Food you Haven't Had Since your Grandmother(s) Died

[UB 40]

Rouladen. A German rolled meat

We cook Rouladen once in a while. Great dish with a lot of sauce and potato dumplings, green salad or cooked red cabbage as sides. Easy to do.

Klassische Rinderroulade - mein Familienrezept

Das einfache, gelingsichere Rezept für klassische Rinderroulade mit einer Schritt-für-Schritt-Anleitung in Bildern. Mein leckeres Familienrezept.

emmikochteinfach.de

 

[greysmoke]

My grandparents' home in East Tennessee followed old Southern traditions. The dining table on special occasions, such as extended family gatherings, featured spoonbread as a side dish. Southern meals of my childhood were normally accompanied by cornbread as a side. (Cornbread in my part of the South was always made of yellow cornmeal with no flour and no sugar.) But spoonbread was an elevated replacement, made with white cornmeal, when the occasion demanded it. Basically, it's cornbread prepared as a soufflé.

Broadly speaking, there are two varieties of spoonbread: "wet" and "dry." The dry version I have learned to make. It follows the basic cornbread recipe, but involves a lot of energetic whipping of eggs. The baking of the resulting product must be timed precisely. The spoonbread remains in the oven as the family and guests are seated and the prayer is said, and then it is instantly whisked from oven to table and served, as it almost immediately begins to collapse with cooling -- hence the demand for precise timing.

Wet cornbread is made with buttermilk and has a more mushy texture. It looks less impressive but is more durable as a side dish and can be prepared in advance. The flavor is very much the same as the dry version, but with a different texture. And making it doesn't require such precise timing.

It's been many years, but I'm certain the spoonbread served at Grandmother's table was the wet variety. Although I've done my best to recreate it using various recipes, it's never come out quite like the real thing as I recall it. I've had good success with the dry version, but it's just not the same as Grandmothers.......

The photo shows a "dry" spoonbread of my own preparation, straight from the oven.

 

[makhorkasmoker]

My dad’s mom, a German American, died long before I was born. An African American cook did the cooking for my mom’s mom, who died when I was very young. But what I really miss is my grandpa’s food (dad’s side). He was a one-mule farm type southerner who did wonderful things with corn. One thing I loved was what he called “corn dodgers”—a sort of cornmeal dumpling simmered in the pot liquor of collard greens. He also made some mean hush puppies. He never wrote down a recipe and never measured anything and no one knows anymore how he made these things

 

[cosmicfolklore]

My dad’s mom, a German American, died long before I was born. An African American cook did the cooking for my mom’s mom, who died when I was very young. But what I really miss is my grandpa’s food (dad’s side). He was a one-mule farm type southerner who did wonderful things with corn. One thing I loved was what he called “corn dodgers”—a sort of cornmeal dumpling simmered in the pot liquor of collard greens. He also made some mean hush puppies. He never wrote down a recipe and never measured anything and no one knows anymore how he made these things

My grandfather was a super cook also. collards, pintos with the best cornbread ever. After fishing all day, we would clean them and he would fry them all up to mouth watering perfection. And, his pecan crusted venison is still my favorite to make, and my family loves it. cube steaked venison, dredged in a mixture of honey and buttermilk, cornflower, starch, and crushed pecans, fried to perfection. Best served with creamed green peas.
His breakfasts were always the best also. For years I ate pork brains and eggs, thinking that they were just ham and eggs, till I saw the cans when I was older.

 

[captpat]

My paternal grandmother was able to roast a goose that was simply incredible. My mother tried to figure out the secret without success. Her fried rabbit however was every bit as good, too bad I wasn’t smart enough to figure out how she did it.

 

[samuelgawith01]

Date cookies.

 

[Sigmund]

Her homemade fried chickent and mashed pototoes.

Also fried rabit for breakfast

Im in France but my youth was in western Ky

 

[huntertrw]

My maternal grandmother made an apple pie with woven-lattice crust that was simply outstanding. My paternal grandmother improved it by adding a slice of cheddar cheese to the top of piece served oven-hot.

What a shame they didn't live long enough to collaborate more...

 

[RustiePyles CPG]

My paternal grandmother was an amazing cook, she was a lifelong homemaker. Her pork chops are something I miss terribly. My mother makes a pretty mean chop as well but it's a bit different the Grandma's. I suspect my mothers is a bit of blend of her mother's and her mother in laws cooking with a bit of her own. But the star of our family gatherings was my aunt, she's of Mexican heritage and from a very large family with a long history of local restaurants and wonderful food. Cooking for family gatherings often started days in advance with my Mother and other aunts helping her to make everything. She would make every cousins favorite dish just the way they liked it, and nobody else was allowed any of that dish until that person got their helping first. She's still around but her advanced age and failing health prevents her from cooking like that anymore, but every so often on my visits I'm greeted with a plate of my favorite dish to take home.

