancy.
She explains that in the case of the newly blind, cooking probably is the first household duty shunned for fear of injury around the stove or with electrical appliances.
"In the case of persons blind since childhood most have been denied the privilege of cooking in the home," she adds.
Some never have been allowed to open a can.
There are no souped up appliances especially made for the blind in the commission's sparkling kitchens. Part of the philosophy is that they use equipment made for the general public. Notches are cut into over dials so cook can "feel" the temperatures. As for oven timers, cook listens and can tell by the number of clicks how long she is setting her oven for a roast or for a batch of cookies.

How does the blind culinary artist get a batch of cookies under way? Same as any other cook. She starts with a recipe. Hers is in Braille from a recipe card file, or from a Braille cookbook.
(The Iowa Commission for the Blind has the largest collection of Braille cookbooks of any library in the world, including the Library of Congress.)
If there are eggs to be separated, the blind cook learns to do this by breaking the egg in her hand and letting the white run down through her fingers.
Dry ingredients are leveled off by spoon or measuring cup. Liquid ingredients, such as vanilla, are measured with a spoon after its handle has been bent to 90 degrees so the liquid may be lifted out of a jar rather than poured from a bottle.
Salt is added by pinches so there's no doubt about how much has been poured.
What about spices? How can the baker tell whether she is reaching for a can of nutmeg or cinnamon? By smell, or course, in many cases. Odorless spices are marked with a Braille tape to make sure.
Smelling and listening play a big part in blind cookery, according to Instructor Schroeder. They're important in turning out mouthwatering fried chicken, for instance.
Chicken drumsticks and thighs are not disjointed for easier turning in the browning stage. When chicken pieces are all organized in the pan, the lid is placed on the fry pan, dial is set up high and cook listens and smells for about 10 minutes.
Then she turns down the temperature controls until the chicken becomes quiet, carefully turns over each piece, listens and smells again and sets the fry pan controls at slow cooking until the food is done to a turn.
Cook turns over the frying chicken with a fork and her hands protected by a piece of paper toweling.
"There's nothing wrong with using your hands to touch and feel food," says Mrs. Schroeder. "Some of the best chefs in the world do this."
Blind men in the commission's workshop have turned out a lid for frying bacon. It fits down directly on top of bacon and has holes for escaping steam. Heat from lid "fries" top side of bacon and cook doesn't have to turn it to assure even cooking.
There are a few handy devices used to help the blind serve food, too. To assure evenly cut squares of cake or gelatin, metal pans are notched at regular 2- or 3-inch intervals. Cook places a ruler in the notch and draws her knife along the ruler.
When pouring coffee into a cup for herself the blind person might tell when the cup is full by inserting his [sic] finger in the cup. But this would never do for pouring coffee for guests. So, there is a small liquid level indicator called a "probe".
It hangs on the side of the cup or glass with a little transistorized box attached. When the cup is filled to desired level, there's a "beep."

Home EC cooking classes are held everyday at the Center for the Blind and they are built on a basis of individual need. A person stays on as long as necessary to learn alternative techniques. Classes, of necessity, are small and usually are limited to no more than five students. 
What is the student reaction? 
Dorothy Tang of Delaware (Ia.) and totally blind for 12 years has found a whole new world since enrolling in the rehab center and especially since her exposure to cooking.
At home, Dotty did some cleaning,but her late mother did all of the cooking. Dotty never had baked a roll or fried a chicken. We found her baking up a storm at Fourth and Keo--chocolate dainties to be rolled in powdered sugar and peanut butter cookies...

Photo- Cleaning this apartment at the Iowa Commission for the Blind are (from left) Carolyn Wertz, Mavis McVeety and Dorothy Tang. "A blind person cannot do a swish and swipe job," says Mrs. Ruth Schroeder, their instructor. Instead she must push furniture to one side of the room and thoroughly clean one side at a time.

Photo- Mavis McVeety of Wellsburg has some remaining vision so wears sleepshades to overcome a false dependency on inadequate sight and to learn faster the techniques of blind cookery. In operating electric mixer, Mavis can tell dial speed by listening to whir of the beaters.

Photo- Carolyn Wertz of Earlham uses an ordinary electric skillet to fry pork chops. Carolyn has been in the Commission for the Blind's orientation program since graduation for high school last May. She uses no special aids to fry meat, but "sniffs and listens" until meat is done.