[aftermidnite]

Do you have food memories from your childhood both good or bad ?

The other day when I made some sausage gravy and biscuits I saw the last 2 red ripe globes of summer sunshine setting on my window ledge and it brought back memories of when I was a child .

My Mom was divorced with 3 kids and wasn't getting any child support and even tho she worked it seemed like the money didn't go far ..

Both of my Aunts had married farmers who also put out big gardens and canned and froze the surplus ..

In summer it was usual to find a grocery bag (the brown paper ones ) on the back porch filled with things from the gardens ..and there was always tomato's ..

One of the staple meals we would have from late July thru October... a few times a week was white gravy ....sometimes with sausage or bacon ..sometimes just using the drippings ...served over the tomato's..

To me it just wasn't summer until we had the first meal of ripe tomato's and gravy ..

Please believe me when I say I learned to cook out of the desperation to have decent food ..LOL..

My Mom wasn't then or now a very good cook ..

I remember having .....

Beans and dumplings
Beans and macaroni
Chicken and Rocks (we couldn't even call them dumplings they were so hard and sank to the bottom no matter how much you stirred them )

I have a fun memory of Mom in charge of the dumplings at a family holiday meal that even today is known as dumpling soup ..

It was awesome and good by my memory but it only had a very few little tiny dumplings in it ..

I remember one of my uncles declaring it the best lumpy gravy he ever ate !!!

From then on the Aunts would put her in charge of jello salad or a simple cold dish ...

One of her successes was breaded tomatoes and to this day it is also a favorite dish that I make with my canned stewed tomatoes year round ..

I also make macaroni and tomatoes for dear daughter but any form of macaroni is one dish from my childhood I can barley tolerate since we had to eat it so often as a child ...

Every once in a while I make Tuna and macaroni and cheese and that satisfies my desire for any macaroni ..

From about the age of 10 years old I did the cooking ..

I would go next door to ask a neighbor ..or called one of the Aunts on the phone and when I got a couple years older I discovered cookbooks at the library ..

From abut 10 years on I did the shopping by myself in the store with a list and Mom setting outside in the car with the little's while I shopped on Saturday...

What memories of food from your childhood do you still just have to have or maybe a memory of a dish you just refuse to have to this day ..

 

[Travis in Louisiana]

I got a bunch of food memories, but the one I remember the most, was my step grandmother cooking Thanksgiving Dinner. I even have a picture of it. I can just set back and smell all the good cooking.

 

[Ceilismom]

My mom was a pretty good cook overall, but her spaghetti sauce was awful, and if I never eat tuna & noodles or salmon patties again, it will be too soon.

Her fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy was outstanding (and still my very favorite meal to serve my family) and roast and noodles with mashed potatoes are a close second. I will still eat either of these meals until I'm miserable.

Chocolate cinnamon cake is still a universal favorite on my mother's side of the family, and great-grandma's pineapple cheesecake recipe should probably be illegal.

The one recipe from childhood that I have not mastered is my great-grandma's sweet rolls. I remember all the women in the family working on them in the kitchen on Christmas morning, and how full of kids the house was. I still have the recipe, in her handwriting, but I cannot get them to turn out right.

 

[Rita]

Locally-made real Polish sausage, bullhead soup (the fish), a potato, onion and ham bits baked loaf that was called a "baba". Sure miss these.

 

[Kristabelle]

I have loads of great memories in the kitchen growing up. My mother and grandma were pretty good cooks (for the most part ), but I'll focus on the bad for this post ..

My mom cannot stand peas and likes to talk about how disgusting they are. Due to this, I've never eaten peas on purpose. Occasionally I'll have them hidden in a pot pie or stew but I pick out the ones I see. I've never even tried them, and I don't think I ever will. Just the thought gives me the heebie jeebies..weird!

I also do not like peanut butter cookies because Mom got on a fix for a long time where she would make them ALL THE TIME. I guess it's because they're so easy to make. She sometimes burnt them a little on the bottom and I can still remember that taste, because she made us eat them regardless..

I cannot eat spaghetti. In our house, they would boil the spaghetti and leave it in the pot of water during the meal. I have no idea why. Seeing and smelling the bloated noodles in the water on the stove was disgusting to me for some reason. I'll eat other pastas now, as long as they're mixed in the sauce, but I will not touch spaghetti. A plate or bowl of plain spaghetti actually makes me dizzy to look at.

 

[Ceilismom]

My mom cannot stand peas and likes to talk about how disgusting they are. Due to this, I've never eaten peas on purpose. Occasionally I'll have them hidden in a pot pie or stew but I pick out the ones I see. I've never even tried them, and I don't think I ever will. Just the thought gives me the heebie jeebies..weird!

