Old-fashioned foods/foods that evoke nostalgia

[maggiejiggs]

Perhaps this topic has been covered elsewhere, but I would love to here from folks about foods they remember from their past which they can't find anymore. I'm not really talking about family dinners, I mean things we could purchase that were SO GOOD, but were lost soon after TV dinners, supermarkets, and McD's became popular. For example, I grew up in NJ, on the Hudson River across from Manhatten. The population was very Jewish, German and Polish. My Grandma used to send my "around the corner" (obviously this was city living) to the local deli (Feldman's). I'd usually trot around with my red wagon, bearing soda (not pop you midwesterners, which I now number myself among) bottles - the refund was mine to keep. On to my food memory: farm fresh butter, in a huge cardboard box in the fridge behind the counter. Mr. Feldman would flourish a HUGE knife, cut out a HUGE square of butter, and sure enough, it was damn close to a pound; wrap it in white butcher paper, and off I'd go. Spread that on their fresh black bread, or the wonderful crisp crusted Keiser rolls, and that was our Sunday breakfast. Wouldn't it be wonderful to still live like this!!!

[andiesenji]

Soon after I joint eG, this somewhat similar topic came up.

This one has some mention of childhood favorites.

and yet another topic referencing childhood food memories.

and this one has several pages of memories of foods past.

Edited October 2, 2006 by andiesenji (log)

[maggiejiggs]

Soon after I joint eG, this somewhat similar topic came up.

This one has some mention of childhood favorites.

and yet another topic referencing childhood food memories.

and this one has several pages of memories of foods past.

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I've read through these and they're great, but only a few addressed the issue I'm speaking of. Not home cooked meals by "mom," but the foods you could find in the neighborhood store that were scrumptious, unique, and usually ethnic. I've got loads of examples in addition to the box of butter in the deli. We used to visit our family butcher (yes, just like a family doctor) each Saturday. I was always treated to a visit into their walk in fridge - pieces of cows, pigs, sheep, etc, hanging from hooks; but what I enjoyed most? The brining barrel, full of curing briskets of beef, a bit foamy, spices hovering in the foam. What a delectable aroma. Who sees that in their local supermarket these days? And I felt like such an important individual, to be allowed to visit this inner sanctum of the butcher shop!

I love not only food stories, but the stories that surround the food stories, if you understand what I mean.

[Jaymes]

Good, real buttermilk.

[UnConundrum]

We had a great family run bakery in town that made the most fabulous kaiser rolls and salt sticks! When you broke one apart, crumbs of crisp crust fell to your plate. They delivered them to supermarkets in the area in large bins, the rolls just sitting loose in the bin. Then came the days of mandated plastic bagging, and the crust was gone Now the bakery is closed, the family passed on, and the process and recipes long lost

[rooftop1000]

Glazed donuts and poppyseed rolls....every summer in junior high I subbed for one of the paper delivery girls, and around 6:30 on Sunday morning when I finished the rout I would go to the bakery and get 14 glazed donuts and 1/2 dozen warm rolls. Now why 14 donuts?...so I could eat 2 on the way home and no one else knew. Then once home I could eat 2 more and a warm buttered roll and fall back into a sugar coma till a decent hour of the day.

tracey