Food Memories

[Barbara L]

I was looking through the beef section, and the posts about chicken fried steak brought back some memories. I think we had a thread like this before, but I figured it's time for another.

One (of many) food memories I have is of our yearly vacations. Every year as we drove to Minnesota and Missouri to visit family (and sometimes to Utah or Arizona, depending on where Uncle Bob and Aunt Rae lived), my mom almost always ordered chicken fried steak. I can't remember her ever making it at home (wow, was my mom a good cook!)--it was a vacation food.

Please share your food memories! I know we all have them. I find they aren't so much about the food but the things that were going on in our lives at the time--the food is just a focal point.

Barbara

 

[Tartine]

The food memory that first jumps to my mind is omelette sandwiches. When I was a kid, every year we would take a road trip to some European country. Our first lunch, taken in the car so that we wouldn't waste time, would consist of omelette sandwiches my mom had prepared the day before. The bread was completely soaked with the omelette juices but I remember it as the best thing ever! I guess they had a "vacation taste"!

 

[crewsk]

The first food memory that comes to mind is Thanksgiving growing up. My mom & her 2 sisters would go to the beach evey Thanksgiving & leave me with my dad & brother. Dad would smoke several cornish game hens & fix all the usual T-day trimmings, dressing, gravy, mac & cheese, etc. & my 2 uncles & several cousins would come eat with us. Dad has never cooked much but when he did it was always wonderful.

 

[Barbara L]

One late summer day (I was either almost 12 or 13) my mom, dad, sister, Aunt Janet, Uncle Ted, and their kids all went on a picnic. I started feeling sick, and I made all the kids mad when I asked that the car windows be put up because I was freezing (it was very hot out that day). That night my mom made porcupine meatballs (one of my favorites to this day). I couldn't eat them, so my mom knew I had to be really sick. Turned out to be appendicitis!

Barbara

 

[jpmcgrew]

For me it was spaghetti my mom learned how to make in Italy its the best and as kids we used to love to suck up the noodles, we would end up with sauce all over our shirts.

 

[kadesma]

until high school and cheerleading, we spent every summer in Nevada, in a small cabin, no lights,electricity, a wood burning stove, cold as a bear at night but just right during the day. My dad taught me to stream fish for trout, and then the limit was 15 per day..We did not go home til we had our 15, then dad and I would clean them for mom and she would dip them in flour, then egg, then bread crumbs and fry in lard Oh but that was heaven..We'd have oh maybe fried potatoes and onions, and buttermilk biscuits,pan gravy made with milk and some type of veggie, the next time we'd have the trout for breakfast I still love trout FRIED We often took side trips into a very small 2x4 town where dad would choose lamb chops, hung outside to mellow them, we'd take them home and try them up with garlic and parsley and rosemary YUM I think at 7 I could eat at least 6 of them as skinny as I was, I just could eat and eat them.Those were some of the best times of my life. Learning to fish and cook what I'd caught something I will always carry with me. I hope one day to take Cade,Carson and Ethan trout fishing

kadesma

 

[Barbara L]

I hope one day to take Cade,Carson and Ethan trout fishing

kadesma

So, has Olivia already declared that she will never like to go fishing with Grandma?

Barbara

 

[kadesma]

So, has Olivia already declared that she will never like to go fishing with Grandma?

Barbara

Barb,
miss Olivia I have a feeling is going to be a "ma's" girl like Cade is, Carson and Ethan are nuts for PA except when tummies are empty then they run to me I'm hoping Olivia, takes to fishing and loves it as much as I did and do. We shall see, she already is very vocal or should I say has a scream that can shatter glass if she wants your attention and doesn't get it right NOw She pulled that on me yesterday and I about jumped out of my skin..So livi and I had our first heart to heart , me saying no no livi and her smiling once she got her way, my attention

kadesma

 

[Barbara L]

They do have a way of making themselves known, don't they?!!

