Your mom's weird cooking ... and other stories? (recipes encouraged)

[alkapal]

inspired by hill food's post about his mom's, um, "unorthodox" meat loaf technique,

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/552999#3995312

i thought it would be fun to hear some of your mom's (or any other family member or friend's) food concoctions, weird techniques, odd serving habits, strange "traditions" with food.....

with sauerkraut and porcupine meatballs (recipe to follow later), my mom serves boiled potatoes with mayonnaise. it is quite good.

i never buy pork chops today because my mom always turned them into something akin to pig hide.

she likes boiled tongue, but i could *not* get past the taste buds! eeeuuuw.

friday nights growing up was always spaghetti with meat sauce night. she served it with white bread and butter, with a fresh lettuce ,tomato and cucumber salad -- and, iirc, thousand island or french dressing. (when we ate out, dad liked roquefort dressing. mmmm.) i'd get to sit in front of the tv and watch the wild, wild west, with my heartthrob, james west. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058855/ every. friday. night. (and i was happy about it, too)! (the only celeb pic i ever asked for!

)

to be fair, mom used to make a mean lane cake running up to christmas holidays, dousing it periodically with a little bourbon, then wrapping it back in saran wrap, then foil, then stored in the tupperware cake container. other than the occasional pound cake (which is **quite** good, if i do say so myself) http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/4771...
and birthday cakes from a mix, that was the extent of her baking sweets.

mom is 86 years old now, and doesn't really cook at all. she has a bad habit these days of eating ice cream and peanut butter after her nap, and not balanced nutrition and veggies. <sigh>. i get nostalgic.

anyhow, enough about moi.

tell me your funny stories, please!

[pombetom]

My Mom made a strange version of French Toast. The essential difference was that her recipe called for a boatload of baking powder, and the battered bread was then deep-fried. They would puff up like crazy, but were wonderfully crispy on the outside and light and airy on the inside.

[Emme]

yum. sounds like a wonderful textural combination.

[wildheather]

Hilarious stories on here, so I thought I'd add my two cent's worth. I am in Ireland (country) so at lot of our cusine is British in origin. There are six of us and my poor mother used to put so much effort into dinner that we'd refuse to eat so eventually she gave up on us. Anyway some examples of dinners:
Chicken pie: chicken pieces in sauce and home made pastry and potatoes
Macaroni cheese and potatoes (needs no further explanation
Chicken fricassee and potatoes
Meat stew: beef/lamb cooked in a pot with veggies and homemade dumplings
Boxy: Raw potatoes and cooked potatoes mixed together and fried in the pan (takes a lifetime to prepare but tastes nice to eat). My brothers varied by adding garlic and eggs
Champ: Potatoes cabbage and ham (I think, don't eat it anymore)
Special occasions Ham, roast potatoes and two veggies
Mashed potatoes with everything
Leftover potatoes fried in the pan as lunch
I should point out that potatoes was the only thing my mother eat as a child, so it was the only thing we ate until adulthood. Needless to say, don't really eat them anymore.
My grandfather used eat his boiled eggs so soft that the yolk was runny then he used to add butter to it..feel sick at the thought and once my grandmother showed us how to skin and prepare rabbit. Couldn't stomach it, still remember my mother and grandfather trying to force feed me; needless to say I'm a vegetarian now.
The same grandfather used to pour his tea into a saucer to drink it - it helped cool it down.

[GTM]

Your dear mother's cooking sounds pretty delicious to me, from India! Not weird, gross or ill-conceived at all! I think she must have been a very special person, if that is not being presumptuous of me. Re: the runny egg yolks, in India, we had this quaint term, from who knows where, 1) quarter-boiled eggs; 2) half-boiled eggs; 3) hard-boiled eggs. You get the picture. This probably came with the English, and was either presented in egg cups for the high and mighty, a most inconvenient way to get at your egg, or scraped out into a bowl for us plebians. Thanks to a warm climate and a warm egg, a quick eater ensured no egg congealed to glassware!

As for potatoes, I suspect that along with Andeans, East Europeans and the Irish, Indians are obsessed with the tuber. They eat it plain, with rice, with European bread [which they have had since the 1500s and have transmogrified to their own truly horrible ends! Do you know they have had bagels before the Europeans did? Check out the history of Kashmir!!] and everything else you have never even imagined: e.g. mashed with beet, carrot, peas, raisins, peanuts and fried into the most delicious croquettes ever, Bengal's imitation of "English food"!!

Sometimes, we just ate new potatoes with lime juice and crushed black pepper, for evening meals, and never knew that we were poor or were missing out on anything. Same thing next morning, another edition of deliciousness, always welcome, that earthy, wonderful taste, aroma and mouthfeel not readily found today. Try your ARRAN VICTORY and similar types grown slowly with only canola cake as fertilizer and see what I mean.

[wildheather]

Thank you for the kind compliments about my mother's cooking, She is a (now retired) nurse by trade so I suppose she tried to get us to eat properly. As for the potatoes thing. Apparently the potatoe is not native to here but brought over by the British and has become a staple. We generally grow very floury types such as Kerr Pinks and Golden Wonders (that is a typically Irish thing). I must try your recipe with lime and black pepper it sounds really nice. I didn't know that Indians ate bagel before us, somehow I wonder how it fits in to gorgeous Indian cooking!!!!
Yeah congealed egg eeuuuurrrchhhhhhh............

[GTM]

I think the bagel, shape + boiled dough, was a Turkish/Central Asian bread that went west with them to Eastern Europe and also filtered as far down as Kashmir, which was on a trade route to several Central Asian oases. Between the 2nd Century and the 11th, this bread and many other yeasted types from Iran had found firm roots in the Srinagar region. The Kushan kings used the Kashmir valley as a hostage camp for their royal Chinese prisoners for generations, leading to the introduction of the nashi pear and green tea here since the dawn of the Common Era.

Another interesting event was the introduction of coffee into Southern India from Yemen long before coffee was widely known in Europe. In addition to the traditional Arabic way of drinking coffee black, you can imagine the Indian penchant of flavoring & frothing steaming milk with any new aromatic. Tea happens to be the latest victim, but coffee was its hapless predecessor! Adding thickly brewed coffee to sweet milk and pouring it from tumbler to bowl to froth it remains a time-honored tradition in South India. Guess what that is called today?

The nasal "pao" of the Portuguese is homonymous with "feet" in the Hindustani belt, leading to proscription of white bread in the eastern half of India in the belief that it was kneaded by feet. This peculiar issue did not arise in the Bombay Presidency, and there we see a hugely greater incorporation of bread, and hamburger-type buns into a large number of Indianized preparations that even McD's is imitating with profit at many places around the world. You may soon find these potato-rich items in Ireland or the UK at your Golden Arches, if they are not already there!!

[wildheather]

I'll look out for them :-D
Very interesting history of what we would consider strictly European foods and drinks. A lot of Europeans, not just Ireland in fairness, have a great love of alcoholic drinks. Apparently this goes back to the olden days (as my niece would say) to when drinking water was of such poor quality that sugar was added to make it drinkable. The East Asians (Japan and China) used to add plant leaves instead making a more healthy alternative.

[hill food]

Boxy Champ (yeah I'm being needlessly clever) sounds like something to play with that my parents would like next Winter.

[wildheather]

It sounds like a combination dish of boxy and champ....

[buttertart]

The salad dressing de la maison when I was growing up was this (must be a Colonies thing, have never heard of it outside my house other than here, and it's a recipe from NZ): http://www.food.com/recipe/Sweetened-Condensed-Milk-Salad-Dressing-157000
(but my mom would never have put cayenne in it). Makes good deviled eggs.

And for a compendium of momfood: http://pzrservices.typepad.com/vintag...

[alkapal]

that dressing sounds like it'd almost create something akin to miracle whip. interesting. how is that dressing of your mom's on a fruit and greens salad?

[buttertart]

I think you'd like it a lot. It's more intense and sweeter than MW.

[kcshigekawa]

My sister and I were talking about this just the other day! We had "sketty" (at least that's how we said it). It was a pound of ground beef, browned in the square electric frying pan and seasones with a little onion salt. Added to that was a large can of Franco-American (I think, not actually sure of brand name) canned spaghetti. It was warmed through and served with cheese from the green cardboard can.

Also, Skeiipy Super Chunk peanut butter, Hellman's Mayo and iceberg lettuce sandwiches on Pepperidge Farm WW bread. (which I would still eat if I could get PF bread here on the left coast...)

[venushakti]

My mom took a job in a deli when they were getting divorced and we were living on groceries my grandparents bought for us. She would bring home the milk and eggs that were about to expire, along with the ends of any deli meat she could get free. We ate lots of pudding, which is a great way to use tangy almost bad milk because it completely covered the taste. But then she would make us "quiche" to use up those ends of meat and cheese. Some choice ones included:
Chicken roll and cheese, usually American
Roast beef and cabbage
Ham and anything barely edible in the crisper

For YEARS I would not eat quiche for fear of bring served one of my moms creations. Ive become my own extremely frugal cook, but I still can't do quiche or frittata. Just triggers bad memories.

Otherwise, my mom is a decent cook. My brother and I will sometimes reminisce with her and laugh now.

[ebeth00]

Growing up, my mom wasn't a great cook. And we're FAR from Italian. Hence, until about age 20 I thought spaghetti sauce was supposed to made like my mom made it: green bell peppers and onions, ground beef, and KETCHUP. Just a giant bottle of Hunt's (not even Heinz!) dumped in. And oh yeah, some mustard for good measure. We kids loved it because, well, kids love ketchup. (I make it properly now.)

We also were fed pre-dinner "quit whining" snacks of...wait for it...just mayonnaise on bread. I never thought that was weird until I moved to the North and everyone thought my love of mayo was strange and disgusting (I'm from Georgia).

My boyfriend's mom (from PA) always makes peanut butter, cucumber, and Miracle Whip sandwiches. Sounds horrible, but once you try it, you're a believer. Still weird though.

[Sarrastia]

Oh! Something else I remember was for a treat my dad would let us have our own cup of coffee which was basically light brown milk and sugar by the time we were done with it and then we would crush saltine crackers into it and slop it around until they were much and eat with a spoon.
When he wasn't eating his coffee this way he would slather mayo on a slice of white bread, fold it over, and dunk. I never picked this trait up but my sister loves it.
And how could I forget, Coke Floats. We would keep tall glass mugs in the freezer and scoop some vanilla ice cream into them and cover with Coca Cola and eat with a spoon. When I was young and saw Root Beer Floats on menus I would be so confused that they were made with Root Beer and not Coca Cola like we had.
A treat me and my brother used to love was whole carrot sticks peeled and dunked in wishbone dressing or peanut butter. Me and my sister would dunk potato chips in ketchup.
So fancy.

[Sarrastia]

I just spent an inordinate amount of time reading this amazing thread.
My mom was a pretty amazing cook but looking back I remember some odd dinners when she had to improvise when times were hard.
The American Chop Suey one def rings a bell. Elbow macaroni with ground beef, diced tomatoes, and here is where my mom added some flair...a can of peas. I still love this and make it for myself because my husband hates tomato anything.
Soft scrambled eggs on toast. Nothing special but scrambled eggs with butter, lots of butter, served on toast. I still can not get the right consistency to copy this one.
Everything but the kitchen sink soup which contained cabbage, canned whole tomatoes, lots of garlic, and basically any other vegetables. This was said to be a cure all for any illness...garlic would seep out of your pores.
Macaroni and cheese mixed with a can of tuna and...you guessed it! A can of peas.
Pork chops with sauteed onions that have been cooked in vinegar until delicious. My mouth waters thinking about it. Mmmm vinegar-y onions. I would fight to have the remaining juices poured into my mouth...I mean onto my plate.
Our absolute favorite cheapo london broil steaks big and juicy cooked like they were restaurant quality to a nice medium rare seasoned with adobe served with fried eggs and french fries.

My dad was pretty creative as well in that he could make very unappealing items taste delicious. Can of government meat with the animal that was supposedly inside of it pictured on the can. Mostly the can with the pig was our go to fave. This can of meat was cooked in a sauce pan with a tomato-y sauce sometimes ketchup, probably ketchup, seasoned up and then served over french fries. I actually loved this meal.

Other weird meals I remember are my grandmother giving me ham in a pita pocket with diced onions and mustard...I hated every one of these items and for some reason she made this for me.
Since I disliked deli ham when we were having a deli sandwich dinner night I would slice a big beef steak tomato and salt and pepper it and slap it on wonder bread slathered with Hellmans, yummo!

I wish I could remember more.

[ChristinaMason]

these are really nice!

[LynneLynne]

after my mom had died and I was visiting my dad (who never cooked), he told me he made jello for me. He said, "I know your mom put something in jello and I didn't know what, so I put rice in it". It was so horrible that when he went out to feed the dog I tried to shove it down the drain and clogged the drain. I got it cleared out just in time. Then later I went to visit an elderly aunt. She insisted on making pancakes for me. They were totally runny in the middle. I threw it on the floor for her dog, who ate anything, and he sniffed it and walked away. I waited till her back was turned to pick it up and hide it in a napkin.

[hscsusiq]

My Uncle's grape jelly on scrambled eggs that turned the eggs black & gooey.
My Dad's sardine & onion sandwiches with Durkee's spread.
Mother was a great cook but when she was sick for almost a month he took over the cooking. His spagetti was great; he added grated carrots! It really added a lot of pizzazz.
I love blackened hotdogs and sausage, oatmeal with weird stir-ins, etc. My treasures are usually other's trash, LOL!

[TeaEqualsLove]

I realize this thread is very old now, but I thought I would throw my story in. :-)

I was born in Germany, but I moved to America when I was 4 to get away from all of the Berlin Wall troubles. However, I can't really remember many German foods ever being served in my home outside of sauerkraut with brats, and the yearly celebration of Spargelzeit (asparagus harvest celebration that runs from April-June 24th)

What I can remember though, is that my mother was an amazing cook. A few favorites were:

Spaghetti and meatballs- Buttered spaghetti noodles with tomato sauce, grated carrot, crushed garlic, oregeno, celery, and onions. This was served with meatballs the size of my fist that were made of ground beef, molasses, bread crumbs, and were baked until a nice brown crispiness formed on the outside.

Meatloaf- Prepared exactly like the meatballs but with the addition of onions and caramelized ketchup.

Chili- I still can't figure out the recipe, but I know that there is brown sugar in there somewhere. This was served with peanut butter and honey sandwiches.

"Food of the Gods"- This was a nice "lazy night" food. It was hamburger buns topped with tomato sauce, shredded mozzerella, ground beef, and black olive slices. My brother loved it so much that he gave it the name.

Cinnamon Toast- Definitely a favorite food to wake up to on winter mornings. I think I love the smell more than the taste.

Commercial favorites would be:

Hot Malt-O-Meal
Schwan's Chicken Pot Pie
Kraft Elbow noodles with canned tomatoes. (I believe my dad calls this Breaded Tomatoes)

The only bad things that I can remember is that my mother had a serious addiction to cream cheese, which she put on most everything. I started liking this as I got older, or maybe I just got used to it. She experimented often, and most things were great! But the bad was really bad. We had a very nice little garden in our backyard, so vegetables were always a staple in everything. I'd say that I had a pretty good upbringing when it came to food, I just wish that I had my mother's recipes so that I could try to re-create her masterpieces, but unfortunately she was one of those types that just used her brain as the database for everything.

[coll]

Molasses in meatballs sounds intriguing.....even a bit healthy!

[TeaEqualsLove]

Let me tell you, it is definitely a treat with spaghetti. I'm not entirely sure about the measurement, but I know that she didn't use much. Just enough for a bit of sweetness to come through. I'll have to play around with it and see if I can figure it out. :-)

[overthinkit]

My grandmother (otherwise an excellent cook) insisted on making her "shrimp bisque" every Christmas eve.
The recipe? Equal parts Campbell's Tomato Soup and Campbell's Split pea soup (and the recommended amounts of milk), mixed with pre-cooked baby shrimp. Get it? It's Christmas-y because it's GREEN and RED ... only of course once they're mixed together you get a nasty orange. She always served that with these bright red/green pear halves that came out of a can, with a dollop of cream cheese in the center of the pear.
Revolting. Thinking about it makes me miss her, though.

[CarlyJayne]

Oh mom! She still doesn't ever use salt and likes everything very bland and VERY well cooked (but she does use butter and cream!).

One of her more notable childhood dishes that she taught me to make in elementary school: Pizza Hotdogs.

Microwave one hotdog until hot.
Place in bun with a strip of string cheese.
Mix Ketchup with Italian Seasoning.
Add to hot dog
Enjoy your pizza hot dog. Which you will, because you are 10.

She also loved making lasagna as a soup-type dish. I think it had spaghetti sauce, ground beef, broken pieces of lasagna pasta and lots of cottage cheese. I am not sure when I learned how real lasagna was supposed to be made-but I did get a "pearls of wisdom" lecture about how people were silly to put all that work into making a layered dish when it tasted so much better served from a pot. I always hated that one. I reminded me of vomit. I couldn't eat it.

When I was 13 my mom had enough of cooking, Costco opened and from then on out it was frozen meals every night except Christmas and Easter.

[coll]

That hot dog doesn't sound all bad!

[CarlyJayne]

I loved it! But I would never feed that to my kid! My mom was not a *horrible* cook. She just hated it.

All these recipes makes me feel for moms of another generation-especially now that I am the family chef. I have the internet, wonderful cookbooks and I live in a foodie town with pretty grocery stores and a husband that makes a decent living so I can afford good ingredients and not worry too much about blowing our grocery budget if something doesn't turn out. Even still- nightly dinner is sometimes a joy, and sometimes a tedious task. I got stuck with dinner duty because I'm a mom, but luckily I sort of like it. It must be horrible to hate cooking and eating and then have to make food for the family day in and day out.

[miss787]

Some of the post on here have made me laugh or get watery eyed but thank goodness I was spared from these food disasters! My mother is an okay cook, her dinner repertoire consisted of maybe 8 dishes made simply, and never deviated from those. Like most of you, my food adventures began after I left home. For example, I discovered how awesome tasting real vegetables are; the only vegetables I knew before were canned mixed, canned beets, canned green beans, and plain iceberg with tomato, never dressing. I don't remember eating frozen meals but heck yea we ate some of that Chef Boyardee and Lipton chicken soup from a packet (MSG galore). She never baked either and perhaps that is why I'm so fascinated by it now. One thing I hated eating though: rice & milk soup, mom's lunch dish, totally unappetizing and salty.

[BecaC]

Remembering my stepmother's cooking is enough to give me nightmares. Most meals were packaged, processed foods, out of a box or can from the pantry or a package from the freezer. When she did cook, things were atrocious.

We didn't have "spaghetti", we had pasta with red sauce. This was elbow macaroni with a can of tomato juice (yes, juice) and seasoned with sugar. Seriously.

But the worst was when my father, who used to dive for abalone before I was born, actually acquired one from a fellow diver. He cut thin slices, pounded them thin, dredged them lightly, and pan-fried them. Sooo Good!
When stepmom heard me waxing poetic about that abalone, she surprised me one day with a platter of something that slightly resembled what I remembered, but tasted absolutely horrid. Turned out to be chicken breast, pounded thin, soaked in bottled clam juice, and fried.
She called it "phony abalone".
WORST THING EVER!

[jeanmarieok]

She was creative, wasn't she? I can't imagine what chicken soaked in clam juice would taste like!!

[alkapal]

i thought it was sweet that she remembered and "tried."

[kai55]

One of my grandmothers poured slightly thinned out Campbell's Tomato Soup over noodles and called it spaghetti. Makes me glad my mom learned how to cook from her French grandma and not the Irish one.

My mom didn't have too many oddities, she's a really excellent cook. The only thing she made that I couldn't stand was bisquick biscuits dropped into a can of diced tomatoes and boiled. Sometimes I could eat it... mostly it was disgusting.

Then on Christmas Eve she still serves us our meat pies (tourtiere), ham, rolls.... and lasagna. The typical French-Canadian holiday meal.

[patmatw]

I have a French Canadian friend from Nova Scotia, Lousiville,(or Louisdale?) if I'm not mistaken, that introduced me to her meat pies for Christmas time. She had to have special pastry dough, I believe it had lard for the shortening, and instead of making it when she grew older, she was able to purchase if from a friend who had a doughnut shop, he would make her pastry dough special for her every holiday. Then she'd cut up a roast beef, I am guessing top or bottom round, and cook it with onions and water and salt pork. What a delicious family tradition those meat pies were. I remember one year getting one from her for Christmas for my own, in an eight inch square pyrex dish. Probably one of my most favorite Christmas presents ever. She had eight kids, and befriended me in my early adulthood, and treated me like one of her own. She is now 83 years old, her kids are all around my age, and I still keep in touch and visit when I am able to go "home" for a visit. Thanks for bringing her to my mind tonight, she is a special and dear friend to me, and I'm craving a meat pie. I have made a fascimile using Pillsbury rollup pie crust in the box, but my family wasn't fond of it, so I haven't made it often. I'm looking forward to my next meat pie. I have never had the one they call "roppie pie, made from chicken and I believe mashed potatoes. Was that a French Canadian thing or just Canada?
I love this thread, it makes me remember fondly our family suppers, and all the things I would eat of my sister's IF she would promise me her chocolate pudding dessert too. I devoured all the fried smelts and the fried breakfast sausages every time they were served for supper. My favorite birthday dinner was my mother's meat loaf, accompanied by canned green beans and whatever potato she wished to serve, usually baked or mashed. How I miss my mom!

[kai55]

It seems that every family has their own recipe for meat pie - and they're completely different. My mom always adds potatoes to hers and skips the pork - but a friend of mine's relatives growing up made them with pork. I was so excited to see them as part of the new years dinner this one year - and her step father was so pleased to see I knew what they were! I'm pretty sure they're delicious no matter how you make them. Such good memories!

I'm not familiar with roppie pie - but I did find a "rappie pie" article on wikipedia that says it's an Acadian (maritime) thing. Which would account for me not knowing what it is - I'm in SW Ontario and my French ancestors (that I know about) either came here directly from France or moved to Quebec initially and then migrated to the Windsor area.

... And I might have to give roppie pie a shot since I have a mountain of turkey in my freezer. I'm off to find some sample recipes!

[Aislyn]

The "Rappie Pie" that you are referring to is an Acadien dish made in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick primarily. It can be made with chicken, beef, clams, pork - any type of protein that you like. It is typically made in large proportions so most recipes call for 8 to 10 lbs of potato and a 5 to 6 lb chicken. The potato are peeled and grated and then the water and starch is squeezed out with cheese cloth and the amount of this liquid is measured. If using chicken, the chicken is boiled and the stock retained to replace the water/starch from the grated potatoes. The chicken is deboned/deskinned and cut in small pieces. The measured stock is added to the grated pototoes, salt and pepper added as required. The Rappie pie is assembled in a large baking pan with potato mixture as first layer, dollops of butter, then protein, then potato, butter, etc. until you end up with the top as potato. Many lay strips of bacon on top or more butter before putting it into the oven to bake. It is baked to a cripsy, yummy brown and voila!!! Tasty, tasty, tasty. It is so popular in the Maritimes that most grocery stores sell the pre-grated potato in frozen squares for those who don't have the time or energy to grate them. A lot of people will re-heat the leftovers by frying it in butter the next day. Anyway you eat it, it sure is delicious.

