Posted on 06/12/2006 10:25:30 AM PDT by HungarianGypsy
I was reading Reminisce Magazine yesterday. For some reason that magazine always makes me hungry. So, what were the best foods you remember as a kid?
Wite Castle hamburgers...way back then you could buy a dozen bag for ONE BUCK..great aroma..they steamed/fried them on a bed of chopped onions
White Castle hamburgers...way back then you could buy a bag of A DOZEN for ONE BUCK..great aroma..they steamed/fried them on a bed of chopped onions
This is a timely topic for me. But then, food memories always are.
I had a yen a few weeks ago to make a certain dip that made its way into my thought processes from the deepest recesses of my childhood memories. It was just cream cheese, Worcestershire, minced onion and Brockles Dressing - just eaten with Fritos. It was also the basis for the world's best shrimp dip, when they were added to it.
Only problem - when I went to the store for Brockles Dressing, I couldn't find any. I hadn't actually looked for it in quite a while - I know now it must have been 9 years or so.
The Brockles family had several restaurants in the Dallas area in the 1940s-50s and perhaps later. We didn't live in Dallas, but visited there often enough that we had eaten at Brockles' a few times.
They had the *best* tangy salad dressing, which was served on a wedge of iceberg lettuce. For the kiddos, which I was at the time, there would be a small bowl of the dressing brought to the table for us to dip crackers in while waiting the interminable length of time before the family got served.
Many former Dallas young'uns recall the taste of "Euphrates wafers" with Brockles dressing!
And now I know this because I thought a simple google search would put me in touch with some Brockles, somewhere. What I found was a messageboard at the Dallas Historical Society with loads of questions from people trying to find the jars of Brockles dressing that we had always been able to get at grocery stores in TX.
Someone said it had been discontinued in 1997 or so. Someone else said they found a "copycat' recipe for it and another person said the Wichita Falls newspaper had run the authentic original recipe long ago, so they posted it.
People there debated the recipe because it had some very strange ingredients. Some people made it and said it wasn't right. Others tried the copycat and said it wasn't quite right, either. I made both and they weren't right, for sure. Although, after about a week in the fridge, and tasting it every day, the "weird" one got better and was very close.
A Brockles family member posted and said nobody had it right and to hang on, there would be news soon of a reopening of a Brockles' restaurant in the Dallas area and the dressing would be in groceries again. That was late last year, I think. Didn't happen.
So I just went on lusting after Brockles in my heart only. Then, one day about 2 weeks ago, I grabbed a jar of "BestMaid Sandwich Spread" at another grocery I don't get to very often.
It was the same size jar and the "spread" looked suspiciously like Brockles in color and texture. The ingredients list confirmed it was a similar product. When I saw that it was made in Ft Worth, I bought it.
Funny, I had commented to a friend that week - who said she shared a similar memory from a restaurant in Chicago in that time period and the same wedge of iceberg! Another friend said it sounded like the salad dressing at Christie's, an oldtime shrimp place here in Houston.
I said then, what if it was just a restaurant supply house's dressing and we're all talking about the same thing, lol.
Guess what. The BestMaid "spread" I found is *the one* and I have a pantry full of jars of Brockles dressing to last me a few months! Bingo!
Funny. My mom use to stash the goodies out of site too. There were two cupboards over the stove (electric). Yup, I stepped on that still hot, but turned off burner and burned the hell out of the bottom of my foot.
AND, I never dared tell my mom what I had done.
Yes, yes! On roller skates! They made the cover of Life Magazine back in '59 or so. The '57 Chevy Club here used still go to the South Main one up until it closed a few years ago - or they chose a new place. I *think* it's gone, isn't it?
My mom is visiting for a couple of days and saturday morning we picked strawberries at a nearby u-pick farm. We were reminiscing about her mom who used to make the best jellies and preserves. Her specialty was pineapple-apricot jam. Mmmm. We're both craving it!
I have more good food memories than I can count. It would take a book to write them all. :)
Well, I didn't have much of an appetite, thank you. *glare*
LOL.... when I was about six, I got a "doll cake" for my birthday party.... where a doll is put into a cake from the waist down, and the cake is a conical shape, her skirt being the cake and frilly frosting.
My mother said I could have ANY combination I wanted, and I chose chocolate cake with a lurid purple icing. I still remember it, along with her badly-hidden look of revulsion at the color combination as she cut it for us. :)
Lol.
All at ONE meal? =:O
I just had one - my own homemade "slider" with "both" - for lunch! Well, I had *two* to make a meal. Yumm!
Fried egg and ketchup sandwiches late at night; lime sodas (the real sodas with ice cream); my dad's pork neckbones and rice -- heavily peppered; Grandma's lemon ice cream (always in her freezer); Indiana giant pork tenderloin sandwiches (none like them anywhere else).
You mean I didn't invent fried egg sandwiches when I was a kid?
Wonder Bread, butter and suger. One of the best. Almost as good as Peanut butter and sliced bananas.
And you've had how many heart attacks?
Heh, mustard sandwiches. I thought I was the only one.
One of my favorites was school food, the sliced turkey roll and mashed potatoes with the wierd green gravy glaze that would be poured over everything.
OMG - Brockles dressing was my fav growing up too!
I still love them. Mine are with Miracle Whip on the soft bread and plenty of Tabasco on the fried egg. Nowadays, it's wheat bread, of course - gotta be healthy.
Also like "eggs in a frame" with the egg fried in a cut-out hole in one slice of bread, then turned to toast each side. Lots of butter! And the little fried toast "cut-out" as a treat with grape jam or orange marmalade.
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