Childhood Food Memories

[Ted Fairhead]

Memories....Getting a day off school before WWII, and going with my Dad to work driving a huge truck from the Docks in London to Covent Garden.

Eating one of the first Ugli fruit to be imported but I don't remember how it tasted.

The smell of citrus and the huge bunches of bananas-the stevedores teasing me about the man-eating spiders that were hidden in the exotic fruits. Having lunch in an Eel and Pie Shop in the East End. The hot, steamy, smoky, and incredibly noisy atmosphere and the scrubbed wooden benches and tables- saveloys and mashed potatoes with a bright green sauce poured over them-meat pies-bowls of glistening eels in aspic jelly-thick china plates and mugs of steaming tea-aaaahhh!

[nickgrieve]

As a child we used to spend the day on the beach harvesting pipis (small flat shellfish) and cockles as my father dived for mussels, scallops and if we were lucky, crayfish.

When our shadows grew long a fire would be started and an old sheet of corrugated would be suspended on rocks over the embers where we put our days labor and gingerly picked off the tasty morsels as their shells opened. The crayfish would be gently cooked in an old pot half buried in the embers at the edge of the fire. Mum and dad ate the tails between chunks of soft white Sunday Bread*. Us kids would crack and much on the tender innards of the legs.

The last thing I remember on those days was climbing into the car for the drive home, next thing I knew it was time to wake up to go to school.

*Sunday bread was a quick loaf made by the small bakeries while they got ready for the next working week.

[newbie]

Digging clams all afternoon and then heading home where my mom would steam them and then deep fry them. I love eating the steamed clams that were too small to deep fry.

Mom making turkey fricot with leftovers from Christmas dinner.

Grandma's creamed squash.

Root beer floats while watching Saturday morning cartoons.

Dinner at the A & W drive in where they served your dinner on trays that hooked to the window of the car, root beers in the baby mugs.

Christmas dinners with my father's side of the family that were held in the living room at tables that were set up since there were too many of us to fit at the kitchen table.

First time that I was big enough to order a Big Mac Meal at McDonald's instead of the Kids Happy meal.

[Fugu]

One of my fondest memories of food as a child is when I woke up early one foggy morning. I found my grandfather near some banana trees by the river, with a hired help. They were preparing a roasting pit and stuffing a large pig's cavity with bundles of lemon grass. It was then tied to a bamboo pole and roasted over an open pit. There was a lot of food for that party but the pig roasting on an open fire pit is the most memorable event for me. I want to recreate this in late fall and perhaps blog it for eGullet forumers.

[christine007]

Howard Johnson's toaster muffins. They were thin, flat and square, and you toasted them in the toaster. Sold in the freezer section, they came in cornmeal and blueberry. They were so good, toasted crisp and spread with butter.

My other earliest memory would be our constant English Chiristmas dinner of roast beef, oven browned potatos and parsnips, brussel sprouts , creamed onions and corn for the American wimps.

Dessert was plum pudding or apple pie with Bird's custard sauce.

Been eating this since I first got my teeth.

[hummingbirdkiss]

I grew up in Providence RI

my favorite food memory were the clams

clam cakes, stuffies, clam chowder and most of all "Steamers" I do not ever think I have eaten all could of these ever!

I go fetal, suck my thumb and twirl my hair over the following as well ...

Caribbean style curries

Fluffernutters on white bread with Wise brand Cheese Doodles

Edited July 27, 2007 by hummingbirdkiss (log)

[SuzySushi]

I was often sick with tonsillitis as a child. How my grandmother used to bring me cookies from the Italian bakery, soft, leaf-shaped ones tinted green and sandwiched together with chocolate frosting. They melted in my mouth even when my throat was sore.

How my other grandmother used to take me to Howard Johnson's for an ice cream soda and I lit upon my forever favorite -- pistachio ice cream with chocolate syrup. Howard Johnson used a pointy, cone-shaped scoop and the scoop of ice cream perched at the rim of the frosty glass.

I've long had a penchant for green foods, as long as they weren't vegetables.

[Pierogi]

The day my parents and I moved into the house I grew up in, or grew to adulthood in. It was the first one my parents owned. I was 12, and it was mid-July. I had been helping Mom pack and clean the old house, and also work on the new one, which was, to put it mildly......a fixer.

Mom & I had gone to the new house to wait for the movers, and my Dad was ferrying car loads of smaller stuff back and forth, so we were loading closets, and cupboards and you know the drill.

About 2 in the afternoon, Mom & I took a break. The movers would arrive in about 1/2 an hour and we knew we wouldn't have time to eat anything until much later. She had packed some sandwiches and we sat on the brick hearth of the fireplace in *OUR* den, with a tinny transistor radio blasting late 60's AM rock 'n' roll, and had......Spam sandwiches. With mustard and paper-thin sliced onion. I don't think I've ever eaten anything better.

