Diary of Why posted an entry today about what an awful cook her mother is. This is a subject that I really love. I feel like the food that one grew up eating says so much about a person, and just as I love hearing stories of their family history (where they came from, how they got here, what happened once they got here, etc) I also love hearing about what their family dinners consisted of.
As I commented on in Miss Diary's post, my mom did a great disservice to my reserve of traumatic childhood stories by actually being a very good cook. The only thing I remember refusing to eat was curry, but that's just because I hated the taste of curry until I was older and my palate matured a bit. But really, just as it is today, I'd pretty much eat anything as a child. Chicken hearts and liver, cow tongue sandwiches, hell, the local sushi joint would provide me with a booster seat and specially fashioned easy-to-use chopsticks so I could eat raw fish and fish eggs along with the rest of my family.
It wasn't until I was a little older, maybe 9 or 10, that dinner went from the family (mom, sister, brother, myself) sitting around our little kitchen table, talking and laughing about the day's events, to my mother having to work late and us being instructed to "fend for yourself", that dinner turned into PB&J's in front of the television. I still miss that time we spent together. If I had known how hard it would be to capture that feeling again, that special sensation of belonging to this ultra exclusive group of people - people who totally got your humor and who made you laugh so hard you'd snort milk out of your nose - I don't think I would have been in such a hurry to grow up.
Since I sadly don't have any horror stories from my mother's repertoire of recipes, I'll tell you my very favorite. My mom makes The. Best. pancakes I've ever had. She has this huge skillet that she must have gotten as a wedding present (it's that old) and on it she makes these tiny cornmeal pancakes. "Breakfast for dinner" is one of the best concepts ever, in my opinion, and we'd never have these pancakes for actual breakfast. No, these miniature pancakes would always be the perfect cozy dinner, piled high on our plates and consumed rapidly with a huge pour of maple syrup. We'd compete to see who could eat more, which usually ended in a tie between myself and my equally thin older brother - our slender figures always masked our bottomless appetites.
Now tell me, what were your family dinners like? And don't hold back on the horrid details.
10 comments:
Sigh. What I wouldn't GIVE to have been fed sushi as a child (I would have thought it gross and refused it, no doubt). My goal in life has been to get my dad to try sushi (a bite! just a bite!), and when that failed, to get him to admit that maybe, perhaps, the millions of people in the world who eat it are maybe not all certifiably insane. Failed again. My dad has very strong opinions about sushi, opinions that I say he is not qualified to have given that he has never even tried it. It makes me very huffy and red-faced whenever the topic comes up.
I covet your childhood dinners. :)
My poor mother is a wonderful cook, but unfortunately, my sister and I were your typical, bratty, "no vegetables or anything healthy, for that matter" rugrats. We were so ungrateful of everything she made, I think she just sort of gave in after a while and let us have Spaghettios and such.
Yay, the words came!! Breakfast for dinner is awesome! Our family dinners, when we had them, were very tense. My dad was really having a hard time not being a jerk in those days. He was always paying attention to our dinner table manners, which really weren't that bad since we feared getting yelled at. My mom started off not knowing how to cook and had a limited repertoire of recipes. Still, when she would try to cook something different, her extremely picky family let her down. I feel bad about that. My dad wouldn't eat chicken and his favorite meal was meatloaf. My least favorite meal at the time. My favorite meal she made was spaghetti. She learned the recipe from her friend's nana and executed it beautifully. I like drinking milk with spaghetti and apparently that is really weird. ? Now my mom is nearly a gourmet chef and I have a gourmet palate. Good for you for being an adventurous eater as a kid. I was always in awe of my mom's friend's kids that would eat anything--squid, oysters, whatever their mom would cook.
Even if I had wanted to be an adventurous eater as a kid (I didn't... I preferred things like Mayonnaise and Mayonnaise sandwiches, and Corned Beef hold the cabbage), I didn't have the chance. Were on Welfare, which meant that we recycled bottles and cans not out of love for the earth, but out of a desire for an extra $26 to spend on extra's like Hansen's sodas, or canned fruit cocktail (we would always fight for the cherry). For years, the only dinners I can remember having were macaroni and cheese (with chunks of hotdog mixed in, when we'd saved a little extra money), Top Ramen, or Spaghetti with ketchup (or "Spa-ghetto" as I call it)... As a result, I hate spaghetti, still like Top Ramen (probably due to the varying flavors), and will more than likely never eat macaroni again for the rest of my life (if I can help it).
Growing up, our family dinners consisted of Sister J and I being confined to the kitchen until we were done eating. My mom made us eat mixed veggies that had lima beans in the mix, and I used to flick them on the countertop or put them on my sister's plate. When we got older dinner became a big giggle fest for my sisters and I. I have no idea what triggers it, it's just the combination of food and sisters apparently.
My mom was a great cook too. She taught me how to cook to the point where I've won a few cooking contests. I have three brothers and two sisters so there was lots of chaos and milk squirting out of noises. I mostly remember just being horrified at my father's political views as I got older. It turned me into a very quiet person and a punk rocker. We've since found other things to bond over...
My Mom thought she could cook but sometimes she really couldn't. We used to have these little fake "steaks" that were oval and came two to a celophane package with cream of mushroom soup over the top, but I liked it. The spagetti she made was terrible because she used a seasoning packet with tomato sauce for the sauce. She burnt the fried potatoes and pork chops and you could never get me to eat the three bean salad that was just the grossest.
Haaa! I love this post. My mom made the classics, spaghetti, chicken in the crockpot, tacos, and 'parmesan chicken (chicken patties with spaghetti sauce and cheese on top), all in rotation. I despised and honestly thought 'steak' meant those tough nasty chopped steak patties until I was probably 18 years old. Mmmm, no wonder I love a great filet. I remember going through rougher periods and eating fried bologna (anyone? anyone?), and cheese sandwiches. But for the most part, dinner was great. My brother and I discreetly made fun of our parents, and got creative in hiding the veggies, so we could be excused from the table.
To the girl who likes milk with her spaghetti. So do I! I've heard it's weird also. How about cranberry sauce and milk? It's great.
I found my older sister, then age 14, crying softly in the hallway near the kitchen before school.
I asked her what was wrong she said that my mom had made her a hot dog omlette for breakfast and she couldn't bear to eat it.
We would have breakfast for dinner when Dad was on afternoons. Mom didn't know how to make North American pancakes, though, so they were more like crepes, over which we spread Nutella or jam or brown sugar.
Dad on afternoons also meant that we had dinner for lunch. He would pick us up at school, and bring us back home for a meat-and-potatoes lunch, which was always too heavy fare for schoolkids. I'd get all drowsy after.
Mom doesn't remember how to make those pancake/crepes anymore.
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