Food memories.....

[Mabelline]

My grandmother used to make me dark toast, bananas, and whipped cream sandwiches when I had to stay with her.Ambrosia!!

When I was about three, my step-grampa, uncle, and dad were sitting on my gram's good porch. They gave me homemade dandelion wine.I can still remember rolling down the steep stairs, and my mother and gram hollering at the men, while they bundled me upstairs.

Oh my God, any meal I had in the morning before going out to milk. We ate some of whatever was there in the cold room, while we waited for grampa Paul's coffee to cook up.It would be dark, and quiet with no one else up, and one time I remember corn flakes, homemade liverwurst,homemade bread, and johnnycake with strawberry preserves.

I would give everything right now to go to those places.

[Knicke]

My first lobster dinner...

I was maybe 10, and the family drove up to Maine to see how the 'summer people' live and camp out, etc. I was picky about texture but little else. My parents ordered lobster several times in restaurants while there, but I could never be persuaded to try it. Bad food poisoning experience with Ohio seafood

Anyhow, it's our second-to-last day in Maine, staying at a lovely lakeside campground. It was during the week, so it was empty-ish and all we could hear was the cry of loons and lapping water. ANYHOO, we stopped at a gas station cum convenience store cum roadside diner for fuel, and of course they had a tank of lively lobsters up near the checkout. My dad got to chatting with the lady behind the counter, just asking how they were chose and cooked and all.

Next thing I know, the nice lady has sold four honking pinchys, given us cookin' tips, etc. Then she finds out we're camping and have no big steamer to cook 'em in. She runs next store to the diner and brings out a steamer for us to borrow, knowing we're nice folks and will bring it back. Which we do, but not until we've steamed those pinchys up on our little propane stove, and tucked in with zeal and gorgeous amounts of lemon butter. I can still taste that first bite of tail meat. All the while gazing out on a pristine lake, water lapping, lapping, lapping....

I've always thought it was sort of weird that I only wanted to try lobster AFTER seeing 'em bundled into the pot and hearing 'em 'scream', but it made it even more fascinating and palatable, somehow. I guess I really revelled in the grotesque as a kid....

[RBloom03]

* First food memory: I was in 3rd grade, older sister in 6th. We decided to make dinner – texas hash (combo of canned diced tomatoes, rice, and ground beef) and cake (boxed yellow with my Mom’s recipe for chocolate frosting). The food itself wasn’t spectacular, it was the clean-up that makes me remember everything about that meal. I was unmercifully teasing my sister while we were doing the dishes. She decided to shove me across the room and into the opposite wall. Of course I was laughing the whole time, until my front tooth hit the wall before the rest of my body. As I spit out the plaster that had chipped off the wall into my mouth (old house = no dry wall), I also spit out half my tooth. I’ve been paying for it ever since (dental bills are expensive!), but can’t help but laugh every time I think about texas hash!

* Food I remember hating: HAM! I’ve always hated ham. When I was 10, my Mom made an awful ham casserole that I was forced to finish. That night, I got the stomach flu - I’ll spare you the details - and was convinced that I got the flu from the ham. To this day, I still don’t eat ham.

* Food I associate with a particular age:

My entire life leading up to college – cookies. My Mom constantly baked cookies. There were always a few jars full. I also fondly remember (and miss!) the smell of dinner cooking when I walked in the door after school. I certainly didn’t appreciate what I had in a stay-at-home Mom until I left home.

College – (1) Taco Bell, the cheapest food station in the cafeteria; (2) Otis Spunkmyer cookies in the cafe; and (3) Stefani’s Restaurant in Chicago, the first place I ever spent more than $10 on a meal. Oh, and vodka, but I don’t know if that counts.

* Favorite person growing up: When I think of my younger brother and food, two things come to mind at the same time: (1) cottage cheese – even at 19, he still eats cottage cheese with every mean, even holiday dinners, and (2) Gerber baby food bananas – this was a daily snack for him until he was a teen.

[foodie52]

My first food memory is of the Christmas packages that my grandmother sent up from Germany to New Jersey in the 50's. She would mail it out some time in October, it would take 2 months to get to us, and then we'd place the unopened box under the Christmas tree until Christmas morning. I still remember my dad pulling out salamis that had mold on the outside: he'd simply wash it off. And she'd send a stollen and Weihnachts gingerbread cookies and lots of chocolate. Those spiced cookies would linger in my memory because they were so exotic.