[Mikeb19]

Best food memories (childhood or otherwise) would have to be at my grandparents' house. My grandmother, would always prepare us a feast whenever we came over. Always included:

- pickled vegetables

- borshch (my favourite was cold borshch on a hot summer day)

- perogies (potato and cottage or cheddar cheese)

- cabbage rolls

- cucumber salad

- a roast of some sort with gravy, or a ham with mustard

- whatever vegetables she picked from the garden that morning

Desserts included fresh berries from the garden, apple pie, perogies with berry filling, fruit compote with iced cream, etc...

Every restaurant I've worked at I've tried to include at least 1 Ukrainian dish on the menu.

Edited July 29, 2007 by Mikeb19 (log)

[JTravel]

What fun, shows the differences between "city" kids and "country" kids. We rarely, went out to eat in upstate NY, Mom cooked better than most places we could afford. Didn't discover lasagna till I was in college, Chinese food later than that.

As someone else mentioned.....grilled Velveeta on white bread....made in a sort of very early panini grill. Oooooh that melted and sometimes burned cheese. Served with cream of tomato soup. Mom always let me choose Saturday lunch, and I almost always chose that. Sometimes canned Vienna sausages.....loved those little guys.

Sunday dinner was after church and Sunday night was on our own. My parents were the only people I ever knew who had "popcorn and milk" for light supper. Based on the old farm meal of (stale) broken bread in milk the popcorn became family tradition on Sunday nights. Still eat it that way. Salty popcorn, with butter, with cold milk eaten with a spoon.....yum.

[zeffer81]

My grandmom's "carrot soup" that I only found out later was simply canned chicken broth with shredded carrots. It was divine and no one could make it like she could. WHen my mom tried, it just wasn't the same. Other foods, while not homemade, evoke fond memories of her. Kudos bars, Smartfood, no-name blue mints were always stashed in her "grandma bag" which seemed to have everything else too!

Other grandmom's coleslaw. She still makes it today and even though holiday dinners have moved to my house, she always brings my favorite coleslaw. As she's aged, she has graduated to pre-shredded cabbage but the end result is always the same creamy goodness.

My great aunt's jewish apple cake was a picture of moist, chewy goodness. While it's too labor intensive for her any more, she continues--at the ripe, young age of 90--to bake myriad Jewish delicacies (whose names I'll butcher if I even try!)

Peas. When Dad cooked dinner, we always had peas. Burgers with a side of peas. Spaghetti with red sauce that has been doctored with peas. Mashed peas. You name it, Dad has added peas to it. Tuna salad with peas.

Chocolate cokes at the ice cream shop by our vacation home.

Just to name a few...

[Roxie]

This is a wonderfully fun topic.

My favorite childhood food memories: Howard Johnson's hot dogs and fried clams. It wsa such fun to go there. The hot dog bun was done like a lobster roll. Chock Full o nuts doughnuts. My grandma's cheese blintzes. My mom's best friend in Lafayetta, LA's bbq shrimp. and then on to teenage years and El Fenix cheese enchiladas.

[srhcb]

Tuna salad with peas.

←

I'm with your Dad on this one!

Tuna Salad should have peas.

GF does not agree, so I make it sans peas, and mix mine in after serving.

SB (just made some tonite! )

[feedmec00kies]

i think a lot of the foods i personally put in this category would be food that had to do with my ethnic background (especially since my parents are both immigrants)

jewish holiday foods (from my dad's side) are definitely in that category. one of my favorite things is probably matzoh brei, which we make by soaking the matzoh in boiling water for 30 seconds, draining it, and mixing it with just enough egg to bind, fried mushrooms and onions, and salt and pepper. then it all gets poured into the frying pan and cooks as one big pancake. (i detail this because there are at least 4 general methods for making matzoh brei, and i think my family's way is probably more comforting to me than the other ways). i also, of course, like latkes and matzoh ball soup and such, but matzoh brei really sticks. also, i love those kosher toasted coconut-covered marshmellows they sell during passover as well, probably more than regular marshmellows. i think those stick for my childhood because it was one of the things that didn't get nixed by my mother's unhealthy-food-filter.

stuff from my chinese side... those really wide rice noodles (ho fun... they're the last ones on this page), those fluffy white steamed buns.. i also used to absolutely hate congee, because it was something my mom made me eat when i was sick, but now i actually really enjoy the stuff. i think in general, not as a childhood thing specifically, i have grown appreciate asian noodle soups as a comfort food as well.

