Favorite Food Memories

[BlueMoose]

I was feeding my 7 month old squares of cinnamon toast this morning and it made me think of one of my favorite food memories...When my sister and I used to sleep over at my grandma's house we would get up on Saturday mornings and she would make toast with brown sugar and butter on top and cut it into little squares. We would eat it while watching cartoons in the living room. We always had grape juice to drink with it. Aaaahhhhh...... http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

What are some of your favorite food memories?

[kwormann]

My gramma always had those sugar wafer cookies "ice cream cookies" in an ugly 60's looking canister. That was the first place we wnet when we got there...my sister put her name in the canister years ago, and it is now in her house.

Also, a funny one, for years I wouldnt eat mashed potaotes because I HATE gravy and Gramma always said "you HAVE to have gravy on poaotes". Of course,I didnt realize it was a preference, not a rule!

[Terrytx]

My grandmother would have the whole family over for dinner. Money was scarce back then. She would make a pile of biscuits and sit at the table, stick her thumb down in the biscuit to make a hole and fill the hole with syrup and pass the biscuit on down to one of us kids. Sometimes she spent the whole dinner time just doing that, no time for her to eat, to busy "poking and passing".

[cdm]

Another grandmother story here. She did all the cooking in our medium household. Sunday I can remember Fried Chicken, home-mashed potatoes, she made her own gravy (though I didnt care for chicken gravy but would eat it). She had a Womens Home Companion Cookbook which I still have. If she didnt like the recipe, shed alter it and write it on the side as to how much she used to make it just right. The only thing though is I read those recipes, and they sure dont sound healthy. I made the recipe for mac & cheese out of that book years ago, EEEEK, all the buter. So much so, when you refrigerate it you can see it congeal or whatever the right term is. I can remember her making home made apple strudle yum. She was so great!!!!!!!

[LaraW]

I have a lot of food memories that include my grandmother. My sister and I used to visit my grandparents for a week just by ourselves. That in itself was a treat! She used to let us pick out what we wanted for dinner a few nights out of the week. One night we wanted macaroni and cheese and she spent a long time shredding cheese and making home-made macaroni and cheese. My sister refused to eat it because it was not the right shade of orange that the Kraft stuff is. I also remember my grandma would make soup for us, we each got to pick a kind of soup we wanted. I picked New England Clam Chowder (mostly because I knew my sister did not like it) and my sister picked tomato soup (mostly because she knew I did notlike it).

One of the funniest food memories happened during the summer shortly after I had my tonsils out. I had been home from the hospital for a week or so and was just starting to feel better when I went to visit my grandparents. I ate so much that week! Seconds on EVERYTHING! My grandpa still teases me that he practically had to go out and get a second job so they could feed me that week. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/biggrin.gif

[Mbart]

I remember my grandmother, who was Norwegian, making lefse and kringles. Also this rice dish we just called "milk rice" altho. I'm sure there's a real name for it! All of the above were served with butter and sugar on it (my grandma wasn't exactly thin!) I've just been looking at old photo albums this weekend and found lots of pictures of my grandma and great-grandparents. It makes me miss her terribly!

My other "food" memory isn't exactly food! I remember when I was growing up, my brother and I did not drink soda with any meals, only milk. But we were allowed to split a soda on Friday nights. In order to ensure that we both got the same amount, my parents had a rule that, "one of you pours, the other picks." You never saw such evenly divided sodas in your life...it was like a science experiment to get them perfectly equal, because neither one of us wanted the sibling to get more soda than his/her share!

[ebobbitt]

Isn't it amazing that everyone has a "grandmother" story. I remember my grandmother would actually churn milk in her kitchen and that cream stuff would rise to the top. Because I didn't like "cow" milk she would always make sure she had "grocery store" milk for my visits. The next memory is actually funny but it's definitely not a fond one. My mother was determined I would like sweet potatoes. I remember one day (have no idea how old I was but I wasn't in school) she had me backed up against the wall in the kitchen and this fork containing sweet potatoes was coming at me. YUCK! I still don't like them. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif
Elizabeth

[BlueMoose]

Mbart reminded me of another one...my mom used to make "malts" in the blender for me and my younger sister with ice cream, milk, and Nestle's Quik. We drank them with a straw and for some reason http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/confused.gif I always wanted to be done with mine last. So I would challenge her to a race to see who could finish first and then just pretend to be drinking mine. She told me years later that she always got an ice cream headache
http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif!