[FriedClamFanatic]

I'm going for this one! Although toned down a bit for portions since there are only 2 of us, and using a chicken breast and maybe some prepared Chicken stock. No spices other than salt and pepper? I may need some garlic

[JaclynM]

It pains me to write this, because I love my mom and she is/was a good mom, but not a good cook. Not that her food tasted bad, but it was all pre-packaged.

Growing up in the 80s, spaghetti was made with jarred sauce and frozen meatballs, having fish for dinner meant a frozen breaded fish heated in the toaster oven, and we had lots of hamburger helper. The only vegetables we had were frozen vegetables boiled on the stove. With one exception - she would sometimes make glazed carrots, using butter and brown sugar, which is one of the recipes I picked up from her.

One thing she made that I really like/liked is stuffed peppers. It was something she got out of a cookbook, involving ground beef, rice and tomatoes, and it is scrumptious. I keep asking her for the recipe, but she keeps putting it off, saying that if she gives me her recipes then I won't have a reason to come and visit for dinner. (Huh?)

[goodhealthgourmet]

I keep asking her for the recipe, but she keeps putting it off, saying that if she gives me her recipes then I won't have a reason to come and visit for dinner. (Huh?)
~~~~~~~~
aw, that's sweet - she obviously just wants to spend time with you! maybe ask her if you can come over and make some of them *with* her?

for what it's worth, "ground beef, rice and tomatoes" is the standard base for pretty much all traditional stuffed bell pepper recipes. whatever *additional* ingredients she uses are the keys to making them so tasty. most recipes also call for onion and/or garlic, and often shredded or grated cheese (usually cheddar, mozz or jack). and some other common additions: dried herbs (usually oregano or basil), spices (cumin, taco seasoning, chili powder), hot sauce, worcestershire sauce, condensed tomato soup, ketchup or tomato paste, other meat (bacon or sausage)...

if you can identify any of those flavors in Mom's recipe it might help you create a close approximation until she's willing to share her secrets.

[alkapal]

>>>aw, that's sweet - she obviously just wants to spend time with you! maybe ask her if you can come over and make some of them *with* her?<<

amen, ghg. great thought. it is always good to spend time with our loved ones, for as long as we are able. i just posted this on another forum:

[pikawicca]

So happy to see this thread keep toodling along -- it's one of my favorites.

[freia]

Mom's Fettucine Alfredo. Ingredients:
1 lb cooked spaghetti
1 tin Campbell's Cream of Asparagus Soup
1 red pepper
1/2 white onion
Sautee the onion, add the red pepper, tin of soup and 1/2 tin milk. Bring to boil. Stir in cooked spaghetti. Garnish with Kraft Grated Cheese in that green tin you get on the shelf not in the refrigeration case, we used to call this "sprinkle cheese" while growing up.
Enjoy!

Cheese Fondue
1 lb Velveeta
Milk as needed
1/2 loaf wonderbread
Melt cheese and milk over a double boiler. Ladle over slices of white bread in a bowl.
Enjoy!

Fried Cottage Cheese
1 tub whole milk large curd cottage cheese
oil
Heat oil in a pan. Add cottage cheese. Fry until cheese softens then reclumps together as one gloopy mess. This only works with traditional cottage cheese, today's cottage cheese for whatever reason won't do this.
Serve in a bowl with a spoon. Maybe with a side of toast if you're feeling adventurous.
Enjoy!

As an aside, ham was always out of a tin. Always. And the gelatinous goop around it had to be served with the ham, because it looked festive that way. Apparently. Salad always consisted of iceberg lettuce, cucumber and sliced tomato slathered with Kraft French Dressing. Always. To this day I have a tough time with ham and salad...

On the other hand, her cupcakes, chocolate chiffon cake, perogies and cabbage rolls were SPECTACULAR and she was doing the best that she could given her rather impoverished upbringing. I love her.

[JerryMe]

The. Fried. Cottage. Cheese. Just wow! Thank you Freia - And do love your Mom - she's the only one you got!

[Ariannda]

My mother likes to make rice (plain, white rice with perhaps a dab of butter) with sausage and cooked apples. My father, bless his heart, can only grill and even then normally my mother has prepared the food. I like to think im pretty decent around the kitchen. I like to make my own salsa and try to work with spaghetti sauce (while we dont have a set day we do eat it often) but my greatest accomplishment was the recipe cards ! We would make up a bunch of cards, each with a suggestion (ie pancakes, beef stew, spaghetti, "chicken stuff") and pick out 2 weeks worth of food. We would list ALL necessary ingredients and then determine what needed to be bought every 2 weeks for those exact recipes ! I let the kids, or one of the kids, pick the next nights meal out ahead of time. We posted everything on the left side of the cabinet, and when it was cooked we'd move it to the right side of the cabinet. Sometimes the kids would compete to see which of "their" dinners we'd have next ! These were only entrees, i'd always make a salad, and a veggie to go along with the meal as i saw fit. The kids were always entertained. Also having never gorwn up on "canned foods" i refuse to eat them myself and therefore refuse to buy them. I know the kids want a can of chef boyardee on occasion but *gag*

[River19]

My friends mother used to cook Peanut Butter Pork Chops......needless to say, he ate over a lot growing up.

[cactusette]

I grew up in Quebec and mom loved food and cooking. But she was raising me alone and has always been a kind of "eyeballer" cook. So I have horrible memories of cheap boiled chicken thighs that had all sorts of dark veins in them and it used to gross me out so much. She also had this "vegetable pie" recipe made with eggplants, zucchini,cauliflower, cheese and a sort of thick béchamel. She would make me assemble the pies with her when obviously I wanted to go out and play. Then, as a reward, I would get to eat some for dinner. Not the type of food a child wants to eat at all.

My fondest memory is escargots à la provençale which she would randomly make as an appetizer, and Campbell's tomato soup (made with milk) with tuna sandwiches on saturdays for lunch.

I also remember her forcing me to down some disgusting glasses of a mixture filled with orange juice, milk, vanilla and raw egg. This was the "come here, you've been playing a lot and need some protein...if you don't drink it you're not going back to play" type of thing. She would not mix it very well so the egg white was kind of floating around in it and when you'd drink it would get in your mouth like a jellyfish. If she turned her head for a second I'd throw it out under the steps and pretend I drank it all.

[frannieface77]

That "protein drink" sounds truly awful. :(

[master815k]

My Grandpa used to make me white bread, spread with butter and topped with sugar. He also used to make me milkshakes with 2 raw eggs added. Miss him!

[Fruitgum]

My Grandad used to like a bowl of cold Heinz baked beans poured straight from the can with a doorstep of bread buttered pretty thick - must admit I miss him being around and me knicking a spoonful every now and again :)

The strangest thing was a friend who had the same meals every week - I don't have a prob with a Friday spaghetti night or a Sunday roast but this you could set like clockwork and I knew what day it was by what she had for dinner! I can't imagine the relief she must of had when she moved out of home and started to cook for herself - lets just hope that it didn't beat the need for variety out of her system ;)

[alkapal]

this dish is one that i LOVE that my mom made-- and do not judge till you try it --SAVORY goodness for me:

Burger Bundles

Mix together:

1-1/2 lb Hamburger

1/2 C Evaporated Milk

Stuffing:

4 C Bread Crumbs

1/2 C Evaporated Milk

1/4 C melted Butter

2T chopped onion (optional)

1/4 t salt

1 t Poultry Seasoning

Mix well

Form Hamburger into 6 " rounds

Put about 1/2 C dressing in each. Press hamburger around stuffing to form bundle

Place in baking dish

Blend 1 can Campbells Cream of Mushroom Soup

2 t Worcestershire

1 t Catsup

Pour over bundles

Bake 45-50 min @ 350 degrees

~~~~~~~~~~

honestly, this dish is really, really tasty! i'd always ask my mom to do this dish, along with her cobbler and her sauerkraut and meatballs ( which are both in my chow recipes). she passed away about a year ago, but her recipes really carry on the memories for me.

[buttertart]

You got all kinds of umami (ooh, Mommy) going on up in there, alka dear. Sounds so nice and homey. Same here with the recipes...

[annietheking]

my mom used to (still sometimes does) saute iceberg lettuce to death, since it's not common for asian people to eat raw veggies. since she salted it during cooking, it would release lots and lots of grayish green juice, the scent of which did me in.

[Cactus Wren]

Not to say that my mother was one of the great non-cooks of all time, but ... well, she'd go on food binges and take me and Kid Bro along with her. You haven't lived until you've eaten a homemade, vegetarian, completely Western version egg drop soup for ten meals in the space of a week. It ran the gamut from very thin to watery scrambled eggs, and that was what we *ate* until Mom got tired of it.

Remember how Jeff Smith (Frugal Gourmet) used to deride his mother's "spaghetti with ketchup"? My mother had that beat. Roman Meal bread, buttered, spread with ketchup, topped with thick slices of Velveeta, stuck under the broiler until the cheese was barely starting to melt, and Wren why aren't you eating the *pizzas* I made for you? I made those because I know you love pizza so much!

[alliegator]

This is a funny story and by no means meant to be a recipe. My mom is a pretty cool lady a horrifyingly bad cook.
I was 12 years old and we were driving to my dad's hunting cabin to spend a long weekend. We were going a day ahead of my dad to beat the weather coming. Driving up the mountain, my mom hit a turkey with her car. Like, what the heck? But I'm from central Pennsylvania and anyone there knows that clocking wildlife is a part of life.
It was dead, but large and in decent shape so were going to eat it. Growing up as my dad's little hunting cabin mascot, I knew how to clean it.
So I got it all cleaned up and my mom baked this meat into a casserole with broccoli, egg noodles and some weird gravy. And overcooked the heck out of it to ensure the meat was done. It was the worst meal of my life.
So be warned: roadkill casserole is not so good.

[alkapal]

alliegator, just to be fair, it was probably the overcooking -- not the fact that it was roadkill. LOL!

[mariacarmen]

In honor of my recently deceased mom, i will say that she comforted me as a child on rainy cold days when I would come home for lunch with toasted liverwurst sandwiches and Campbell's tomato soup. She was not a good cook, but she made the best papas doradas - basically parboiled, thickly sliced potatoes that were then fried to perfect golden discs, with plenty of salt. She made one Bolivian dish I liked - aji de pollo - just a simple chicken stew-like thing, which was a bit tomato-y, and had peas in it, cooked in the pressure cooker.

and she taught me how to make rice. perfect rice every time. I miss her.

[alkapal]

my condolences mariacarmen. i know it is hard. i miss my mom, too. before she passed away earlier this year, i had a chance to laugh with her about the many stories on this thread. (though she never did laugh about the pork chops ;-). she's in a perfect place now, and i look forward to laughing with her again.

~~~~~~
in fact, i want to add my condolences to all of you who have lost one or both parents. i hope that you find some consolation and levity in this thread. our food memories are so deeply ingrained, and are a gentle way to "stay connected" with those whom we loved (and still do love) and who nourished us in life.

for those whose parents are still alive, there is no better time to connect than NOW. happy thanksgiving to you all.

[mariacarmen]

thx for that, Alka, and same condolences to you. very sweet.

i thought of another thing my mom made a lot - apanados - basically steak breaded and then pounded very thin with a rinsed glass coke bottle. i make them now too, but i rarely pound out the meat as thin as she did.

[Passadumkeg]

Did she make Saltenas????

[mariacarmen]

No, PDK, she did not! she was not a good cook, by any means. no one taught her. her own mother died when she was kind of young. she could make a few things, but they always tasted the same to me. saltenas were always an order-in item for us - luckily in L.A. at the time, that was an easy thing to do.

[hill food]

yes, Alka, I hope the comments made here are understood to be stated with love and not a sneer. a snicker, sure, but one with genuine wistful fondness and devotion.

[caseygirl]

Baked Spaghetti -
Cook spaghetti - layer in casserole dish with grated cheddar cheese and cream of tomato soup (not diluted) .cover with buttered bread crumbs.. (or ritz crackers) and bake..till toasty on top

if any left over - you can have fried spaghetti next day - (fried in butter) !

[GTM]

@biondanonima,

The Wednesday spaghetti jingle you picked up possibly began as an advertising line for the Prince brand:

Wednesday is PRINCE SPAGHETTI day!

Maybe others will remember this too?

[Passadumkeg]

God! Mom was a great cook and took me to live Shakespeare performances at an early age. Gone 2 years now, at 93, spunky til the end. Mom I miss your stuffed veal roast, and vereschaka on "Pancake Tuesday".

[guilty]

I have more spaghetti stories . . .

My mother would make a spaghetti casserole of spaghetti, butter, LOTS of cheese, onions and garlic. Fatty and delicious.

My father would sometimes make spaghetti omelets. Only now do I realize that this might be unusual.

[Barbara76137]

OK, I confess, I also had a crush on Robert Conrad in Wild, Wild West :)

My mom is 76 and still a very good cook, but always overcooks vegetables. I'll have to remember some of her weird cooking.

[alkapal]

robert conrad.... <sigh>....

[mma800]

Just spent my entire day laughing and smiling at these 2 yrs worth of Mom's posts!! No regrets :) I also wondered what my 3 kids will say about my cooking!
I grew up outside of Boston, very Irish Catholic family. My mom had her own combination of meatloaf, American Chop Suey, pancakes for dinner, etc etc. She would always say she hated cooking but loved baking (though Pillsbury cans were her secret ingredient). All time WORST was her day after Thanksgiving......... TURKETTI

She would dice up leftover turkey meat and skin and mix it in a large stockpot with EVERY OTHER LEFTOVER. Stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, turnip, sweet potato, creamed onions, olives/celery from the relish tray, honey glazed carrots, that weird jello thing my Aunt makes with cranberry and Nilla wafers..... it all was brewed in the big pot until a foul smell permeated the house. That's when it was time to add 2 boxes of cooked spaghetti. My dad is the only one who could eat his portion and smile. No wonder I always signed up for overtime on Black Friday!
Now that I cook Thanksgiving dinner, I make sure I pack up enough leftovers for her to make
Turketti the next day. My dad always winks and says "Thanks a lot!" on his way out the door. Horrible food but wonderful parents!!

[alkapal]

that turketti makes the old turkey tetrazzini look like haute cuisine. the jello salad addition to the pot really got me!

~~~~
your dad really, really, really loves your mom! nice!

[mamachef]

In the early 80's, my mother got it together to home can some Albacore. She managed to do it without exploding anything and the tuna was actually pretty darn good. However - she read a recipe for tuna with orange-ginger sauce, and evidently didn't think substituting canned tuna for tuna STEAKS would be an issue. It was.

[ChristinaMason]

<she read a recipe for tuna with orange-ginger sauce, and evidently didn't think substituting canned tuna for tuna STEAKS would be an issue. It was.>

*shudder*

This reminds me of the time in childhood when I made snickerdoodles. My uncle assured me that it would be no problem substituting vegetable oil for softened butter. It was.

[mamachef]

I don't know why I never saw this, but I laughed out loud when I did. Oh god, what happened? Those must've been veddy veddy "interesting" cookies. Oh my. Were they edible? The tuna wasn't.

[hill food]

dang Alka, who would've thought this thread would go for over 2 years (just noticed the original date) doesn't feel that long.

[alkapal]

it is the gift that keeps on giving, hill food!

[weewah]

My mother was an excellent cook, but we traveled a lot. I can rememeber the chicken sandwiches served by the Middle Eastern airlines my dad worked for. Cold chicken on white bread, no salt or seasonings or ANYTHING else on those sandwiches except a generous smear of *butter*. Greasy & YUK.
And dairy was practically nonexistent in Saudi Arabia in the 60's & 70's. Powdered milk and canned Kraft cheese was what we had. I would eat a worm before I drank powdered milk!

[Deedine]

Those sandwiches Were revolting...And on the powdered milk.... Me Too! Weewah <3

[pikawicca]

Great yogurt and feta, though. I'm not a milk drinker, so I didn't feel deprived living in Riyadh in the early 70's.

[dekethedog]

My mother and father were married after he returned from WW II in 1945. Mom was 32 and lived with her German parents, two sisters and a brother-in-law. She was a concert pianist who worked as a choral accompanist in Peoria, IL. Shortly after my birth in 1946, we moved to my dad's family farm 60 miles east. Mom had hardly ever cooked in her life, and she was thrown into a completely new life of feeding her family and hungry farmhands. She must have been a natural, because she could cook some of the best country food I've ever eaten. Specialties were pork roast with boiled potatoes, gravy, sauerkraut, and noodles with toasted buttered crumbs; pan-fried (in lard) chicken with cream gravy, roast beef with brown gravy and mashed potatoes, real country fried round steak, and baked ribs and sauerkraut. Whenever Mom cooked sauerkraut, she always cooked some fat from the roast with it.

We were Catholic, and Friday night suppers were usually a special treat. Sometimes it was fried whole catfish and real french fries, or french fried smelt; sometimes spaghetti with mushroom sauce and homemade crunchy bread sticks; sometimes pan fried halibut, sometimes fried eggs and potatoes. Most of her frying was done in country lard, and with that lard she made flaky, delicious pie crusts. Her lemon meringue and coconut cream pies were something that I just can't duplicate. Mom made her own sweet butter from the two cows we kept, and there was always a pitcher of cream in the icebox. Our drink of choice was cold, rich whole Guernsey milk. When we made chocolate milk, you could see the clots of cream swimming around the top.

One of the our more unusual suppers was a large can of cold red salmon emptied into a bowl and doused with cider vinegar, accompanied by German fried potatoes, and a dish of cucumber and onion salad. Dad had some strange farm tastes, like rutabagas or turnips cooked to a mush, well done beef liver, and home canned rhubarb. Mom quickly learned that many of these foods caused some problems at the table with us kids, and quietly never served them again. Our "mayo" of choice was Miracle Whip (which I still use), store-bought pickles and jams were rare, and it seemed that Mom was canning and freezing food all summer. Peaches, apricots, bing cherries; green beans, tomatoes and sweet corn. Grape jelly from our own vines, and big sweet onions from the garden. We bought eggs with bright orange yolks from local farmers, and had our own pork butchered at the local locker. That included cured bacon, and sometimes mom fried uncured bacon. I was indeed blessed with a mother who could cook.

[alkapal]

sounds like you were blessed with a lot of good food and a loving mother who enjoyed making it for her family.

[hill food]

hey! that's not weird!

but makes me nostalgic for a country neighbor's Sunday dinners out in central Missouri. or my cousins family meals near Centralia Illinois. yes, some were odd by city kid standards, but still darn good.

[elismamie97864]

My mother was not a great cook- although she thought she was- I was in the 2nd grade and having dinner at a friend's house when I realized that food didn't have to be dry and mostly burnt.

[Breadcrumbs]

Oh my goodness, where to start!! I'll share two that were real standouts. My mother could bake but cooking was definitely not her thing. She came from England in the 60's so the only two "spices" we kept in our house were salt & pepper. When she purchased her first electric frying pan, there was no stopping her. Two specialties were:

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce: heat frying pan to highest possible temp and cook ground beef until bone dry. While meat is cooking, open one can of chef boy r d spaghetti with tomato sauce and rinse off all traces of sauce. Add (now soggy-er) noodles to charred meat. Mush noodles around so they are no longer than 1/2". Add one can of Ragu and boil. Serve over buttered toast.

Mustard "Pork": Heat electric frying pan to highest possible temperature. Add bacon fat. Add one can of spam, sliced. "Fry up" spam until crusty. Pour in about half a cup of bright yellow mustard and any leftover gravy you may have on hand. Add leftover boiled-to-death carrots or cabbage (or both if you're lucky). Boil and serve over unseasoned, lumpy, mashed potatoes.

[ChristinaMason]

you poor thing.

[LolaP]

holy moley. Why did she rinse the sauce off the canned spaghetti and then add the ragu back in?

[Breadcrumbs]

LOL Lola! I'm going to take a guess here, I think she felt the Ragu would make the dish more authentically Italian! You just can't imagine how mushy those noodles were in the end. I still gag thinking about it. All we could do was pray that there wouldn't be any leftovers!!!

[hill food]

wow. just wow Breadcrumbs.

I can understand the ingredients given the time and place she came from, but not the method.

[pikawicca]

Holy crap!

[miss_habibi]

Ooooo, I just remembered my mom's version of sloppy joes. I personally had never had neither sloppy joes nor liver.

Well, my mom's version was 1/3 liver, 2/3 beef, cottage cheese, grated carrots and ketchup, mustard, Worcesteshire sauce and I forget what else.

It was actually good!! Now when I make it, i don't use cottage cheese though lol. I find it highly unappealing and unnecessary..

[hill food]

I think that beats my mom's liver and swiss cheese pizza.

[alkapal]

my mom was always telling me that i needed
'iron". maybe she just couldn't recall adolescent malaise.

[ZenSojourner]

My mom actually almost never cooked in my memory (I started doing all the cooking at age 6) but she gave me what I now recognize as some pretty weird recipes. Spanish noodles was hamburger, onions, egg noodles, and condensed tomato soup. Sloppy joes was made from hamburger, onions, chili sauce, and catsup. There were some weird casserole dishes that I quickly forgot how to make as soon as I moved away from home that involved things like condensed mushroom soup, noodles, tuna, and peas, and other similarly shuddersome combinations.

My dad absolutely loved souse (also known as head cheese, and if you've ever seen a whole block of this you'd know why) and some kind of liver loaf thing that I can't remember for the life of me what its called, but it comes in a brick and you slice it and fry it. It's horrible! He also loved ham hocks in various kinds of soup. His family was of German descent (mostly) so anything that could be killed, ground up, and stuffed in a casing was called sausage and was considered delicious.

I'm not a sausage kinda gal, myself.

Ummm, they both loved liver and onions (bleah!).

My mom ate something called pimento cheese that came in a little glass jar. We would keep the jars and use them for juice glasses. I don't think I've seen this stuff in the grocery for over 20 years now, but honestly I haven't looked for it very hard. Or at all.

My mother went on a health food craze in the 70's and banned processed sugar and flour from the house, along with nearly everything else that tasted good. She made me cook with turbinado sugar and wheat germ. The only packaged cereal allowed in the house was Grape Nuts. A bowl of Grape Nuts with Turbinado sugar was like eating a bowl full of gravel with sand in the bottom That stuff wouldn't dissolve in anything short of hydrochloric acid. Forget baking with it, bleah!

Pot roast and corned beef were boiled to mush with carrots, onions and potatoes (for pot roast) and cabbage (with the corned beef) also boiled to mush. Hey, that's how my mother insisted it be cooked. It wasn't my idea, LOL!

While on the one hand I was making some fairly sophisticated dishes, I actually did not know you could make macaroni and cheese except from a blue box labeled "Kraft" until I was in college. I still have actually never made it from scratch. Recall that I cooked what my mother told me to cook - apparently she only liked Kraft Dinner (which meant macaroni and cheese in our house) and not from-scratch macaroni and cheese (although possibly SHE didn't know you could make it from scratch either, LOL!)

On one of the few occasions I can remember her stirring herself to do any cooking, she got a wild hair about organ meats. She was cooking kidneys - which smell absolutely horrible, I swear to god just like sewage or wet diapers, at least the way she was cooking them - when my younger brother came into the kitchen and asked what was for dinner. She said "Kidneys".

