How Maizie Miller mastered 'creative cooking'

Christopher Serju, Gleaner Writer

Long before there was a national programme to get Jamaicans to commit to eating more local foods and before concerns about food and nutrition security became global, there was Creative Cooking, hosted by Maizie Miller.

From Monday to Friday each evening, just before Prime Time News, Jamaicans would welcome Miller into their homes to hear her latest take on preparing nutritious, economical meals, of course using food items from the Grace line of products.

This was a programme well ahead of its time, and householders young and old would eagerly look forward to seeing what new recipes she would unveil. It was, however, new takes on old favourites such as turned (tun) cornmeal that would have them talking the next day, and the decision by Grace to make the recipes available proved very popular.

NUTRITIONAL CHOICES

While the sponsors sought to influence potential customers to buy Grace products, Miller insists that getting Jamaicans to make informed nutritional choices was an equally important part of the equation.

"We are big on recipe development and share these with schools across the island. We share these with parent-teacher associations, with church groups and commu-nity groups, and the idea here is to share different meal ideas - meal solutions - and we try to make them as economical as possible," she told Outlook.

She explained further: "Especially those of us who grew up in deep rural communities are accustomed to maybe roast chicken on a Sunday, say curried goat another day, stewed chicken another day and, certainly, on a Saturday, it's chicken soup. So, essentially, we are getting the same thing even though it's cooked a different way. So if you are not careful, for all four weeks of the month and 12 months for the year, it's the same thing."

With mealtime being one of the few occasions when the entire family is present, Miller sees it as a time to really share a lot more than food.

SHARED CREATIVITY

"We want to share creativity, we want to have balanced meals, we want to show colourful meals such as in the browning of the chicken but we want also to see the orange of a carrot. Look at the colour of pumpkin and then we look at the colour of turnip, the entire range of colours - tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce - recognising the impact of its food value and mixing and matching," she shared.

"So, when we prepare a meal, the next stage is plating this meal, using all of those pretty plates which we have in the cabinet and presenting it to the family because this is the only time the family, gets to sit together, and table manners and such are practised and shared here. So, it is much more than sharing a meal."

Now employed as consumer service manager, Miller continues to underscore the importance of visual appeal, especially in trying to get children to eat right.

According to her, "Children eat with their eyes and we should be guiding them, but many of us as parents are not eating enough vegetables, but want the children to eat them. Adding a little dressing, which is easy to make, can transform an ordinary meal into an extraordinary dish."

Even though Creative Cooking is not on TV just now, Maizie Miller is proud of her role in getting Jamaicans to take a more serious look at cooking and meal preparation in a fun kind of way.