My worst food memory is having to go to my piano teacher's yearly "do". Her pupils would perform, then we would have to mingle and eat what she had prepared. There was always tomato aspic and my mother always insisted that I eat just a bit to be polite.

It was the foulest-tasting stuff I ever had.

In college, when I finally got to live in a flat, I used to buy liver and onions. The liver came from the butcher shop under the flat. The butcher looked just like a pirate. I'd buy a 1/4 lb of liver for myself. When I had boyfriends over for dinner, I'd buy 1/2 lb...the pirate would raise his eyebrows and waggle them at me suggestively! I always think of him whenever I eat liver.

[reesek]

I love corn beef. Yes I know I spelled it wrong, that is just how I think it's spelled.

hillvalley,

i think we might have been separated at birth. my first food memory also involves corned beef (spell it however you want - it all tastes good!)

the one caveat to this story is that i was 2 years old. no one remembers it exactly like i do - so whatever the truth was, has been converted into my elastic recollection...

picture it - dc, august 1977. 5 of us are packed into dad's white LTD - it's orange vinyl interior removing strips of skin whenever possible. we're headed up to boston for his parents 50th wedding anniversary. mom and dad chain smoke in the front, grandma chains in the back between my sister and me. oh - no a/c - have you ever overheated on the jersey turnpike in august? neither has my father, and he intends to keep it that way.

around noon we stop for lunch at a picnic table. we eat a lunch of corned beef - i'm atkins before my time - no bread - just a fistful of snider's finest. for whatever reason, i'm slow to finish (90 degrees, hot car, wee lungs full of benson and hedges perhaps? that thermos of milk mom's packed not really as inviting as she intended?) she tells me to hurry - i tell her i'm done - she tells me to finish...

famous last words...sorry grandma!

i for one felt a lot better. i slept all the way to boston. i even got ice cream that night.

[SobaAddict70]

First food memory: something I used to do when I was a kid in the Philippines was to sit at the table for hours and hours, long after people had gotten up. I remember having the unreasonable fear of choking to death, so I'd sit at the table with food still in my mouth. The term for it is "ba bad" (BUH-buhd; pronounce the second part of the phrase with an "uh" sound, as in the word "lunch"; say it fast).

Oh, and also being told to clean my plate. There's an old Chinese folk myth that says if you don't clean your plate, your future bride or husband will have that many pock marks on her or his face for each grain of rice you leave on your plate.

First food remember hating: That's easy. Garlic. I HATED garlic with a passion. I remember picking out all the little minced black and brown bits that Grandma or Mom would put in the fried rice. Fried rice was and is a mainstay in my family -- just leftover rice, garlic, scallions; sometimes sliced Chinese sausage, sometimes egg. On occasion, with salt dried fish. Very rarely with soy sauce. Also, the garlic hatred extended to any time I saw a piece of garlic, to the side of the plate it went. Funny how times change.

At six years old, it was bologna sandwiches. Or deli meat, the staple of much of my elementary school lunches. To this day, I loathe Oscar Meyer lunch meats. That, and Hellman's mayo. Brings back too many bad memories of Wonder Bread stuck to the roof of my mouth.

As for college, who can forget cream of broccoli soup that the cafeteria at Hunter College does so well? And the mystery chili, so named because sometimes it was ground turkey mixed with ground beef, sometimes with red kidney beans and ground chuck; once there was a vegetarian version which I promptly threw out after the first bite. Oh, and the falafel stand. A nice bargain -- a falafel sandwich and a Snapple for $5.50. Four giant sized fried mashed balls of falafel, stuffed in a piece of pita bread, scattered with lettuce, tomato chunks and sliced onion, served with white sauce and hot sauce, sometimes a bit of zaatar. Great stuff.

Friends of mine that I lost touch with whilst growing up in Jersey City -- the Moores on Gautier Avenue. It was the first time I had spaghetti with butter and Parmesan cheese, at age 8.