He got a horrified look on his face and said, "KID KNEES! What a HORRIBLE thing to do to a poor little kid!"

I grew up making jelly and jam and canning stuff from the garden. It was common in our household to scrape the mold off the top of a jar of jelly (we made it sealed with paraffin wax and sometimes the seal was less than perfect ant it would grow mold) and eat it anyway. Needless to say I throw things that are moldy away now, but til the day he died, my dad would, if he got the chance, just scrape the mold off and eat it anyway. That was not at all uncommon growing up in the depression, pre-electricity (and therefore pre-refrigeration), poor, as he did.

Every fried thing was either cooked in bacon grease, which was kept in a (cleaned out) coffee can on the back of the stove, or swimming in Crisco. I have to admit that to this day there are still things I prefer cooked in bacon grease, including fried eggs, scrambled eggs, and home fries or pan-fried potatoes of any sort.

We routinely ate scrambled egg sandwiches, a concotion that I can't tolerate at all now but loved as a child. The same goes for peanut butter mixed with maple syrup or dark karo syrup.

Something called "heavenly hash" which she loved and consisted, if I recall correctly (and I have made EVERY effort to forget the details of most of these recipes) mostly of whipped cream, marshmallows, mandarin oranges, and drained fruit cocktail.

"Bologna salad", you would run chub bologna through a meat grinder with whole kosher pickles and I forget what else, mix liberally with mayonaisse, and slap it on bread and pretend its an edible sandwich. Personally I could never pretend hard enough.

There were a TON of horrible casserole recipes that called for cream of mushroom soup, and/or condensed or evaporated milk, Durkee fried onions, egg noodles, velveeta (which in my book doesn't even qualify as a food-like substance). I avoided actually making any of these culinary horrors by trying to come up with recipes that looked like they might be at least slightly edible and just ignoring casserole suggestions from the parental units. Sometimes I got specific orders to make one of these and was forced to do it anyway. Bleah!

[alkapal]

wow, you sure have some winners, there! ;-).

the oddest thing to me was this: >>>"""On one of the few occasions I can remember her stirring herself to do any cooking, she got a wild hair about organ meats."""<<<

of all things! that's just offal!

[ZenSojourner]

LOL! It's a good thing I wasn't eating or drinking anything when I read that. Otherwise my poor netbook would have suffered the indignity of having partially masticated food items sprayed all over it.

[ZenSojourner]

We once had a fatal error with the bologna salad. My younger brother was absolutely fascinated with the meat grinder and wanted to grind the stuff up. So, I let him.

Have you ever seen chub bologna? It comes with some kind of a waxy-papery-plastic-y red outer covering.

Guess what he didn't peel off before grinding the bologna?

[QueenOfTheSlipstream]

The bit about Grape Nuts actually made me laugh out loud. You should write your memoirs- sounds like they'd be hilarious. :)

[ZenSojourner]

Why thank you! Isn't it funny how things that made us cringe in horror at the time seem hilarious in retrospect?

I've thought about writing a memoir at times, but I'm pretty sure if it was truthful, the siblings would sue me!

[alkapal]

oh, just change the names to protect the guilty. they'll never notice.

and add some disclaimer about the characters not being based on any real life people.

oh, another tip: don't call it a "memoir."

[ZenSojourner]

LOL! That'd probably be the only way I could pull it off. I'd have to go into hiding like Salman Rushdie otherwise.

[alkapal]

and for that level of security, you might consider the witness protection program or plastic surgery.

[shoop]

I grew up in the rural midwest, and my mom certainly paid homage to that "genre" of cooking. I think I've eaten every possible variation on meat and potatoes, and literally hundreds (if not thousands) of casseroles. A few standouts:
- Cheeseburger casserole: This must've been a quiche crust, filled with ground beef and sauteed with onions, ketchup, and covered in a very thick layer of melted Colby-Jack.
- Chicken chalupas (or so we called them): Boiled chicken mixed with cream of chicken soup and cream cheese, wrapped in tortillas with onions, again topped with a mass of melted Colby-Jack
- Baked beans: A big glass jar of Great Northern beans, mixed with a package of cut up bacon, nearly a cup of brown sugar, an onion, and a green apple (my aunt claimed this made them gas-free, haha!)
- And finally, with every single meal, a salad of shredded iceberg lettuce, chopped tomatoes, and five different varieties of salad dressing set out on the table (always including Ranch, French, and Italian); a loaf of homemade white bread; and dessert.

Until I moved away, I never recognized or appreciated my good metabolism. Years later, my parents helped me move into a tiny studio apartment in NYC, and while I unpacked, my mom went to the grocery store to get me a starter batch of groceries, just enough supplies to last me my first week. She brought home a loaf of bread, some meat, a half-gallon of milk, and... a box of 12 sticks of butter. I toted that box of butter with me from home to home for the next few years, I think, but my mom's perception of that as just enough to get me started always makes me laugh (and certainly illustrates the food philosophy I grew up on!).

[LaPomme]

Ironically, my mother always complained about what a horrible cook *her* mother was, and prided herself on making better food than her mother. I guess partly, it's not her fault she didn't know how to cook, and she was anything but an adventurous eater.

She only made about a dozen different meals. She hardly ever cut up a vegetable other than iceberg lettuce or a tomato. Everything was cooked with a healthy slice of margarine. Never saw her buy a head of garlic or use any seasoning other than table salt. The only vegetables she served (corn, peas, green beans) came from a can or from the freezer.

So here are the dishes that I grew up on:

Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese with canned chile
"Stew" consisting of chunks of beef, onions, potatoes in a watery ketchup sauce
Macaroni casserole made with Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese, sour cream, onions, and ground beef
Scalloped potatoes made with a flour, margarine and sour cream paste. (It took me a while to realize there should be cheese in there.)
Spaghetti made with Ragu and baked with huge slices of cheddar cheese on top
Meatball stew, in which beef meat balls, carrots and potatoes were boiled in canned gravy

Cakes and brownies came from a box. Chef Boyardee Spaghetti and Meatballs was a special occasion treat. Later, when I was in my late teens, she prided herself on her fajitas, which came from a bag in the freezer section, and to which she simply added chicken and sour cream.

[Bigley9]

Whenever we had stuffing we had to have stewed tomatoes served over top, no gravy. My dad called it Irish pizza. No idea where it came from

[miss_habibi]

Hahaha I loved reading these posts, although some made me quite nauseous... My family wasn'T rich but thankfully, my mom was kind of health obsessed. Also, crunch obsessed.

- She would add sunflower seeds (shelled, thank god) and nacho crumbs in Kraft Dinner;
-Tofu lasagna: layer firm tofu, pizza sauce, and cheese. Repeat. Bake. Enjoy. It was actually good and still comfort food today;
- Oatmeal or Cream of wheat porridge as a Sunday treat: way to make us think we were getting spoiled!;

I'll try and think of more!

[hannahmontana]

My dad made "tuna noodle casserole": spaghetti, canned tuna, cottage cheese, and peas. All mixed together. That's it.

[jett1001]

Mom made many things on a budget to feed 6 kids ... My favorite was her "sukiyaki" with Minute rice ... When I first ordered sukiyaki at a restaurant, I sent it back thinking they gave me the wrong dish as it wasn't sliced celery, watery beef broth and a few canned bean sprouts ... Other than that anything that could be made with mushroom or tomato soup was dinner ... imagine thinking pizza was Wonder bread with tomato soup and a slice of American cheese melted on it ... better yet (and even with a more sophisticated palate) I still dream of what we called American Spaghetti ... spaghetti, tomato soup and some weird dried bright orange American Cheese powder that I understand they don't make any more ... There was always the Friday special of tuna in mushroom soup with canned peas over Minute rice .... Mom called it tuna casserole, we had many other names for it ...

[jimant60]

I've been reading these posts and just thought I'd mention this one. talk about strange tastes. My grandfather had oatmeal every morning as long as I can remember. grandma would make it then put it in a bowl and stick it in the freezer. lo.l I asked my mom why? She said cause your grandpa won't eat warm oatmeal. It has to be cold.

[jimant60]

Yes Jett, We were always having food that was economical. Never had good steaks very often, usually was round or chuck. occasionally T-bones, very rarely though. We were a white family in predominately Hispanic area while growing up. School was 99 % Hispanic. This recipe was a favorite for us. Canned refried beans, boiled potatoes and flour tortillas. Heat the beans and add the potatoes(chunked) in with the beans. Heat through. Then take the tortillas and warm them in a skillet. Spread thin layer of bean mixture over the tortillas. Eat with fork or hold in hand. Don't roll it though. I guess it could be called an open-faced bean burrito today. Then they called it bean tortillas. That was in the mid 1950's.
We loved those.

[jenscats5]

I have never heard of anyone else ever mentioning "sukiyaki" before!! My mother made the same thing - watery beef broth with sliced onion & celery with beef & served with spaghetti. No clue where that came from, but I found it very interesting you mentioned it.

[CathL]

my mum was experimenting, and paraded into the dining roomn with what looked like a severed head! in fact it was a cabbage stuffed with mince and tomato sauce,leaking out the top.
foul!!
we have never let her forget the incident of the severed head! YUK

[Isoldamay]

My mother made something very much like your "sukiyaki." The real thing is tasty, but my mother's version was a salty mess of ground beef, green bell peppers, onions, sprouts, the water broth and lots and lots of soy sauce, all over that strangely-acidic tasting Minute rice. All three of my brothers and I recall it as the most repulsive meal of our childhood. The soy-laden green peppers were so traumatic that it was years before I could eat green peppers in anything.

[alkapal]

