What tastes like home?

[Tough Cookie]

Cream of leek soup.

Prime rib roast.

Ground beef congee.

Beef and tomato on rice.

Campbell's cream of mushroom soup (whenever I was sick).

[slyaspie]

My parents forbade processed foods in the house and we lived very seasonally. They grew and still grow most fruits and vegetables you can think of. So veggies cooked in the Greek way (with tomatoes, onions, oregano, lemon, garlic, etc.) taste like home to me. Also everyday summer meals consisting of watermelon, halloumi, salata horiatiki, olives and home made bread, all summer for lunch and dinner. zuchinni and eggplant cut into bite sized chunks and fried up with eggs. my mom's apple pie, the recipe of which she got from our neighbor and proceeded to tweak into a creation of her own (she makes a whole wheat crust). Loukoumadhes (a very light puffed up sweet fried dough drizzled with syrup made with rose water) on January 6th Epiphany. Stuffed eggplants. Avgolemono soup. Dough rolled out thin and then stuffed with a mixture of grated halloumi and chopped mint held together with beaten egg and then fried until airy and light. Stewed taro in tomato, onions and celery. Stewed artichokes, fried artichokes. Artichoke stems, fresh green fava pods, and fresh garlic greens made into a sort of soup/stew with lots of olive oil and some vigegar and flour. I bring this up because it's the season for it and I'm craving it...it was a village staple for my parents when they were kids...Smelling my mom's homemade bread. Steeped camomile tea with a few anise seeds, whole cloves, and a cinnamon stick thrown into the tea pot while boiling water. This tea was for when we were sick. Another thing she made us when we were sick was fideo noodles in homemade chicken broth.

I miss her cooking and try to get home whenever I can.

[mona]

[...]What tastes like home to you?

←

Chicken soup with whole chicken or at least chicken parts in it, not consomme or stock (like Teresa's, my local Polish diner makes). Flanken soup with dill, parsnips, beans, pepper, etc. Split pea soup. Pasta with tomato sauce and meatballs. Lion's head soup. Roast beef. Roast chicken. Pot roast. Apple pie. Homemade chocolate pudding. Matzo ball or chicken noodle soup. Livers and onions pan-fried with sherry or marsala. Chicken or veal marsala. My father's special omelettes (frittate, really). Osso buco. Swedish lamb with coffee, milk (cream), pepper, and pureed carrots and onions (from the Swedish Princess cookbook). My grandma's stuffed cabbage that uses dried fruits and ginger snaps along with chopped meat (beef) and rice. These are home food by my mother, father, and grandmother, and only a partial list.

Then, there are the homey things my fictive grandmother, Mrs. Carr made, which come from the great black cooking of the South: Cornbread, peach cobbler, sweet potato pie, etc.

And then there's Malaysian cooking that feels like the place that was my second home for two years of my childhood: Kangkung belacan, petai belacan, kacang panjang belacan, kacang belendir belacan (etc.), gulai ayam, gulai kambing (etc.; gulai=curry), asam dishes (=with tamarind), chili udang galah, roti canai, laksa, ulam, kueh bakar, dodol. Some of these things I remember from my childhood, like kueh bakar (roasted cakes) roasted over a real wooden stove, essentially no longer exist, but many of them do still exist.

I think this thread will overlap considerably with How we ate growing up.

←

I'm Malaysian but I have no idea what kacang berlendir is. Is it eaten as ulam or something?

[Kevin72]

Lots of holiday foods remind me of home: apple cider, gingerbread cookies, roasted turkey or sweet potatoes . . .

Other than that, being a child of the '70's myself, casseroles with a good cheese topping, like chicken divan or king ranch casserole. Also my mom used to make these buttermilk cookies with frosting on the top. Bite into one of those, and I'm a kid again . . .

[Soup]

When I haven't mom's cooking for a long time, I always crave the same thing.

Mandoo Guk (korean dumpling soup).

On holidays, instead of turkey and trimmings, this is what we have.

YUM.

Soup

[Aileen]

Tuna casserole (yes, the kind made with cream of mushroom soup).

Raw asparagus - we used to pick it wild once a year and munch on it as we picked.

Zucchini bread and stuffed zucchini - my mom liked to let them grow to be about 3 feet long.

[mizducky]

Our family fare when I was a kid was an interesting mix of classic Jewish foods and 60s/70s-style American comfort-and-convenience classics (including some flagrantly traif foods). So, to me home tastes like:

--big vats of soup: my mom was another who served her chicken soup with the big chunks of vegetables and still-on-the-bone chicken that had been cooked in the soup; she also made a split-pea/barley/beef soup to die for, based on those little cellophane tubes of soup ingredients sold in the supermarket's Jewish foods section.

--this home-made concoction my mom invented when she decided that Hamburger Helper was a rip-off. We christened it "Hamburger Thing." It was gooooood. Her meatloaf was yummy too.

--My dad's sole culinary contribution beyond the occasional tossed green salad: steaks grilled on the ancient portable charcoal grill out back. Typically my mom would make her own barbecue sauce (from a recipe out of either Good Housekeeping or Better Homes and Gardens, I forget which), buy chuck steaks, tenderize the heck out of 'em with the Adolf's, and then hand the lot over to Dad. The amount of char my dad put on the meat would probably be deemed carcinogenic these days, but we all loved 'em that way.

--Occasionally my mom would put in the extra work to make a Jewish delicacy like boiled beef tongue. I maintain an unholy passion for beef tongue to this day.

--For a nice Jewish lady, my mom did some darn fine pork chops. Thanks to her, oven-fried chops coated in Kellogg's Cornflake crumbs is another of my childhood nostalgia trips.

--Our refrigerator was always packed to the gills, mostly with deli foods and other assorted chazerei: paper-wrapped packages of cold cuts; jars of pickled things (cukes, herring, you name it); *good* rye bread with properly chewy crust; spicy brown mustard and horseradish; *good* bagels and associated fixings; and the occasional package of smoked whitefish, sable, lox, etc. (these did not last long). In fact, the sight of a big fridge crammed with deli containers and packages may be my single most nostalgia-provoking "taste" of home.

[racheld]

I just posted mine in the Southern Food Culture thread under "Fried Corn--and three"

PLUS:

Popsicles in the shade

Baked beans and potato salad at Thanksgiving---who else serves THAT?

Pulled pork barbecue, slaw on

Jalapeno/corn/cheese cornbread, the heavy, eggy, no-sugar kind with lots of crust

A freezer of peach or banana ice cream---smushed fruit, whole milk, a can of Eagle brand, hand-cranked under a pecan tree

Vanilla boiled custard, ditto---it's like eating frozen creme Anglaise

Fallapart potroast with carrots, potatoes and (don't laugh) Brussels sprouts

Maw's famous caramel cake or any dessert from her talented hands

A gallon pot of pinto or Northern beans with several pounds of ham cooked to a velvety softness---with that GOOOOD cornbread and a slice of sweet onion

My childhood neighbor's sugar-laden, lemony iced tea

Snap beans, cooked down LOW, with a bit of ham and onion; tiny potatoes steamed on top

Chicken salad at any gathering of Good Church Ladies---they outdo each other for best and fanciest

A plate of anything from the monthly Church Supper buffet table: Ten kinds of fried chicken, Campbell's-based casseroles, Jello in many combinations, salads straight out of Southern Living, and PIE---any kind

My Mammaw's Friday Pineapple Cake---especially by Monday or Tuesday

It's getting too late in the day to continue---I gotta go COOK something!!!