[FabulousFoodBabe]

When we were kids, we walked to the nearest "convenience" store -- ours was called Mike's Deli, on Bridgetown Road in Cincinnati -- to pick up cigarettes for my Mom. We'd get a loaf of bread for lunch, some penny candy for ourselves, and a pack of Marlboros. I think I was 7 or 8 (had to be, because we moved from that house when I was about 10).

that's one of my most vivid childhood memories. That, and knowing my parents were going out and we were getting a sitter, and not our favorite, when Mom brought home a six-pack of Coke. The ecstasy and agony (sigh). When Sandy Shuster was our sitter, we'd have paid HER.

BTW, I had tuna salad with sweet relish. Still do. Mr. FB gags at it, but he likes pimiento cheese, so we're even

[feedmec00kies]

oh yeah, about the tuna salad discussion: i like my tuna salad with hard boiled eggs, which my dad always did. i've never thought tuna salad without them are just quite the same...

[srhcb]

oh yeah, about the tuna salad discussion: i like my tuna salad with hard boiled eggs, which my dad always did. i've never thought tuna salad without them are just quite the same...

←

I add just the white of hard cooked eggs to my Tuna Salad. (2 eggs/5 oz med shells macaroni/1 can Tuna in oil)

SB (dogs and I share the yolks)

[Jamie Lee]

I love this topic...

A totally silly thing my brother and I would do is to hide a bit of a "good treat".... then when the other was done eating their treat, we would victoriously brandish the hidden bit "Ah ha! I have some left" then scarf it in the presence of the "without" sibling...

Often the "diss-ed" sibling would pull out ANOTHER hidden bit, and tease the first sibling... "Ah ha"

And on and on... (We learned to stash multiple tidbits..)

It took me years to learn to eat the best parts first, 'cause then you only had the best parts left, when you ate those, you only had the best parts left, and so on and so on..

[prasantrin]

A FB post reminded me about my love of roasted peanuts in the shell. I have fond memories of hanging out with my mother and a bag of roasted peanuts. I'd go to the corner store and buy a can of Hires root beer which we'd share, and she would crack open the peanuts, rub off the skin, and split a little peanut in half. Then she'd peel out the little peanut heart for me to eat.

Eating roasted peanuts always reminds me of that time. If only I could find Hires root beer again. . .

[Kerry Beal]

Baby Bunny Nuts - for sale under hot lights in variety stores and in bubble gum like dispensers (also heated with a light bulb) at the YWCA. Nothing better after you come out of the pool all shivery and cold.

A&W root beer - bought in a gallon jug from the drive in and taken home to be enjoyed later - tasted so rich and brown sugary.

A crusty loaf of conca d'oro bread made by the Palermo bakery and sold at the Stoney creek dairy. It was a pan shaped loaf, tons of perfectly toasted sesame seeds on top. We'd pick up a couple of loaves on our way home from church every week - gone in a couple of hours along with about a pound of butter. Wish I could find that bakery!

[heidih]

So many. Two that come immediately to mind are:

- Sunday dinner of boiled beef served with boiled potatoes and a choice of roux based tomato sauce or horseradish sour cream sauce. The first course was soup from the boiling liquid with great grandma's homemade super thin noodles. The noodles were boiled in salted water so as not to cloud the soup,

and then put in the soup bowl and the clear beef broth poured over.

-Slavko's broasted chicken and potato chunks with coleslaw purchased for take out. We all piled in the car to pick it up and always got extra potatoes for the long (15 minute) drive home.

[Kerry Beal]

Fish and chips from a place in Dundas which was about a 15 minute drive from home - hot and wrapped in newspaper - I can still conjure the smell - the drive home was always faster so we could get into them.

[maggiethecat]

It's the early sixties and I was a little girl in the paper mill town of Gatineau, Quebec. A hot summer, and a new business had opened on the road between Gatineau and Hull called Dairy Queen. It was owned by Paul Anka's uncle!

Soft-serve ice cream was an amazing new dairy/chemical compound, whizzed into that perky conical shape. Daddy would pile us into that whale-like Olds station wagon and we'd take a pleasure ride down to the DQ in the July heat and get treated to a medium cone -- Mummy nixed the chocolate dip because of possible upholstery stains. Those jaunts were, truly, a special treat. And to this day I have a soft-serve place in my heart for Dairy Queen.

[nakji]

Eating char siu bao with my Dad. He'd get them from the Chinese grocery in Dartmouth and bring them home for Saturday lunch. We microwaved them because we didn't have a steamer. I loved how red the inside was, and the ones we bought always had a small red dot on top of them, too. I used to wonder how they made the red dot. Actually, I guess I still do. Baozi pen?

[maggiethecat]

Easy-peasy Erin. I learned this from a Chinese lady years ago. You dip the point of your chopstick in red food coloring and use it as a stamp.