Can your Mother cook?

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attie

Sous Chef
Joined
Jul 30, 2006
Messages
718
Location
Mackay Queensland Australia
My memory was jolted last week when my wife and I paid a visit to my 89 year old Mother in our home town. I left home at 17 years old and returned for a short time to marry but moved away again. I recall the coke/wood stove and having to go down to the railway tracks when Dad tooted the whistle when throwing some coal off for us as he went by our house [He was a steam train fireman]. My brothers and I breaking up the coal and Mum cooking over this dreadfully hot stove and I always getting in trouble for not eating my dinner. Dinner was served at 5pm and if you weren't there you missed out, so I was always late.

After we had our two boys Mum and Dad would come visit occasionally and she would always bring tins of assorted biscuits, jam drops, cornflake biscuits etc. That was OK for awhile until the boys started bringing them home from school uneaten. The last straw came when the dog jacked up on them, so I had to politely tell Mom not to bother anymore.

Mom was back in to her best form for our visit, we took the food, she cooked it. Everything gets well done, really well done, like the sausages burnt black well done, the boiled cabbage dissolving in to the water well done, and dinner ready to eat at 2pm.

Two nights of this was enough I'm afraid, no wonder I was a skinny runt when I was a kid, so I'm afraid my Mum is not much of a cook, but she tries ----- God bless her.
 
my mother was a terrible cook, bless her.........she had other great qualities but cooking wasn't one of them........talk about pyrotechnics......... for all the meats that she cooked there was no worry about e. coli or salmonella......if the bacteria were there they burned up in the funeral pyre which was her whole purpose in the first place........vegetables came out of a can.......no seasonings whatsoever.........cheese sandwiches were tasteless cheese slices with mustard.....no mayo whatsoever......but we always passed our blood tests and physicals so we weren't at any health risks.....though how, I don't know.......she did make great homemade fudge, however.........from Pennsylvania............I miss her burnt offerings........
 
My mother was quite good with basic stuff - she didn't learn until she married. However my grandma produced food which was very interesting. Her pasta salads were renowned in the family.
 
Yes my Mother could cook, and I would give all the Gold in the world to hear her call out the back door..."C'mon in Bob..It's supper time"
 
My mother was an amazing cook. She was from the south and really knew what she was doing. She wasn't one for measuring though so her recipes she wrote down for me aren't exact but after some trial and error I've mastered quite a few of her dishes. God I miss her!
 
My mother was a very good cook. She didn't like to cook but did it well. Both my parents came to America from Armenia as young adults. As a result, I was raised on mostly Armenian dishes. I am still trying to re-create some of those foods from Mom's kitchen.
 
Attie - we ate at 5:00 sharp too!

My sister and I were just talking about this. We remembered about 5 or 6 things - we each called them off - after that, we couldn't remember anything else. Surely there were other things. Her macaroni salad I still make today and it is a favorite with anyone who eats it. She made a "mean" kraut and ribs on the stove and our version of shepherd's pie, Hungarian dishes (paprikash, Goulash, cucumbers/sour cream, Potica). After all us kids were out of the house she did experiment from a little cookbook put out by, of all people, some cigarette company. Let me tell you, that woman could follow directions and produced some stuff that made me take notice! So, while we thought she wasn't adventurous I think she just had her hands full getting a full meal on the table each and every night and couldn't really break out of that box.
 
Seems like many of us learned to cook in self defense. My mother believed that everything should be well done. Meat so dry you could break it, vegetable mush with grease. Ironically, my dad had a friendt that fattened a steer fattened each year and split it, and hunted all fall. We grew a vegetable garden. So, she started with the best of ingredients. I still prefer everything as close to raw as possible
 
Yes, my mom can cook. I learned all my basics from her and developed my own methods. It's just her and my dad now so its more frozen dinners and salads and sandwiches, even when I come home. But when I was a kid, it was a home cooked meal every night with my dad taking leftovers to work the next day. I miss her stuffed cabbage. Also every Christmas because I don't like ham, we would have a pork roast with scalloped potatos from scratch. She also made fetuccini alfredo homemade - would you like a little pasta with your heavy cream and butter? :chef:
 
