How Does Your Childhood Taste?

When you think of your childhood, what are you eating?

For me, the food of childhood is the food of a frugal, frustrated mother trying to keep her husband and four picky children happy on a tight budget. Things like spaghetti and meat sauce; sausage and peppers; chicken soup with matzo balls; various cheap cuts of meat sprinkled with garlic salt and paprika and stuck under the broiler – that is the stuff that stuffed me as a kid. There were also plenty of signature dishes of differing levels of appeal making their way out of our mother’s kitchen; dishes that my sister and I gave names like ‘Ketchup Stew’ and ‘Monsterloaf.’

There was no point in asking my mother what was for dinner; the answer would be, ‘Shit on a Stick’ or, if it were a special occasion, ‘Shit on a Shingle.’ Yum. There was also no point in making faces when you realized that she would be serving chicken legs in sweet and sour sauce AGAIN, because there would be no alternative for choosy children. Eat it or don’t – either way, we were sure to aggravate and devalue our overworked mom. As a kid, this led to major control issues over food, and years of picky eating. As an adult, I understand why my poor mum had pretty much given up caring about what she served or if we liked it by time the fourth brat started complaining.

These days, as I gaily dive into the role of cook for my growing family, I sometimes miss the comfort food of my youth, and realize that sometimes the shit served on the shingle was pretty satisfying. I have called my mother on many occasion to ask her how to make my matzo brie taste like hers, or which way a chicken is supposed to sit in a pan; and I was filled with pride when my mother bestowed upon me my very own copy of Second Helpings Please!– the Jewish mother’s cooking bible. Even my die-hard vegetarian sister says that she still joneses for Ketchup Stew when she’s feeling down.   

So, I wonder – what will my children’s future comfort food be? What will they think of when they think about the food of their youth? Will they laugh at my attempts to feed them a diet of culturally and ethically-derived foods when what they really wanted was a peanut butter sandwich? Or will they fondly recall the smell of garlic emanating from the pan; the pique of chili sauce jumping out of a stir-fry? And if they ever call to ask how to duplicate a recipe of mine, or to remind them of the best way to cook something that I used to cook for them? Well, let’s just say that I am already dog-earing my favourite cook book in advance of passing it on to my girls, and I hope that on the pages they find reminders of a happy, healthy, delicious childhood.

The Best Ever Apple Cake

Prep Time: 15 min
Cook Time: 1 hr
Feeds: 1 (Kidding. But you’ll be tempted to eat the whole thing.)

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup oil
3 tbsp water
1 1/2 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
6-8 apples, peeled & thinly sliced
brown sugar
cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Beat eggs, sugar & vanilla until fluffy.
Beat in oil.
Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients and beat just until smooth.
Spoon half of the batter into a 9x12 baking pan, spreading evenly.
Toss apple slices in brown sugar and cinnamon, and place over batter.
Pour remaining batter over apples evenly.
Bake 50-60 minutes, until top is nicely browned.

Substitute half of the apples for plums, peaches, berries or anything else your little heart may desire. Ask your mom how she always did it.

*SoundBITE*

Recipes that have been handed down from one generation to the next are not only family treasures – they will often be the healthiest recipes in your collection. If the combination of ingredients may seem sugary, fatty or downright weird, keep in mind that these heirlooms were developed when the only food choices were whole food choices. Chances are there will be no items called for that originated in a can, a focus group or a laboratory.

Comments

[nomotherearth]

Despite the fact that we had regular, healthy meals, the ones I remember are always the "junk food". Those meals were Very Special Treats, and therefor standout in my mind...KD and Wieners, Wiener Wraps, Beans and Wieners. Hey, we had a lot of wieners in my house. That explains a lot about me...

For my wedding shower, my mom got the family and friends together and made a recipe scrapbook for me with all the family recipes. I treasure it and use it a lot.

[Beck]

My childhood food was pretty nasty, actually. My parents were very much into experimenting with their food and my dad hunts and it was just all really horrible. They made a PIE OUT OF DOVES once. DOVES!

[Kelly]

Though I never truly enjoyed tuna casserole (one of my mother's most frequent dishes), I understand the appeal of a one-dish meal. The trick is trying to satisfy a husband and children at the same time. Incredibly difficult.

And that cake sounds divine.

[Stacey]

I remember ground beef. Though I never found it, I swear my mom owned a cookbook called 101 Things to Do with a Pound of Ground Beef. And she did all 101 of them. Dinner was almost always something with ground beef in it - meatloaf, stuffed peppers, lasagna, tomato & meat sauce, hamburgers, sweet & sour meatballs, beefy noodle casserole and my least favorite - stuffed cabbage.

I kinda wish I owned that cookbook.

[Don Mills Diva]

I still hanker for this casserole my mom made with macaroni, cream of mushroom soup, canned tuna and peas. It was even sprinkled with crushed potato chips - so bad and yet so good!

[lisa b]

All I remember from my childhood is stew and one overcooked porkchop that lit the way to a vegie life for me.
My British parents were mortified when I began eating whole wheat bread and would have none of that. They approach veggies and dip as if it is sushi. Food should be cooked (mushy) in their opinion.
It is a miracle we survived. Though as Monty Python pointed out there was no time for cuisine as there was an Empire to run.

The funniest thing for my friends and I is that my mother's degree is in home economics. She doesn't cook, she doesn't sew or clean or really like to do any household or nurturing parenting activities.

[mamatulip]

Of all the things I miss about my mum, I think her cooking is one of the things I miss the *most*. My mum was a fabulous cook, and most of the dishes she made were from recipes she kept in her head. I remember standing in the kitchen after we'd learned she had a timeline, panic-stricken, begging her to write down some of my favourite dishes - her macaroni and cheese with the breadcrumb crust, her split-pea soup, her puff pastry and chicken pot pie. Alas, we ran out of time.

No matter how hard I try, I can't get my food to taste like hers.

[Karen]

Bolgna and Velveeta on Wonder Bread sandwiches? English Muffin pizzas, warm tuna on toast, Train Wreck (macaronis and ground beef with stewed tomatoes), meatloaf-meatloaf-meatloaf, smorgasbords (what my mom called our finish-off-all-leftovers nights).

Pancake or french toast nights.

A glass of milk with every supper. Even pizza. Which explains why I sometimes hanker to dip my pizza crusts in milk at 34.