I could not make myself eat peas until I was well into adulthood. I discovered that if they're in a nice crisp salad, instead of cooked until they're pruney and yellow and stewing in a runny white sauce (I still will not touch canned peas or creamed peas), they're actually pretty good.

 

[Darren]

I can remember eating mayonnaise sandwiches as a kid. I'm not real fond of the stuff.

 

[aftermidnite]

I couldn't stand peas as a child either but at a pot luck as an adult I had a pea salad that changed my mind .
I now will fix peas in many dishes but they have to be fresh or frozen ..
I still to this day can not stand the caned peas from the store ...
It is the same for lima beans wouldn't go near them as a child and did in fact skip meals when Mom would fix a big pot of them like you do regular beans with ham hocks ..
Today I love baby lima beans and love to add them to salads or even fix a small pot of them as a side dish ..
Daughter still will not eat peas or lima beans and in fact will not eat any soup beans but loves baked beans ..refried beans and beans in chili ...
is likely because I made her baby food from what I ate and would always have peas or lima beans in the freezer already made into her food ..

 

[whiterock]

My momma loaded the table every day. Summer had loads of fresh vegetables. Never have figured out how she got so much hot food on the table at once with just 4 burners. It was all good, too.
She couldn't make breakfast worth a durn though. Eggs would bounce, bacon and sausage were comparable to sticks and rocks. buiscuits were burned on the bottom. She had to get full awake to cook, i guess.
Cake or cakes were baked on Saturday, and pies made daily. Daddy thought he had to have dessert.
You knew what day of the week it was by what meat was on the table. Unless Sunday had been ham or turkey.
As to the summer fare, fried steak, gravy, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, squash, beans, sliced tomatoes, onions, okra, blackeyed peas, corn. And this would all be on the table at once!! Fresh pan of cornbread and plate of white bread, when grandpa came for dinner (lunch) a wedge of lettuce for him.
Momma used to cook for the field hands as well as the family, and she could really get the job done.
I can make most of what she made, only child, helped in the field then helped get the food on table. Never have baked, and sure miss her pies.

Ed

 

[countryfied2011]

Liver and onions....I was just laughing with my dad the other day on how him and mom would try and trick me with that stuff.....no matter what they did I still knew it was liver. 58 yrs old and still wont eat liver...otoh I love liverwurst...go figure. Peas also was something else I wouldnt eat as a baby...I will eat them now but they have to be Lejuer(?) and very very small amount. I like to put them in the mash potatoes with gravy. I can eat them in soup or stew. One of my favorites things to eat and is still today ate one on Wed, PB&J sandwiches with potato chips mashed in the middle. :facepalm: I also like chocolate milk with it. It is my go to meal when I am sick also.

Both of my parents are great cooks and so was my grandmother...I learned from all of them. I love to cook and love to make up new recipes and try new ones. I am very fortunate that I have a DH that was brought up hard and will eat just about anything..he is not picky.

 

[Bubba1358]

maybe a memory of a dish you just refuse to have to this day ..

I can simply never bring myself to ever try lentils again, ever. :yuck:

But yes - there's plenty. I like to think about the food memories I'll be passing on to my kids - their first backyard leg o' lamb, pizza omelettes, my wife's fried green tomatoes, and so on.

 

[MO_cows]

Grandma's banana pudding! The pudding part was out of a box but it was the cooked pudding and not the instant. It was topped with real meringue and ran under the broiler until the little points that stuck up were golden brown.

On the down side, spinach out of a can. Ugh. Love fresh spinach in a salad, love freshly wilted spinach, but I don't think I ever want to eat canned spinach again.

 

[aftermidnite]

Was just talking to daughter on the phone.....she called to just let me know she was staying with her friend until the husband got home from a double shift so her friend wasn't made to take the new baby out to her mother's.. love that daughter wants to let me know where she is even tho she is well over 21 and that she wants to be there for her friend ...
While talking with her she helped me to remember who my greatest teacher was as far as the cook and Mother I am today..
It was my Great Aunt Katie ..who had been blindsince the age of 12 and married and raised 4 children !
I remember the long talks on the phone with her just abut everyday after school ..her talking me thru each step of each dish I was making ..
She was able to hear every stroke of the knife ..every swish of the beater ..every splatter of the grease in the pan and could tell by the things I told her that was going on just where I was in the cooking process ..
She helped me plan the next days supper ..told me what to take out of the freezer ..how to thaw out whatever we were having the next day ..what to prep ....what to set out to show Mom what we were having ...what we could use from the left overs ...
My Aunts were good at talking and telling ..but she was better because she was right there with me by sound and by words.. she could "see" what I was doing by the sounds that came over the line as well as the words I said to her ...
From the time I was 10 until she moved in with a daughter up north when I was 16 she was my teacher ..my mentor..my secret keeper ..my great aunt....but most of all
MY FRIEND..
A simple question asked here has brought back so many happy memories of her and how I became the mother..cook and friend I am today ...