My mom grew up on a farm. HER mom often helped with the field work leaving my mom to do the cooking and cleaning. Both women though were good cooks but kept to simple country dishes. My dad's mom was a great baker! Her meals were okay, nothing special but man, could she bake pies, cakes, cookies, candies! It was always awesome going to her house for the homemade sweets. My mom taught me how to cook and when I was in 6th grade I planned and cooked dinner for the whole family. I made lasagne, salads, garlic bread, and baked alaska for dessert. Mom only helped by making sure I had all the utensils and ingredients. She left us many great recipes. My sisters and I are still going through her cards. Some are so old and faded they are hard to read. I guess I have my mom to thank for my cooking skills what little ones I have.
So far, my sisters and I have each tackled a different dish that was Mom's signature. I make her dressing for thanksgiving as well as her gravy and her potato salad and ham salad. One sister makes her doughnuts, the other makes her apple salad. These are the dishes that we have made that taste just like mom made. We have others but these are what we eat when we want to taste her cooking without her. I miss her alot.
 
My mom was such a good cook! Nothing fancy (usually--but not always the case), but good hearty meals. All of our friends wanted to eat at our house. Whenever I make something that turns out as good as hers, I am so proud of myself! She made the best chop suey, lasagna, meatloaf, and so much more. She was also a great baker and made wonderful breads, lemon meringue and chocolate meringue pies (actually all her pies were fantastic), and you name it, it was all great. I miss her for so many other reasons, but I also miss her cooking.

:)Barbara
 
Mom was the daughter of a Swedish Lutheran pastor from BC. After college and grad school in Wash and Calif, she came east to go to Med school in Philly. As an intern she met dad and married. She learned northern European cuisine from her mom and how to be creative on a tight budget as well. (she grew up with a coal fired stove too, and swore till her dying day it made the best breads and pie crusts because of its intense heat.)

Anyway, mom loved all the cooking shows on PBS (public tv) especially Julia Child the French Chef. Cooking was her hobby, her therapy , her relaxation. And we cooked together as a family. As teens, my sis and I were perfectly capable of finishing off cooking a meal if mom was on call at the hospital.

When she retired she really got into the farm markets and finding old world butchers who really knew their craft and although she mostly cooked from fresh, now it became the total concept.

So mom was always a good cook who became an awesome cook. And she is with us today through her recipes and our memories of learning from her all the techniques we use.
 
Like Andy's mom, my mother could cook, and provided us with healthy, nutritious meals, but she didn't enjoy it. She did enjoy baking sweets for special occasions, though. Her cakes, pies and cookies were amazing!
 
My mom was a good cook. Mostly the basics as she worked most of my school years, so that meant I cooked.
Her specialties were spaghetti sauce, lasagna,cream puffs and the best rolled beef roast. Everyone wanted her to make it for the different family doings. Her gravy was to die for. I wish she remembered how she made it. Her turkey stuffing is something my DH just can't get enough of. Fortunately I have really mastered that as simple as it is.
My grandmother was the one that cooked all the ethnic foods I've learned to make, stuffed cabbage, borscht, chicken paprikash, etc. She was also the one that did all the baking, potica, krushiki(sp?), punchki etc.
My grandmother is gone now and my mom has dementia and I'm glad for all they've taught me!

Barb
 
Seems like many of us learned to cook in self defense. My mother believed that everything should be well done. Meat so dry you could break it, vegetable mush with grease. Ironically, my dad had a friend that fattened a steer fattened each year and split it, and hunted all fall. We grew a vegetable garden. So, she started with the best of ingredients. I still prefer everything as close to raw as possible
More memories Jim, we brought our kids up on a small property and raised our own cattle for meat. A friend who had more experience than I would plan the kill the night before over many drinks then attack at daylight so you can imagine we would not be at our best when the time came. He would shoot the beast [which I couldn't watch] and I recall him missing once at point blank range. I would then hold the beast up with my Bobcat while he split it with the chain saw, I soon learnt to wear a raincoat for that job. Another time, after much swearing and cursing, we discovered that we had put the chain in back to front.
Then we discovered that one could tenderise meat by marinating it with green Pawpaw, so we fed the beast a diet of Pawpaw for a week before the kill. We almost killed it with diarrhea so had to postpone the kill. --- all good times
 
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