chun king sukiyaki mix http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19650211&id=KkMJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=gUkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=887,2457253

~~~~~
chun king's creator was italian! i love america!!!
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g1epc/is_tov/ai_2419100249/

a 1962 time article re chun king: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/art...

[howboy]

My partner's cousin once treated us to her famous microwave pork chops for a special dinner. It wasn't a weird combo or anything, but it was quite an experience. It was like Flubber. It defied mastication.

[The Professor]

Not surprised...microwaves are great for maybe doing bacon and certainly great for reheating foods, and occasionally for quick popcorn (although stovetop is so much better) ...maybe for quasi nachos as well....but for cooking stuff in general, the microwave is, well...bleccchhhh.

[hill food]

agreed - a steamer basket on the range and a toaster/convection oven are just as good and even more versatile used in tandem. although I must dispute the bacon idea even with the special tray - needs the char of a fry or broil.

[buttertart]

Our bacon-mad cat of happy memory wouldn't eat bacon that had been microwaved. Makes you think.

[alanbarnes]

It's another post (or several) for sure, but the microwave, properly used for the right applications, is a great cooking tool.

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/390268
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/464400
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/505258
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/679406
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/din...

[Memily_G]

Oh, and my mom also did hamburger helper and the variation packs (tuna noodle helper, etc.) And we LOVED it.

[Memily_G]

My mom used to give me and my brother "peanut butter lollipops" as a snack. Take a table spoon, scoop out a large lump of peanut butter, give it to your children to lick.

[susanpmccoy]

Loved this thread! So many happy memories! Mom use to make all the dishes that have been mentioned so many times--as long as it contained campbell's mushroom soup-it was "good eats!" But she had one that hasn't been mentioned : Special K cottage cheese loaf...awful stuff! I used to dread coming home and smelling this.
But one thing in her defense was that she did not overcook veggies, like so many of you mentioned. She cooked them longer than I like, but her broccoli, etc was still green.

[julesincoq]

My Mum is a good cook but I'm always suspicous of her ingredients. Everything she finds in the fridge is "perfectly good". She cuts the mould of anything that has gone bad and uses it anyway. Even if jam had not sealed, she would scrape the fuzz off it and use it anyway. Oddly we were never sick.

My mother in law was another story. Peanut butter and banana sandwiches...with Miracle Whip! Blech!! She has also been known to use up leftover COOKED vegetables in a salad. As she always boiled the heck out of all veggies the smushy gunk in salad was horrible.

[weewah]

Oh boy, your Mom & my Grandma!
I routinely recieved dinner invitations from Grandma where she stated 'if you don't come over by tomorrow I'll have to throw this away'. Oh horrors. I don't know how I made myself -and my kids - endure those dinners for years. That is love, I guess.
I knew that if it were intimated that there may be something not quite up to par with the food there would have been some serious anger on her part. Very old fashioned lady who grew up poor enough to be hungry throughout her childhood.

I've seen Grandma scoop the mold out of jars and feed the oblivious men at the table the rest of the contents of the jar. But the worst thing I ever saw in her kitchen was the time my two kids and my niece were seated at table and she and I were serving up the lunch she'd made, to them. There were oven baked fries and Grandma said that the ketchup was in the CUPBOARD. I was suprised at the ketchup being in the cupboard, but was truly stunned when I squeezed out a pile of MAGGOTS onto my 4 year old daughters plate! Well, she had re-bottled the ketchup into one of those red plastic squeeze bottles with the plastic tip of the spout cut right off. The kids eyes were big as eggs, but I wiped up the mess with a paper towel while Grandma was at the stove with her back to us. I asked the kids 'does anyone else want ketchup?' and got a unanimous 'no thank you'! My daughter is 19 now and the whole family still laughs about that.
She is gone though. Poor old Grandma!

[dimsum41]

I think this has been mentioned somewhere on these boards before, but my mum was one of the weirdos who used to put sugar on iceberg lettuce. Whole leaves of lettuce, thinly coated in mayonnaise and then dredged in granulated sugar. I loved it at the time, but looking back it does seem a bit weird. No idea where she got that one from.

See also - toasted cheese and banana sandwiches. I loved them as a kid, and would probably still love them now, but my husband finds the idea repellent. I might make them for him and see if I can change his mind.

My mum is still quite a weird eater. She doesn't really cook a great deal (thankfully) but for breakfast she likes to eat toast with Marmite AND jam/jelly. I guess those of you in the States etc won't have tasted Marmite, but for those who have - gross or what?!

[hill food]

marmite and jam - odd, but not terribly weird, I think I'd prefer that over just marmite..

we also used to get served a "layered" salad similar to your mom's but with parmesan cheese (freeze dried powder variety) bacon bits and raw broccoli mixed in with the sugar. I think it must have been something viral in the late 70's.

[buttertart]

That was big in rural sw Ontario too (may well still be, I just haven't been back in a long time). Frozen peas for color.

[shoop]

And in rural Michigan as well! It was seven-layer salad with broccoli, bacon bits, onions, mayo (of course!) and apparently three other ingredients. :)

[hill food]

oh yeah, cauliflower also played a sinister role

[weewah]

I forgot about lettuce and sugar : ) A huge treat for me as a small child in the early '70's was to sit with Grandpa and eat fresh washed lettuce, just out of the garden, sprinkled with sugar! Mom did not approve but she allowed it as she saw how much it pleased her Dad to share w/ me... sigh

[mamachef]

I've heard of folks eating their iceberg with vinegar and sugar and pepper; no oil, just cold. Hmmm. I think I might like it.

[Aislyn]

My husband's late mother (German) used to put both sugar and vinegar on leaves of lettuce and then put it in the freezer until it formed ice! I thought this was the strangest thing I had ever heard until he made it for me one hot summer day - surprisingly tasty and refreshing! Who knew?

[mamachef]

That's a trip!! I've NEVER heard of that!

[robyn76]

Looks like this thread has been going for a long time, but wanted to throw my 2 cents in...

My grandmother had a recipe called Christmas Spaghetti. It has a tomato sauce with pine nuts and raisins (I'm not sure what else is in there). It can be eaten hot or cold - some prefer it straight out of the fridge. My family is divided between those that love this dish and those that don't. The majority of us cannot stomach it, but my mother makes it for all the major holidays for the 3 people that do enjoy it.

We looked through a bunch of Italian cookbooks trying to see where this originated from, but haven't found anything resembling it.

[buttertart]

Is your background Sicilian? Pine nuts and raisins are in a lot of Sicilian dishes.

[coll]

Or Neopolitan?
http://events.nytimes.com/recipes/870...

[hill food]

or even Spanish influence, there's a great recipe out there for spinach with pine nuts and raisins baked under a mild white cheese.

my guess is any country with some sort of trade with Northern Africa.

[DetectDave]

Hill food, I am from STL on the east side and wanted to tell ya I saw chili bricks at Switzer food supply last week in Belleville.

[hill food]

Dave I'm returning to STL soon for good. so thanks for the tip, sadly they don't seem to have a website.

[robyn76]

Definitely Italian, but the Sicilian link is on my other side of the family. Now that I think of it, the recipe doesn't call for raisins. It actually calls for GREEN OLIVES, pine nuts, tomato sauce and spaghetti.

[Pharah]

My mum is a pretty good cook, and my dad's cooking is okay except when he does a stir-fry. He is the only person I know who can make a veggie stir-fry and get ALL the chili peppers stuck in the broccoli florets so when you bite into a broccoli floret it's like chewing on a whole chili pepper.

My grandma always made lasagna with cottage cheese and hard boiled egg in it. I don't like lasagna without the egg now.
They also used to make a "boiled dinner" which my dad used to make also, before we became vegetarians. It was a chunk of cured meat, ham, cottage roll, or corned beef, boiled for an hour or more, and then cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and rutabaga were thrown in and also boiled for ages, then served with mustard. I think it's something traditional in Nova Scotia, where they are from.
We used to have fish&chips every friday and a roast on Sunday(again, before we were vegetarian). My dad used to take me out to Dim Sum all the time, and that is one thing I really miss, we haven't been to Dim Sum since I became a vegetarian. That's not really my mum's cooking, but it is something no one else I knew did.

My mother-in-law and father-in-law cook some of the most horrible stuff. They really live up to that stereo-type that people from England eat terrible food.
My father-in-law's roast dinner is a piece of overcooked meat of some sort(usually turkey), frozen vegetables that he starts boiling about 5 hours before the meal and turn into whitey-greyish foul muck, potatoes that are boiled then roasted with no seasonings at all (They always have this rock-hard shell on the outside and are mush on the inside), and "gravy" that is just Bisto and water in a ratio of about 1:8 so it's basically just water tinted with a bit of Bisto. Yuck. I try to get out of these roast dinner whenever I can.

My mother-in-law's favourite thing to cook is macaroni with veggies, stewed tomatoes, baked beans, kidney beans and cheese grated on top. I'm not a big fan of this, but my hubby likes it after he dumps every seasoning we've got on it.

Something hubby used to eat as a kid was deep-fried spam and chips(French fries), and a Savaloy and chips.
I think his parents fit into this thread better than mine.

[Sam Fujisaka]

Bisto: "Browns, Seasons and Thickens in One". Introduced in 1979 in the UK.

[buttertart]

Gotcha Sam, the granules maybe, but it was around much earlier than that even in Canada (I remember it from my early childhood, as something my family scorned).

[tenacity]

This is one of my most favorite threads, ever! *grin*

My mom generally was OK - her lasagna was delicious even though it had cottage cheese in it. Other "oddities" (though not as impressive as some of the stuff here!!!):

Cherry Cheesecake - my favorite dessert for many years. I only found out later that real cheesecake is baked, when I heard this I thought, "but it would MELT!". My mom's cheesecake filling was a mixture of cool whip and cream cheese. Teeth-aching sweet.

Cherry Chocolate cake - just a box of chocolate cake mix with a can of cherry pie filling added - the cherry flavor was inbeued in the cake and the cherries themselves sank to the bottom for a moist treat.

How about my dad? He could make some interesting stuff:

meatloaf-stuffed green peppers that forever made me hate cooked bell peppers - icky and bitter (though I love bitter melon now)

"pigs in a blanket" - pounded out chuck wrapped with bacon, except the chuck got tough and the bacon was mushy and fatty.

Oh, and the idea of building flavor through sauteeing, fat, heat, etc - not employed. Every single one-pot meal was started with a pot of water. THEN the aromatics were added to the cold water before the stove even started.

The fact that I can still eat canned mushrooms is amazing, however. :-)

Andrea
http://dukecityfood.com

[foiegras]

Just wanted to say that this thread has inspired me to try my hand at midwestern 'goulash' ... my mother despised the misuse of the term, and didn't make it, but I certainly had plenty at church suppers.

I seem to recall that the goulash of my youth had cheese in it (and occasionally odd assorted vegetables like corn, but I think I'll skip that ...) I'm challenging myself to make it really good purely with seasonings. I have to get some macaroni ... the fancy pastas in the cupboard simply won't do! (But it's going to be Italian macaroni, LOL, and don't tell me that's cheating ...)

[doughartyc]

my mom was a great cook....for the 60s, when everything was related to Kraft products. My least favorite was this disgusting salad she made all the time: lime jello with prepackaged coleslaw mix on it, served with a dollop of mayo! why oh why???
my grandmas weird sister 'aunt gert' was NOTORIOUS in our family for her cakes. somewhere she came up with oversized cake pans that took a whole box of mix per pan. then she would ice it up, and top it with coconut, choc chips, jujubes, sprinkles, colored sugar etc. she was a pistol--a former burlesque dancer who ballooned up to 300 lbs and always wore a boa. Ya gotta love that. All my family is gone now, but all my friends know just what i mean when i say=reminds me of an aunt gert cake! my grandmas legacy that i still crave on occasion is a peanut butter and pickle sandwich. gotta be chunky peanut butter, and bread and butter pickles on toasted bread---delicious!

[buttertart]

Great story. Everybody should have an Aunt Gert. Mine was an Aunt Erie. Not a former stripper (but a bit of a goer, was a divorcée in the 1930s) and also a creative cook!

[mandycat]

Since my mother was a very good cook, whenever we had steak for dinner she made a classic and from-scratch Caesar salad -- garlic rubbed croutons, anchovies, raw egg, the works. Not so weird except that she always made a very large bowl of it so that after everyone was safely out of the house the next morning she could enjoy a late breakfast of cold steak and leftover salad. She liked the salad wilted as much as fresh but I think she set aside some of croutons the night before so they’d still have their crunch.

[_nemo_]

Oh, cream cheese and jelly sandwiches! I'm going to have to have one this weekend. I loved them lots more than PB&J.
My mom was a great cook but she would make this one dish she called Polish Spaghetti. It was spaghetti baked with green peppers (ugh), tomato juice or tomato soup, I can't remember which, some american cheese and sauteed ground beef or little meatballs. I would smell that cooking and just want to cry, it was awful. I probably wouldn't have hated it so much if the green peppers weren't included.

[EWSflash]

Mandycat, that sounds like heaven to me!
My mom's culinary epiphany happened when she moved from small-town Illinois to LA. Her first Caesar salad was something she never forgot, although oddly enough, as much trouble as she went to to put great meals together, she never made a Caesar herself. It wasn't until I read your post that it occurred to me to wonder why not. Hmm.

[Emmie9999]

New to the forums, hello all!

My mother used to make corned beef hash that I thought was absolutely delicious. I forget when I noticed that every single ingredient, no matter what else was in the house, came from a can or a jar. I think it was when I was sent to the basement pantry one day for a can of potatoes, and remembered on my way back up the stairs that we had just bought a five pound bag of potatoes that day. All four of my grandparents were from Ireland, so although corned beef is more an American dish, the potatoes should have been a no-brainer, or a chopped onion (we bought those that day too)...but no, canned beef and potatoes, onion powder, salt and pepper. I must admit, when I had hash made with "real" corned beef and veggies, it tasted very strange. (delicious, but strange.)

A friend of mine when I was about four told my mother about peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches. We tried them...and ate them for months like that. I can't bring myself to try them again now. One day I will tell my mom about putting peanut butter on bread and topping it with whipped cream...yummmmm!

My husband's family talks about something called "mince", which I finally found out was small chopped onion, carrot and celery fried with ground beef. A year or two ago I found a recipe in a book by Frances Mayer for using old soup vegetables: chop the celery, carrots, and onion very fine, add a bit of garlic and parsely, saute in olive oil and serve it over spaghetti. My DH and I loved it, but when we told his family about it we got squeals. "EWWWWW! Mince is bad enough, but that is mince with no meat! ICK!!!!" I had to laugh at their reaction, it was just too funny.

Emmie

[Andria]

My mom makes her super-secret-easy-to-make-apple/biscotti/custard friendship cake for every special occasion. I haven't had any other birthday cake in years! In fact I would feel guilty suggesting anything else. Check out how she makes it here:

http://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com/2...

[alkapal]

padre pepe and stories of induced vomiting? hmmmm. well...the cakes sounded good.

ps your avatar reminds me of tim's "hidden" neighbor, wilson, on "home improvement."

[melanemac]

I feed my son cream cheese and jelly sandwiches. He is allergic to peanut butter and just doesn't really like the texture of nut butters.

I remember growing up eating saltines with mayonnaise for a snack or peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches.
My aunt used to burn her sausage gravy, so we would eat biscuits and gravy with ketchup on top...I think my bap-paw started that tradition.

My husband's mom wasn't a cook; needless to say there were some interesting substitutions, such as the time she ran out of sour cream and used strawberry yogurt in the cornbread.

[SpudPal]

I love this thread. My mom didn't cook much. Her version of spaghetti and meat sauce: overbrowned ground beef and a jar of Ragu. Also, she used to make me peanut butter and jelly French toast served with pancake syrup. It was kinda gross, kinda delicious. I may have given her the recipe from my WhimWham kids' activity and folklore book.

[hill food]

NOOO!!

she changed her meatloaf method - no more round baking bowl, no more range of crusty to raw. actually puts ketchup and flavor on the top...

my childhood is forever lost.

[EWSflash]

At some point in the early '70s my mom started smoking pot- after that her cooking changed for the worse at times. Like the mac and cheese she made by putting down a layer of cooked macaroni, pouring some cream over it, layering it with sliced tomatoes, and puting the cheese on top. Bake a while and serve with the macaroni sitting in watery pink cream and not one single shred of cheese anywhere on the pasta, which by then was soggy and overcooked. She made it over and over again, too. Must have hit a munchie button with her because she was the only one who liked it.

The meatballs, on the other hand, were fabulous- about 1" across and there were millions of them, although dinner would often be late due to the complexity of forming all those meatballs.

[jeanmarieok]

EWS - HI-gh larious post!

[hill food]

in the 80's I also indulged and that sounds like something I would have loved (when not sidetracked by odd things in the spice cabinet or that pesky door that needs fixing and darnit, wait oh yeah, that sounds good)

[Reed422]

My mom used to make pizza on white bread with american cheese and for pepperoni she would use salami.

[The Professor]

Salami is great on pizza.
After all, pepperoni is basically just another type of uncooked salami sausage anyhow....so it's all good.

[BamiaWruz]

Not my mom's, but my mother's story about her mother's waffle soup (leftover waffles cut into strips and thrown into soup/broth the next day) she always hated this dish.

My grandmother was the type to throw together some strange things. Sometimes good and sometimes not.

[EWSflash]

That really sounds strange to me.

The lady across the street used to make chili by cooking ground beef in Campbell's tomato soup. She was from Delaware, not Texas in case you hadn't guessed. Heck of a baker, though.

[BamiaWruz]

I recently heard that my grandma's mother in germany used to make the flat German pancakes and dry the leftovers out after cutting in thin strips (ie. tortilla soup?) then add them into a broth.
I figure this is where she probably got the idea for the leftover waffles in soup the next day but no one in the family looked forward to it.

[ChristinaMason]

What you're describing is a German dish called Frittatensuppe or Pfannekuchensuppe, which is actually pretty widespread in Bavaria and throughout Austria. It's beef consommé with thinly sliced crepes floating in it. It's delicious! Here's a photo: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid...

[sue423]

I appreciate much more all of the efforts my Mom made with cooking. I didn't believe that we had an ethic influence with our food but apparently she did some of the standard Lutheran Church influenced meals. She also must have lived in the south in a previous life. Homemade Fried chicken, french fries and a whole loaf of wheat toast is probably our all-time favorite. The more unusual was her corned beef casserole, which I absolutely love and my brother in law finds absolutely horrendous! One can corned beef, half a block of velveeta, can of cream of mushroom soup, and egg noodles topped off with potato chips for crunch! We also crave the homemade donuts she would make for us. Thanks for the blog -

[dkennedy]

I am only 1/3 of the way through reading, but I felt compelled to jump ahead to post, this is a very fun thread!!! I am feeling very grateful at this point that my mother did not make a lot of the dishes lamented over by other readers.

Here are some of her quirky dishes that I remember fondly:
Velveta cheese on toast (especially when I was sick)
Date nut bread on cream cheese
Chicken with 1890 sauce (as in the salad dressing)
Peanut butter chicken (don't ask, it was nasty!!)
Salmon cakes (I did not like these)
Keftes (jewish meatballs)
Borekas (savory pastries filled with spinach or potatoes)
Tons of jello (yuk)
Wonderful, elaborate, deli sandwiches

[Bigley9]

how were her Borekas - if you liked them I am jealous!

[dkennedy]

Delish! I think the ones I ate growing up were made by 2nd cousins and unrelated "Aunts" that were somehow connected to my family, only 700 times removed. My strongest memory associated with these pastries involves taking them on road trips and letting them heat up by placing them on the dash board with the sun beating down. May sound gross, but they were sooooo good!

[alkapal]

dk -- """Date nut bread on cream cheese"""

that's how i like to eat it, too! ;-). (i.e., lots of cream cheese on the bread). that was a signature baked item i made in high school. i wonder if i still have the recipe? hmmm.

[MandalayVA]

My mom was hugely fond of simmering meats in Campbell's cream of mushroom soup mixed with Lipton's dried onion soup mix, something my siblings and I still do (mm, pork chops). Overall she was a good cook--she made spaghetti sauce our Italian neighbors went insane for and half the neighborhood kids found a way to our house for dinner when she made fried chicken--but she did have a couple misses. She would make chicken or shrimp curry from a recipe that only called for 1/8 teaspoon of curry powder and serve it on top of white rice. Not attractive. Then there was the time she made homemade ravioli ... and stuffed them with salami. They were awful, even the dog wouldn't eat them. I was five years old at the time and I can still remember thirty-eight years later how disgusting they were. Mom's been gone for thirty years but if there's an afterlife I'm sure she's up there pissed off that we still tell the ravioli story!

[hill food]

like

[weewah]

That sounds like my Mom. She'd try an "exotic" (read: gross) recipe & then get pissed 'cause no-one liked it! We used to jump up and down when dad got to cook.
Every kid in the neighborhood would show up at our house for her pizza or doughnuts, though. Couldn't beat 'em. I guess your memory struck a nerve as she's been gone 30 years... Thanks for refreshing my memory : )

[kitINstLOUIS]

Okay, I'm from St. Louis and I don't think anyone else has posted this way of making chili because I actually did a search for the phrase "chili brick" and didn't find it here. My mom wouldn't know cumin from cinnamon so she got all her chili spices from something frozen called "chili brick." Chili brick was complete with fat and meat and some tomato sauces, so theoretically, you just added beans. Thankfully, my mom also added a pound of ground beef, and used Brook's Chili Hot beans (which I haven't been successful at finding everywhere in the country). No onions, no garlic...and the gristle from the chili brick made you wonder whether you were chewing little erasers. I think Wendy's introduced me to more proper chili and I learned to make REAL chili with beans from scratch myself.

My poor mother would make the most awful 50s style convenience food you can imagine. Creamed beef on toast (again, no onions!), beef stew without herbs or extra broth flavored with ketchup, and of course, vegetables would be boiled into near-paste.

[The Professor]

Sounds dreadful, except for creamed beef on toast...nothing at all wrong with that. It's a great, tasty dish if it's made right.

[alkapal]

yep, sometimes i get a craving for the creamed beef on toast....
it's a comfort food.

[hill food]

I'm from STL and I have never heard of this - where did your mom find the brick? our version was just sort of a watery chili broth. which we had the other night (I'm back in the fold of the Motherlode thru mid December and may have to share more recipes) and believe me I understand the fear of spice. the fewer the better, they're just decorative for the shelf, right?

it was soft taco night Thursday and I found (relatively) dirt cheap avocados at MACE (79/ea. vs. a dollar or more back in DC) for fresh guac, which confused the heck out of them, but they went back for seconds.

[Teri Davis Newman]

My mother couldn't cook worth a flip but my Dad is a great southern cook! Country fried steak with cream gravy and mashed potatoes, a good rare steak and my favorite which was pre-buttered biscuits. Dad would make biscuits and as soon as he pulled them out of the oven he would tear them open and toss in a pat of butter and slam the biscuit shut. When we ate them, they were warm with drippy melted butter oozing out of them--and I got in the habit of doing the same thing with my husband and his kids, so "pre-buttered" biscuits are a tradition. Dad taught me how to cook the basics and my mother's mother was a GREAT cook and I have her cookbook with recipes written in her hand. The funniest thing is that I got a book called "The Best Recipes From the Backs of Cans, Bottles and Jars" and it's hilarious how many of them are in my grandma's handwriting in her book! I guess she copied in the ones she tried and liked! When my cousin called me for Grandma's chocolate chip cookie recipe, she told me that grandma had told her that she used the one on the toll house chip bag but that my cousin didn't believe that was the recipe. I had to burst her bubble--it was EXACTLY the recipe Grandma used! LOL

[ChristinaMason]

:)

[hill food]

sweet. I know some think we're being snobs, but I get an overwhelming feel of affection.

[Chinamerican]

Good gravy, I love reading about what people eat since I'm a 2nd gen Chinese immigrant that ate mostly Chinese food growing up.

My father played many roles in the restaurant industry in NYC, as did his brothers in the late 70s, 80s, and into the 90s so he LOVED to cook. My mother was decent but I really didn't like her cooking much. Some of my least favourite things included:

1) Homemade dumplings - I think she used only pork in them and didn't spice them enough. The skins were also WAY too thick, probably due to the fact she didn't have a proper, weighted rolling pin. The result was a bland, scratchy meat pocket in soy sauce. It wasn't until later in life that we all discovered better alternatives for dipping (e.g. maggi, black vinegar, etc.).

2) Elbow macaroni in chicken broth - my brother loved this to the point, that when he was about 4, he grabbed a hot bowl of it and gave himself severe burns to his nether regions. Again, it was usually strips of dry scratchy pork that was not marinated well. You'd think I'd have an aversion to pork right now but I don't. Macaroni elbows in broth is actually a popular thing among Cantonese/HK-ers I believe b/c she'd order that for me at Chinese cafes and I still disliked it.

3) Spaghetti in meat sauce - not that I have a problem w/ this b/c I learned to make it on my own but Cantonese people seem to really hate sour tastes (e.g. tomatoes, sour candy). The obvious solution to this adding sugar to counteract the acidity but it didn't sit right in the jar sauce we got. They would make the meat, drain it of oil, then dump a jar of sauce in there with a few heaping spoonfuls of sugar.

4) Steamed cake - my mother couldn't bake. I'm not quite sure she knows how to operate an oven actually. This did not stop her from making a horrible, dry, tasteless yellow cake in a shallow dish by steaming it in a wok. I don't think it had any yeast in it since it didn't rise much but I do remember her mentioning baking powder. It was more like rough peasant bread made with bourgie ingredients than actual cake.

One weird thing we did do in our family, which I absolutely love to this day, is spreading condensed milk on toast. I think it was because we would open a can of it to make milk tea but we could only drink so much of it. It has to be on white bread since my parents refuse to eat wheat bread (it reminds them too much of when they were poor). Sometimes I get another slice and spread Yeo's brand coconut jam (it's bright orange and comes out of a can) and make a sandwich out of it.

I don't know if it's an east coast thing but I've eaten bagels with cream cheese and jam/jelly. It sounds very much like a variation on Russian blini/crepes with sour cream and raspberry jam (seeds in please!).

[Andria]

We also do the bagel/cream cheese/jam combo. But, the very best way to combine cream cheese & jam is on thick sliced bread, then dip the sandwich in French toast batter & fry!

[Bigley9]

We'd have cream cheese and jelly on bagels or white bread , and at "Happy Hour" on Sundays we kids would have cream cheese and jelly on crackers as our hors d'oeuvers (with cranberry juice "wine" in little apperitif glasses)

[biondanonima]

Funny that you mention condensed milk on toast. I remember when I was a kid, I went to girl scout camp, and one of the fun campfire things we made (in addition to smores and such) was thick cubes of white bread, soaked in (slightly thinned) sweetened condensed milk, skewered and roasted over the fire. Totally random but DELICIOUS.

[foiegras]

Campfire Girls made something similar that was fabulous when you were outside and starving ... hot dog buns halved and soaked in condensed milk, rolled in sweet coconut and roasted over the fire.

[Meann]

A can of sweetened condensed milk, plopped into a pot of boiling water and allowed to caramelize over hours. Then spread on saltines. My mother's idea of cheap luxury.

She was right.

[ChristinaMason]

dulce de leche. :) i hope she cut vents in the top of the can!

[FriedClamFanatic]

No NO!..No vents..but make sure you keep at least an inch of water over the can while you boil it! It actually is quite good as Dulce de leche, provided you watch it

[Andria]

Both my parents were great cooks, but looking back now, I have to wonder... what were they thinking?

School days, we came down for breakfast where Dad had placed three chocolate chips in a bowl and poured milk over top. By the time we got there, the cookies were soft enough to stir into a porridge-like consistency.

The morning after slumber parties, my friends were treated to our family's Sunday breakfast special: fried hamburgers with fried onions... and the buns had to be buttered and fired too. Imagine my horror when I went to other girls homes and their parents served us eggs, toast, and that dreaded full glass of whole milk.

While other kids brought bologna or ham sandwiches to school, my brother and I had smoked oysters and mayo on slightly toasted white bread.

Toasted peanut butter and melted butter sandwiches still bring me back to my youth.

[hill food]

I'm again jealous!

[Andria]

Was it the cookie porridge or the greasy burgers for breakfast? Perhaps you are envious of my smelly school lunch?

[nomadchowwoman]

What a walk down memory lane! While I consider my mom a terrific cook, especially of Italian dishes, but lots of other things as well, this thread reminds me that she was indeed a product of her generation (married late 50s, raising kids in 60s & 70s)--and not the part that was trying to "Master the Art of French Cooking" with Julia Child.
--Jello w/fruit and Cool Whip--and does anyone remember those gagatrocious Jello desserts that would separate into three layers--jelly, creamy, and something in between as they set?
--Macaroni salad: elbow macaroni, thick-sliced celery, Miracle Whip
--"Spanish" rice: white rice with a can of tomato sauce
--Open-face beef "dinner": boil-in-bag chipped beef over sliced white bread, untoasted
--Potato "pancakes": leftover mashed potatoes, shaped into patties and fried
--Celery stalks "stuffed" w/peanut butter
--Fried (packaged) lunch meat and "baloney"

But it was really an aunt who sent me fleeing in terror from her kitchen. My cousin always wanted me to stay for dinner, but I always made sure my mom picked me up before dinner. (Once I got older, Mom told me she always knew why I was so eager to separate myself from my best friend-cousin and get home!)
Proving that family food favorites are often more about love than food, my cousin's all-time favorites from Aunt's kitchen: "weenie" spaghetti (yep, sliced hot dogs in a tomato "sauce" that seemed more like thinned canned tomato soup) and potato stew (potatoes cooked to death in a light roux w/canned peas served over rice). But one of her concoctions that she often brought to family dinners, I actually loved--pork shoulder cooked with lots of garlic and chunks of sweet potato; it was very greasy but delicious. One time she decided to "doctor it up" w/ canned black beans and pineapple chunks. Not so good.

[atandt]

I love this thread and I love my mama! I have an immigrant mother too - she got here in the 70's from India. She is actually an amazing cook, my family and friends always talk about her delicious food. Growing up we would ask for 'American' food, and while she is actually quite adept at replicating those tastes, I guess occasionally she felt they were way too bland and she made her own concoctions by adding millions of spices to recipes that didn't ask for them. Her crazy hot Indian-spiced spaghetti sauce, fried chicken and meatloaf were actually awesome, as were chicken curry and keema curry grilled sandwiches (made in those sandwich presses - pre-panini popularity). I was not a big fan of her improvised 'tartar' sauce for fried shrimp, however: ketchup mixed with mayonnaise. I can't recall other misses at the moment, but there were certainly some flops.

[hill food]

atandt: I'm jealous, I wish my mom's "experimentation" went more the way of yours.

[kurisu10]

My mother was one of the few women in my family that just didn't have the genes for cooking. She had basic know-how, but unfortunately not the love or passion that my grandmother, aunt, or I seem to have. -_- Let alone taste buds. My mother made 'basics' that just weren't basic. Whereas my grandmother made the normal home-style meatloaf with the ketchup topping, cooked veggies on the inside, my mother just diced up onion and garlic, sometimes a bell pepper, mix it into some ground beef, put it in a casserole dish and covered it with velveeta or kraft singles. I used to hate it. It was the kind of meatloaf that wasn't even good on a sandwich IMO. At one point she told me she put pineapple in it, and she might have, ONCE... but mostly I think it was to get my brother and I to eat the giant chopped onions that weren't cooked enough.

The other odd concoction my mother made was the never ending chili-pasta... It had two versions. Her actual chili, which used a 2-alarm base and everything in her pantry... or the tomato, salsa, italian soup SOMETHING that mutated after 4 days of her trying to turn it into something it could never be...good. Every day, she'd take the same tomato pasta spicy soup (which tasted like a jar of salsa, some pasta salad, and minestrone combined and each day add something else, telling me, "IT GETS BETTER EVERY DAY!" The next day it was a jar of rotel, after that, a can of mushrooms and more cumin. It was radio-active by the 4th day, when she realized my little brother and I hadn't eaten in 2 days because it SUCKED HORRIBLY...

Perhaps she just lacks the ability to understand cooking, period. I've explained the concept of brining to her. My grandmother and I discussed this once before in front of her, and i was talking about a kosher salt/brown sugar brine for pork and chicken. My mother interrupts with, "Oh I know about brining. I do all of mine with sugar." And both her mother and her daughter had to explain that she was just soaking it in sugar water, not actually brining anything...

In her defense she could produce some good dishes on thanksgiving... but they're mostly tried and true recipes from other aunts, or a southern living cook book. I think the years of smoking and nicorette gum have dulled her tastebuds though, as she has been known to dump mountains of pepper and other spices into her food. (I drew the line when it came to sage however.)

Yes, my mother's food sucked, horribly.

[alkapal]

>>>>>Every day, she'd take the same tomato pasta spicy soup (which tasted like a jar of salsa, some pasta salad, and minestrone combined and each day add something else, telling me, "IT GETS BETTER EVERY DAY!" The next day it was a jar of rotel, after that, a can of mushrooms and more cumin. It was radio-active by the 4th day, when she realized my little brother and I hadn't eaten in 2 days because it SUCKED HORRIBLY...<<<<
~~~~~~~
that made me laugh out loud -- i can't say that i've never made an "evolving" dish. ;-)).

[gexx]

Leftover Stew
EEEEW! It was sooo gross on so many levels.

Whatever was left over from dinner would go in the fridge. Unlike a normal family, we were not allowed to eat the leftovers. Instead, they would pile up for about a month (my reasoning for why I am immune to food poisoning) and then my mother would take her big stock pot, put in a 32 oz can of diced tomatoes, 2 huge onions (chopped and raw), and every single leftover in the fridge. Spaghetti and sauce, pork chops, mashed potatoes, baked chicken, ham, mac and cheese (Kraft, of course), greenbeans, peas, toast, brocolli, and more.

It was so disgusting, but it was the only thing she would serve until it was gone, so it normally lasted about a week. My father would never come home for dinner, meaning my brother and I had to eat more of it ourselves.

[The Professor]

Yow.
I think we have a winner here.

I am very open minded and adventurous when it comes to food. But this one really sounds like a mess.
Glad you survived Mom's mystery stew.

I think this dish would even make me long for some chicken sashimi. LOL.

[LolaP]

Holy crap. That is amazing.

[miss_habibi]

Sounds epic indeed. Your country should award you a medal. Yuck haha.

[sonia darrow]

Wow. I've always been a fan of leftover soup, but not like that.

[chicgail]

You win, gexx. That's a full-fledged gag story.

[debbthebee]

This is actually a scary story about Turkey Day at my grandmother's house. Not to speak ill of the dead but she used to prep her big, 25lb. Turkeys a day or 2 beforehand including loading lots of stuffing into the birds. Then into the fridge the whole bacteria culture went until it was ready to cook then and grace our Thanksgiving table. I think that the only reason noone ever seemed to get sick was that she was the queen of the sterile household. All the same this story always triggers my gag reflex a tad.

[hill food]

reminds one of the character in The Accidental Tourist who cooks the turkey at something like 180 degrees for 12 hours...

[LJS]

Oh gosh, I just remembered "dessert suppers"! When my Dad was out of town on business, especially if it was a Friday night, my mum would spread the car rug on the living room floor, turn the TV on while we ate (an unheardof treat) and lay out a picnic, dessert-only supper.

There would be fruit cocktail and we had to drink our milk (everyone knew that milk prevented everything it couldn't cure in those days).

But other than that, it was a meal composed soley of dessert things: a brownie, junket rennet custard and jello with chilled evaporated milk whipped in it in a graham-crumb crust... all featured prominently.

My mum has been gone for 3 years now and she was 90 when she died. I did have a chance to thank her for her imaginative approach to life. She was a terrible cook and she knew it, but she loved a party and made everyday things into events every chance she got!

I phoned my daughter the other day (who grew up with her nana, my mum) and they were having a special dinner...it was "Doggy Got His Tags" Day...good genes that kid has!

[Pixie Muse]

No matter how hard I try, she murmurs how it's not good enough. When I bake, eh, it's too sweet. When I marinade, eh, it's too fat. When I just leave it alone, eh it’s too bland.

But there was a time when I showed up with osso bucco, which had been floured and fried ever so lightly and then cooked in a delectable blend of wine, lemon, bay leaves and fresh finocchio which savoured the dish with anise-laced overtones. Well, well, she looked at me and said in her northern Italian accent "You maka dis?" Yes, that was a compliment.

[Soyabean]

For Sunday lunch, my mom would make a variety of things, that never 'go' with each other, for example she would make chicken curry, potatoe salad, garlic sauce, chow mein and roast beef. She cooked all this with the thought that she would not have to cook during the week.
Little did she realise that her greedy kids (my brother and I) would pile a bit of everything onto our plate. But the combinations worked well, eg the chicken curry tasted lovely with a bit of potatoe salad mixed in!!