 

[jwal10]

No cooked spinach here. I was used to swiss chard (doesn't bolt in hot weather). I was in the hospital with polio and the nurses tried to make me eat it. Last resort was orange juice. GAG. We ate swiss chard with vinegar, sometimes. Mom cooked it in butter. A lot of things I don't eat, because I don't have to. Not a big baked potato guy. No lima beans, in fact very few dry beans either. Chili and baked beans, ok. I have a lot of good memories with food, Moms and Grandmas, both were great cooks. My Sweetie was not a cook when we got married, she was a great baker. She is a great cook now. Her Mom did all the cooking, didn't like anyone in her kitchen but she did bake with Sweetie. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen as a sickly kid and when I had polio, learned a lot from Mom and Grandma....James

 

[Mrs Katzenchix]

Creamed lima beans and fried chicken livers for supper. Salmon croquettes, turkey stuffing balls on Thanksgiving. Banana pudding or chocolate pie with a meringue (the meringue was my favorite part).

The foods I miss are the ones that people just don't make much nowadays--maybe they were a southern thing? I can make them myself, but they just don't taste the same as Mom's did.

 

[soulsurvivor]

We grew everything we ate so variety wasn't the norm at our farmhouse. We had farmhands to feed everyday and quantity always ruled what went on the dinner table. Dinner, that was the large midday meal with supper as the nightly meal of what was left over from the dinner table.

I always hated breakfast because it was either hot cooked oats or hot cooked rice. Lots of it and you ate it or starved until the dinner meal. Dinner was usually me cooking it while everyone was out working. Most dinners were fried meat of chicken, pork, or steak. We never ate mutton, lamb, or fresh fish, but did sometimes have fried salmon cakes. The dinner table always had mashed potatoes and au gratin potatoes, green beans, corn, fried apples, pinto beans, and pickled beets, Depending on the meat as to what gravy was served and that would be with or without fried onions. Always had fresh baked cornbread loaf, muffins, and sticks, sliced tomatoes, pickled cucumbers with onions, canned sweet pickles, and fruit cobbler. Cobblers would usually be cherry or blackberry as that's what we had the most of. Sometimes Mom would make fried apple pies, but anything made with a bread dough was hers, not mine. We also grew pears that were used to make our preserves. Also had plums but those were eaten as they ripened and never left enough to make into preserves. Other foods were seasonal for us like lettuce, carrots and peas that were grown in the tobacco beds in the spring. Fall of the year was pumpkin, acorn squash, and apples. Winter was popcorn, fruitcakes and cookies made with walnuts, and deep fried doughnuts.

We never had cauliflower, broccoli, artichokes, sprouts of any kind, cheese, hot peppers, most herbs, and believe it or not, barbeque anything. It was a diet of simple foods and simple seasonings.

One other odd thing about our diet back in the 50s was the well water we drank and used. It was sulphur water that came off an underground spring. You couldn't drink tea made out of it and coffee had to be very strong to cover up the rotten egg taste/smell, but for me it was the best tasting ice water ever.

Ever so often mom would make southern dishes like chicken and dumplings, banana pudding, chicken salad, deviled eggs, pecan pie, german chocolate cake, and many more but these were more for special meals such as when the preacher was coming for dinner or holiday meals.

 

[GrannyG]

My paternal grandmother made the best cookies....they were found in the cookie jar in the cellar of the old stone house....Mmmmmmm....I can still smell the spices in them if I close my eyes.....Memories of love

 

[myheaven]

I come from a long line of amazing cooks. That being said. we were often without food. not for the lack of government help. my mother was divorced and had 3 kids also. she would play the poor me card get all kinds of help but still we kids had none.
anyways what we got was amazing. Sourkraut meatballs and dumplings. our dumplings were not fluffy. I like them hard.
I hate eggs. my mom would get 3 dozen eggs and until they were gone we got nothing else. she got t-bone steaks and fantastic meals. we would watch her eat. or it would be in the fridge and we were not allowed to touch it and we didn't.
I started a garden at the age of 8 withe a shovel and butcher knife. I say home steading is deeply in grained in my bones.

 

[Bret]

I remember every time liver or fried mush with syrup was made. I liked one and could not eat the other.

I remember just about every holiday meal and where people sat. Just about.

 

[mnn2501]

Mom was a lousy cook and even worse housekeeper.
Had quite a few bouts of "flu' when I was a kid, now as an adult I realize that was not the flu but more likely a light case of food poisoning.

If a place advertises 'Home cooking just like Mom used to make" I run far far away.