First favorite meals???

AdahPotatah2024

What were your favorite meals growing up?
*And what country are you from? If from the US, what region?

AdahPotatah2024

My family is from the Midwest, but raised in Southern US. My favorites (in order of deliciousness) were cathead biscuits with butter, grilled cheeses, and an Orange Julius strawberry smoothie w/plain hotdog, Stouffer's chicken tetrazzini and turkey potpies...my dad's chicken SOS over toast and potato soup and my mom's canned corn with butter, plain macaroni with ground beef and pepper,and my Grandma's Waldorf apple salad and mayonnaise chocolate cake on holidays. My favorite restaurant was a local Chinese buffet...

AdahPotatah2024

I'm in pretty good health for not eating hardly any vegetables!

yirara

Central Europe. None, really. Other than liquorice and crisps. My mother was a miserable cook and also the kind of food they bought was not good. Turkish bread, maybe. I had to learn to like food when I moved out.

FeatheredEmpress

England - chilli con carne was a staple growing up that I loved and still love, although my version is a much less rich affair filled with veg and beans and a minimum of carne.

Also spaghetti bolognase, my mum liked to make giant vats of both that we'd eat for a week straight.

herblovinmom

My family is from the Midwest but I was born and raised in the southwest. My mom didn’t cook but she worked in a bar and I often got to eat beer battered onion rings. My dad was a cook in the restaurant and he made the best steak. My grandma made most of my favorites like fried chicken and mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese with cheese hotdogs and steamed broccoli and these tiny pie dough cinnamon rolls.. mmmm mmm 😋 can’t forget about flavored instant oatmeal or chili mac, meat and beans chili poured over top plain macaroni noodles topped with shredded cheese and crunched saltines..
grandma’s are the best 😊 they fed me well 😉

ellaime44

South of France.
For my part, my favorite dishes were:
- Chicken, cream and mushroom pasta
- frog legs (XD)
- Onion and potato soup (mixed)

But, I especially liked the sweet...
- Strawberry Charlotte
- French toast
- Strawberry tart (my father, he was a pastry chef).

MargaretYakoda

I grew up in New England.
We were a large family, and money was tight. Especially after my dad’s heart condition advanced to the point where he couldn’t work.

One year he entered a contest at a local 7-11 type store for a year’s worth of free milk. And he won!
He came home grinning and told us we could have all the milk we wanted! We were drinking two or three gallons every day!
After about two weeks the store manager took him aside and reminded him that the milk was supposed to be only for his immediate family.
Dad took out his wallet and showed the man all our pictures. And the manager said “well, I guess the right family won the milk!”

So milk is a very fond memory.

But so were the boxes of windfall apples we were given by a little orchard in our town.
And “government cheese” which came in a five pound block back then.

And then there were the ham salad sandwiches the lunch ladies made at my mom’s school every last day before summer break. The lunch ladies intentionally made far too many sandwiches. And would distribute the “leftovers” to my mom and a couple other families.
We would get a grocery sack full every year.

The sandwiches were absolutely delicious, and it probably took a week for use to finish them.

When I was a teenager visiting my grandmother just outside New York City, she sent me to a little old school deli down the street from her house. That’s where I discovered real European liverwurst. That’s been a real true favorite ever since.

So. That’s my story about childhood memories and favorite foods. .

AdahPotatah2024

That reminded me of my favorite sandwich when I was in middle school! I was babysitting my mom's boss' 3 kids 2,5, and 7 for $10 per week. I'd get this ham and cheese sandwich with curly fries from a little shop across the street and chocolate with the money, haha.

Imagine having having a French pastry chef as a father!💕

AnnPT77

US, Great Lakes area, rural upbringing, mostly Scandinavian heritage.

It's hard to remember. That was over 60 years ago!

What comes to mind:

My mom's baked beans, which were unlike any others I've had. There was minimal sweetening, just a tiny bit (maybe tablespoon or less each) of brown sugar and molasses, prepared mustard, salt. Great northern (white) beans. On top, a solid paving of side pork (not bacon) strips.

Asparagus, fresh from the garden in season. Actually, lots of things fresh from the garden in season, but the asparagus was a special treat.