Barbara

 

[erinmself]

the infamous 36 egg french toast

My favorite food memory was one year on the morning before Easter. We had quite a few eggs in the house with three kids who loved to dye them for the holiday and my mom always makes a big batch of potato salad with them for easter. Well this one morning before Easter my Dad who never cooks and was hardly ever even home decides to get up early and make everyone French toast and scrambled eggs for breakfast. He actually used 36 eggs for the 5 of us!!!! To this day every time my mom buys the eggs for Easter (there are two young ones there that weren't there when I was younger) we all have to tease my Dad about it and ask if we are going to need to buy more.

 

[Claire]

I, like many of you, have many, many food memories. But this time of year I can just feel the summer days in Utah. We had a freind who had an acre or so of farm land. He would call my parents after he'd harvested his fields and give us whatever we could glean from the field after. Green beans, tomatoes, corn, strawberries. We'd go through the plants, taking what he had missed. Then we'd sit on his big glider under a plum tree and eat plums. But the very best was at the end of the season. We'd peel tomatoes from our garden, and shuck corn from his field. Mom kept a big shaker with both salt and pepper mixed in it (for eating tomatoes from the vine like they were apples), and she'd bring out a couple of sticks of butter (we called it butter, but it was really margarine). Then we'd feast on nothing but corn on the cob and tomatoes. This was the one time of year we were allowed to just roll the corn on the stick of butter (the BEST way to butter corn). I was in my teens, my youngest sister a year or so old, and we had a little (probably 3 1/2 feet high) backyard pool. In between shucking corn and peeling tomatoes, we'd hop in the little pool to cool off. It was a day long marathon of preparing food for the freezer, rewarded by being able to make an entire meal of corn and tomatoes. My husband says it is the native American in me (of which I have very very very little) that my favorite summer meal is still corn and tomatoes!

 

[thier1754]

My comfort foods are potatoes and gravy on Thanksgiving, ravioli made by a little restaurant in Tacoma called "Santos" (gone now), and Coke, which was such a treat food. Low cal memories! Part of the Coke attachment, too, came from the fact that, as a kid, I was sick to my stomach a lot, and my daddy would bring me coke syrup from the pharmacy in a little ceramic jigger to drink and it would settle my stomach. I miss my daddy...

 

[Barbara L]

When my cousin Sandy was a year old she got to eat her first Thanksgiving dinner with the family. I can't remember what else she had, but I will never forget the mashed potatoes. Sandra started rubbing her eyes when she was done. Her mom cleaned her up. A few hours later someone noticed something in Sandy's eye. It was a dried string of mashed potatoes coming from behind her eye! We still sometimes affectionately refer to Sandy as "Potato Eye!"

Barbara

 

[luvs]

i'd ask my Grandma (rest her soul) to cook me scrambled eggs. she'd cook 'em in castiron. i was 3 or 4 & adored watching those eggs as they cooked. didn't want the eggs, wanted to see them cook.
one is of when i was a baby-2, probably,- & my other Grandma gave me honey out of a blue container from the freezer in thier basement. my Grandpap was holding me & my Mom was next to us. also, Grandma mixing knox gelatin for her nailsw/ orange juice. it was so delicious. we'd drink it on the enclosed patio & watch t.v. she'd like her light 'n lively yogurt, & we'd share that outside in summers, & she'd give me brick cheese. plus butter sandwiches were another.
Pap cooked a batch of maple syrup, too, then it was ina sherbert container. mmmmm. he used to pick spearmint & give it to me. & concord grpes grew in the yard. we shared them in the lving rm. i have yet to this day to taste a fruit as delicious. fishing for sm. lake fish, Pap cleaning them, Gram frying 'em & they were delicious.
Gram & Pap, my Brother & i pouring colored popcorn kernals into an old-fashioned shaker & shaking it in the basement or livingrm., then sprinkling w/ popeye popcorn salt. cooking many, many batches of fudge w/ Pap.
dinners w/ Mom, Dad & my Brother, too. us asking, 'am i done enough?'. Swiss steak, Dad's popcorn & our giggling as the lid lifted from the cookware,
santa & the reindeer's Christmas Eve snack (nowwwww i see why 'santa'
preferred that we leave him schnappes. MOM & DAD! .)

great thread.