Do you have any Food Memories that transport you back?

[Inchworm]

I was at a produce stand today (I went out to the big city :) ) and saw some raw peanuts for sale by the pound. I remembered a time working after Hugo hit Charleston when people would have peanut stands along the road. I remember taking my, then, 1 1/2 year old daughter to them and hanging out.

It was before power was on in most places, so people were more apt to be out and about. Many of the folks were less than desirable, but nonetheless times were good. We also were known to go shrimpin' and beer drinkin. That is where I learned to "crab" the sandbars with nothing but a lantern, a sticker, and a net. On a good day we would get 2-3 flounders as well.

I guess my daughter doesn't remember that, but she does remember when I showed her years later. Next is my grandson. *happy content sigh*

Now.. I accidentally bought 3 pounds of peanuts and haven't a clue what to do with them yet :D

Do you have any foods that just take you back? :hippie:

:hi:

[Inchworm]

1. Noone has foods that make you reminisce?

:kick:

PS: I still think noone oughta be a word.

[1gobluedem]

2. The smell of my mother's spaghetti sauce

It always transports me back to childhood. She would start it after we went to bed and let it simmer for 18 hours; we would wake up to that glorious smell wafting through the house and be excited all day because we knew we were having spaghetti for dinner that night.

I don't make it much myself but when I smell it at my parents' house I'm immediately a kid again.

[Inchworm]

12. Mmmmm sauce...

And it sounds like the real kind! :)

:9

[Tommy_Carcetti]

3. Stuffed shells.....

I know this sounds odd, but whenever I have stuffed shells, I can't help but think of summer as a kid. I remember right after the last day of school, and after we had come back from the pool, my mom made stuffed shells, which she had never made for us before. I just remember being so excited that night that I had the whole summer ahead of me.

[Inchworm]

13. Tuna sandwiches do that to me

Mom and Dad were a "fish on Friday" couple when I was real little. We got tuna all summer!

:9

[mainegreen]

4. French food.

Reminds me of when I was a wee tyke, hanging out in the kitchen of the restaurant, watching the chefs do their thing. I loved it when they let me finish off whipped cream that was left in the pastry decorating bag.

Mmmmmm.

[Inchworm]

14. Sounds like you were a lucky tyke

Was there "cooks" in the family? Did it make a difference in your career choice?

:hi:

[mainegreen]

29. Parents owned a French Restaurant, and we lived above it.

Had no effect whatsoever in my career choice, but it definitely made me a foodie.

[auntAgonist]

5. When I make homemade soup..

Potato, yellow split pea, lentil ... I can close my eyes and be instantly taken back to my grandmother's kitchen. Her voice, the aroma ...

[Tommy_Carcetti]

6. Me too.

My grandmother would always make your standard potato, veggies and broth soup for Sunday dinners. I would always season it with tons of Maggi.

Being Ukrainian, she'd also make Borscht, which is an aqquired taste, but I loved it.

[Inchworm]

15. I learned to make soup/stock in St. Joe, Michigan

from roomate's mother who was sort of upset that I was tossing away a turky carcass lol

I think about her when I make soup. She loved teh vodker :)

:hi:

[SacredCow]

7. I remember my Grandmother cutting cucumbers....

she would cut off the ends and then rub the two mating pieces (the stump and the rest of the cuke) together for 20 seconds or so. Finally, curiosity got the best of me and I asked what that was all about, and she told me that's how you get the 'fever' out of a cucumber.

I have no earthly idea what that means- even now.

[Inchworm]

16. Hehe

I'll ask around. There are some folks around here that do stuff like that.

:)

[Mist]

59. It means getting rid of some of the bitterness. I just learned that trick this summer,

when my friend and I harvested cukes from her garden.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. Last week, my wife and I ordered Chinese and got some fried wontons

And I was brought back to when I was a kid and my family was on vacation, we went to this one chinese restaraunt and ordered fried wontons (which we never got back at home).

[Inchworm]

17. Yum

We used to goto a Thai place in Miami politickin'

I wish I had some of that Thai Coffee now.

:donut:

[qb]

9. School lunch pizza burgers circa 1970

I haven't encountered anything like them since, but the memory still makes me smile.