[vorpal]

My mom is who inspired me to cook. When I reached the age of eight, I decided that I'd had enough of inch thick, eight inch wide pancakes, and I tried making my own, figuring that I could emulate Golden Griddle (yes, a sad influence) and make something better. By comparison, my first attempt was delicious and I was bit by the cooking bug.

Other gems from my mother's repertoire included:
* Raspberry pancakes of the above dimensions with no sugar added (so sour!)
* Roast chicken covered in Lipton onion soup mix
* Lemon chicken cooked in the microwave
* Mashed potatoes (made with red potatoes) with no salt or pepper, mashed into a lumpy paste with white margarine and skim milk (it took me years to realize that I didn't hate mashed potatoes)
* Vegetables of any type cooked to a soft mush
* Spaghetti sauce made from a can of sauce and a pack of hamburger, served with Kraft pre-grated parmesan
* Flavourless fried rice (the entire ingredient list consists of a little oil, 1 tbsp grocery store soy sauce to about 3 cups of rice, and some frozen veggies - I dreaded Asian food for years)
* Crepes with blueberries and Cool Whip (an acutal dinner - we loved them and would eat about six of them each)
* Chicken coated in broken up Ritz crackers and baked on a cookie sheet (they taste salty and aluminum, all in one go)
* Boiled potatoes (again no salt or pepper), served with margarine
* One of those ugly pink boneless hams wrapped in plastic and a can's worth of pineapple rings toothpicked to it (I thought for years that I hated pineapples)
* Fried eggs cooked until you could write on a chalkboard with the yolk
* Her "french fries" were old, old potatoes, cut into strips and then baked on a cookie sheet with about 1/8" of oil covering the bottom of it. (My mother still has a terrible fear of and aversion to deep frying and detests the fact that I like to deep fry many things - I am constantly nagged over this over the phone.) Actually, to this day, I still like potatoes made in this way, although I found you have to cook them at a much higher temperature than she did to get them to turn out well.

I also thought that whipped cream = Cool Whip and mayonnaise = Dream Whip until I was about 22.

I love my mom dearly. Her cooking, on the other hand, not so much. It took me about two years after I left home to realize that I wasn't a picky eater... I just didn't care for most things the way mom cooked them. I'm still getting over certain things, too... I'm convinced I hate scallopped potatoes, but then it occurs to me that I haven't eaten one since I was 16 and living with mom and dad.

[hill food]

yeah for a long time I thought I had an eating disorder.

I do like chicken marinaded in Good Seasons salad dressing and grilled or baked, but I do it at a different temp (not setting off the smoke alarm and not resulting in raw interior).

where does the fear of temperature and method come from?

[lrohner]

Good Lord, my mother (God rest her soul) was THE worst cook in the world! Unfortunately she preferred all meats, poultry and seafood to be blackened -- and I don't mean with spices. I mean charred. And she loved her cast iron skillet, and would use it religiously to cook leftovers (pre-microwave days). Let's say there was leftover pork chops, mashed potatoes and peas in the fridge. She would put them altogether in the skillet (not mixed together), pour in some water, cover it and walk away. So it wasn't bad enough that we had to eat charred food. Now we had to eat soggy charred food!

My sister and I went to a Catholic elementary school and they didn't have a cafeteria so we had to bring lunch every day. My mother actually bought a book of "365 Sandwiches" and decided to make them all for us. Imagine my surprise thinking I was getting ready to bit into a peanut butter sandwich and it turned out to be a "Mashed Baked Bean Sandwich". BLECH! I also remember the April Fool's Day where she packed us fake cheese sandwiches made out of foam. Funny Mom. But she forgot to send us a real lunch!

But probably the strangest was her love of tomato juice. For holidays or when we had company over, we always had a first course (served quite elegantly) of shooters of tomato juice. Huh?

[hill food]

make the shot a sort of gazpacho and I'm with her on that. but then it wouldn't be weird.

[alkapal]

i think tomato juice "cocktails" -- sans booze -- were popular as an "appetizer" in the '60s http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,161,1... .
i can picture this in a small juice glass in many cookbook photo spreads -- and in the real-life cafeteria lines all over the south.

[buttertart]

They were. We only ever had it at holiday meals when I was a kid. To make really fancy, a piece of lemon was put on the rim. Have no idea why, because I don't think it was particularly expensive (we lived in SW Ontario tomato country).

[LJS]

Thats so true: canned tomato juice was served with great style (and the essential slice of lemon) until very recently as a course all by itself. in the homes of my mum's friends..whats really funny is that until this moment it never occured to me to question 'why"...it was just so much a part of my growing up (in SW Ontario and Newfoundland). Why on earth would this have been considered a big treat worthy of being trotted out at holidays and parties?

[RavenWilde]

LOL.. I too had to endure the Hockey Puck Fried Pork Chops and Hamburgers, fried in the big Cast Iron Skillet! Although Mom's Fried Chicken made in the same Skillet was awesome!

[googletrickedme]

Mom: vegetarian boxed chili. Just about the only thing I could stand eating as a kid!

Dad: Friday whitefish casserole topped with canned crabmeat and ritz crackers. LOVED this--mostly for the canned crabmeat and ritz topping.

[Passadumkeg]

My Russian immigrant grand mother used to make verischaka just before lent; a blini covered w/ lamb, veal, beef, pork chunks in a rich gravy. I haven't had it since the 60's.
Mom's veal roast stuffed w/ prunes.
Dad, the creative sandwich maker.

[jenisnotacook]

These stories are funny! We always ate Kraft American Singles on white Wonder Bread with Miracle Whip - which we knew only as mayo, and called it that - I thought Miracle Whip was a brand of mayo until I tasted real mayo. I still don't eat real mayo. Typical dinners were canned Campbell's Soup and a grilled cheese sandwich; homemade pizza - still a favorite with my brothers and I; she makes "fried chicken" with boneless, skinless chicken breats dipped in spiced flour and then fried in the skillet - my southern husband was utterly confused by the lack of skin and bones... haha! She makes an awesome dessert we call "cheesecake" - with cream cheese and lime green jello - no baking required - it is amazing, better than regular cheesecake I think. She also would make us homemade frosting to spread on graham crackers as a snack, something she called Spanish rice that was just white rice, A LOT of tomato sauce with browned ground beef and chili powder; hot dogs or Spam with mac and cheese and sauerkraut as a sidedish.... And her meatloaf is actually not in a loaf, its a patty and it is dry so that we could put my grandma's homemade vegetable soup on top and it would soak up the juice. And we would always have cucumbers cut up in vinegar during the summer. My grandma liked to add sliced onions to hers... My husband doesn't understand a lot of what we eat, it makes me feel like a freak sometimes! lol! He's from the south and wants steak and chicken all the time, anything with BBQ sauce, and loves deviled eggs! It was our first Thanksgiving last year and you should have seen his sad little face when we got there and there weren't any deviled eggs - which seemed weird to our family. So now I am the official deviled egg of the family. But I changed that to be my own too; I didn't have any paprika the first time I made them for him, so I sprinkled cayenne pepper on top instead. It is pretty good!

[alkapal]

cukes in vinegar...bingo!

you should see the deviled egg thread....lots of great ideas!

jenmaylearntobeacook!

[goodgirl]

When I was newly married and immersed in a Ukrainian culture I was amazed at the culinary inventiveness. One day my husband said he was going to make "buttermilk and potatoes." Ack! But it was super: fry thin and thick and different sizes of potatoes and onion diced. Get it very browned then put into a soup bowl and pour cold buttermilk over. Think of a baked potato with sour cream and multiply the satisfaction of that by at least a 2 digit number.

Another one: fried bologna. OMG. But, again it turned out to be good. Quarter a bunch of slices of bologna, fry til quite brown, then toss in minced onions to taste, stir around for a few minutes, then stir in a can or 2 of cream of tomato soup. When nice and hot, pour over mashed potatoes.

[smalt]

smile. we used to have fried bologna sandwiches with ketchup when i was growing up. or tossed in with tomato sauce & noodles.

[hill food]

Ukrainian? I thought it was a German thing - guess fried bologna or sausage in general is sort of universal. we'd just put it on bread, no need for any condiment with the grease expressed. but yeah try to sell it to the uninitiated...

the buttermilk potatoes sounds like a nice variant on Vichysoisse. (which I've been thinking about a lot lately)

[capeanne]

My Mom's best friend ( who must be gone 30 years now) was the worlds worst cook. My Mom made lasagnas, corn chowder etc and brought it to Alice who passed it off to her husband Eddie as her own for many years. She tried to cook a few times several of which are memorable,. My Mom would walk her thru recipes . Making a turkey my Mom emphasised being sure the cavity was clean and sure enough Alice used SOS pads. Making a simple white frosting she reached for the vanilla and poured in Kitchen Bouquet instead ( brown, liquid and in a small bottle..) . Eddie beiieved she made the best beef stew until he took out the trash one night and the Dinty Moore cans that had been squirreled away for months all tumbled out..some of us just don't have the gift but she was a good soul

[redviper]

I love my mom to bits, but I'm a WAY better cook than her.

I taught her that you really, really, REALLY need to brown beef before using it in beef stew. She called me shortly afterwards and said "Honey, you won't believe it - it looked and tasted like beef stew!"

Yes, Mom. That's why.

To be fair, she turned me onto quinoa in 2002 and recently gave me organic unpasteurized buckwheat honey from a small farm in Gettysburg, Pa....so I think the lesson here is that anyone can keep learning and improving.

[DragonLady2000]

I love Miracle Whip and my mom made ham salad with it, and she would grind the bologna and sweet pickle relish. I don't remember mom buying mayo.

I love cream cheese on toast or crackers with jelly. We usually had that after the holidays when we ran out of banana bread to put it on.

We used to have homemade mac & cheese and my dad usually have whole tomatoes cold from the fridge that mom squished on top; it was very good.

I can't eat food that has tomato soup in it except grilled cheese sandwiches & tomato soup is great. My mom used to make homemade waffles and when we had a lot leftover we ate them with a can of mushroom soup poured on top. She did the same after Thanksgiving, turkey gravy over waffles.

A girl friend started me eating spaghetti sandwiches-buttered white bread with spaghetti in the middle. I never saw spaghetti put on the table and then the sauce on each plate until I was at her house for dinner. My mom always mixed it together before putting it on the table.

My mom was Italian and my dad was German but they grew up in a neighborhood in Western PA in the 20's with a lot of different ethnic foods so I am not sure what comes from where. Mom made Pigs In A Blanket (Cabbage Rolls) and lots of people call those hot dogs wrapped in a dinner roll that. I didn't have a taco until I was 16 in the mid-70's from people who lived in Spain and in the Southern states as Taco Bell was not around in Ohio until the mid-80's. I still don't see the big deal about wings and ribs. We raised our own cows, pigs, chickens and turkeys and among having a garden. I had mom bake me a cow toungue one time but I was the only one that would eat it-dad was trying to gross me out. It tasted and looked just like a beef roast.

[danhole]

Alkapal,

Re-reading this, I was curious about your Moms boiled potatoes with mayo. What was that like and how did she do it?

Dani

[alkapal]

it's really the simplest thing, dani. she is not really cooking anymore, but here's what she did. peel ** and boil in salted water plain white potatoes, quartered lengthwise. then, when served, the individual dollops a tablespoon of mayo on/beside the potatoes on his plate. (as he eats the kraut & meatballs, he may take a bite of the potato, with a dab of mayo).
the combination of the silky mayo, with the savory juices of the meatballs and kraut, absorbed and foiled by the potato, is delicious.

naysayers, just hold your nays until you've actually tried this with my porcupine meatballs and sauerkraut recipe. ;-) http://www.chow.com/recipes/13527

** i just got a call from mom (bless her heart) while i was finishing this post, so i read over my response, and mom clarified that if the potatoes are old, peel 'em, if they're new, don't peel 'em. she was surprised when i told her i am putting some of her recipes -- and family stories -- out on the world wide web!!! (she is 87 years old, so it's really more of an intellectual concept, than something she can actually visualize) ;-)).

[hill food]

that's actually not too weird (ok I've never had porcupine), some methods are roasted and some are boiled, (granted the mayo is usu. homemade and infused with garlic or paprika, but...)

I'd eat it.

[alkapal]

hill food, i don't know if you were being funny, but you'll see that no porcupines are harmed in the making of the "porcupine" meatballs. the "porcupine" aspect is from the rice in the meatballs.

and....i think it is in germany that mayonnaise is served with potatoes -- maybe not. (i know it's served with pommes frites). what's the origin of southern style mayo-laced potato salad?

maybe "mayo with potato?" is a new thread in the making! ;-).

[hill food]

sorry took you literally about the porcupine.

mayo and potatoes is a classic all across most of Europe. it's only here in the US one gets weird looks.

[MazDee]

I don't remember if it was my grandma or great grandma that made porcupine balls, but I loved them. Ours were in a whitish gravy that may have been cream of mushroom soup. I always thought they were called porcupines because the balls were rolled in rice, but now I don't see how that could be! You couldn't brown them that way. I will try your recipe, but the tomato soup part kind of turns me off. We will see.
My mother always worked full-time and didn't like to cook. We had decent food, none of it weird that I recall, but mostly not too inspired either. She did a few things that were awesome good. Floating Island "pudding" for some special occasions, with an absolutely perfect custard. A peanut butter concoction that was pbutter, butter (probably marg, since we only got real butter when we had company), honey and raisins mixed together in the "Mixmaster" for our sans or toast. Some kind of quick dessert that consisted of white bread coated with sweetened condensed milk, topped with coconut and baked or broiled. Boy, was that good! For parties, she would make that ribbon sandwich that has layers of avocado, cream cheese, olives, deviled ham, I don't remember what but each layer was a different color. My brother and I still talk about that one. I miss my mom! And, glad this thread is still going!

[alkapal]

maz dee, you wrote "the tomato soup part kind of turns me off."

what about it turns you off? it works great in the overall dish.

[MazDee]

Just that I loved that creamy non-tomato version I recall from my childhood, I guess! But I agree that the tomato would go nicely with your saurkraut version. I really am going to try it.

[RavenWilde]

Southern Potato Salad, one of my favs.. But some people also put Mustard in it which I despise! My Mom made great Potato Salad, Potatoes, Hard Boiled Eggs, Chopped onion, Mayo, Salt and Pepper. I revised her recipe and use Red Potatoes with the skins on, Hard Boiled Eggs, Chopped Red Onion, Kraft Real Mayo, Garlic Salt, Salt , Pepper, and a generous squirt of a good Ranch Dressing! (I use Kraft or Ken's) I like sweet relish in mine but since no one else does I usually make a small bowl with relish for myself. Every time I go to one friends house she begs me to make her some of my Potato Salad!
Mom always mixed her with her hands, and now I do the same thing. After it's mixed I get to lick my fingers! LOL

[alkapal]

hand mixing helps to preserve the cut potatoes' integrity, if one uses a very light "hand." ;-).

have you tried marzetti's classic ranch dressing (the chilled dressing, not the shelf-stable one)? it's the one i like the best, if i haven't made my own (which is the best, using mayo and buttermilk).

[precia]

My mother was and continues to be a terrible cook. Not only does she shortcut recipes into disrepair, she is incredibly cheap about it, too. Some people have mentioned shortcuts along the lines of using garlic powder instead of cloves, and I wish that was the worst she'd ever done. For a few months, she decided to follow specific menus in a diet book - I don't think we ever ate that well. Stuffed zucchini, a delicious white chili, French onion soup paired with a small steak... It was great until she started to loop back through the menus and make things easier. She made the onion soup no problem, but decided that instead of making a steak, she'd dump a comparable amount of BROWNED GROUND BEEF into the soup. Into delicious light French onion soup. I have no idea what she did to that white chili, but it was just flat out awful the next time we had it. If we ever liked any new recipe, we knew we'd never see it again, at least not in that same form.

She was also a cook of great quantity. One summer of my childhood was marked by a blended cauliflower soup. Huge vats that the rest of us refused to touch. It was quickly nicknamed baby poop soup, but she kept blending and cooking and eating. One of the last incidents before I moved out was a giant bag of broccoli, steamed to mush (as with all veggies) and put in the fridge for future eating. Maybe about a week later, a vile smell started leaking from the fridge. Her largest mixing bowl was in there, half full of slowly decomposing broccoli. She always buys in quantity because the unit price is less, but ends up throwing so much away because cooking in quantity doesn't really work out to the same value. Of course sometimes she'll refuse to toss it and just keeps on eating. I once caught her pulling a much expired yogurt [the foil lid was puffed and everything] from the garbage. She claimed that she was planning on "checking" it later to see if it was ok, but everyone knew she'd just eat it regardless.

We did see a lot of the canned cream of soup recipes, and they were the most edible things around. The chicken with gravy (cooked in the big electric skillet with slightly watered cream of chicken soup) was pretty good, but I'd never make it myself. OTOH, I keep several cans of cream of mushroom soup in the pantry and sometimes whip up a batch of tuna casserole. Quick, cheap, and helps me keep up with my pledge to get more fish into my diet.

One of my aunts makes a Waldorf salad every holiday, but with lemon jello instead of mayo/miracle whip. Not something you eat a huge bowl of, but a little bit on the side of the plate is very worthy. Not too sweet and very refreshing between all that turkey and stuffing. I can't imagine Christmas without it.

[hill food]

yeah...

memories.

[alkapal]

but they ain't "misty, water-colored," though.

[hill food]

actually that describes my mom's stew, although maybe "watery, misty-colored" is more accurate.

[Cinnamon]

Yikes!

[Caffeine826]

My mother is an amazing cook and baker, but there were some, ah, interesting things that she made. To her credit, she's stopped making these.
1) A "salad" made with one leaf of iceberg lettuce, a canned pineapple ring, a dollop of Miracle Whip, a sprinkling of grated cheddar cheese, topped with a maraschino cherry. I'm 25, and she made this pretty much until I graduated high school.
2) "Chicken Tetrazzini"- Overcooked spaghetti, cream of mushroom soup, dry shredded chicken breasts, and cheddar cheese. I still won't try making the real thing, because I'm afraid it will taste like my mom's.
3) We never had real spaghetti- for some reason, my dad liked his (Kansan) grandmother's recipe, which was sweet and sour, and not actually that tomato-y. Ew. Is it any wonder that I crave Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce constantly?
4) Waldorf salad made with mushy apples and Miracle Whip. I didn't discover Hellman's until I was in high school and started cooking. Needless to say, I haven't bought a jar of MIracle Whip since I left home.
5) Ham steaks with canned pineapple and melted swiss cheese.

Sometimes, when I'm in the grocery store, not buying cream of mushroom soup or Miracle Whip, I'm overcome with gratitude that I am an adult and in total control of what we have for dinner.

[alkapal]

caffeine, my mom's "salad" also included a scoop of cottage cheese, and mayo instead of miracle whip.

[bythebayov]

I feel you my friend, I love the fact that I am now in control of what I put in my mouth and in my cart! My mom wasn't the worlds worst cook but I did learn to cook for myself at an early age for a reason! ahhh freedom, you gotta give for what you take yah yah.....

[Cinnamon]

I too have had Miracle Whip Waldorf. Which is pretty much why I don't do Waldorf. Although... once in Vegas at a conference when I had to stay at a midrange hotel on the strip, the buffet had the most marvelous, light, but probably involving nondairy, Waldorf with some fluffy whipped-creamness. No trace of sour. It seemed realllllly retro but I could see getting a craving for it and trying to experiment it back into existence.

I've gotta say here too, while it's not because of mom's cooking per se (she made some great things!), I'm so tired of middling American concoctions that I've been on a jag of exploring fruits, veggies and cuisine that are all just not reminiscent of what I've had around the nation all these years. So not much in the way of peas/corn/asparagus/etc., more green-papaya/water-chestnuts/long-beans/dragonfruit, etc., when and where available for not a lot of $. It's easier here in L.A., but so far I'm enjoying the dissociation. Fine to go try the occasional artisanal restaurant that uses beautifully fresh U.S. produce in terrific recipes - so you get to taste corn in an exalted state, for instance - but just over the run-of-the-mill presentations - you know, the canned/frozen/food-service approach.

[Caffeine826]

While I do love middling American concoctions (Miracle Whip aside), it's amazing how the availability of interesting produce/"ethnic" ingredients has just exploded in the last ten years (if that long). I think that's one of the big differences between how we (collectively) cook and how our moms cooked- we have access to things like chipotle peppers, fish sauce, coconut milk, bok choy, etc., etc. It does make me wonder if my future children are going to be talking about how gross their mom's tortilla lime soup or whatever is....

[rudeboy]

I like this post - I'm wondering how my one-year old daughter will think of some of my "concoctions" in the future. I'm training her right, though...she tries all sorts of things - sopresetta, gorganzola, fish sauce, etc. and chipotles. Ten years ago, many things were not accessible here....

[Bigley9]

As long as you aren't combining those ingredients I'd bet you'll fare well

[pharmnerd]

Canned corned beef tacos. No other types of meat, just Hormel or Hereford in our house. I thought it was normal.

[hill food]

ok I think we have a short list and it's been a tight race for all contestants.

bluecatbeads vs. pharmnerd

both sound unexcusably vile.

[bluecatbeads]

I can't say that Mom had too many weird/horrible recipes. But she did have one that I've never seen anywhere else "Lunch Meat with B-B-Q Sauce". It's quick and really tasty:

1/2 cup chopped onion
2 tbsp butter
1 cup catsup
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup water
3 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp prepared mustard
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
10 oz. can luncheon meat cut into strips (Spam is much tastier than the Treet that we usually got. Now I use Spam Lite).

Sauté onions in butter, then add remaining ingredients. Simmer luncheon meat in sauce for 15 minutes. Serve with rice or noodles. For noodles we usually used egg noodles.

[berbadeerface]

My grandmother used to cook the most awful things most of the time. The only thing she cooked that I actually liked, was something she called Country Captain Chicken. The funny thing is I always gave her credit for inventing it, but a quick search on Wiki gives me this, and it's the exact same thing I remember from 20 years ago!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_...

Funny that it says the recipe originated in Philly, because that's where she was from...

[jwalker23]

I grew up in small town West Virginia, and learned all kinds of strange recipes from my family and their friends. A few that stand out to me; a mock apple pie, where you use allspice and crumbled ritz crackers instead of apples. Mayo biscuits, where you use mayo instead of butter and eggs; Potato candy, which involves mixing powdered sugar, water, and a mashed potato together to form a paste, then coating it in peanut butter and rolling it up into a log. Also, "kilt lettuce"; you cook iceberg lettuce in leftover bacon grease. and serve it over bread. The strangest thing I recall though was this "dessert" a coworker of mine once made for an office party at my recurrent summer job ( schooled in nyc, summered in wv, I lead a life of contrast). Canned fruit cocktail mixed with mayo, crumbled white bread, and a tub of cool whip.. I recognize, a lot of these recipes come from making due with what you've got. Regardless of how strange some of the products were, I admire the spirit behind them.
We used to eat cornbread crumbled in a glass of buttermilk as a dessert too...and that is actually fantastic.