 

[telescopes]

Years ago, I culled the favorite recipes family members had for my mother’s dishes as well as other family members and wrote a cookbook so that they would always be available and accessible to anyone who missed them.

Cooking in the Colors of Life: A Family Cookbook Amazon.com - https://a.co/d/69wIkxB

 

[kcghost]

Unfortunately, my fraternal grandmother passed away before I was born. My maternal grandmother lived a good distance away from me and died when was in my early 30's. I only saw her once in the last 20 years of her life and that was just two to three hours at the rest home she was in Brooklyn. So, my grandmother didn't make a single memorable dish for me. My mother died when I was 11 years old. So, the women didn't create lot of memorable meals for me. So, my Dad was the chief culinary influence on me. I am here to tell you he could cook up a mean fried baloney sandwich!

 

[ADKPiper]

My Grandmothers both died when I was young.
But my Mom used to do the "New England Boil" from time to time.
Yeah we are Irish.
Just the other day I found myself thinking of it.
It wasn't my favorite at the time but I may cook some up now that fall is here.

Traditional Boiled Dinner

Simmer your whole supper in one pot with this delicious, savory boiled dinner recipe. Beef, potatoes, carrots and cabbage meld flavors as they cook.

www.tasteofhome.com

 

[STP]

Fried dough… I had to think for a moment. She’d sprinkle sugar on it as a treat, or without for dipping into gravy, soup, etc.

 

[JackOrion]

Black plum jam, because they had a beautiful plum tree and otter pops.

 

[newbroom]

I just spoke with my mom yesterday and we talked about my Gram's regular baking chore, which was begun daily with baked white bread in a wood stove. A slice of that stuff about an inch and a 1/4 thick toasted on the top of the stove and buttered was about the most wonderful thing ever. Gram raised 11 that lived, and it was during the 20's and 30's. I remember visiting when they still had the outhouse out back. This was way up in northernmost Maine where it got brutally cold in the winter and the snow was deep.

 

[justscience]

Homemade mincemeat pie. Mom used the last Ball jar of grandma's mincemeat (no meat, made with green tomatoes and spices)
for Thanksgiving 1963.

 

[VDL_Piper]

Christmas plum pudding with sixpence coins in it and hung in calico cloth to dry before being boiled again in the cloth on Christmas Day. I have never seen the likes of it since in any home, any where.

 

[krizzose]

My maternal Grandmother passed...well, too long that I care to recall but I think of her often, weekly at least and still get a tear in my eye. Getting to the point, since she died I have rarely eaten perogies which she made en masse (they freeze very well). When I was young and she was still living I certainly took her cooking for granted although I also know she knew I appreciated it. Anyways, I just can't seem to get myself to eat perogies despite Polish places nearby which I know make good ones. The real shame is that I didn't pay more attention to her making them although I was often the one who fetched the piece of Formica in her garage which she rolled them out on. Anyone else care to share something similar?



Czarnina. While I’ve had some at various Polish restaurants, it’s not quite the same. My maternal grandmother died when I was 7 years old, and I didn’t have any until I was in my twenties, at a Polish restaurant. The smell was immediately recognizable and took me right back.

No one in the family makes Czarnina anymore, but we do make pierogi from her recipe. The extended family gets together in early December to make a few hundred to freeze and to have at Christmas. “Pierogi Day” is basically another holiday for us.

My paternal grandparents made Zimne Nogi (aka studzienina), especially at Easter. My grandma would tell me how she made it on Good Friday, and had to stay up until midnight so she could eat some (i.e, so she wasn’t breaking the Good Friday meat fast). It was never my favorite, but I would love to have it again.

 

[huntertrw]

Fried dough… I had to think for a moment. She’d sprinkle sugar on it as a treat...

Oh, thank-you for bringing back that memory! When my maternal grandmother made her lattice-top apple pie, she would also bake the leftover dough strips, then dust them with sugar and cinnamon. I can still smell and taste those warm morsels - they tasted like love...

 

[ssjones]

My mother is still with us (96) but no longer capable of cooking. She was a great cook (lots of Hungarian and German foods. But,what I miss the most is her homemade Apple Streudel and German nutroll. Her applesauce was also very good, but my wife can replicate that.