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In our small town in the 50s and 60s, we borrowed an ingredient sometimes Once in a while, my mom or my sister and I would start a recipe and then realize we didn't have a common ingredient that was necessary, like an egg or yes, sugar. We would borrow it from our next door neighbor, and if what we were making turned out, which it usually did, we'd bring her over some as a thank you.
As for just going to the store, our family had only one car, which our dad took to work, and it was at least a 40 minute round trip to walk to the store and back. Sometimes if you are in the middle of a recipe, you don't have 40 extra minutes to just let everything sit there while you go to the store. And sometimes we didn't have the money because it was close to payday and people didn't just have extra money lying around the house.
Everybody in our neighborhood did this. We all tried to help each other out and act neighborly. It was nice. We would have thought it strange if someone got all upset about a little thing like borrowing a cup of sugar, because we all knew that someday the shoe would be on the other foot.
My neighbor used to want to borrow so many things, some coffee filters, a postage stamp and even some quarters for washing machine...I sometimes helped her and sometimes said I don't have extra. There could be a time when one needs help from a neighbor, not everyone is a freeloader.
These days there's no excuse for borrowing food items. Everyone has transportation and leisure to get to a grocery store. If my neighbor wanted to borrow a specialized tool or wheelbarrow or something, that might be another story.
Way back before most of you were born, however, the woman was at home with all the kids, or some of the kids, or her sick mother or mother-in-law, and there was not only just one car, but there might be NO car. People borrowed food items from each other constantly and everybody knew the reason for it. Before that, people ALWAYS borrowed because most of them lived in a rural setting and if you needed something before the family outing to town on the weekend or monthly, or whatever, you had to try to get it from a neighbor.
Nowadays most people don't need to borrow anything food related unless the teenage son has gone on a rampage that afternoon and eaten everything in the house and there's nothing for dinner that night. A quick call to the pizza delivery man can probably even fix that problem.
Location: Foothills of Maryland Blue Ridge mountains
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When I had babies, occasionally I would need an egg or vanilla or laundry detergent or something for a recipe and I'd be out of those ingredients. I wouldn't want to wake the babies from napping, so I would ask my kind neighbor for whatever it was I needed. I always paid her back the next day.
This was in the early 80s, when more women were home during the day. I didn't do it often and it was never a problem. She is still a wonderful friend.
I don't see this as particularly a psychology discussion, so I don't feel too bad in asking, why you would put sugar in your food? I'm a "gourmet" chef (amateur) and except for some Asian recipes (e.g. Sweet 'n Sour Chicken) I don't use sugar at all. I sometimes tease myself (is that a psychological issue?) that I mock-worry that my sugar might go stale or pass its use-by date.
I'll admit, you won't be able to do much baking without sugar for some of your recipes. And eggs? Might as well just not use flour, but then you wouldn't be able to make any baked goods without these ingredients.
I've never asked or been asked to borrow cooking ingredients by neighbors. If they asked and I had them I would gladly surrender them, and I'd rather have a debt than get repaid. Chances are I'd never call in the debt. I'd satisfy their request just to let my neighbors know I'm a good dude. I don't feel any need to be repaid for being good. The reward is in being good, not in getting repaid. That's the kind of person I am.
Seriously, I consider sugar to be a spice. Needless to say that I drink my coffee black.
To try to turn this back into a psychology discussion, it would be good to have a relationship with your neighbors that you feel close enough to borrow cooking ingredients. And back when I was a kid (think of the Leave It To Beaver Cleaver era) I'm sure my mom and our neighbors traded cooking ingredients all the time in our neighborhood.
When i was young, I was sent to the neighbor's occasionally to borrow sugar or some other staple i am pretty sure mom was trying to bake and realized she was out of an ingredient. Doing this was not unusual. I do not remember if neighbors asked her for ingredients. In our house, sugar was not a major ingredient. But if you bake almost anything, you know you need sugar.
We only had one car and one driver for a long time. So, if you had assembled ingredients and discovered you needed eggs, flour or sugar that you did not have, you could send one of the kids next door to ask a favor.
Later, when we got old enough, mom would send one of us kids to buy something she needed at a grocer that was within walking distance.
I cannot remember being asked, or asking a neighbor for a cookng ingredient in all the years I have been married. Things have changed.
Hey silibran, when I grew up a long time ago, my family lived about two blocks from the neighborhood grocery store, and my mom would send me up to the market with a list of ingredients, I'd grab them and hand the list to our grocer who would just write our family name on it and put it in the cash drawer! My parents would pay up later. That was before my mom worked, and dad took our family car to work!
Gawd, you'd never see that again!
I'm so old I remember when they invented color TV!
Our next door neighbor (retired widower) comes over occasionally when he knows we are BBQing or having a family get together to get a plate of food or some type of dessert (we know he doesn't cook). He is always welcomed. He is a nice guy, looks over our house when we are away, and is a funny guy which is a plus. And yes, he has actually borrowed some coffee on a couple of occasions.
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