A more recent memory is the first time I saw Swedish meatballs, while with friends several years ago. These are ground pork/beef meatballs that were cooked in a mixture of Welch's grape jelly and hot sauce. They were actually good in a weird, funky mad scientist kind of way.

Soba

[Knicke]

Ooooh. Thought of another. I was about 5. The first mushroom I remember liking. One of my dad's students' parents told him about morel-hunting and invited us to come find some on their land. Walking about in the Ohio spring woods, 5 year old eyes peeled for exposed tree roots. It was quite the treasure hunt, and quite a good haul: about half a paper shopping bag full.

I was pretty reluctant to try them, seeing as the only mushrooms I'd had to that point were grey and somewhat rubbery and NOT at all pleasing. But they looked so funny, and smelled so good while sputtering away with a pat of butter on the stove...well, Dad finally convinced me to try one. He probably shouldn't have; then he could've eaten 'em all himself.

Now I like all fresh and dried mushrooms. Still can't quite stomach the rubbery canned monstrosities, although the pickled ones are ok.

[chezlamere]

my daughter was probably about the same age, but she lost half her front tooth jumping on the bed with her sister and smashing tooth first into an old plaster wall. I remember picking up the chunk of tooth and thinking "i wonder if crazy glue will get this sucker back on" Amazing dentistry work, it's been like ten years and everytime she smiles I look for the fake part of her tooth but can never see it.

[jackal10]

ahh, the madelaines dipped in lime tisane...(and another several hundred pages)

Edited January 17, 2004 by jackal10 (log)

[RBloom03]

my daughter was probably about the same age, but she lost half her front tooth jumping on the bed with her sister and smashing tooth first into an old plaster wall.  I remember picking up the chunk of tooth and thinking "i wonder if crazy glue will get this sucker back on"  Amazing dentistry work, it's been like ten years and everytime she smiles I look for the fake part of her tooth but can never see it.

Your daughter was so lucky to have a good dentist! "Find Stephanie's broken tooth" was an easy game in my family because of the odd shape and color. About a month before my wedding a few years ago, I finally upgraded. Now my dentist's partner can't even tell which tooth is half fake!

Edited January 19, 2004 by RBloom03 (log)

[arjay]

I grew up a poor peasant child in the deep south (well sorta). My family was frequently made involuntary vegetarians because of the state of our finances. This was long before eschewing meats was fashionable, and if anyone thought you did it deliberately, they looked at you funny.

However, in midsummer everyone's gardens started to produce a fare incomparable anywhere!

On the table...roasting ears minutes from the stalk, dripping with Old Man DuPre's freshly churned butter; green beans, long-cooked with rendered salt pork for seasoning; fried yellow crooknecks, okra, and green tomatoes, all breaded with corn meal, flour, and eggs, cooked til golden brown; green onions and ripe tomato slices, still a little warm from the July sun. The juices from all this would be sopped with hot cornbread and/or cathead biscuits. Sweet tea was the beverage of choice and sometimes Old Man DuPre's milk delivered to you daily with a thick layer of cream on top. And later on, banana pudding: the kind baked in the oven with browned peaks of mirengue on top.

There was nothing poor about this.

[mona]

Hi everyone! I'm new to this so please be gentle with me...

My first food memory was when I was a little nipper living in Cranfield (England) in the 80's. It was this luminous, velvety STRAWBERRY MOUSSE under the Hippo brand, I think. Nostalgia and frankly crap snack food from where I'm currently living might have tainted memory but it was so good, with the fragrance of freshest strawberries and a texture of both luxurious cream and good ol' jello. Nowadays the only decent mousse I've been able to get is L'Oreal and tastes like hairspray.

And doesn't Ctrl+I work for italics here?

[sparrowgrass]

The very first food memory I have is from when I was almost 2. It was Easter, and we were visiting the ancient great aunts, and one of them handed me a PEEP.

Heavenly--that smooshy marshmallow and crunchy sugar--I can still remember how wonderful I thought that Peep was.

I have tried one since then--don't see the attraction any more.

[FistFullaRoux]

And as far as my first food memory, I remember this one time my mom ate garlic....

Actual first food memory was McD's french fries in the back of the car, driving from south Louisiana to Pensacola (on old US 90 - pre Interstate) where my dad was stationed in the navy. I was about 2. I don't remember this next part, but mom says I used to bite off the end of the fry, suck out the soft part in the middle, then throw the limp fry carcass into the front seat. It was my signal that I wanted another one.

