Family recipes

[kayb]

You are so lucky to have that index card. Maybe you should frame it? However, treasure it. Try the doughnuts some time. 

I have a piece of paper, in my mother's writing, labelled "Nene's Bun". Nene was my paternal grandmother's sister. (Really my great-aunt Rose but no one called her anything but Nene. She was an important part of my childhood. ) "Nene's Bun" seems to be a sweet sort of quick bread with dried fruit. I've never tried to make it - maybe I should. 

 

ElainaA, I have a small wooden card file box that's crammed full of cards like that, along with clippings and cards from other cooks in our small community who were her friends. I really want to arrange several of them and frame them; must get my much-more-crafty-than-I daughters to do so. There are, in fact, enough of the recipe cards to do one for each of them as well as for me.

[blue_dolphin]

ElainaA, I have a small wooden card file box that's crammed full of cards like that, along with clippings and cards from other cooks in our small community who were her friends. I really want to arrange several of them and frame them; must get my much-more-crafty-than-I daughters to do so. There are, in fact, enough of the recipe cards to do one for each of them as well as for me.

 

Here are some thoughts for sharing those great handwritten recipes with the family:

Scan or photograph them and have them printed on fabric that can be stitched into kitchen towels - I intended to do this years ago when I first read it and haven't gotten around to it yet.  Since my mom passed away this year, I think it's a must-do for family Christmas gifts this year.

 

Incorporate them into a family photo cookbook. This can be a significant effort but the software and services available today offer amazing flexibility and can produce a lovely product.  I have a friend with a large family who put together one of these and it's part cookbook, part family photo album and part memory collection - the focus was recipes from their childhood that this family of 8 continue to make for their own families.  The organizer had to do a lot of prodding to get everyone to submit their photos and recipes but the result was spectacular, including recipes, photos of the families cooking together and admiring and eating those dishes - I would BUY that cookbook!

 

If a whole cookbook is too daunting, consider a calendar - only 12 pages!  Again, the photo software and services have great options.  I made one a couple of years ago.  All the family birthdays and anniversaries with little photos on the appropriate days of the calendar grid and one recipe per month.  In some cases, I was able to use a photo or scan of the old card to provide the recipe.  In other cases I used the old handwritten recipe as a background and overlaid it with the printed recipe and photos.  

[blue_dolphin]

This isn't so much a recipe as a memory of one of my mother's most frequently made desserts - with a last name towards the end of the alphabet, she was often assigned that course for church suppers, funerals, neighbors in need of meal assistance.  This is her fruit torte:

 

Mom received this pan (though I think her pan was 12 inches rather than 11) along with the instructions for an obsttorte, a German fruit tart with a sponge cake base as a wedding gift from a SIL.  She gradually adapted it to certain convenience foods  (Jiffy cake mix and Jello instant pudding) so she was able to whip one up at the first hint of the need for a dessert donation.  The varieties were endless - chocolate cake and pudding with cherries; spice cake, vanilla pudding and apple pie filling but the best were always in the summer with fresh berries and whipped cream.   

 

It was always very well received.  There weren't any artisan bakeries around so it looked plenty fancy among the plates of brownies and oatmeal cookies that were more the norm.  I may need to hunt down that pan and make one next time I'm asked to supply a dessert!

 

[Darienne]

Made Arey's Mother's Mrs. __________'s Applesauce Cake with newly made applesauce from our overladen Macintosh tree.  Delicious says DH with butter on it...he puts butter on everything which accepts butter graciously.  Thanks Arey.

 

Wrapped and refridgerated, the Applesauce Cake is even better a day or two later.  Easier to slice also.  Big, big success.  Must make a few more and freeze them.  Thanks, Arey for a new addition to the repertoire. 

[cakewalk]

As I have noted too many times before, my Mother hated cooking and burnt the daylights out of the steak she gave me each night. 

Are you my sister?

[Arey]

Wrapped and refridgerated, the Applesauce Cake is even better a day or two later.  Easier to slice also.  Big, big success.  Must make a few more and freeze them.  Thanks, Arey for a new addition to the repertoire. 

I'm glad you liked it.  I haven't made one for years.  This was one of my mother's "from scratch" cakes.  At bake sales she would eye cakes suspiciously and ask the person behind the table if it was made "from scratch".  If she wanted one made from mix, she would have done it herself.  She did make gingerbread cake from a mix,  made LEM pudding mix, and poured the still warm LEM over the gingerbread.  I could almost taste it while typing this. 

Edited October 9, 2015 by Arey (log)

[Darienne]

Googled LEM and came up with sausage makings...surely some kind of problem here for a cake.  What is LEM?

[liuzhou]

Googled LEM and came up with sausage makings...surely some kind of problem here for a cake. What is LEM?

I am glad you asked this; I was about to do the same.

There is a horribly annoying trend to abbreviate everything here on eG, rendering posts incomprehensible if you are not in the know - a category which includes almost everyone, including Mr Google.

AFAIAC, IWITWS. IRGOMG!

Edited October 9, 2015 by liuzhou (log)

[Shelby]

Maybe lemon pudding?

[liuzhou]

Maybe lemon pudding?

Then 'LEM pudding' must be "lemon pudding pudding"?

Edited October 9, 2015 by liuzhou (log)

[huiray]

http://www.brandlandusa.com/2010/03/06/history-of-lem-pie-filling-and-pudding/

http://www.amazon.com/Filling-Pudding-Lemon-3-Ounce-Packages/dp/B000HQOVHK

 

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS619US619&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=LEM+pudding

 

You're welcome.

[huiray]

大姨媽嫁女.  

Various transliterations of this include "tai yee ma kar lui" and "daai ji maa gaa neoi" and etc etc. (The latter one is the Jyutping romanization minus the tone markings: in full it would be "daai6 ji4 maa1 gaa3 neoi5")

 

This has to be one of the most commonly-passed-down from-parent-to-offspring simple home cooking recipes in Cantonese families and is also a "traditional" Cantonese homely dish anyway (see here). I've posted many renditions of this here (see this search) and there is even an old pictorial tutorial on eG on one variation of it too.

 

 

There are various other dishes that I associate with my mother making for the family dinner table, but one that I think of almost at once, which is also a "traditional" dish, is pork spare ribs steamed with ginger, garlic and black beans., and one which I make with some frequency. No doubt lots of other Chinese folks make it too, with or without some slight variation typical of their own family or whoever the cook was in their family!

Edited October 9, 2015 by huiray (log)

[liuzhou]

So, It transpires that LEM isn't an abbreviation but a regional brand name of some product. Sorry, but I ain't going Googling for every abbreviation, acronym or neologism, nor I expect are many people. 

 

It really would help if people remembered that brands are often highly localised and gave an explanation or link. I did so in my post on the first page of this thread which mentioned HP Sauce because I knew it is little known outside the UK.

Sorry to be grumpy about this, but it is so frustrating to read something which sounds kind of interesting then be stumped by an abbreviation or an unknown brand name. And it is happening more and more.

 

I thought we were here to help each other. 

Edited October 9, 2015 by liuzhou (log)

[Darienne]

Bravo, liuzhou.

[Arey]

Well. I'm sure as hell not going to post her LEMon meringue (beaten egg whites and sugar, baked until browned in this specific case and used as a topping for) a pie ( food item consisting of a something, meat fruit or vegetable baked under a crust).

P.S. I've heard of HP Sauce even here in deepest So. New Jersey how was I know to know that they hadn't heard of LEM in Guangxi?