:loveya:

[Inchworm]

18. OMG - the school pizza was the best!

rectangular heaven :P

We weren't blessed with pizza burgers, sounds divine.

:9

[marzipanni]

36. One of my favorites was the school lunch peanut butter bars

in jr. high, served in the basement cafeteria we also used for civil defense drills, including one during the Cuban missle crisis. One of the teachers was near tears with anxiety!
Peanut butter bars don't make me recall the threat of nuclear war, I just remember the good, rich, yummy taste of them!
(I think I'll make some tonight)

[Z_I_Peevey]

10. Quite a few.

Well-seasoned turnip greens send me back to Grandma M.'s kitchen. Homemade fried pies, which I must make when I need a bigger connection to her.

School lunch Jell-O--the red kind with canned fruit cocktail in it--takes me to Grandma E.'s kitchen. Sometimes you can get it at Furr's cafeteria. Sometimes I make it for my own grandkids.

Fresh cut pineapple reminds me of the 1980s, when I lived on the Texas-Mexico border and could get fresh tropical fruit from roadside stands. That takes me back to a romance, and the smell of orange blossoms.

And fried oysters remind me of summertime vacations with my parents, when we'd eat at "fancy" restaurants in exotic places like Delaware and Pennsylvania. I'd always get the seafood platter and sometimes a Shirley Temple.

[Inchworm]

20. Loverly memories!

Mmmm oysters at bike rallys... *drool*

Well, and the beer :)

:9

[av8rdave]

11. Beets

God, how I hate beets. My mother would steam up a big pot of diced beets twice each week, because somewhere she got the idea that acquiescing to my request for no beets was somehow losing a battle to your child, which of course would bring about the end of the world.

Given the current events, maybe she was right.

She was right, after all, about the going blind thing.

[Inchworm]

22. I hate all beans to this day

save kidney beans in chili. I'll try them now that I'm old, but that first bite is daring.

Dad was a "clean your plate before you are excused" sort of dude. I did sooo many tricks to not eat the beans (which we had every night it seems). On occasion mom would give me a pass, but that wasn't until I was literally falling asleep in my plate.

x(

PS: my vision is failing

:hi:

[av8rdave]

26. Your dad sounds like he had the same dinner table philosophy as my mom

I had all kinds of tricks to avoid eating stuff. Few of them actually worked.

[Inchworm]

28. Agreed

Few worked but I was willing to risk the whippin'

The fail-safe was if there were going to be left-overs I'd sneak mine back into the serving pot.

:rofl:

[InternalDialogue]

19. Grand-slam surefire food to remind me of childhood:

Pink and white, sprinkled circus animal cookies



I used to eat them until my gut was packed tight like tile grout.

[Inchworm]

23. Darn!

I missed out on those somehow :cry:

:hi:

[marzipanni]

37. Mother's bakery Circus Animal cookies?

Or were they a different brand?

[InternalDialogue]

41. Yes, Mother's

Although, I once found generic equivalents, but they didn't have the same chemically-goodness of Mother's.

They're like crack.

[marzipanni]

62. I sent in a form from some Mother's bakery cookies several years ago.

I kind of forgot about it until a large carton arrived addressed to my son, then about seven years old. It had about 10-12 varied size tee-shirts with silk-screened pink and white circus animal cookies on the fronts, and a dozen pink and white balloons and party horns, both decorated with Circus Animals. Apparently my son had won the prize to celebrate Circus Animal cookies' 70th birthday!

Since little boys don't like pink, we still have them in the box. I guess I'll take the small ones to a safe house or something.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/250492/mothers_circus_animal_cookies_are_fun.html?cat=22

[lost-in-nj]

21. When I see a jar of mint jelly

I go back to my Grandmothers house for Sunday dinner. She made lamb at least once a month. I never ate it... but the jelly reminds me....

and of course all the holiday meals...


:hug: :hi:


lost

[Inchworm]

24. When you said mint jelly

I thought lamb too

Hi you!

:hi:

[hunter]

25. Fish & Chips deep fried in animal fat.

What kind of fish? What kind of animal fat? Nobody knows...

[Inchworm]

27. Arthur Treacher's or wrapped in newspaper?

hehe, I remember eating at Arthur Treacher's in Ohio ...