[emilycat]

Oooh, I have lots -- I'll try not to drone on so http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

The first, oddly enough, isn't about "real" cooking -- when my sister and I were little, before my other sister or brother were born, one day out of the week we and my mom would go to Winn-Dixie and each pick out the Stouffer's dinner that we wanted. It was so much fun -- like your own little present for the night. I always got either Chicken Pot Pie or Sweedish Meatballs.

Another is of my grnadmother -- they have a farm, and although we still do this, I love the memory of sitting around the kitchen or on stools, shelling peas into bowls and tossing the hulls into these huge buckets. I hope I get a chance to do it again.

[AD]

My grandmother did not do that much cooking, but I remember a lot of old things I used to love. When I was 6, living in California, my family often ate at the Old Spaghetti Factory. I've really missed that place. I remember a Mexican restaurant in the Dallas area called ZuZu. It used to be the best Mexican food. I ate there 2-3 times a week. There are only a few very distant locations left in Dallas, and they are not nearly as good anymore.

It's mainly the restaurants I miss. They have all gone way downhill (both in taste and in service) or closed down.

[AndreaU]

My grandma used to make the BEST oatmeal. I've never been able to duplicate it since. I know she used regular Quaker Oats in the cardboard container, from there it's still a mystery. Butter, milk and raisins were somehow involved. She also let us have stuff mom & dad would never buy- mostly candy! Those wax bottles with juice in them, little cones with marshmallow "ice cream," and candy necklaces to name a few.

Another food memory involves my aunt's rye bread dip. It was made in a round loaf which was cut out and the removed bread was used for dipping. The dip was sour cream, Bon Appetit spice blend, and some kind of packaged dried beef (sounds gross as written, but totally addictive!). She made it for every holiday and special occasion. She passed away over 15 years ago, but my cousins (her daughters) continue the tradtion of Aunt Sharon's famous rye bread dip by bringing it to all family functions.

[beccathebaker]

Oh goodness-Sunday mornings growing up were so much fun. Mom would make pancakes shaped like animals or popovers which we would cut open and fill with butter and honey. I'll never forget the way that the steam heat from the popovers melted the butter and honey together to make the most delectable sauce!
As much as I now love homemade food, I definately remember wishing that I could have a "Friendly's" grilled cheese with processed cheese and white bread rather than my moms gross cheddar cheese on whole wheat.
Like Emily, I remember being so excited when my sister and I could go to the store on saturday nights and pick out our own frozen dinners. I loved celeste microwave pizza (yuck!)
It's really funny but as I was going through treatment for cancer a few years back and recently as I have been recovering from gallbladder surgery and cancer aftereffects, I have often craved these old favorites and treated myself to things like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pancakes and pudding.
Funny how these comfort foods will be everlasting for me!
-Becca

[Jewel]

My grandmother had a habit of having dinner ready at least three hours before we were scheduled to arrive at her house. She wanted to 'get it out of the way', so she started cooking at 8am when we didn't come over till 2pm! When my family would arrive, the roast would be drying out under the foil, the cob corn would be 'puckering' in the water, and the mashed potatoes would be ice cold and getting rubbery...and this was before microwaves could come to the rescue!! I don't remember many hot meals at Grandma's unless we surprised her early! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif

My grandmother DID make the best pies, though. She had a habit of making a bunch of pies and putting them in the big chest freezer. She'd poke the holes in the top crust of the pie before freezing, and she'd poke the holes in the shape of the letter that identified the pie! Seven-year-old me would be butt-up in the chest freezer digging around looking for the pie I wanted. If the holes were poked to form a big 'C' I knew it was Cherry, 'A' was apple, 'B' was always a surprise, it could be blackberry, blueberry or boysenberry. It was her way of identifying what was inside, but to me it was the treasure hunt!! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/biggrin.gif

[rinsav]

I have a few great food memories....

My grandma would always cook pudding for my brother, cousins, and I every time we visited her. Then we would all pile into her bed and eat our pudding on trays. We always poured cream on the top. Oh wow, was it good! I miss those days.

My other favorite memory happened every weekend as a kid. My brother and I weren't allowed to eat sugar cereals during the week but on the weekends, we could eat them to our hearts delight. We called them "weekend cereals." Also, my Dad made this treat even more special....he would lay out bowls on our plates and he would place some kind of candy or something under the bowls. So, we would rush downstairs every weekend morning to see what was under our bowls and then we'd grab the "weekend cereal" and pig out while we watched cartoons.

