CompassRose

Oh! this is my favourite type of thread. I'm another one of those Food Sociologists (food, fashion and etiquette...) What was your family food culture when you were growing up? Solid, home-cooked, German-influenced. And abundant. Even when we were very poor (we became a one-income family as soon as the first child was born, and stayed that way, and with four kids, even a decently middle-class wage doesn't stretch THAT far) there was always lots and lots of food. There were some standards, family favourites that appeared over and over. And there were the food jokes: my mother would ask what we wanted for supper, and my father would say, "Poached salmon" (reference to a HUGE salmon we had once, which caused my mother great grief in the finding of a cooking vessel cos she didn't want to butcher it) or "Steak and kidney pie!" (because my mother, though fine with most sorts of inner bits, will not have anything to do with kidneys). Was meal time important? Absolutely. Food is very important to my family, period. Dinners were always eaten together, and when possible, so were breakfasts and lunches. Was cooking important? Um... uncertain what you mean by the question. Was a big fuss made over cooking techniques, that sort of thing? No. Cooking is a thing that puts the food on the table; my mother is a good cook, but not an enthusiastic one. She thinks I make a great deal too much fuss and bother over food... What were the penalties for putting elbows on the table? Gentle reminders. It wasn't that big a deal, except of course that our table isn't huge, and with four substantially-sized kids around it, it got crowded pretty quickly if we weren't careful about our respective limbs. Who cooked in the family? Mostly my mother, but my father has a few specialties: macaroni and cheese with grilled tomatoes on top, weekend scrambled eggs. None of us cooked, growing up; we didn't go anywhere NEAR the kitchen when cooking was being done. My mother likes to work uninterrupted and unhindered. There I was, eighteen years old, on my own for the first time, no idea even how to boil an egg... (actually, I STILL can't reliably boil an egg to my taste, but otherwise things have improved). Were restaurant meals common, or for special occasions? Restaurant? Huh? Any kind of eating out or even prepared food happened once in a very blue moon. We weren't rich, there were a lot of us, and for a lot of my childhood we lived where the restaurants were very thin on the ground anyway. It was a big treat, a holiday thing mostly (we went on long driving vacations -- now that was fun, four kids packed into the back seat of a Volvo sedan!). Did children have a "kiddy table" when guests were over? Nope. We had the Leaf, and the Extra Leaf for the regular table. I remember being stunned, and a bit offended, at the mature age of twelve or so, eating at an aunt's place and being relegated to a kiddy table. Mind you, my parents are remarkably anti-social creatures, and very rarely entertain anyone at all. When did you get that first sip of wine? Apparently when I was two or so, I grabbed my father's glass of after-dinner sherry and downed the whole thing. Then I gave a short dance performance on the first landing of the stairs, and immediately lay down and fell asleep. We were always allowed sips if we were interested, but we were never much interested that I recall. Now that I know more about wine, I'm not so surprised; my parents don't, and are not by nature "drinkers." They have wine when they think they "should" have wine, birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. We always got white Welch's grape juice when they had wine, in the fancy glasses, and I think we all much preferred it. I remember vividly going home for Christmas maybe two years ago, and being offered a glass of white wine with my dinner. The bottle was open, in the fridge... "How long has this been here?" I asked, warned by some Inner Sense (perhaps the fact that it was at the very back of the shelf). "Just since Thanksgiving," my mother said. "It's fine!" (Recollect, if you will, that the Canadian Thanksgiving falls in October.) I still have little interest in wine. Was there a pre-meal prayer? Yes. In German. My mother says it. Was there a rotating menu (e.g., meatloaf every Thursday)? No, not really. Although we always had bread and cold cuts for supper on, verily, Thursday, because my parents would go out grocery-shopping that day. There was, therefore, no time to cook. And we had greater traditions; each of us had our own birthday cake which appeared almost every year (we were always asked what we wanted, but almost always chose the same thing). There was a Short List of Festive Foods: the pork tenderloin with mushrooms, the particular type of chicken stuffing that appeared on one type of occasion versus the one for another type of occasion; the ham cakes on pineapple two days after Easter. The green split pea soup my brother always asks for the first day he's home for a visit. How much of your family culture is being replicated in your present-day family life? Very little, really. A lot of my family's food culture makes me nervous (for disordered reasons of my own). We also had a sort of family tradition of overeating -- for instance, when my mother made potato cakes (German-style, from raw potatoes) she'd use a whole bag of potatoes -- because we loved them so, we'd compete to see who could eat the most. It was not uncommon for each of us to consume twenty or thirty three-inch potato pancakes in a meal. We were well fed. I remember the food, fondly, but I don't taste that way any more, and I like my own versions of most of my favourites better than my mother's, mostly.