I actually think of it when I see Orrex's posts because Kewpie Hamburgers, Wendy's, and Arthur Treacher's were our choices on "out to dinner."

:hi:

[hunter]

30. Dinner wrapped in newspaper. Sawdust on the floor.

The cook working the deep fryer with a cigarette hanging off his lip.

But it was good!

[Inchworm]

31. Usually the best food comes from places like that

Yum!

:9

[enigmatic]

32. When I was hopping trains

I used to eat alot of mulligan stew, especially if it was with others in a jungle. Everybody would pitch in what they could spare and spiced up w/ salt, pepper, minced garlic. What I was doing and the atmopshere had alot to do w/ it, but it was some of the best meals I ever had.

I still try to make a mulligan stew every month or so w/ whatever is lying arounf; it's good stuff.

[Inchworm]

34. Cool story

That's sort of what those "shrimpin" "crabbin" trips were following the storms. A little nitch of people doing what they could to get along.

:thumbsup:

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Neshanic]

35. Corn on the cob at the 4H fair in New Jersey. The late summer, the corn with butter all over it.

YUM!

[Inchworm]

38. I admit to drooling a bit

:9

[BeachBaby]

39. We had a bad summer this year with the corn crops.

Harvesting was LATE - remember when the 4th of July was officially corn-on-the-cob time here in Jersey? We didn't see corn until early August this year, and it was limited. Bad weather for the crops, I suppose.

You're absolutely right, though....YUM. Jersey corn and Jersey tomatoes. The best around.

[marzipanni]

40. Slightly underripe raspberries take me back to a little island in Maine

where my family went in the summer when I was a little kid. Very flavorful, but a little puckery, they grow wild there, but when we were there, probably in July, few were ripe yet. The background of the photo in mainegreen's posts looks like that place.

[Inchworm]

42. Cool

Found berries are the best :)

:hi:

[Xipe Totec]

43. Don't get me started...

Mamey - the sweet, coral colored, relative of the avocado.

Tuna - the seedy, melon flavored fruit of the opuntia (paddle cactus)

Quiote - the caramelized bloom shoot of the agave plant

Menudo - you either know it, or don't bother looking it up.

barbacoa - pit barbecued beef; a Sunday morning ritual.

[Inchworm]

44. Can I move in?

They all sound sooo yums!

:hi:

[Xipe Totec]

45. I'm trying to move back there too!

South Texas is a whole different country; different even than Texas.



I've only seen mamey up here in New England a few times, and they wanted $17/lb.

[libnnc]

46. Labor Day weekend 1987

Hanging out on my uncle's farm.

Aunt and her mother making homemade apple and peach fried pies in an iron skillet.

A scene of unparalleled teen aged gluttony

My cousins and I nearly passed out from a sugar coma with full bellies watching MTV.

[Inchworm]

49. Sounds super!

:woohoo:

[Tikki]

47. OMG...This Tuna Casserole....

When I was in my late teens I worked in a real home town type coffee shop and there was this one cook
who made the very best ever Tuna Casserole.

This gentleman was already a senior citizen and only worked a couple days a week...I know he
had his own recipes.

I used to scrap the bottoms and sides of the near empty warming trays to get the last crusty bits and
take what I could home in to-go coffee cups.

Tikki

[Inchworm]

50. Hehe

That musta been some hella good tuna!

:hi:

[LiberalEsto]

48. Hot roasted chestnuts in a brown paper bag

as sold by Manhattan street vendors on a cold winter day...

[Inchworm]

51. I can't remember ever eating a chesnut

Hmmm, I may try that this winter

:hi:

[LiberalEsto]

56. I think those vendors are long gone

along with all of America's chestnut trees, which died of disease.

The chestnuts we see in supermarkets at Thanksgiving and Christmas come from Europe, I think. For old time's sake, I buy a few of those, cut a slit in them, and microwave 4 or 5 of them for about 45 seconds, but it's definitely not the same.

Back in the 60s, when I was a New Jersey kid taking a bus to NYC, I'd buy chestnuts to warm my hands. They'd be way too hot to eat at first.

[Inchworm]

57. Oh yea! Derrr...

Wormy chestnut was a top board around here for ages. I've actually disassembled old barns for the wood.

