Best: Sour beef with potato dumplings swimming in a delicious brown, spicy, slightly vinegary sauce which included a few ginger snaps. Her mother did justice to this meal too but my grandfather said that mom’s was better and every time that she made it, she’d contact him and he’d take public transportation from across town to partake. There were always 2nd day leftovers but for some reason she fried the dumplings. Still great though. Should also commend her best breakfast which was Sat. morning waffles made from scratch. Unfortunately, as the family got busier, they were replaced by frozen waffles dropped into a pop-up toaster. Worst: Spaghetti and meatballs. She always used the thin spaghetti strings and sometimes the ends stuck together. The meatballs were actually little pieces of ground beef and the sauce was watery. Worst of all, she overloaded it with onions. My BFF’s mom, Sicilian ancestry, made the best, short flat noodles, delicious meatballs and sauce, and, as far as I could tell, no onions whatsoever. Standing invitation to moi Sundays at 1pm. Gotta give my mom credit though. Five days a week she had to rush off after preparing supper to her part-time job as a clerk/typist for the local public utility. Dad or I took care of cleanup and dishes.
My mom's best meal was roast beef with Yorkshire Pudding (she was British.) She made the Yorkshire Pudding in a screaming hot cast iron pan with drippings from the roast. I can't think of anything she made that I did not like. But when you're a growing boy, you eat anything (except chili beans. I hated chili beans.)
Same here. My mom was a great cook and so was my dad. He liked to grill and barbeque or fry fish and "hush puppies" in a kettle fryer he had set up outdoors. It kept the fish grease smell out of the house. We were relatively poor when I was a kid but there was always something good to eat.
My mother was a good cook, but not a great cook. l think simply because we were always too busy working on projects around the house. She could make simple things taste good. Same with my grandmother. I inherited the tradition, but can't even cook "good." I remember my mother making baked stuffed bell peppers once that were great.
I don't know how my parents raised 6 kids. My dad worked retail (managed G.C. Murphy store) and my mom did not work (until they split up.) But I don't recall us ever lacking for anything material...and I don't recall my dad ever cooking...even on the grill.
I grew up on a farm so we raised our food for the most part. My grandparents lived about half a mile down the dirt road and there were always huge gardens, livestock, grapevines, fruit trees, and pecan trees... and a stream and a couple of ponds for fishin'. Seemed like very little was "store bought" except for stuff like sugar, spices, coffee, etc. I remember in the fall when a hog was butchered, my favorite thing was the "cracklins" my grandpa made in that big cauldron of hot oil.
Our meals were Texas basic foods. Pinto beans , corn bread and sometimes stewed potatoes. Biscuts and gravy .Chicken an dressing .... Fried chicken. My mothers cooking was very good but my dad did not like her to try anything new to cook.
You got me to wondering if my mother ever strayed off the traditional food path. We had liver & onions every once in a while (which I have always loved,) but nothing fancy. Being British, I always figured it was those roots that drove her "traditional" meal selection...that, and cooking for 8 people. There were times she would make Wilted Endive for herself (rightly figuring that her 3 young boys were not interested in it.) My memory is from after my father left and there was only myself and 2 younger brothers at home. She would boil the endive, drain it, throw in in the bacon fat, splash on vinegar, salt & pepper, then crumble the bacon over it. Served warm. I can still smell the weird combo of bacon and vinegar. I'll have to make this. As an adult, it kinda sounds good.
My mom made the worst spaghetti sauce when I was a kid. A can of tomato paste, some onions, a few shakes from the rusty can of oregano that I swear she inherited from her grandmother, pour it over greasy fried hamburger and voila! it's spaghetti sauce. I was in my teens before I found out that I could actually LIKE Italian food. Other than that, mom was a great cook.
My favorite meal that Mama cooked was a big ol' slice of country ham, buttermilk biscuits so light that they almost floated off the plate, eggs and grits. And coffee. Don't forget the coffee. Mama would pour an ounce or so of coffee in a glass then finish filling it up with milk. It was good. Mama's coffee was so strong that an ounce or two in a glass was all you needed. I don't know how she could drink it. Even after I was grown, I'd pour my cup half full then fill it with hot water.
My mother made a similar wilted salad with spinach; I don't believe she cooked the greens at all. Just poured a bit of the hot bacon grease over, splash of vinegar, then topped with chopped boiled egg and crumbled bacon. There might have been a little sugar in there, too. Hmmmm. Now I need to call my sister.
I like the idea of adding egg. I don't recall my mother boiling the greens first, either (I thought she wilted them in the grease in the pan), but the internet recipe I checked out said to cook them first. So I went with that rather than pass on bad-memory instructions. Now that I look at other recipes, I see that some of them also say to do nothing with the greens but pour the hot dressing over them. And I see one that uses olive oil and says to wilt the uncooked greens in the pan (as my mother did.) I also see a couple that have a little sugar in them. I've done that with broccoli greens my neighbors gave me, just to take the edge off. I'm glad you said something. I won't go with that cook-first recipe.