Binky, I'm not talking the pre-prepared shakes, but the isolate powders you mix yourself. Check with your nearest handy-dandy supplement store (they may well call themselves a health-food store, but will cater largely to bodybuilders) or something like a GNC. A great many of the powders ARE extremely rude, but many others are more or less inoffensive and some are actually not bad. (I've never had a premixed protein drink, on the other hand, that I'd willingly put down my throat more than once. They're strangely glopulous.) And as I say, the powders, whey and soy, both can be bought in unflavoured versions and blended into other things.

"Deserves" is fine. "Desparately" (sic) is not. Oops -- mea culpa; "deserves" is already fixed.

Chapters is Canadian. Very often in Canada we'll get UK books before the US release date. (Even better, still with the correct spellings and wording as the author intended.) That and the chocolate bars are some of the few remaining advantages we subjects of the Queen still enjoy.

Why is that sensitive? I became vegetarian at the age of 19 -- just moved in with the ex-boyfriend, and he wanted a roast chicken like Mom used to make. I stuck my hand up the chicken's butt to retrieve the giblies, absorbed the horror and wrongness of touching! the inside! of a formerly living thing's pulmonary cavity! and didn't eat meat again, at all, for over ten years. I was irritatingly vegan for the first three years, but that got old really quickly. This is still a small town, but it used to be a really small town, and buying anything like tofu or soymilk used to involve a city-crossing trek to the (then) solitary health-food store. (I couldn't drive.) Not to mention, unless I wanted to eat naked salad, there was, literally, NO safely vegan option when eating out. None. I yielded, and became lacto-ovo, where I remained quite contentedly until I hit thirty and lost a lot of weight. My health was suffering (for many reasons) and I found myself craving meat with a wild yearning. So I started eating fish and chicken again, and noticed an immediate improvement. I think now that I'm eating less volume, it's harder to get the concentration of protein I need. However, I learned a lot about cooking and eating in my years as a veghead, and still use a lot of vegetarian products like tofu and TVP and fake meats, not just because my husband is still a vegetarian, but because I like them. Being vegetarian taught me a lot about food. I don't think I'd have nearly so much fun with food and cooking if I'd stayed carnivorous. I don't think vegetarianism needs to be a limiting factor at all. In fact, most vegetarians I know eat a much more interesting and varied diet than most reg'lar meat-eatin' folks, and tend as a group to be much more open to other ethnic styles and foods (other than dead beast) that they've never tried before.

Some things, the sturdier things, I put in a picnic cooler and store in my basement pantry. However, it is VERY IMPORTANT, especially if some of those things are of the Brassica family, to REMEMBER THAT THEY ARE DOWN THERE! There's nothing to match the experience of whipping open the cooler lid and encountering something that once was a broccoli.

I came to post my dinner just so's everyone else could look and say "wgh!" Protein shake, jazzed up with some sugar-free Da Vinci Chai syrup, which is deeply ironic in view of the second course... the remaining half of a small Chocolate Extreme Blizzard, the first half of which was eaten after taking my beloved out to see Rivers and Tides, the Andy Goldsworthy documentary. (It is a Cheat Day, and just prior to the shake and blizzard, I lifted heavy objects multiple times.) Binky, I'm sure you've thought of this, but what about protein isolates? Some of the flavoured ones are quite good, and they don't have to be mixed into large, bulky shakes; you can use just enough liquid to get them to a "pudding" consistency. And an unflavoured whey or soy protein isolate could very easily be stirred into your mashed potatoes or pureed baked beans. This is a trick I use fairly often when making vegetarian foods that I intend to eat with A., to keep my "ratios" right without having to haul out the dreary ol' chicken breast side dish every time. Tofu's okay, but it really doesn't have a terribly high protein content, comparatively speaking, and a fair amount of fat as well. In the kind of amounts you'd be able to eat, would it make a major difference?