We won't even go into what usually happened around Pascagoula...

[hillvalley]

Reading about oysters on another thread made me think of the first time I realized I loved raw oysters.

I grew up watching my parents eat oysters and not getting it at all. They were dirty, slimy, grey and alive. And the slurping noises my parents made while eating them. Blech! Why would you bother?

Until that fateful Nutcracker Tea. My parents bought tickets to the Nutcracker and a Tea with the ballerinas afterwards. I was about 10 and thought I was too old to go but my sister wanted to so we went. The ballet was of course beautiful but afterwards at the Tea I was miserable. There was no one my age and the food was not up to my standards. The sandwhiches were PB&J. Where was the tea food? Those fancy, grownup, petite sandwhiches.

Suddenly I realized my father had disappeared. After much searching, I found him all alone. Off at a side table. Surrounded by oysters on the half shell. No one else had found them yet. He had the widest grin on his face and oyster liquor in his beard. "Want to feel like a grownup, Hill? Taste this."

I no longer remembered why I refused to eat oysters. They were soft and silky and smooth. Like satin going down. And the taste! How did the ocean get in there? I ate about a dozen and a half before I felt sick.

It hase been a love affair ever since.

[Pan]

Hi everyone! I'm new to this so please be gentle with me...

Welcome, Mona!

And doesn't Ctrl+I work for italics here?

No. You need to press the "I" button above the compose screen twice: Once before typing the italicized text and once at the end of that block of text like this.

[kellycolorado]

I love reading everyone's memories.

First memory? Not sure!

Most of my good memories of my mother though involved her cooking. Her mom was Belgian and she cooked almost everything from scratch- no prepackaged stuff or casseroles like most of the other neighbors in our working class Detroit suburb. Everyone wanted to eat at our house.

I remember my eating food at the home of my best friend from about 2nd-7th grade. Her family was from Baghdad and the food was wonderfully exotic to me. They had a 50 lb. drum of basmati type rice and it was at every meal, cooked in tomato juice. I had my first lamb there too, and dolma, picked cauliflower, baklava, other sweets with dates..., yum! She always wanted to eat junk food and would spend her allowance on hostess snacks and Funyuns.

In college I remember us all going to Taco Bell after hitting the parties and fraternities for the 59/79/99 value menu at around 1 am. Also having Indian food for the first time, a couple blocks from the dorm. One of my roommates was Indian and introduced me. I loved it but had to go by myself a lot because I couldn't find any takers among my less adventurous friends.

My first Thai food the summer before college was memorable too- I was visiting my aunt in Boston and we took the "T" to Cambridge with my cousins at a Thai place. It's hard to believe both Thai and Indian were missing from the first 18 years of my life!

Oh, I remember very early on going to my maternal grandmothers house in elementary school and having a cup of bouillon in a tea cup and loving the saltiness and daintiness of the cup of broth. She and I would snack on black olives together too.

And my paternal grandma's house every Sunday for "dinner" at noon with my dad when he had visitation. She would usually cook a roast and I love potatoes so much I was always getting teased about my half Irish blood...

well, I'm sure there's lots more but I digress.

Edited January 21, 2004 by kellycolorado (log)

[ruthcooks]

Three vivid food memories originated in the space of a week.

The first day of first grade, I took two tuna fish sandwiches on hamburger buns and two pieces of homemade angel food cake for lunch. Quite a large lunch for a skinny little six year old, but I ate it all.

Friday of the same week, a stomach ache kept me home and I remember lying on the sofa and arguing with my mother that I "did so" feel good enough to have some peach cobbler.

Instead of having peach cobbler, I was taken to the Catholic hospital 40 miles away to have my appendix out. I had never seen a nun (back then they all wore habits) and it was pretty scary. When they wheeled me into the elevator I thought the ether was going to come down out of the grated ceiling.

Third food memory a day later...my great aunt Cora knew I loved chicken and dumplings and canned a quart for me which sat on the dresser in my hospital room while I was a patient. Great, fluffy dumplings in bright yellow chicken fat.

All of these foods still make me nostalgic.