Mbart, we had a similar rule about soda. None all week (milk with dinner) but Sunday nights, my brother and I could have soda. However, we were lucky and each got our own. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/biggrin.gif The way your parents had you share cracks me up. That's great! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[JHolcomb]

Oddly enough (perhaps), my best food memories revolve around the men in my life, both of whom so rarely cook.

One of my very favorite memories of my dad is this one time when I was about 13. He has some friends who had an orchard with peaches and apples and pears and figs and berries, and they let us come out and pick all of the blackberries that we wanted. We got home with all these beautiful, fresh berries, and my daddy, who never cooks, made this beautiful dessert with sweetened whipped cream and blackberries folded in. He said my mamaw used to make it when he was little. My mom and my sister wouldn't touch it-they thought it was "gross", but I ate as much of it as I could hold, it was so good. I really love spending time with my dad, and he never fails to amaze me with his knowledge-I had no idea that he could whip cream!

Another great memory is of my husband. My grandparents own a farm in the mountains and have fox grapes growing EVERYWHERE. When we were just dating I took him up there when the grapes were ripe, and we walked all over that 80 acres picking them. When we got home we made wild grape jelly-our first real project together. It was so much fun, and that was probably when I knew, without a doubt, that I would marry him. Every time I taste that jelly I think about that day, too.

I must say that some of my best food memories are some of my best love memories, too. Sorry to be so mushy...

[alli]

My favorite food menu is eating masala spiced fried fish in India when I was little.
Eating this fish at night with a side of onions and peppers was out of this world!

[KitchenWitch]

We were extremely poor growing up, but my parents always tried to find a little something special for each of us. Every couple of months my mom and I would do a whole day shopping, farmers stands and bulk stores to stock up what we didn't grow. She always gathered up her change and before we went home we stopped at a little roadside stand and shared the best rootbeer floats and girl talk.

[SandyM]

......eating orange popsicles with my paternal grandmother on her front porch. I was 5 when she died, and I remember that summer, so vividly. I can't eat an orange popsicle and not think of her fondly.........

Funny, how I can't remember things that happened a week ago, but yet conjur up a memory of 32 years........

[Julie in AZ]

My mom hates that I remember this, but after my parents divorce, money was very tight. We lived in a one bedroom apartment and for dinner, she would make "soup over rice," and we would use our TV trays and sit in the living room, which was very exciting for a 6 year old. (It was any kind of soup over minute rice. She did this to make it more filling and she was able to make the soup last longer.) I loved it and still have a craving every once in awhile.

[GayeC]

These memories are bringing tears to my eyes -- and I am not even a particularly sentimental person!

When we visited my grandmother in the summer she would make us a wonderful drink she called "blend." She mixed sherbet, orange juice, apples, and bananas in her old-fashioned blender and we drank it out of tall glasses. Delicious! The same grandparents had a small orange grove. I would pick an orange and my grandmother would cut a small hole in it, then insert a peppermint stick so I could "drink" the orange juice through the peppermint stick! My grandfather also grew pineapples and I would go out with him to pick them. I had no idea what a delicacy a fresh pineapple was.

[MelissaAS]

I remember sleep-overs at my grandmother's (god rest her soul) too. She emigrated to the US when she was 16 from Syria and was a fabulous cook! There are many things no one can replicate now that she's gone. It's the simple breakfast I remember now, though: she would make me "cereal" out of warm milk with pieces of fresh syrian bread and sugar in it. Yummy! She's probably the reason why I still find warm cereals comforting today- my mom never made them!

[BarbaraL]

My grandparents always spent Christmas holidays with us, and watched my brother and me while my parents went out for New Year's Eve. We always had potato chips with onion dip as we watched Guy Lombardo on TV; at midnight we had root beer floats (after we banged wooden spoons on pans to "ring in" the new year). One year, my brother and I set up the basement as a restaurant, and "served" everyone our special New Year's treats. What wonderful memories!

[KLynn]

mmmm...I can practically smell my mom's chicken and dumplings right now...with flaky cheese biscuits...

[cchhbb]

I remember eating grilled cheese and tomato soup when I was sick. To this day, I crave this comfort food when I have a cold. I have even ordered off the kiddie menu from room service when traveling for work.

For as long as I can remember, we have had the same food on Christmas. We always had quiche and fresh squeezed orange juice for breakfast and standing rib roast for dinner. I had my first Christmas with only my husband this year and we had the same things. We had spent a few years with his parents and it just doesn't seem like Christmas without those foods.