I make no claims to be a foodie, though I love good and interesting food and am more than willing to go the extra mile (or hundred kilometres ) for the right food-thing I "must" have. My only comment is that having the whole thing be a series of tasting adventures might be... a bit... much. Overwhelming, don't you think? I doubt even the most serious and qualified gour-may is going to have anything left to give to the contemplation of three different estate chocolates after already taking the Cheese and Wine Test and the Aged Beef Exam. Were I planning such a thing, I'd centre the evening round one such tasting or comparison, and make everything else around it wonderful, enjoyable -- but also very clearly a supporting cast, a background chorus.

Even your summary makes me laugh. I must keep my eye open for this, preferably at a discount price. I hate buying novels at cover price, because I read them in about an hour and it's not worth it.

Yes! Yes, yes I love both! But I think it's harder for me to think of a cultural style of cooking I don't generally like. Other than "American Fast". I'd probably have a hard time with Inuit food, come to think of it, given my fat-in-the-mouth aversion.

I don't mind the talking. It's the ones who stand (or lie, if they are four-legged and fuzzy) in the way! The kitchen can be completely empty. I come in to cook, and lo! there's a cat on the floor in front of the table, a dog on the floor in front of the sink, another cat wanting to get up on the counter to look out the window. And that's when A. will decide he needs a snack, so he'll get something out of the fridge, pour himself a drink, and then stand there in the middle of the room eating it while I'm trying to cross the space he's occupying to get from the pantry to (the sparse two running feet which is all there is) of counter! Now that sometimes leads me to get testy and stand there snapping "Get out! Get out! All of you, out!"

I recently got out Nancy Silverton's Sandwich book from the library, and she had an Oreo-alike recipe in thar. I've taken the book back and didn't copy it... but maybe someone else has it, or you could find it?

I say just tell the punters what they are. Don't even give 'em a title. Number them or something, and put in a nice description so that it's right there. Or better still, put them in a case with a list of the major flavour players, and have the waitstaff invite customers to come and look. I prefer that anyway. I like to SEE my choices... the consistency of the fillings, the colour of the cake part, the layers... before I order. And I'll order more adventurously if I happen to get a sudden crush on something oddly attractive behind the glass, too.

To add to its miracle properties: lavender oil is also much loathed by cats. They just won't quit whizzin' on the hall rug? Spritz it with a solution of lavender. Not only does it smell better than the chemical soup of Febreze, but the Evil Beasts will give it a wide berth until the scent fades. (Which doesn't mean that they won't prowl the abode for some other exciting new location.) As a corollary to that, don't use it as first aid for pets, at least not cats.

My mother likes peanut butter and tomato sandwiches. My ex-boyfriend liked peanut butter, strawberry jam and bacon sandwiches. Eugh.

Ohhhh... I have a couple recipes for the Jamaican Black Cake too! And I'm dying to make it -- only it makes a lot. And, well, I could eat it myself, but, er, should I? The last couple years I've been making Alice Medrich's California Fruit & Walnut Cake, which people actually like as gifts. And which I like a lot. Last year, I also made a recipe for Fruitcake Cookies, with an almond-marzipan royal icing on top. Flavour of fruitcake, small and non-intimidating -- people liked those, too. (Now if only I could spread the love of quiet, unassuming-looking Eastern European delicious spicy cookies among my woefully-lured-by-the-lurid-icing inlaws! A recipe of Spekulaas also makes way too damn many cookies!)

