BetteTheRed
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My mom was hospitalized for three months when I was about 12. Dad took over the cooking. We ate frozen meat pies with frozen french fries for almost every meal for three months.
Your childhood meals
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BetteTheRed
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It hadn't occurred to me, actually, although I will note that I do buy "convenience meals", frozen, periodically, but that they are never meat pies. And I don't like frozen chips, either.
That's actually the only thing my mother did well, and I haven't had anything as good since. Real chips. Fairly thick cut with a wavy cutter. Looked in lard. Twice. Once at a lower temperature (we had a deeper fryer with accurate temperature control), drained on a "mat" of a couple sheets of paper towel over top of two folded paper grocery bags, then second frying at a higher temperature until a lovely golden colour. Drained again, served with salt & malt vinegar.
That's actually the only thing my mother did well, and I haven't had anything as good since. Real chips. Fairly thick cut with a wavy cutter. Looked in lard. Twice. Once at a lower temperature (we had a deeper fryer with accurate temperature control), drained on a "mat" of a couple sheets of paper towel over top of two folded paper grocery bags, then second frying at a higher temperature until a lovely golden colour. Drained again, served with salt & malt vinegar.
My Mom was afraid of deep fryers.....always thought they would blow up.
Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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Being in a multicultural family now, I'd say most of my favorites today were things I had never even eaten when I was at home. Our diet in my youth and childhood was very traditional anglo-Canadian. Now, besides the obvious home-cooked Chinese, I am into Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, Greek, Lebanese/Mediterranean, both Tex-Mex and authentic Mexican (Little M makes quesadillas to die for), and on it goes.
Pinga
Room for All
Ours was a traditional chip pan, put on the gas stove. When it cooled, it went back into the fridge to await the next use. Every once in a while, the lard would be replaced, but, then the fries wouldn't be as good for a while, or they didn't seem as good.
Pinga
Room for All
This book is quite interesting.
www.goodreads.com
A synopsis:
Eating preferences and habits never solely reflect personal tastes. Drawing on interviews with parents and teens from over one hundred families in urban and rural Canada, Brenda Beagan, Gwen Chapman, and colleagues show that age, gender, social class, ethnicity, health concerns, food availability, and political and moral concerns shape the meanings that families attach to food and their self-identities. These variables also influence how family members respond to social discourses on health, beauty, and the environment.
The intimate portraits of family eating habits that grace this book challenge existing beliefs about who determines what families eat (teens or adults), the role of cosmopolitanism in high- and low-income households, and the role that fat anxiety plays among teenage boys and girls. By doing so, they cast doubt on the assumptions that underlie many public health campaigns.
Acquired Tastes: Why Families Eat the Way They Do
Magazine articles, news items, and self-improvement boo…
A synopsis:
Eating preferences and habits never solely reflect personal tastes. Drawing on interviews with parents and teens from over one hundred families in urban and rural Canada, Brenda Beagan, Gwen Chapman, and colleagues show that age, gender, social class, ethnicity, health concerns, food availability, and political and moral concerns shape the meanings that families attach to food and their self-identities. These variables also influence how family members respond to social discourses on health, beauty, and the environment.
The intimate portraits of family eating habits that grace this book challenge existing beliefs about who determines what families eat (teens or adults), the role of cosmopolitanism in high- and low-income households, and the role that fat anxiety plays among teenage boys and girls. By doing so, they cast doubt on the assumptions that underlie many public health campaigns.
Carolla
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Mom was the primary cook & our diet was the usual WASP North American fare as many have described (boo to shoe leather-like liver!!!) She grew up in a home with a live-in maid who did most of the cooking, so she came into marriage without much in the way of cooking skills. My Dad on the other hand, had grown up with a mom who I think suffered from depression, and a salesman Dad who was often away. So he therefore acquired some good cooking skills to survive and look after his younger brother. Consequently, he taught my mom a lot when they first married. Although she worked prior to marriage, once married, she was a stay at home wife, and later mother, which was not really her choice - but in 1950 a working wife meant the husband did not earn enough to support his family - which was a disgrace - at least in my Dad's circles. Life has changed, hasn't it? Now I feel surprised to encounter a woman who does not work.
Dad BBQ'd (quite well) and did pretty much all the cooking when we went camping. I don't remember him cooking much at home. At the cottage, he would get up early and would often make "Buppie Bits" for the kids' breakfast (tiny pancakes). After retiring he baked bread quite often. Now, he is 94, lives alone and is a reasonably good cook & baker - although he does like to tinker with recipes - I put that down to lifelong 'engineering' LOL .