:dunce:

[DS1]

52. breaking up bread into tomato soup makes me think of being at school in England

at some point before I was 7

[Inchworm]

53. We did grilled cheese in tomato soup

Yums!

:9

[Critters2]

54. RC Cola and Mountain Dew. No, seriesly.

When I was a kid, we never had pop (soda) in the house. NEVER. But we would visit relatives and they'd give it to us as a treat.

When we'd visit my uncle and aunt in Springfield, they always had RC Cola. I don't even think it was available in Davenport, where we lived, at the time. My uncle sometimes said it reminded him of Kentucky, where he and my mom had grown up. RC still makes me think of good times with my uncle--who was the most jolly, gregarious soul. I was in Springfield recently, and stopped to get gas and something to drink. I just had to get an RC to honor my Uncle Al.

My grandmother would buy us Mountain Dew, which my mom did NOT like us to have because of the caffeine. I now think this was a little passive-aggressive defiance of my mom on the part of my grandma. But at the time, all I knew was that it was a special treat. I still only drink it on rare occasions, at least partly because it feels like a treat to me.

Oh, and my grandmother ALWAYS had frozen lemon cream pie when we'd visit. Almost any lemon flavored food seems like comfort food to me, because it takes me back to my grandmother's house.

Good times!

[Inchworm]

55. You reminded me of my mom and Pepsi

She always had some. They were the 16oz bottles. It was a real special occasion for me to be able to split one with my two brothers.

Good times indeed!

:hi:

[fight4my3sons]

58. fried okra and frito pie

We used to go to Furr's and Luby's when I was a kid and lived in Texas. What an experience for my NY born and bred husband to go to Luby's when we went out there to visit my relatives. :D
I ate frito pie at horse shows and I think they have it at Sonic. Don't see either of those up here in Maine. :(

[Inchworm]

68. Try to make the pie up there in your kitchen

Go all mad scientist and stuffs. It's a blast! hehe

:hi:

[Mist]

60. Water from a garden hose. Every once in a while, when I'm washing the car,

the screens, whatever, on a hot day, I'll take a couple of sips from the hose, instead of going to the kitchen for
a glass of water. That taste takes me right back to hot days as a kid, playing with my sister and friends, running in the sprinkler, etc. And when we'd get thirsty, a nice drink from the hose! For a really "Proust/madeleine experience" this is it.

[Inchworm]

69. Hehe.. garden hose water reminds me of work

I realized this in the garden last spring. I once was a mudman for a crew of masons :D

:hi:

[lutefisk]

61. lutefisk

That's a good one.

:)

[Inchworm]

70. I am clueless as to what Lutefisk is

:shrug:

:hi:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

63. This was the dinner Mom would make me every day, and I fucking LOVED it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortilla_de_patatas

Every once in a blue moon I make one myself, and yes, I go back in time every time.

[Inchworm]

71. I am sooo trying that!

A definate Meatless Monday meal :)

Thanks!

:hi:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

76. It's easy to make. Do try it. And then tell me how it went.

You'll need a pan with steep sides, like this:

[femmocrat]

64. They have various names, but ... stuffed cabbage rolls.

We called them "holupki". My mom always made a big pot of them on Saturday night for Sunday dinner.

OMG, they were the food of the gods. I can't make them like she did.

[Inchworm]

72. We called them Galumpkis or something close

I tried to make them last year and they didn't taste near as good as I remember.

I prolly skr00d them up :D

:hi:

[dgibby]

65. Pinto beans with fatback

turnip greens with fatback
cornbread
sweet tea
(can you tell I grew up in the South?):rofl:

[Inchworm]

73. LoL

yup yup!

I was very anti-beans by the time I got South. All those things you mentioned haunted my teenage years :P

:hi:

[Bunny]

66. My mom once made some kind of smoked pork with scalloped potatoes thing.

I puked my guts out for two days. :scared:

[Inchworm]

74. Not the best of memories huh?

:hug:

It actually sounds sort of yummy still though.

:hi:

[LostInAnomie]

67. Chicken In A Biscuit crackers make me think of spending the summers at my Grandparent's house.

I used to love those damn things.

[Inchworm]

75. Summers with grandparents

Ahhh yes.

:hi: