First favorite meals???
AdahPotatah2024
Posts: 2,270 Member
What were your favorite meals growing up?
*And what country are you from? If from the US, what region?
*And what country are you from? If from the US, what region?
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Replies
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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...2
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I'm in pretty good health for not eating hardly any vegetables!2
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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.3
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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.2 -
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 😉2 -
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).
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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. .5 -
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!💕2 -
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.3 -
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.4 -
Grew up in Texas, but my mom's cooking traditions were from Kansas.
I loved her Beef Stroganoff.2 -
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.0
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Pierogies! Church ladies made them every Friday.4
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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.)6
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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.2 -
Mac & Cheese, preferably with hotdogs cut up into pieces. Middle of the east coast, USA.2
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Oklahoma
Chicken and noodles
Rice with sugar sauce
Fried potato cake
All granny made.3 -
@Corina1143 My mom used to put milk and sugar in rice. Is that an Oklahoma thing?:D2
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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!2 -
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!4 -
I'm originally from the New York Metro area (Queens and Long Island), Jewish. When I was very little Mom used to serve me pastina with marinera sauce, which is teeny tina pasta stars. Don't see it out here in Los Angeles so I can't recreate that particular type of nursery school comfort food. More on the Jewish side of things, my mom's beef brisket with potatoes was a childhood favorite. I still make it, always for the Jewish holidays.6
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Reading this again brought up more memories. We were so lucky. Not rich, but had a cow and chickens in the back yard, so fresh milk daily. A housefull of night owl kids. Mom and dad woke us up on school mornings by hollering up the stairs "milk's here". We raced to get the first glass with the most cream! Dad picked the fattest, best looking calf to butcher. We always had chicken and eggs, cream and butter.
We lived near a town that was originally settled by Germans from near the Swiss border, so they traditionally cooked with lots of cream, sour cream, butter. My favorites! Love their green bean soup, tomato soup, (German, not Russian) borscht, verenica(cottage cheese and egg dumplings, usually served with kielbasa or similar), schnetka(similar to pie crust, but made with cream, cinnamon roll type bars).4 -
My dad making malt-o-meal, perfect fried eggs and scratch mac n cheese. My moms "concoctions" but when I got older I realize they were stir fry's. Helping make enchilada casserole. When my dad had a crabbing boat... fresh crab boiling in a pot while me and my cousins churned ice cream in the back yard. Summer afternoons with all of our cousins and eating stacks of pb and j or tuna sandwiches and having a dinner of whatever mom was watching us had...usually bean soups or goulash. Artichokes and not knowing about the choke and just giving it away to my dad for years. Picking lettuces for salad and digging up potatoes in the back yard. When my mom would add sugar and lemon juice to fresh strawberries and picking and eating blackberries warmed by the sun and dusty from the road.
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AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »@Corina1143 My mom used to put milk and sugar in rice. Is that an Oklahoma thing?:D
Nope. My grandmother and I used to have that for breakfast and she lived her entire life in Texas.2 -
Most of my early cooking efforts were Hamburger Helper and Tuna Helper type stuff, so not sure I had a "favorite" food at home. Once I learned more about seasoning meat, I was pretty fond of taco night. I did love my grandmother's fried chicken, fried okra, and banana pudding. My other grandmother made homemade sauerkraut that cannot be replicated apparently. She'd also cook it with diced apple and apple juice. I use those in sauteed cabbage still today.2
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There was a well-loved restaurant here in OKC that made barrels of sauerkraut and added just a little applesauce. Not enough you really tasted it, but it made it so good!1
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One of my fav meals growing up was chicken/tuna noodle casserole. Midwest --- my gma also made like...SWEET sweet tea all the time.1
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From the Midwest, grew up in the 60s/70s
My Mom was the best cook in the world as far as I was concerned. If she made TOAST , it was the best toast ever! We didn't have much money growing up but we always had full bellies. She would improv most meals to make it go the furthest. Lots of casseroles. Some of my favorites were; beef stroganoff, chicken and dumplings, taco salads, goulash, frosted cake brownies, spaghetti with the best homemade sauce ever, chili and cinnamon rolls.
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A favorite food memory from childhood.
Mom would make chocolate cake on Saturday for Sunday dinner. Dad would sneak in the kitchen when mom took the cake layers out to cool. He'd slice off the top, slather it with butter and share it with us kids.
Sunday cake got shorter and shorter. Mom finally started baking it in 3 layers. 2 for Sunday dinner. One for us to eat hot on Saturday.1 -
@westrich20940 I would complain all the time to my boss at the restaurant I worked at in Oklahoma about not having a sweet tea option! I don't know about now, but when I was there everyone would add the sugar after it was cold..an abomination!🤣0
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