Strawberry shortcake (on baking powder biscuits, with real whipped cream).

Midwestern-type goulash: Ground beef, macaroni, tomatoes, mild seasonings; cooked in an electric frying pan; a little cheese added and mixed in.

There was also a casserole I was wild for when maybe middle-school-ish age: Sliced potatoes with layers of ground beef, I think cream of mushroom soup concentrate (?), bread crumbs and cheese on top for a crunchy topping.

springlering62

Deep South. Without question, fried chicken. Mom cooked strips in a deep fryer. We’d be at her elbow trying to sneak pieces the instant they came out. Lots of salt. The best part was the crumbs of crust on the paper towels she’d drained them on.

Moms recipe? An egg and two glugs of milk. If you ever had home delivery milk in glass bottles (our one luxury), you know a glug.

Minute rice lavished with butter and salt.

Mom was an uninspired, chronically tired cook on a tight budget, due to having special needs kids. She did make a good beef stew and also a great spaghetti.

I remember a couple of times she made an epic layer cake from a Hersheys recipe calling for cocoa and sour cream. And good chocolate chip cookies.

Fails? The period we couldn’t afford meat and she tried to make a ghastly meatless eggplant Parmesan. And those unforgettable salmon croquettes made from canned salmon, with bones in them. The stuff of nightmares. Fried spam was pretty awesome, though, and she made killer grilled cheese sandwiches.

Hobartlemagne

Grew up in Texas, but my mom's cooking traditions were from Kansas.
I loved her Beef Stroganoff.

AdahPotatah2024

Not my favorite, but we used to like the Hamburger Helper stroganoff. I thought about buying some just to see if it tastes like it did in the 1980s.

p8m6bwghh9

Pierogies! Church ladies made them every Friday.

claireychn074

Chicken stew followed by gooseberry or rhubarb crumble 🤤 we weren’t wealthy so my mum eked out every morsels of food. She would do a full roast on Sunday (which is still one of my fave basic meals) with tonnes of veg, then on Monday she would boil the chicken bones to make stock and make the most delicious stew. I loved that stew. Puddings were often stewed fruit (unsweetened) or fruit crumble - as we grew the fruit in the garden so it was free. (Grew up in north Scotland then England.)

VegjoyP

AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »

What were your favorite meals growing up?
*And what country are you from? If from the US, what region?

Growing up in New York, Mom Lithuanian and dad Sicilian my foods then are NO Thing like they are now! But, they were- Aunt's Manicotti, New York Pizza, Dads Pancakes, Mom's chocolate chip cookies (Totally the best). Popcorn, Nestley Quick and Carnation Instant breakfast chocolate. Those stand out the most.
Christmas eve was a favorite, baked flounder, shrimp, scallops, elbow macaroni and bread.

davidtoc

Mac & Cheese, preferably with hotdogs cut up into pieces. Middle of the east coast, USA.

Corina1143

Oklahoma
Chicken and noodles
Rice with sugar sauce
Fried potato cake
All granny made.

AdahPotatah2024

@Corina1143 My mom used to put milk and sugar in rice. Is that an Oklahoma thing?:D

SafariGalNYC

NYC - my Mom’s crispy liver cutlets and Brussels sprouts. Herring and her cucumber, tomato, iceberg salads with French dressing or her homemade vinaigrette.
Grandma’s roast chicken and potatoes - also Grandma’s rice pudding. Those were staples in our house.

I still always have liver and herring in the house!

Corina1143

AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »

@Corina1143 My mom used to put milk and sugar in rice. Is that an Oklahoma thing?:D

Don't think so. Think it's more universal. It was breakfast. Granny was up and busy at 4am, back in bed asleep by the time we got up. She would cook rice in a heavy pot with a lid until about half done, turn the heat off,leave it on the burner to finish cooking and stay hot.--50's version of a crockpot. She put one egg and 1 cup sugar in a huge bowl in the stand mixer, left it on low. When we got up 3 hours later, it was the lightest, palest yellow sweet sauce that we drizzled in ribbons over our still just warm, not hot, risotto-like rice. So heavenly!