Food Memories

[Rosie]

Do you have any fond food memories from your childhood?

[Marian Burros]

Too many to count:

Making tapioca pudding when my mother went out and I was home alone. An early latch key child. My father died when I was five. I'd make a recipe of it and eat all of it by myself. I still love it and have a recipe for it in my latest book.

Spaghetti and meat sauce leftovers for breakfast on Thursday mornings. My mother always made it for dinner Wednesday night and there was always a little leftover.

Learning how to use the pressure cooker before my mother because it came when I got home from school and she wasn't home from work yet and then teaching her how to use it. Making beef goulash in it.

Going with my mother to buy corn from the farmer just outside of the city where I grew up - Waterbury, Conn. We always went late in the afternoon to get the second picking. As soon as we got home it went right into the pot.

Cooking with my aunt in Boston.

And then there are a few I don't remember so fondly: plucking hte pin feathers off the chicken before my mother cooked it. I was sort of her brigade and did the mis en place.