Dad BBQ'd (quite well) and did pretty much all the cooking when we went camping. I don't remember him cooking much at home. At the cottage, he would get up early and would often make "Buppie Bits" for the kids' breakfast (tiny pancakes). After retiring he baked bread quite often. Now, he is 94, lives alone and is a reasonably good cook & baker - although he does like to tinker with recipes - I put that down to lifelong 'engineering' LOL .
BetteTheRed
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Never an accident with the deep fryer, although I'm gonna guess Mom's electric deep fryer was a tiny bit safer than Pinga's mom's pot on the gas stove. Mind you it meant that the lard, once cooled enough, had to go back in a big jar in the fridge, so it was an extra step.
What did blow up were those darned pressure cookers. There was once a potato incident; in the end boiled potato bits were all over the friggin' kitchen. Took me hours to clean up, and I marched the pressure cooker personally to the garbage bin.
Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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Mrs. M and I had one in the nineties and it held up pretty well. Then we went without for a long stretch until the Instant Pot came out. Now we're back to having one again, albeit a programmable, computer-controlled one that's probably a lot less likely to blow.
That's what I mean't.......pressure cooker......thanks!
Carolla
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Ah yes - the good old pressure cooker! Modern convenience - and fear inducing!! We also had a deep fryer - electric one - my mom only permitted us to use it outside on the patio - too smokey & fat smelly! My friend & I once made a stab at making donuts in it ... not exactly the light & fluffy result we had hoped for.
Dinner out was a rarity. But occasionally, we would dine in style at home on a huge BUCKET of Kentucky Fried Chicken! Ooo ... those white buns & little packages of honey ... so special!!
Dinner out was a rarity. But occasionally, we would dine in style at home on a huge BUCKET of Kentucky Fried Chicken! Ooo ... those white buns & little packages of honey ... so special!!
BetteTheRed
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And the intensely green sweetness of the coleslaw. Fighting for the white pieces/dark pieces.
My mom’s lasagna followed by her apple pie. I request it if I’m around for my birthday (if invited to). It became a tradition to have a birthday pie with a numeric candle (once the years climbed) instead of cake. I appreciate her culinary skills, for sure.
When I was a kid up to my early teens, taco nights were my very favourite, though. Even though it came out of an “Old El Paso” kit anybody can make (perhaps that added to why I liked it - easy and fun.) It was the best. I adapted that a few years ago by inventing (maybe I wasn’t the first to, but I thought it up one day) taco lettuce wraps, sometimes using Mexican style veggie “meat” (Yves brand makes a “Mexican ground round”, Safeway used to have a store brand version too), and the other typical fixings, and just a sprinkling of crushed tortilla chips inside for flavour.
When I was a kid up to my early teens, taco nights were my very favourite, though. Even though it came out of an “Old El Paso” kit anybody can make (perhaps that added to why I liked it - easy and fun.) It was the best. I adapted that a few years ago by inventing (maybe I wasn’t the first to, but I thought it up one day) taco lettuce wraps, sometimes using Mexican style veggie “meat” (Yves brand makes a “Mexican ground round”, Safeway used to have a store brand version too), and the other typical fixings, and just a sprinkling of crushed tortilla chips inside for flavour.
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BetteTheRed
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For my kids, friends and family over the years, as a birthday cake, a lovely heavy fruity oil cake, pineapple, bananas, dried fruit, nuts, some spice (it originally came from one of those 12 page 1/4 size glossy "recipe booklets" you'd get inside a magazine/newspaper, usually in the fall, sponsored by X Flour, and Y walnuts, etc.) It is even better made a day or two in advance. Cream cheese frosting.
Mendalla
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Same here. A bucket of KFC with fries and other fixings was our go to takeout food at one time. Later, it was Mother's pizza.
Mendalla
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We might have, but even for that, I think we usually ordered in. I remember having a farewell dinner there with my high school Latin class. Because, hey, Rome is in Italy and pizza is Italian. Or something like that.
My middle brother had a buddy who worked at a Mother's in Kitchener and my brother worked there for a bit, too.
Not my favourite - but we've had the fruitcake discussion ad nauseum. Laura Linney made a cake like that for Stephen Colbert the other day - she showed it on their Skype interview - a "southern" cake, forget what she called it (as a friendly theme, and possibly in support of the postal service - they were trading baked goods). It looked lovely. I would give it away if I got one.