[hill food]

I understand jw, we laugh because they made these out of a combination of love/frustration/limitations/ but never spite. (I was also subjected to the fruit, miracle whip (not mayo) and cool whip combo - never understood that one)

[Sparkina]

About that fruit-cool-whip-mayonnaise/miracle whip dish . . . of mayonnaise, I'm not a fan, but use Fage yogurt instead of the mayo or miracle whip, and then you'd have something going

[RavenWilde]

Sounds like what your co-worker was trying to make was Ambrosia, which is made with Fruit Cocktail, shredded coconut and cool whip, but the crumbled bread part I have never heard of. I make mine with Pineapple Chunks, Mandarin Oranges and Very Cherry Fruit Cocktail, Cream of Coconut and Cool Whip. You can make it with fresh fruit of any kind. I never liked the little pieces of coconut so I use the creme Of Coconut instead, adds a creamy consistency as well as the coconut taste!

[breakfastfan]

Oh, some of what Mom made was good, not great, but traditional comfort food, meatloaf, american chop suey, pot roast.
However, she could never convince me to eat "hot dog casserole". Slice potatoes, hot dogs, onions (if she felt like it) , put it all in an oven proof casserole dish, and barely cover with water. Heat until bubbling and serve in a bowl. "shudder" uhhh I can't believe my siblings could eat that. Me, I was having peanut butter on bread for supper on those nights...Just to mix things up, "Pork Chop casserole" same thing, always onions.
6 to feed, small budget; I guess you need to do what you can...

[Steady Habits]

This doesn't make for an interesting post, but out of respect for my mother, who passed away when I was in my early twenties, I feel compelled to post in her behalf that she was a great cook. She was from northern New England, and mostly made just good honest Yankee dishes. She was the Queen of Oven and Pot Roasts; they're still the standard by which I compare any I encounter.

But...she did pick out one special thing to make each week, something outside of her repertoire, and it was usually something from Julia Child or James Beard. The one thing I really didn't like were the beef rouladen. I don't think they're weird, exactly, at least not in Germany. But something about pickles cooked inside meat just didn't do it for me.

And the other thing was all the excitement on the part of my mother and my Rhode Islander father over the occasional New England Boiled Dinner. You would have thought Queen Elizabeth had been invited to dinner, the way they anticipated and fussed over things preparing those NEBDs. I know this might get me kicked right over the border into New York, but I just don't get New England Boiled dinners. I know she made it correctly, and seasoned it well, but...I don't know, boiled meat and a bunch of boiled root vegetables isn't my bag. I like 'em sauteed and roasted and accompanied by crunchy things (like walnuts) and glazes and caramelization.

[scarletfan]

It seems like a lot of people ate cream cheese & jelly or cream cheese & olive/pimento sandwiches but I remember my mom making cream cheese and pistachio nut sandwiches. So delicious....

My mom is a decent cook but my dad doesn't like a lot of spices (hates garlic, doesn't like onions, doesn't like any salad dressing) so we didn't get a lot of flavor or variety in most dinners. It was the standard meat, vegetable, potatoe fare.

I also recently found out that at 61 years old, my mom has never had Mexican food and never plans to. It's a miracle that I don't have a ton of food issues! :)

[alkapal]

your mom's attitude toward mexican food reminds me of this guy i knew in law school. once at a party, when i was explaining how easy it was to make (delicious) guacamole, he sniffed, "i don't *approve* of mexican cuisine." oh no, he didn't just say that, did he?!? i couldn't believe how incredibly stupid he was! i laughed in his face. i laugh about it to this day! ps, tom, i hope you "got with the program," bro.

[hill food]

alka: I'm sure millions of people are distraught over this revelation...

yeesh, where does one come up with such an approach?

[alkapal]