Oh, yeah -- forgot a big one! FRUITCAKE! Sure, I love the fancy ones with whole-grain flour and artisan-dried organic fruits -- but I also will happily devour the supermarket products loaded with red and green plastic bits and covered with almond-flavoured rubber icing. Ah! Yuletide! Skip the presents, give me that fruitcake you've been hoarding.

This thread is very old... but I'm sad that there is still no low-carb chocolate with NO sugar alcohols whatsoever. I seem to be extremely sensitive to them. All of them. And we're not just talking gas here. Apart from the Unfortunate Results, my favourite of the low-carb bars I've tried were the Labrada Carb-Watchers chocolates. They're truffle bars, and to me they tasted quite convincing, pretty comparable to a Lindt or similar medium-fancy treat. But I just can't have them. So I settle for restrained single squares of Michel Cluizel 99% instead -- poor me! Very ladylike -- but still, the More Chocolate thing is there! Sadly, the longer I go with this hypoglycemia problem, the more pronounced it gets, and choc. plus sugar seems to be a major trigger.

Oh, tons! I have regular problems with my adoration of "stinky" foods (my beloved A. says "Eat that when I'm at work!"). Smelly cheeses. Sauerkraut. Kimchi. Other things I love: apple and stinky-cheese omelettes, crisp apples or pears spread with a thin layer of Marmite. Cottage cheese and almost anything, savoury or sweet. Lima beans (mmmmm!). Beets, oh yeah! Raw rolled oats muesli'd up with lemon juice, fruit and nuts. Japanese soft squishy sticky rice and red bean treats -- I'm sure there are lots of people who love those, but I don't know any. Natto. I like it (goes with my Stinky Rotted adoration I suppose). Tofu. I really like tofu, naked and cold and adorned only with a dash of tamari.

Culinary nemesis: fudge. I cannot make a real fudge. I try. I take its temperature carefully, I let it rest, I beat the heck out of it -- and every time, fudge bloody sauce. Not that, you know, there's anything wrong with fudge sauce, specially on ice cream, but I truly would like a product I can slice. Or, you know, wrap for presents, not in a jar. I don't get it. Shirley Corriher's N'Awlins Pralines have turned out for me pretty well the dozen or so times I've made them. They're similar -- so why not fudge? Dang it!

I find with the quantity of garlic that I can't taste the tofu flavour. But perhaps I am simply rubberized of palate. I forgot -- I sometimes sprinkle in a teeny dash of powdered fenugreek, which lends a certain egglike aroma.

One box silken tofu (the aseptic kind, e.g. Mori-Nu), lightly mashed 2 cloves garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped 1/2 (heaping) tsp salt About 2 tsps prepared horseradish OR dry, hot mustard 2 tablespoons lemon juice or your choice of vinegar (Optional: a dash of turmeric, for colour) One blender Place all ingredients in the blender, and process, scraping down occasionally, until completely smooth. Keeps well in the refrigerator in a tightly sealed GLASS jar for at least a week; makes approximately 1 - 1.5 cups (sometimes it whips up fluffier than others). Yes, it really is good. If you like sweet mayonnaise, you can sweeten it to taste with additions of choice. This recipe has evolved from Mollie Katzen's Horseradish Aioli. I make a batch of it pretty much every week.

On leaving out ingredients... I knew I'd seen MFK Fisher rant about that somewhere, and as I was browsing through With Bold Knife and Fork I found it. I just love MFK Fisher.

Adele, do you know Ashton Green? Not in Toronto, admittedly, but they are Canadian (out of Ottawa) (so none of those nasty exchange sticker shocks!). Their service is fabulous -- I usually get my juicy parcels within days, and when they shipped me a slightly cracked pudding mould, I didn't even have to return it, they just sent me out a new one (which again arrived within days). (The cracked one makes a nice ornamental container.) I've been very pleased with everything I've got there. Katharine

I think it would be good. I regularly make an omelette very like GGMora's husband's, and I once made an apple-cheese strata which was eaten with pleasure (by people other than me, as well). I dunno that I'd bother with the Gorgonzola, even. And I might thin-slice some of the apples, put them on top, sprinkle on the Parm and broil till just crispy round the edges.