inbred.

~~~~~~~
as in.....inbred family lines......
or maybe he learned it in his connecticutt prep school. i don't know which....

[alkapal]

i don't know when connecticut earned an extra "t."

[hill food]

you were likely sparing many the involuntary cringe by utilizing the first 't' in that particular syllable instead of his richly deserved 'n'

[alkapal]

or maybe i wasn't wearing my reading glasses when i typed it! LOL!

[haolebaby]

My mom made me olive and cream cheese sandwiches.

and when I was growing up chili was made with buttered bread on the side vice cornbread.

Her salads were so bland. A chopped cucumber, shredded carrot and iceberg lettuce.. Praise Jesus I realized there were real salads out there that didn't follow that form.

While the spaghetti growing up was a decent red sauce with meat, every once in a while she did the crazy melt a piece of cheese on top.

Other than that I grew up with a lot of German food like sausages with sauerkraut..

She made some craziness called "Chicken Divan" too which I've only ever seen on that Paula Deen show. Ridiculous, it's like a sauce of curry powder, cream of mushroom soup, sour cream, mayo and cheddar over chicken and broccoli and served with rice. Heart attack, anyone?

[alkapal]

one of my fave sandwiches is green olive and pimento cream cheese (made by mincing the pimento-stuffed olives into softened cream cheese) spread on good pumpernickel bread with rare roast beef, grilled until the cheese is melty.

try my mom's meatballs with kraut, to compare: http://www.chow.com/recipes/13527

my salads from mom (i made them, but these were the ingredients) were tomato (but GOOD tomato), crunchy cukes and iceberg. sometimes fresh bell pepper rings. tomatoes had to be cut in chunks, and not wedges. served usually with thousand island dressing, or french dressing. you got shredded carrot? that was only when i got "fancy" and added it! ;-)

[Bigley9]

Wow- I grew up with cream cheese and olives, and we ate rare roast beef, but never together - Is this grilled like a grilled cheese or under the broiler? I think I may have to go buy the makings for that sandwich!

[alkapal]

bigley, that is done on the grill, like grilled cheese. do two versions, one with toasting the bread first, one without. i think toasted lightly helps the sandwich hold up better. but i wouldn't butter the outside of the bread like is done with some grilled sandwiches; maybe just add a little neutral oil or butter in the skillet.

it is soul-satisfyin'! i'm sure you'll enjoy it. i like the harris teeter brand "london broil" or dietz and watson rare roast beef. (in fact, it may be time for a deli run tomorrow! ;-).

[sivang]

I grew up with cream cheese and olive... I would always pick the olives off and eat them, then throw the rest away.

Also was subjected to my dad's specialty of hot dogs mixed with scrambled eggs and "beef stew"--one can of tomato sauce with some frozen peas and carrots and stew beef thrown in, cook until the beef is no longer raw but far from edible....

I took over the cooking when I got to high school. Thank god.

[alkapal]

i don't know if i mentioned my mom's salmon patties. i loved them so much, i'd scarf them from the paper towel next to the cast iron skillet, while they were really hot. every now and then, i'll make some. they bring good memories, and that is part of our personal food tradition, isn't it?

i think a major part of our food preferences is just purely childhood nostalgia -- when the world was not so scary and unsettling. then again, i crave thai food, and had nothing like it growing up. the Good Lord has blessed us with so many tasty things to eat. one of His major gifts is GARLIC!

[jarona]

My mom had a penchant for boiled tongue as well--she would make tongue sandwiches. As I come from a family that is large and Irish--she would eat pigs feet during her pregnancies--there were many pigs feet months growing up. On Fridays, we would never have meat due to religious reasons, so we always had sara lee fish cakes and spaghetti. My mom also made kidneys and eggs for breakfast--a lot! The weird thing was all us kids loved the kidney and egg breakfast.

The weirdest dish she made was one that none of us liked, but she insisted on making it at least once a month--it was this awful concoction she called "Slumgullion" (no kidding--that was the name). Anyway, this slop consisted of: 1 box of elbow macaroni--naturally you MUST overcook the macaronis by a good 15 to 20 minutes. 1 can of DelMonte tomatoes (I don't even know if they even make Del Monte canned tomatoes anymore) 1 chopped pepper, sauteed. 1 pound of chopmeat--cooked till it has the consistency of rubber. Mix it all up and put in a big bowl and watch it disappear--you will watch for a long time!

Its funny though, because to this day, despite some of the odder things my mom made, she did make the best roast on earth. The woman was a genius at timing--her roast beefs were perfectly rare and her legs of lamb and fresh hams were amazing.

Now I'm getting kinda sad because I would love to be able to ask her for help but she doesn't even know me anymore--Alzheimer's has taken her mind and her spirit away. But thank you for giving me a few moments of good mom memories! I appreciate your post!

[alkapal]

"As I come from a family that is large and Irish--she would eat pigs feet during her pregnancies."
________
a new pregnacy craving. i think there has to be some innate biological sensor that tells what a body needs at the time. i used to get a "rare roast beef" craving during that "time of the month." it is not so intense anymore. damn this aging process!

but, i'm so sorry about the fact your mom has alzheimer's. it so robs people of their lives and good memories. my 86-year-old mom also suffers from a big memory loss. thanks for sharing.

[jarona]

didn't matter what time of the month it was for me, I , to this day, can only eat very rare red meat. As far as pregnancy cravings go--thank God I did not follow my mother's pig feet wants. I craved pizza and listening to The Who.

[alkapal]

i just thought of something, was it "we won't get fooled again"? heh heh. really, i don't think that way about children. no... really. hey, my best friend in college and i always had a running debate about beatles vs. the who. of course, i was right. ;-) (beatles. lovin' "polythene pam" -- one of THE BEST guitar solos ever, along with brian eno's "baby's on fire" ** -- truly -- just a coincidence. -- don't listen to the lyrics, unless you are in a snarky-momma mood).

** and, of course, derek and the dominos, "layla". and jimi. dang, stop it, girl!

[alkapal]

(for all you foodie aficianados....the fripp-e is here -- think frappe without the accent mark, which i still cannot do)! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvPHbb... -- you know, that name just might be a little prophetic!
;-).

btw, i can't get a complete "pam".... (as in "Well you should see Parmesan Pam
She's so good-looking but she looks like a ham
Well you should see her in drag dressed in her shrink-wrappy bag
Yes you should see Parmesan Pam
Yeah yeah yeah....").

hounds, work with me here.....

[smalt]

Chinese eat pigs feet AFTER the birth.... :-)

Our house does a variation of the slumgullion - ground beef, tomato sauce (well, I throw in a can of El Pato), sliced onions and some form of pasta - but I prefer the pasta al dente!....That's a frequent lunch request in our house and in fact the leftovers get sent off with a college kid as it's her favorite lunch, too!

I'm somewhat in the same boat with the dementia thing - I've got to start playing with Mom's famous short rib recipe - I think I know it, but have yet to execute it.....It's the right weather for it and I'm facing an impending layoff, so I'll have more time to play in the kitchen for awhile....

[Cinnamon]

Thank you SO much for including a "the" in your first sentence.

[Emmie9999]

jarona, my mother made something similar, and called it "hamburger helper". It wasn't the boxed kind at all, but an onion and green pepper chopped and fired, then mixed with cooked ground beef and an 8 ounce can of Hunt's tomato sauce and a pound of cooked elbows. The pasta was never overcooked, but the peppers were cooked to mush. My DH's family makes the same thing and calls it "American chop suey". NYC vs New England, I suppose!

I empathize completely, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's when I was entering my teens. It saddens me to know I will never learn the recipe for his famous giant "stuffed" hamburger, or learn many other things from him. But I agree, it is so nice to think back and remember!

[lihsiawang]

When I was a child in Minnesota 100 years ago my mother struggled to cook Chinese food in Norwegian country. Her version of mu-shi pork used pork and cabbage on buttermilk pancakes. And it was very tasty!

[alkapal]

LOL -- mu-shi pork with BUTTERMILK pancakes! but ya know, buttermilk pancakes could probably go well with just about anything. (i grew up lovin' mu-shi pork -- even made it a while back after diligently searching out the "golden lily threads"!). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moo_shu_...

[sarahjay]

My mom tried to sneak veggies into our meals. Once when I was pretty small, probably about 4, she heard from who knows where that bean sprouts could replace some of the noodles in "spaghetti" (ground beef in tomato sauce, blargh)
I don't know what she was thinking but she did made spaghetti with bean sprouts. I and my 2-year-old brother refused to eat it and were sent to bed without dinner. Later we were caught snacking on graham crackers in the linen closet and she took pity on us and made us sandwiches. We never had bean sprout spaghetti again.

[1sweetpea]

My mom is not a great cook. At best, she's merely adequate. She thinks she's pretty great, though. So does my dad. I think his mother must have been a terrible cook, so it was probably a big step up for him when he met my mom. For my entire childhood and into young adulthood I loathed salmon. My mother only shopped at a Jewish meat shop. Nothing was truly kosher, but the selections were in keeping with Jewish tradition, so there was no pork or seafood. The only fish types available were whitefish, pike, carp, perhaps sole or flounder and salmon. My mother would bring home salmon, place it in a 9X9 pyrex baking dish, put a couple of spoons of margarine on top, then sprinkle with some tasteless ancient dried herb, possibly tarrragon or dill, but who could tell for sure? She'd cover the dish with cling film, turn back one corner or stab the film with a fork, then nuke the crap out of it in the microwave. What emerged several minutes later was always rubbery and tasted fishy. What was odd was that sometimes she'd open a can of sockeye salmon, remove the skin and bones, then make salmon patties for my dad. Only he ate them. The rest of us thought the smell was vile. The joke to me is that there was virtually no difference in fishy smell between the nuked salmon fillets and the canned and fried patties.

I love salmon today in sushi, lox, or a lightly steamed fillet done with ginger, green onions and sake or sherry and a bit of sesame oil. If it's cooked all the way through, though, no matter who cooks it, the memories of overcooked, rubbery catfood come rushing right back. My parents have finally moved up in the world ... from nuking to grilling, on their George Foreman grill. They think anything grilled on that thing is manna. Whatever floats their boat, I guess. I'm just glad the days of margarine, dried tarragon and rubbery fish are over. Just in case they aren't, though, I never take a chance and eat at my parents' home anymore. I just take them out to a restaurant to "give mom a break from cooking" ... LOL!

[hill food]

your mother and mine can never meet.

[jeanmarieok]

My mom used to make this pork chop dinner, that was just sauteed pork chop and onions, then smothered in a sauce made of equal parts of ketchup and water. And depending on whether we had mashed potatoes with it, or not, determined how much ketchup and water was used, because those pan dripping were drizzled over the mashed potatoes. I thought it was really really awful once I became a teenager, but I have to confess that my husband loves it now.

My dad was a terrible griller. His idea of barbecued chicken was chicken boiled until rubber, then grilled until the barbecue sauce was burned black and charr-y. Once I was married, my husband took over the grilling from my dad. My mom admits that she doesn't let him grill at all anymore, since he doesn't have the knack for it. Or maybe it's just those manhattens he's always swilling while he's grilling.....

[walker]

My grandmother used to fry pork chops and then add a mixture of ketchup and orange juice and simmer a while -- made the chops nice and tender. I should try it again some time.

[meleyna]

My mother is a fantastic cook, but when my parents divorced when I was about 12, money was tight and she had to get well, creative. One that I particularly remember was browned ground beef mixed with canned green chiles serves over rice was "Scoopee Over Rice." For some reason we called Finger Steaks "Meat in a Pan" instead. To this day I admire her ability to open the fridge, check the pantry, and be able to have great dinner on the table.

Although she is a great cook, she makes a lot of comfort food from her childhood. Stuff that's already mentioned here. Campbells Chicken Gumbo mixed with ground beef on buns for Chickburgers, Manwich out of a can, Sh!t on a Shingle (though she does do homemade bechamel with the canned chicken), and the bane of my existence, goulash. Pasta, canned tomatoes, ground beef, sugar. I know its something her mother made, and my whole family loves it except me. Ironically, I think my stepfather married her for this haha. He's always telling his friends at work how his wife makes the best spaghetti, and a few months ago he volunteered her to make some for a potluck. My mom refused--she KNOWS how flavorless it is, its just comfort food for her lol. Her spaghetti sauce does include brown gravy mix though, which I've never seen anyone else do.

One story that always gets brought up, and reflects more on my mom than me: I was a pretty adventurous eater as a kid, but I was all about the iceburg. One time my mom put some sort of green leaf lettuce on my sandwich, and when she caught me taking it off she told me I needed to eat it. When I didn't I got sent to my room to pout. A little later she called me out telling me she had fixed my sandwich. I came out to find a good four inch layer of lettuce between my two slices of Roman Meal. Talk about a meltdown... My mom, ever the jokester, thought she was hilarious. And of course my three brothers and sister at the table joined in in the pointing and laughing.

[alkapal]

meleyna, i love that lettuce sandwich story! now, was there mayo on that roman meal bread?

btw, does ANYONE remember the sliced sandwich bread called "monk's bread" -- a white, fine textured dense loaf with a unique flavor (a little sweet/malty?). it made such good sandwiches. there was a faux-monk's bread that came back in the '80's, but it wasn't the same! ;-(

[alkapal]

oh, look, monks' bread is still around: https://monksbread.com/cart/index.php...

apparently, it has been made since 1953, but i think they changed their recipe from when i was growing up in the '60's and '70's.

i never see it in my stores these days, but maybe will ask so they can stock it.

[alkapal]

bigley, that is a precious picture! did they get it for him? ;-)

[Bigley9]

no I believe they thought him quite the spoiled boy! Mom made it the next day though!

[alkapal]

anyone have the halved grapefruit, with brown sugar on top and put under the broiler? growing up in florida, we had this somewhat frequently. i think it was popular in the '60's. it is good.

[Bigley9]

oh we had that lots - and I grew up in PA. I think it was a cheap (there were 9 of us, also in the 60s) and good for you dessert. The funny family story was my brother, at about 5 years of age, instructing a waitress how to make it when it wasn't on the menu at a local diner!

[jeanmarieok]

I had that for breakfast this summer at the Opryland hotel, and I really liked it!!!!!

[betsydiver]

i've posted this somewhere recently but that was a 7th grade home ec. recipe that I thought was the weirdest thing I'd ever heard of..., circa 1965? I thought somehow that home ec. was supposed to prepare us for married life and I couldn't imagine any man would want broiled grapefruite for breakfast, yuk!

[alkapal]

i guess you don't like grapefruit.

[The Professor]

I love broiled grapefruit (and I'm a man)...

my college girlfriend turned me on to it 40 years ago and have _loved_ it ever since. A very light sprinkle of brown sugar, and popped under the brolier...YUM.

[CadienBelle]

Actually mom was an excellent cook. I don't remember anything being weird. But, my ex-MIL was another story. Spaghetti and sauce consisted of over cooked spaghetti and 2 cans of Campbells tomato soup. No meat or spices. On the side was buttered bread. Meatloaf was the same. Meat, s&p, and some onion. Campbells tomato soup on the top. She wasn't the type to try anything new or different... such as spices!!

[MARISKANY]

My mother was not a good cood, but she tried her best. I still remember her "Tofu Lasagna", and frozen brocolli cooked in a pressure cooker along with beef liver cooked to the consistance of show leather. I still make her "Spanish Rice" and Chile when the weather turns cool.

[TheSnowpea]

My mother is not a horrible cook, but not a great one either. Mom learned to cook for defensive reasons because Grandma was simply awful in the kitchen, but she never became really good at it. She's lost her sense of smell too, so she's actually lost interest in cooking.

However, she did have recipes I remember loving as a kid. They were usually reserved for special events, celebrations, or for having guests over.

One dish was Hawaiian Ham, which involved cubed ham (usually leftover from a whole cooked ham), green pepper cut in 1 inch squares, pineapple cubes, some onion, all in a sweet and sour sauce that involved pineapple juice from the can, brown sugar, powdered Keen's mustard, vinegar and corn starch. This was served over white rice.

The other dish was Pepper Steak: strips of round, strips of red and green bell pepper, onion, sautéed in a deep pot. Once cooked, add a sauce made from broth, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, other things I forget and corn starch. This too was served on rice.

Hawaiian Ham and Pepper Steak remain among my mom's Special Day dishes to this day! Oh and the appetizer is usually shrimp cocktail or avocado salad with shrimp served in the cleaned out avocado skin. I think she recently remade that bizarre salad that involves fruit cocktail, sour cream, and other weird stuff for some friends and they loved it (they'd never had it before).

As a child, I remember one of my two favourite suppers was Swiss Fondue. I loved when we'd pull out the caquelon pot, put fuel in the little burner, cut up chewy baguette bread. The other big fave was pancakes for supper when the family did not really feel inspired. Usually it was a cold day. My mom would make the batter, my father would man the big cast iron pan and I'd man the small cast iron pan. Pancakes with maple syrup for supper were the BEST! LOL

[alkapal]

snowpea, this is so sweet: "My mom would make the batter, my father would man the big cast iron pan and I'd man the small cast iron pan."

thanks for sharing that wonderful, joyous, loving picture with us.

[bubbles4me]

thesnowpea,
Thanks for sharing your pancake story, it was very sweet and may just make me give them a try again....my pancake story is that when my mother and I fell on a very hard time we lived on pancakes for 2 weeks straight....every meal and worst part, no maple syrup...Karo syrup....shudder. It has been 30 years since I touched a pancake but I may just give them another shot.

[foodisgreat]

snowpea and bubbles, your pancake stories are a lot more touching than my waffle story. I always had pretty good luck with pancakes so have no experiences with them to relate, but once was given old waffle iron by some friends I'd helped move. No instructions with it & I'd never made any waffles, but one cold, dreary, winter afternoon decided I'd make some waffles for supper. Went to store & got box of pancake & waffle mix, read instructions on package and made up recipe for what package said was for four waffles. Looked into waffle iron and saw four sections, thought that was what recipe was referring to, so poured entire batch I'd made up into waffle iron & closed lid. In just a bit that top started rising and waffle batter started flowing out of all sides of the waffle iron. I started trying to wipe it up from counter top but just couldn't keep up with it - it was running into sink, onto floor, down the counter, against the wall - just everywhere. Put a couple of trash cans around to try to catch some of it running onto floor and kept wiping & scooping a while, but finally just gave up, went over & sat in chair & waited till all had finished running everywhere. Then cleaned up the mess & the waffle iron, made some pancakes with remaining mix, & had rather unenjoyable supper. The dismal weather didn't help matters either. Have never attempted to make waffles since (other than those at motel breakfasts). Stupid me didn't know the amount of batter I'd made & poured into iron all at once was meant for four different pourings. Snowpea, I like pancakes, but feel for you with nothing but pancakes to eat for two weeks straight - and with Karo syrup to go on them! At least I hope it was dark Karo rather than clear Karo. And did you have any butter or margarine to go on them? If you do decide to do pancakes again now, I hope that you really, really enjoy them.

[foodisgreat]

My bad, apologies - I said Snowpea, but see it was you, Bubbles, and not Snowpea who had the two weeks exclusive pancake diet. Bubbles, I do hope that any current pancake adventures are most delicious and enjoyable.

[alkapal]

foodisgreat, your "ever overflowing" waffle batter story reminds me of when i had a summer rental apartment, and had no dishwasher soap -- only liquid dish soap, which i put in the dishwasher.

. the dishwasher was like a monster with rabies, foaming and foaming and foaming at the seams -- billowing foam all over the kitchen floor. it musti've been going on for at least half an hour, and by the time i noticed it, it was too late to stop the onslaught. there was probably a foot and a half of foam all over the small kitchen vinyl floor. the dreaded foam monster even began to encroach into the adjacent carpeted living room. i don't remember how many towels it took to clean up that soapy mess!

[foodisgreat]

alkapal, this sounds like more similarities in our backgrounds, unfortunately so in these instances, but as bad as my waffle experience was, your dishwasher experience was even worse. Condolences! Fortunately, neither of our experiences as bad as that of friends who recently had washing machine malfunction while they gone, flooding nearly entire house and requiring replacement of most carpet, tile, & hardwood flooring in the home. Guess the old saying about "as bad off as you are, you can always find someone in even worse shape" is true in all these cases.

[TheSnowpea]

Making pancakes' a family thing! And it's funny how for example my husband and I have different pancake styles. Mine are dense and eggy crêpes, and my husband makes a more American style I guess, thick and fluffy.

Having to eat them for 2 weeks straight might prove a challenge. I have NO clue what karo syrup might be like, and I get the hunch I don't wanna try! LOL Besides, I live in Quebec. Anything else than "real" syrup, AKA maple, is anathema!

But perhaps it IS indeed time to reconnect with family with a pancake supper!

As for the stories below, I'm both amused and horrified at the overflowing waffle makers and dishwashers! I've seen a rabid dishwasher. NOT a pretty sight :-0

[foodisgreat]

The Snowpea - Sounds like pancakes are quite the thing in your family, and hope you all get to soon experience that good family pancake supper. My pancakes are more along the lines of your husband's. Talking with friend today who is active in Kiwanis Club (a civic club); they are busy preparing for their annual day long pancake breakfast (an annual charity fund raising event) later this week. Karo Syrup is a corn based syrup. Tho there are some other varieties now which I think are more suitable as an "eating" syrup, their classics are light & dark Karo which are, in my opinion at least, more suited to cooking (have you ever heard of Karo Pecan Pie?) than eating. Agree with you about the pure maple syrup and am looking forward to (at least hoping for) my annual Christmas gift of such. If pure maple isn't available, there are several other syrups I prefer to Karo for pancakes & waffles. Be careful and avoid overflowing machines of all sorts.

[TheSnowpea]

Actually, my parents and I haven't had pancakes that way in years. I think it's time to revive the tradition, with the addition of my husband. I don't know if we can fit three cooks around the stove but perhaps we should try! LOL

[foodisgreat]

TheSnowpea, hope you can get all those family cooks around that stove and whip up the best batch of pancakes you all have ever had. Let us know how this meal turns out. And think I'm going to be doing some pancakes this weekend myself.

[Chocolatechipkt]

My mom is actually a very good cook. She didn't have a lot of time to cook, working FT and with three kids and my dad to cook for, but she used fresh foods as much as possible and rarely bought packaged or frozen meals. However, she can eat the same thing over and over and over, so at one point growing up we had zucchini (mostly sauteed with onions or steamed) every day for at least two years. She denies it, but it's taken me a long time to get back into zucchini. We also had spaghetti a lot, usually with a quick, from-canned-tomatoes-and-leftover-vegetables sauce, sometimes with cubes of leftover meatloaf or chicken. Economical and fairly healthy the way she did it ... but not so appealing many, many times later, esp. as a kid. Other kinds of pasta I'm fine with, but I still don't really like spaghetti, even when cooked differently. (shrug) ... luckily she's made a lot of great things too, like crunchy chicken, which was chicken coated in yogurt (and sometimes lemon juice) and then tossed in crushed crackers or cornflakes or something, or fabulous roast chicken, or chocolate cake, or grilled or roasted salmon, or potato salad with both mayo and plain yogurt (and other stuff).

Fun thread to read. Thanks for starting it Alkapal.

Have any of y'all read "Tender at the Bone," by Ruth Reichl? This is the story of her childhood and her mother's weird cooking, and how she ended up in the food world. Great read.

[bythebayov]

thanks for the tip...Im always looking for good foodie books :-)

[DaisyM]

When I was growing up in the 60's there was a special on tv about a possible relationship of eating a diet high in red meat and cancer. Well, that was all my mother had to hear. From then on it was chicken every night to the point that one night my father started to "cluck" and he said, "I can't take one more piece of chicken". So while she was on this chicken binge that lasted I think for years she cooked something quite exotic at the time called either polynesian or hawaiian chicken. I remember the canned pineapple rings and maraschino cherries (red dye #2 anyone?) Huge surprise after my father died (at a very young age of cancer) she became macrobiotic.

[betsydiver]

i remember that "Hawaiian chicken w/pineapple and maraschino cherries... w/ the pineapple juice, please, and rice

[BabsW]

My mom still makes this!

[mustardsally]

Was anyone ever served this dish with no name: Franco American spaghetti from a can combined with ground beef and canned peas? Truly a bad one-pot miracle born of necessity, I hope. Wow, it was the pits...

[sadiefox]

One of my mom's classics: "Hot Dogs and Noodles"
Cut up an onion, and throw it in a pot with a large can of stewed tomatoes and some cut-up Oscar Meyer hot dogs. Serve over shell pasta with Kraft parmesan cheese.

Another classic was Stroganoff made with ground beef, mushrooms, a can of cream of mushroom soup and some sour cream, served over shell pasta.

Actually, my mom was and still is a great cook... but she didn't feel like spending all night cooking dinner after working full time. Sometimes I still crave her "classics."

[pang]

For holiday parties: mini hot dogs in a heated sauce of grape jelly and yellow mustard. Seriously good!

[krisrishere]

My dad was famous for his American Chop Suey: ground beef, tomato sauce, onions, peppers, mushrooms and elbow macaroni.

My mom made us kids egg noodles with pan fried hot dogs, parsley, butter and parmesan cheese.

I have to admit, I eat both of these things atleast once or twice a year...they're too good to be forgotten!

[joschus]

This is the best thread!! I've been laughing for a half hour....OK a couple of my all time most hated dishes:

Mom's Meatloaf - Make a regular meatloaf recipie but bury 3 hardboiled eggs in the center of the meatloaf and then bake. This dish taught me to hate meatloaf to this day. When she would serve it, the eggs would have broken apart and the broken pieces would be hard as rocks. The baking also magnified the taste of the eggs which somehow tasted rotten to me. The eggs also tinted the meatloaf a yellow color. YUK.

Hillbilly Pancakes - I have to give my ex-father-in-law the credit for this culinary horror. In a large cast iron pan, fry up a pound of bacon. When the bacon is almost done (do not remove bacon grease), add 3 eggs per person until over-cooked. Finally, cover the entire greasy mess with enough pancake batter to come halfway up the pan. Cut and serve when done. Can you even imagine what a greasy, salty, disgusting breakfast this made? He loved it and we had to pretend because it was his "specialty".

[The Professor]

wow...the hillbilly pancakes do sound a bit much. Moreso in the execution rather than the ingredients.

I do love hardboiled eggs buried in a meatloaf though...it's classic, and delicious.

[alkapal]

i was thinking of the poor eggs in that "pancake" dish, too. did your parents have an anti-egg bent? ;-)

[joschus]

Hi!

The Hillbilly Pancakes were my ex Father-In-Law's "specialty". I don't believe my mother would have ever thought up that horrible dish! But, you never know!

[alkapal]

sorry joschus, i didn't think clearly.

[biondanonima]

The hillbilly pancakes actually sound kind of amazing to me, but then again I love anything carby fried in bacon grease. I hope there was maple syrup for dipping!

[weewah]

I think they sound good too, but would have to drain the grease. Would be better with sausage.

[mpjmph]

With the exception of wonderful homemade pie, my mom was a terrible cook when I was a kid. She used to serve brown-n-serve rolls with dinner a few times a week, but we called them black bottom rolls because we honestly thought that particular style of bread was supposed to be served with a burnt bottom that you peeled off to get to the soft, doughy interior. She's come a long way, and now is a pretty good cook, though still a little hesitant in the kitchen, which kind of makes me feel bad for teasing her about the rolls.

In other bread related oddities, we always referred to the 2 ends of a loaf as the heel and the toe, because it always seemed wrong that a loaf would have to heels.

[bythebayov]

My mother made scones, beautiful scones...with garlic salt! She is convinced she is a good baker and she is, but will, on occasion, add salt instead of sugar (by accident of course) to a recipe or will omit a crucial component to a dish then serve it like nothing's happened. I love me mother :-)

[marielee]

Not my mother, but my paternal grandmother, and two of my aunts on my dad's side make ricewurst. Which I am guessing somewhere along the line was a traditional recipe, probably much adulterated. I can remember my grandmother telling me that her family used to make it with offal as well but she couldn't stand it that way. It's made from rice, various spices and the meat from a pig's head. It's put in a loaf pan and the individual slices are fried slowly and served with white bread. My mum ate it until she got a piece with a bit of shot in it...and hasn't had any since.

[The Professor]

The ricewurst sounds great...much like the Hurka sausage my grandma made (with the offal...and it was delicious). The only difference would be that my grandma's was stuffed into a casing.

[marielee]

If I remember correctly the original family recipe had kidneys in it. She had a phobia about eating Kidneys. Which is strange really as I have memories of eated corned tounge and crumbed brains at my grandmothers!

[tracey McAllister]

Did anyone mention shake n bake? I had this quite a lot growing up, whether chicken or pork chop. It was usually accompanied by scalloped potato (par boiled spuds with packet of mushroom soup and water) and corn. I have to admit that I loved it and would get Mom to make it for me now if we could get shake n bake here in Ireland.

[bubbles4me]

This is a great thread. I feel lucky but like some others have mentioned a bit seprived as my Mom was a good cook, not fancy but very solid. The one thing I thought was weird was the pile of cottage cheese with an up-turned half of canned pear that was filled with mayo...never quite "got" that and never really liked it

[hill food]

bubbles: that is a classic 1962 Home Ec class/1953 Good Housekeeping magazine recipe. now that iceburg lettuce wedge and bleu cheese have come back, that can't be far behind. ick.

only worse was the version with a canned peach and the mayo mixed into the cottage cheese.

[bubbles4me]

hill food,
Makes sense as Mom was born in 1945....why oh why would they mix mayo in the already fatty cottage cheese?! Oh my....she always served that pear thing with pot pies, smelled the pies I knew there were mayo pears in my future. I used to sneak into the kitchen and slice bell peppers very thin and dress them with red wine vineager, garlic powder, salt and pepper to fill myself up before the pears arrived....funny thing is now I cannot stand bell peppers, (green ones) too many pears and mayo I guess.
She also made this dish in the crock pot, browned stew meat, tomato sauce and paste, sour cream and a TON of bay leaf....served it over rice...hated it like poison.

[hill food]

oh God, the SO and I were joking earlier tonight about mine maybe making a pot roast to a similar effect. curdled was our prediction.

actually though if your mom's had been wrapped in cabbage leaves then baked (not crock potted) in tomato sauce and the sour cream added last, that sounds like goluptsi (SP?) and pretty good.

I do however curse the person that introduced the crock pot to the general public.

it's like the gun cvontroversy, appliances don't kill meals...

[alkapal]

my mom called this a "pear salad": one leaf nice crisp iceberg lettuce, one canned pear half, upturned, one small scoop cottage cheese (winn-dixie is her fave brand), one-half maraschino cherry (if you want to be fancy). that is classic cafeteria food.

i don't recall mayo with the cottage cheese, but sometimes just a pear with a little dollop of mayo was the "pear salad". my granddaddy liked canned cling peach halves with cottage cheese. it is tasty. not something i ever make, but i would happily eat it if served the dish at someone's home!

[bythebayov]

I love peaches and cottage cheese....My husband's grandmother mixes cottage cheese with ripe tomatoes, celery and sometimes, bell peppers....this salad is actually really delish and refreshing.

[alkapal]

bythebayov, oh, yeah, i know that salad -- with cukes, too! it is a filling, nutritional dish -- but guilt-free! love it with lawrey's seasoned salt, maybe a splash of rice wine vinegar, maybe some fresh chopped chives or green onion. i'm tasting that now in my mind! ;-P

btw, is it intentional your screen name ends with a "v" and not a "u"?

your blog is nice. the tuna looked awesome, and your pic with the philly cheesesteak is hilarious! good to know a hound down around hampton roads!

[bythebayov]

No, I live in an area called oceanview and OV is the abreviation for this area, hence the ov :-) Will have to try the salad your way...sounds awesome! thanks for the comments and glad you liked the blog. think you are reader # 5 now :-) I am def a hound and it's great to meet you too! Ps. The cheesesteak challenge was "wicked fun"

[alkapal]

good screen name! and enjoy that salad while summer produce is still so wonderful-- try the lawrey's on it. (i think cottage cheese is one of the few dishes i use it on...)

[Seeker19104]

Kidneys -- my mother came from the South and used every part of the animal. While I was okay with the taste, cooking them involved (I think) combined vinegar to counteract ammonia in the organs. Revolting!

[The Professor]

Vinegar revolting? Seriously?
I guess it's a matter of personal taste. I love cooking with vinegar. There's a classic bean soup (green or yellow beans) my grandma made that contained a combination of sour cream AND vinegar. Sublime.

[foodisgreat]

Don't know anything about cooking kidneys, but surely agree with you, Professor, that vinegar is great. Can think of little else with so many uses. As mentioned in an earlier post, I love it used in lieu of mayo to make deviled eggs & potato salad (as my grandmother did). Couldn't get by without it in pickling of all sorts, various cooking, and it is my "seasoning of choice" for so many foods - greens, cabbage, okra, beets, any type field peas, some beans, some fresh pork, etc., etc. Tuna salad has to have a little vinegar added to it. There's its uses in salads and dressings. And all these uses apply to just plain apple cider or distilled white vinegars; not considering all one does with what I call all the "fancy", "specialty" vinegars. And its good for all sorts of cleaning.

[alkapal]

mmmm, fresh boiled field peas (with snaps) cooked with some rendered bacon pieces, plus a splash of texas pete's pepper-vinegar at the table! http://www.texaspete.com/product_pepp...
served with a hot hoecake. man, that is some fine eatin'.

and eatin'.....and eatin'..... ;-P

[foodisgreat]

You are so right about those field peas (all are good but my favorite are purple hulls), alkapal. And they absolutely must have some pepper vinegar or just plain vinegar sprinkled over them before that first bite. Vinegar or pepper vinegar is even more essential for greens & cabbage. And after our beets and okra are cooked, vinegar is poured over them in their serving bowls & they are served that way (little butter also added to hot okra to melt). And any of those vegetables absolutely must have some sort of cornbread (any type of it) to accompany them. Cornbread crumbled into pea "pot likker" with little vinegar added to it to kinda "curdle" it, is so good that I can do fine with that after the peas have all been eaten - or if the peas are about to run out, others can have the peas as I'd just as soon have the pot likker, cornbread, vinegar "mess". Like you said, alkapal, all this is some fine, fine eatin'.

[alkapal]

oh yeah, crumbling in cornbread to the pot likker is mandatory.

my favorites are cream peas! http://www.ajc.com/living/content/liv...

i could probably polish off a pound of the things. trouble is, you have to keep the amount of the hoecake or cornbread in "balance" with the remaining amount of peas, so if you have too much of one, you have to add to/"top off" the other. a lovely vicious cycle!

[foodisgreat]

You are certainly 100 per cent correct, alkapal, in your praise of cornbread crumbled into pea pot likker (good in greens pot likker but better in that of peas). My dad was like you, with cream peas being his favorite, but somehow I like purple hulls best of all. However, all field peas are so wonderfully delicious it really doesn't much matter what kind I have. And you are right about the problem of balancing the proportions of peas & pot likker (or just pot likker if all the peas are gone) with the cornbread. I fear at times I am guilty of purposely getting the mixture out of balance as an excuse for adding more of one or the other & thereby getting more of the total to eat. Of course this mixture then has to be tempered with a little vinegar to make it "curdle" just right. Oh, so good!!!

[recipelover]

Anything creamed is food of the Gods! My favorites are creamed peas, creamed brussel sprouts, and creamed chip beef. Still make them.

[RavenWilde]

Vinegar also makes a great antiseptic if you get a cut or scratch and don't have anything else on hand to disinfect it. That is what my Mom always used when one of her cats accidentally scratched her. Also, if someone in the house had a cold or the flu, sliced onions in saucers in every room, especially in the sick one's room. No one else ever got the cold or flu..She said the onions attracted and absorbed the germs. I do know no one was ever sick for long!

[hill food]

ever read Angela's Ashes by the late Frank McCourt? Onion boiled in milk was a home remedy for, I believe, croup mentioned.

[sccrash]

Vinegar is one of the foods I'd have to have if marooned on the proverbial desert island.
We make the bean soup as well, it's good with or without vinegar, but better with.
My family also makes what Grandma called Club soup, or sour soup. Diced potatoes, onions, and (raw) meatballs cooked in just enough water to cover. When they're done, round out the broth with some whole milk, then add vinegar to taste. Looks disgusting, tastes wonderful. I make it for my brothers and cousin at Christmas, the only problem is making sure the one brother doesn't sneak out the door with the whole batch...

[HuaGung]

Some perspective first...

My mom was raised by parents who were born and raised in Kilbotn, Norway, which is up above the arctic circle. They were fishermen.

My mother's favorite meal to this day, and my least, is a plate of boiled white fish balls; boiled, peeled new potatoes; and white gravy served on a Melmac plate and had with a large glass of milk.

I realize other cultures, including the French, enjoy all-white meals but this one is my nemesis.

[Passadumkeg]

Fiskeboller med hvit saus! Needs a little Tabasco. I miss the smobrod and a polser (hot dog) with shrimp salad dumped on top.
I once wrapped a can of fish balls for a Chrismas gift exchange. He he he.

[Cinnamon]

In desperate need of bird chilies, coconut, dried shrimp, lime and cilantro.

Or at least herbs d' provence. No, scratch that. Bird chilies, coconut, dried shrimp, lime and cilantro.

[operagirl]

My mom is actually a good cook -- she never over-steamed the brussels sprouts or served us lots of canned things.

The only "weird" thing I can think of is her Chutney Cheese Paté, which was delicious! Maybe more 70s than weird, and no doubt a holdover from my grandma's days of catering with Narsai David. In any case, it involved cream cheese, sharp cheddar, major grey's chutney, chopped green onions, a touch of sherry . . . I'm not sure what else. Eaten on triscuits.

[mlgb]

Yes, there were a lot of cheese balls and doctored up cheese spreads in those good old pre-cholesterol days. Ramaki, anyone?

[lisavf]

My mom was... well-intentioned but short on cash and, frankly, not a great cook. (Excellent baker, though!) Some of the more memorable:

Franks and beans: slice hot dogs, fry the cut sides in a large pot along with some sliced onion, add a can or two of Campbell's Pork-n-Beans, some ketchup and brown sugar. Heat through and serve.

Chicken and rice: put cut-up pieces of boneless chicken, a can of Campbell's Cream of Tomato soup, rice (maybe about a cup), water, and probably something I'm forgetting (memory loss serves me well here) into a deep casserole dish, stir, put into the oven for I'd guess an hour or thereabouts, until the chicken is cooked through and the rice has absorbed all the liquid. I loved this as a child.

Rattatouille: Take whatever squash came out of the garden, add whatever other vegetables were on hand, some garlic, and some sort of liquid, and cook the crap out of it... I mean, simmer for a reallllllly long time, until it's a tasteless plate of mush. Even the dog wouldn't eat this, seriously. I have one memory of sitting at the table until bedtime because I refused to eat it, just refused. I tried to slip it to the dog - she ran away.

And who can forget the dreaded tuna noodle casserole?

OTOH, she made the most delicious chocolate cake, and when we were really young, she would cut it up and reshape it into the most wonderful shapes, decorated so beautifully: an Easter bunny, a Christmas tree, whatever would suit the occasion. She had a little booklet that showed how to cut the cake and form the shapes, but she sure had an eye for the decorating. And the cookies! Christmas would start right after Thanksgiving, at least where the cookies were concerned. That was heaven!

When I was growing up, I weighed next-to-nothing. Everyone thought I was a picky eater, and so did I. What I realized when I got older is, I was a picky eater - I wanted GOOD food! I also realized that my parents had very limited financial resources, so Mom did the best she could with what she had. And we always had plenty of food. And I'd gladly eat her ratatouille every night if I could have her back on earth with us. So if your mother is still making you weird foods, eat up! Enjoy the day! And take notes, even if they consist of what not to do!

[walker]

I was touched by your comments; we should all savor our moments with each other.

[ChineseChou]

I know this is a LOOOOONG post but I couldn't help but add to it. My mom was never a good cook. She grew up in a rather wealthy home in Vietnam so she never had to learn anything domestic. Of course, all that changed when we arrived in a basement tenement in L.A. While she did try and some of the stuff she made was edible, my favorite memory is when she tried to make gravy from oyster sauce--"C'mon try it. It's brown like gravy. It's saucy like gravy. It's gravy!"

[alkapal]

chinesechou, that was very sweet. thank you!

[Chinamerican]

LoL, my dad makes gravy from oyster sauce, in the sense that it is a gravy for any sort of meat or gravy for say, a traditional Thanksgiving turkey. It's actually quite delicious.

[Passadumkeg]

I've hesitated because of the title of this thread. Both my parents were excellent cooks and taught me to love food. But I guess from a kid w/ 1st generation Russian immigrant s parents I sure was embarrassed when my WASP buddies would come over ask me why my house always smelled of cabbage?
Mom's "weird" foods: Borscht (and cold summer borscht, holodnik), schi (cabbage soup, holopsi (stuffed cabbages), ribs and/or pork chops baked in kapusta (saurkraut) with kolbasi, pielmeni, pierogies, beets in all forms, herring w/ sour cream & onions on great rye bread and home made babka and pasks (Easter cheese) We decorated Ukrainian style Easter eggs and had huge family get togethers where Russian was the primary language, lubricated by copious amounts of vodka and Grandma the matriarch.
A a Russian Pennsylvania coal miner's daughter mom is a gifted person. She also cooked excellent spaghetti w/ excellent meat balls, great meat loaf, excellent fried chicken, liver, onions & steamed potatoes. Steak and baked potato for Sunday dinner. Lots of lamb, pork and veal dishes and suppers during the work week were rich thick peasant soups with soup meat (I had to explain what this was to my Yankee wife.) and excellent corn rye slathered in butter for dunking. She cooked like her mother taught her and I still cook most of them. She took me on monthly "cultural" trips to NYC to museums, the Met , the NY Philamonic, Shakespere at McCarter's Theater in Princeton. And great restaurants too to introduce me to fine dining.
She did all this in the 60's while teaching on a provisional certificate AND taking evening and summer courses at Rutger's U.! She graduated with a degree in English Literature 2 weeks before I did from high school. She is now approaching 93 and beginning rapid memory loss. She is soooo pleased to be on meals on wheels now. One hellova a woman!
And did I mention, she taught me to cook.

[Eileen]

What a fun thread! My mom always made the same meals- roast beef with baked potato and string beans, fish and spaghetti, pork chops and applesauce. She also made a canned salmon loaf. My dad used to like liverworst and mash it on white bread. Mom also made a Watergate cake - I think it had pastachio pudding in it. MIL made the spaghetti and ketchup dish with butter.

[Whosyerkitty]

Now I would LOVE a recipe for borscht. I don't like beets, but I do like borscht. I don't know why. I have made pierogi from scratch and OMIGOD what a mess and a lot of work! My BIL's mom was Polish and she was one of those ones that cooked all the time. If we went to her house at midnight she'd be cooking for some reason. And then you had to sit down and eat regardless of the hour. I think that people that were Eastern European during WWII just RELISHED (no pun intended) the fact that food was so plentiful when they came here.

[FriedClamFanatic]

I read some of these and they bring back memories (not always good). I was born in the fifties. My mother never had learned to cook (We lived with my granfather and had an Irish maid until I was 8 - Grandfather died). He had a huge garden and even hired high school kids to help out. Froze tons, literally! I never remember a memorable meal.

After Grandpa died, my Mom started cooking. The ONLY thing I remember as memorable was codfish cakes and beans on a Friday night.

The funny thing is here over 50 years later, I work as a cook for a woman who is in her late eighties. What does she like? Chicken legs cooked until they are like burnt paper, Crab "goop", popovers, meatloaf that could sink a sub, etc.! It brings back the memories, but it sure is easy.

[poptart]

So much fun to read the foods we all grew up with...there sure is a common thread.
Just had to mention that I started reading "Toast" this weekend, a memoir by Nigel Slater (food writer from UK) and it's very enjoyable & recommended!

[chocchipcookie]

Wow, brings back memories. My mom was famous for her "homemade" spaghetti too-right out of a jar of Ragu. The fact that ground beef was added made it homemade. My DH will only eat sphaghetti this way. He complains when I make it from scratch. I guess we all still like certain things for nostalgic reasons. I think many of us have become adventurous cooks in spite of what we learned as kids. Here were my moms favorites, mind you she only used S&P and cooked most dinners in an electric skillet.

Stuffed peppers (with ground beef tomatoes and rice, topped with breadcrumbs and stips of Kraft singles)
City ckicken? Chicken breaded and cooked in some sort of gravy w/mushrooms
Super dried out meatloaf. Ack!
American chop suey
Chef Boy Ardee pizza from a box (which I still kinda like-nostalgic)
Salmon patties-never ever liked

This thread has statred me thinking, the reason we were served (some, not all) of this junk is b/c they were easy to make. I have learned from my own 2 picky eaters that spending the entire afternnoon making dinner and having it pushed around on plates and not being consumed is very disheartening! I can only throw so much down the disposal before I just say no. But that is a whole new topic!

[riverwood]

These posts bring back a lot of memories! When I moved to NYC in the early 80's my roommate made the 'slumgullian' for dinner one night. Another roommate's specialty was ground beef, elbows, one can of cream of mushroom soup, one jar of mushrooms and a large jar of Cheez Whiz. One night as a teen I spent the night with my neighbor and we made a Chef-Boy-R-Dee boxed pizza with cut up Vienna Sausages on it....mmmmmmmmm

I grew up in the South. Whitebread, margarine, 'French' dressing, jello, casseroles, canned vegetables, canned soup, canned biscuits, etc. Dad said moving up North ruined me....he called my fresh steamed green beans 'Yankee Green Beans' and wouldn't eat them. I always had to microwave a can for him. And all he wanted in his salad was iceberg, cucumbers, radishes and French dressing.

'Watergate Salad' was always part of a company meal growing up. Spaghetti was spaghetti with sauce made from ground beef, canned tomatoes and one of those packets. Did anyone ever have to suffer through Pat Nixon's Chicken Salad (poor Richard)? It was Mom's favorite, baked and covered in crunched up Lay's potato chips. She did make good lasagna but like someone else mentioned, I never saw a garlic clove until I was grown and on my own. Mom liked to mix a can of Campbell's Chicken Gumbo soup with ground beef and call it sloppy joe's (not bad). Also, elbows with ground beef and a can of tomato juice was goulash. Sunday was always pot roast with over baked carrots and potatoes. Her favorite appetizer was a couple leaves of iceberg, topped with a pineapple (canned) round, a blob of Duke's mayo and shredded cheese.

A couple years ago she came over for dinner and requested my recipe for sauce and meatballs. I wrote it all down for her and a couple weeks later she told me she used my recipe but it didn't taste right. I asked if she followed the recipe exactly and she answered, "Well, I didn't have garlic cloves so I used garlic powder, and I didn't have red wine so I used beef boullion (huh?), I used Rago instead of going to all that trouble of making sauce, but I did it just like you said!" Gotta love Mom!!

RW

[Whosyerkitty]

My mom made "slumgullian" of sorts, too but used rice and called it "Spanish Rice"; ground beef, celery, onions, canned tomatoes, rice and some spices. Once in awhile I crave this and make some up-- kids like it, plus you're sneaking lots of veggies in there.

My mom was WAY ahead of her time in that steak and beef roast was made RARE ( and quite excellent). "Spaghetti" (WHEN exactly did pasta other than spaghetti and macaroni become available in the US?) sauce from scratch, simmered for hours and she made the best damn meatloaf on the planet that I make today. My sisters and I all still make her "cheesedip", too; grated onion, cream cheese, mayo and worcestershire. Sophisticated? No, --and SO 50's, but people LOVE it and we always need a lot for family parties.

Salads were pretty standard fare, too, basic green ones with tomatoes and bottled dressing, but salads nonetheless. I cannot comprehend, though, why on earth HOT veggies were always canned (icky!) or frozen. I find fresh veggies really simple to steam and far better tasting--and LOOKING. My own daughter has never had a canned veggie. I wonder if back then (60's-70's) fresh veggies were that much more expensive, although I know that seasons were far more restrictive.

I do recall some convenience foods during the week --Mac and cheese, blue box with Kosher (this, for some reason was a must) hot dogs, "veal cutlet" with a "sauce from Campbell's tomato soup, Hamburger Helper, some kind of frozen weird fish casserole and even pot pies.

I also loved, still do, and now make sometimes, breakfast for dinner.

But my mom made, hands down, the BEST pork roast and chocolate cake frosting (on a mix cake, or OCCASIONALLY "mayonnaise" chocolate cake) that I've not been able to duplicate. Sigh.

[goodhealthgourmet]

Whosyerkitty...any chance you'd be willing to share that recipe for "the best damn meatloaf on the planet?"

[Whosyerkitty]

I had to think about this because there was never a recipe, per se. But actually, it's REALLY simple and very forgiving:

Pre-heat oven to 350.
INGREDIENTS:
*2 lbs ground beef, room temp OR a ground meat mixture (but I don't eat veal, so I use all beef-and I think about 80/20 or 85/15 is best. You can also use 1 lb of ground turkey to cut back on fat, but all turkey isn't flavorful enough, really)
*One medium onion, chopped
*1/2 green pepper, 1/4 yellow pepper 1/4 red pepper, chopped
(mom used only green--other colored peps just weren't around then)
*2 eggs beaten with about a tbsp of worchestershire, 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper or to taste.
*1/2 c. commercial breadcrumbs OR toast the heck out of a piece of white bread (which I also don't eat) OR I have successfully used CRUSHED CHEERIOS in a pinch and it was surprisingly light and didn't alter the taste at all. Either way, just crush them in a baggie with a rolling pin, wine bottle, can, whatever
*1 can tomato sauce
*Splash of red wine, opt.

INSTRUCTIONS:
Dump all but breadcrumbs in a bowl
Smoosh with your hands. Wet them first. Get your kids to help--they LOVE this part and they don't realize all the veggies you're sneaking in there. LOOK at it (this is mom talking); you want an even mixture of peppers and onions and you can add more peppers if you want.

Mix in your bread crumbs, splash in the wine or not
Smoosh some more. Form a loaf in the bowl Be gentle, though, so it doesn't get tough.

Turn on to a baking pan. Make a nice loaf (think cats).I use my cast iron frying pan because I take the meat loaf out of the pan, let it rest and then make gravy on the stove in the same pan. DO NOT USE a loaf pan because you then are going to

DUMP the tomato sauce on the meatloaf, coating the top and sides. It makes a lovely crust. You can also artfully place strips of the remaining pepper across the top--this is a good kid project, too. The roasted peps are yummy.

Crack some black pepper over the sauce

BAKE at 350 for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. You can LOOK at it (mom again) or cheat and use a meat thermometer stuck in the middle to WELL. Much easier.

Let it rest while you make some gravy on a platter or cutting board or something. If you use a baking pan, scrape the bits into a saucepan to make the gravy.

Since you MUST have mashed potatoes with this (it's a dreadfully fattening meal, but good with egg noodles, too), use some of the potato water to thin the gravy and you can also use the tomato sauce can for the H2O.

DON'T eat the whole thing because it makes great sandwiches the next day.

Enjoy!

[goodhealthgourmet]

thanks - it's always interesting to see someone else's take on a classic. [love the Cheerios incident, BTW - very resourceful!]

[Whosyerkitty]

Cheerios are fortified! :)
EEEWWW, I did just thing of something nasty. CARL BUDDIG PRESSED CHICKEN in my school lunch. Blech!

[coll]

I always add oatmeal to my meatloaf, rather than bread, so Cheerios wouldn't be that far removed!

[alkapal]

riverwood, you said "I grew up in the South. Whitebread, margarine, 'French' dressing, jello, casseroles, canned vegetables, canned soup, canned biscuits...."

fresh veggies and homemade biscuits were the standouts in my southern upbringing! and casseroles are just fine with me -- esp. a good eggplant casserole made with campbell's mushroom soup, cheddar cheese, and ritz crackers! jello, not so much, but some of those molds are amazing!

and i think everyone has had watergate salad.....

[riverwood]

We did get fresh vegetables and homemade biscuits, dumplings and delicious hoecake (?) at Grandma's. I think Mom was trying to leave all that behind her when she left the mill town to move to the 'big city'. Probably why we were fed formula, too. : ) BTW, I have been back in the South for almost 20 years so I'm not knocking it! And I miss that hoecake!!

RW

[foodisgreat]

alkapal, from this & other of your comments re your food "back home", it definitely sounds like we had many of the same sorts of foods when growing up - and they still sound good to me. And same comments apply to that great food you had at your grandmother's, riverwood. I just now noticed, tho, alkapal, in your initial post to this section you mentioned your mom serving potatoes with mayonnaise. Made me think of the spicy boiled potatoes they bring to you to nibble on while waiting for meal at Deanies out in Bucktown area of New Orleans. Always liked those so, to eat them with tartar sauce squirted on them & with crackers. Really liked the spicy potatoes better than most meals there. Always wondered how they did it and a year or two ago I somewhere ran across a recipe, if not the one they use, one which at least comes close. Though they are now beginning to kinda run out, so far this spring, summer, & fall all the grocery stores in this area have had the best ever very small red potatoes. I've surely enjoyed the last few months the many spicy red potatoes I've cooked this way - with tartar sauce squirted on them and eating them with crackers. They also make up into a spicy, kinda different, but very good potato salad.

Potatoes and mayonnaise also make me remember that when my grandmother was growing up in a real rural area they had no electricity or refrigeration, so she learned to cook using vinegar instead of mayonnaise for many dishes, and she continued to do so all of her life. Her deviled eggs were egg yolks, salt, pepper, & vinegar. And her potato salad started out as mashed potatoes (but with no butter or milk added). To this she would add chopped onion & hard boiled egg, salt & pepper, and vinegar, beating it to mashed or creamed potato consistency (but with the little chunks of onion & egg in it). Was served warm when first made at noon - just like mashed potatoes. Then if any was left over it firmed up and was great for just slicing off a slab to eat or for making a potato salad sandwich. Her standard Sunday dinner was roast beef or chicken, this potato salad, field peas, deviled eggs, and the best made from scratch banana pudding you ever tasted. I still at times make her vinegar deviled eggs and potato salad. Just have a craving for that vinegar taste.

[alkapal]

foodisgreat, yes, we did come from similar food heritages. good food! try that sauerkraut and porcupine meatballs recipe i posted. it is really tasty. i always double the recipe (and eat so many of the meatballs by my little ol' lonesome self standing at the stove!) ;-P <lickin' my chops>

[foodisgreat]

Thanks, alkapal. You are right re our food backgrounds. I had noted your porcupine meatballs & kraut recipe with great interest and definitely plan to try it, but am waiting until a little cooler weather. Somehow it seems to me to be a natural "cold weather" dish.

I've always been a "ground beef" fan - any sort of ground beef cooked any way - "steak" (included in that term a good hamburger, one of my all time favorite foods), meatloaf, meatballs, stuffed bell peppers, meat sauce, etc., but I'm accustomed to most of these dishes being "all beef", only occasionally any meat mixture; don't know why; just way its always been. So I'm anxious to try your multi-meat meatballs.

I grew up having (and even now have) kraut occasionally, but not routinely as do so many other vegetables. As a kid, when we killed hogs in the winter, we always had a mess or two of kraut with fresh pork backbone and/or ribs. And kraut (always store bought, canned or bagged, never homemade) was/is a side dish always served with pork - pork chops, pork roast, pork sausage, etc. So the use of sausage in the meatballs is to me a natural for the meat element of a kraut dish. I am quite anxious to try it. Bet the meatballs & kraut really meld well together (see tale below). To me, the tomato soup is the real surprise ingredient in this recipe. Would have never thought of its being included, and can't imagine what it will be like, how it will add to, impact taste of dish, but sure looking forward to finding out.

I have two favorite kraut memories. My childhood playmate (same age kid right across the road) had one set of grandparents who came as children to US from Switzerland. Was entire Swiss community near town. I always loved to go with him to visit those grandparents. They were entirely self sufficient, raised all their food. Always had homemade table wine which they used as routine meal beverage (but never gave any to us kids). Remember a lot of their vegetables included onions - plain mashed potatoes had onions chopped in them, as did all peas & beans & many other dishes. They made their own sauerkraut, which to me was alway so much better than our store bought, guess because it was homemade & the various ways they served it. This friend's mother, up until her recent death as an elderly lady, always prepared some special kraut dishes for any family holiday meals or for any type potluck. Not aware of any of the current generation of Swiss descendants who know, cook any of these foods which their parents & grandparents did. And all the older Swiss were also great bakers - breads & sweets.

At a Navy duty station in Texas, the centerpiece for most parties at the O Club was this beautiful white glazed with red apple in his mouth whole roasted pig. All evening everyone would be snacking on all the other foods on the table & admiring the pig. But then as the evening wore on, got closer to party break up time, everyone got more liquor in them, someone would finally stab the pig & pull out a plug of him to eat. When that happened, you had better be near by to quickly grab a fork & plate if you hoped to get any. In no time at all after that first assault, that pig looked exactly like he had suffered a piranha attack - absolutely stripped to the bones. But one of the most delicious parts of the pig was the sauerkraut with which he'd been stuffed. During the cooking process all the pork juices had so infused that sauerkraut so as to make it absolutely the best I have ever eaten. Thus looking forward to the meatballs cooked on top of the kraut in your delicious sounding, slow cooked recipe. Still can't figure out the tomato soup tho. Thanks. By the way, alkapal, is your mother's name Georgia Faye (or was that name of recipe originator)? My mother was named Georgia Lucille (went by middle name).

[alkapal]

yes, mom is georgia faye! and that whole roasted pig stuffed with kraut sounds fantastic. give me some crunchy bits of the pig, too!

i hope you love the recipe! i'm tasting it (in my mind) right now. i think when the weather changes, maybe late september, i'll make a big batch. i'm happy to eat leftovers for breakfast, lunch and dinner....for at least a couple of days. i know it sounds crazy, but i think you'll see why i call them "famous".

[foodisgreat]

Thanks so much, alkapal. More similarities -not only in our mothers' names- but also apparently in some of our tastes. I've never been that much of a traditional breakfast foods eater. I now enjoy them much more than ever before, but even now like them much better as a supper than as a breakfast meal. While I have always often skipped breakfast (despite "authorities" saying it is the most important meal of the day), if I have breakfast I've always enjoyed left overs - left over hamburger, slice of roast beef or ham, pizza slice, piece of fried chicken, etc. - better than traditional breakfast foods. And there are so many dishes which only get better when left over & warmed up a time of two. Never understood a number of folks I know who refuse to ever eat any left overs. So am glad to hear that the porcupine meatballs & kraut make such a good leftover dish. Who knows, I may like it even better that way than when first cooked (and understand the problem of not eating all the meatballs while they are cooking). Surely anxious to try the dish in all its various modes - meatballs while cooking, complete dish when first totally done, and then as leftovers. Another reason to look forward to some cooler weather. And sure hope & pray tonight for best for all Chowhounds, for everyone, down along Texas, western Louisiana Gulf coast.

[alkapal]

i'll even eat 'em cold!

[foodisgreat]

That sounds like a winner to me. Wish I had some now. I'd better get in the kitchen & scrounge around for a bite of something before it gets any later. Be looking forward to & will let you know when I do the meatballs & kraut - but gonna let weather turn a little cooler first.

[berkleybabe]

I would love it if you would post your recipe for spicy potatoes--just the thing to snack on as the weather turns cooler! Thanks

[foodisgreat]

Glad to do so, berkley, but it's not my recipe; it's one I found somewhere a year or two ago, after years of wanting one of this type.

3 lbs. small red potatoes, unpeeled
1 tbsp. salt
3 tbsp. Zatarain's Liquid Shrimp & Crab Boil OR 1 bag of Zatarain's Shrimp & Crab Boil spices
2 shakes of Butter Buds or MollyMcButter
2 oz. Louisiana Hot Sauce (not Tabasco)
Water

Cover potatoes with water. Add crab boil bag or liquid spices. Bring to boil. Add salt, hot sauce, Butter Buds or McButter. Boil 10 to 12 min. or until potatoes reach desired doneness. Serve hot with sour cream & butter. Good cold with sprinkle of salt.

As earlier said, my favorite way to eat them is as a snack or appetizer - at room temperature or cold - with tartar sauce and saltine crackers. Also like to cube them & make potato salad.

Believe the liquid crab boil makes potatoes spicier than the bag of crab boil spices. For first time at least, I would go conservative with the liquid crab boil (if used) and hot sauce - using amounts specified at most. Tho not called for in recipe, I always add a bit of black pepper to cooking water. May or may not sprinkle little salt and/or pepper on potatoes as eating them.

Hope this comes out OK for you, berkley, and that you & yours enjoy. I need to cook up another batch next week.

[betsydiver]

my mom used to make cabbage and boiled potatoes and serve with vinegar, sometimes would let us sprinkle a little sugar on the cabbage....

[meleyna]

My mom does the same thing with the Gumbo, but she calls it "chick-burgers." No idea.

[foodwich]

my grandmother's specialty was a yemeni dish called sufoot. made with ground lamb, veggies it was delicious. aunt's specialty was brains cooked with a cilantro pesto kind of sauce and very delicious too and mom as mentioned before was the adventurous one. loved to try new foods and recipes. thankfully i have a little bit of each of them in my cooking style.

[janetofreno]

I may have mentioned it before...but my mother was known for many things..not cooking. One dish she did that could certainly be classified as "weird" involved steamed broccoli in a casserole, topped with hard boiled egg slices and cheese...then the whole thing put in the oven until the cheese melted. Or something like that. She would make the broccoli stand up like little trees..... Susancinsf might remember the exact details. What I remember is that I liked the broccoli..(it was fresh) and fresh steamed broccoli is still one of my favorite foods.

[susancinsf]

I loved it and regret to this day not trying to get the recipe while she was still around....pretty sure it was cheddar cheese but it could even have been american...time to do a little experimenting in the kitchen!

[cheetobrain]

Everything in my house was ground beef based. Stuffed cabbage, lasagna, stuffed peppers, spaghetti, chili, meat-filled perogie. I RARELY buy ground beef as an adult. We just had a very bland, polish palate in my family, so we used BOTH spices and not much else. If it wasn't for my adventurous city aunt I probably would never know what spice tastes like. My father also gets very little enjoyment from food, so he just mixes everything up on his plate and shovels it in his mouth. So yeah, not much experimenting with food in our house...

[Val]

Same here, cheeto...I feel your pain...no experimenting...my father thought that enjoyment of food was horrid and I'm not kidding. When it wasn't ground beef, it was a can of hash, cooked in a pan but not even crispy=sitting in grease, and a can of green beans. I vowed to never, ever cook that way.

[cheetobrain]

Val, perhaps our fathers were separated at birth? :)

Despite my family's ground beef, La Choy from the can kind of lifestyle, I always loved food and love to cook now.

[alkapal]

danhole, gooooooo and get it --- over on chow recipes! (georgia faye's famous porcupine meatballs and sauerkraut). good for a day like today, with the tropical storm hanna keeping us cooped up! thankfully, no winds!!!)

[danhole]

Thanks Pal! I'm sure my DH won't try it, but I sure will! Hope hanna leaves you alone. We are keeping an eye on ike now.

[alkapal]

yes, most of my family is in sw florida, so ike is a big unknown bad boy right now...

if you make the recipe, just observe how long your dh takes to try "just a meatball" (then maybe a lit-tle more....) ;-) i can never resist "taste-testing" near the end of the cooktime. it is a kraut-y smell for a while as you cook, but light a nice scented candle.... it is **totally** worth it.

if your dh likes it mild, you can always split the recipe, rinse kraut in one-half, leave the other half unrinsed, with kraut can juice..... the tomato soup component really does mellow it out, plus the meatballs really flavor the kraut to something new and transformed from the traditional flavor profile one associates with kraut!

[Val]

alkapal...I'm in SWFL, too...I think we are "out of the cone" now...praying that it will stay that way! I saw your porcupine recipe...my mom never made it with the sauerkraut but always with the Campbell's Tomato soup and always in the pressure cooker. I do admire the sweet (tomato soup) and sour ('kraut) twist to it! Not sure I want to re-create it, but I might, I might.....

[alkapal]

the tomato soup is not really a "sweet" profile, more an acidic tartness that tempers the "fattiness" and calms the kraut. go ahead, val, give it a shot when the weather gets cool. december?

[Cinnamon]

If you ever have a chance to go to the LaBelle Swamp Cabbage Festival, do it. There was a beautiful rendition of it (hearts of palm) with white pepper and cream and white bacon.

[alkapal]

i grew up in fort myers, so i've been there at the swamp cabbage festival more than once. i've even won a prize betting on an armadillo race, and have the baseball cap with a drawing of an armadillo to prove it -- a lovely burgundy color, may i add.

[Cinnamon]

:D Are the swamp cabbage purveyors still cooking up really delicious swamp cabbage dishes?

[alkapal]

haven't been in a while, but the jaycees (lion's club?) always had great grilled steak and swamp cabbage. i liked to wander around, soaking up the atmosphere, and then getting an indian fry bread from one of the seminoles in another booth -- pure greasy goodness.

[corabeth]

My mother, grandmothers, aunts, etc, were all excellent cooks. I grew up in West Virginia & their cooking style was just basic southern home cooking. Both sets of grandparents had dairy farms, so all the cooks in my family used fresh cream & butter in their cooking(my maternal grandmother made her own cottage cheese!) Also, all breads, yeast rolls, pie crusts, biscuits, were make with lard & the eggs were, of course, from their own chickens.

Meat was from home butchered steers and hogs, fresh killed chickens, & squirrels,rabbits(both wild & domestic). Vegetables & fruits were either grown in LARGE gardens or picked wild(blackberries, etc). The excess veggies and fruits were canned,frozen,made into jellies, jams, conserves, Hickory nuts were gathered to use in baking.

Now, of course if these ladies had been terrible cooks, then all those wonderful ingredients would have been ruined. But, they were all excellent cooks and bakers. It would take pages to list all the wonderful meals they produced.

I still use their recipes with the freshest ingredients I can find and now my daughter is also cooking in the same way. When our family gets together for holiday,birthday meals I cook very much the same way my mother, grandmothers, & aunts cooked- fried chicken with all the "fixens" is their favorite and I am nto allowed to deviate in any way from the my tried & true menu.