One of my favorites was our Easter Chowder. After sunrise service at the beach, my brothers, Dad and I would go clamming down in Scott's Cove and bring back a bushel of quahogs that would be turned into chowder that evening. Rich, creamy and warming - worth mucking about in the freezing cold water!
Mac and cheese with tomatoes. NO SUGAR. They serve that in some eating places around here and it's so sweet its gross!
Wite Castle hamburgers...way gback then you could buy a dozen bag for ONE BUCK..great aroma..they steamed/fried them on a bed of chopped onions
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!
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. :)
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).
This time of year, I really miss my Grandma's baking powder biscuits with fresh strawberries and real whipped cream. Pure ambrosia!
I also miss my Grandpa's homemade ice cream. All the guys had to take a turn at churning the ice cream bucket. I was glad to be a girl and just have the pleasure of eating the end result of their hard work. :)
Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, collard greens and homemade biscuits, as only Mom could make them.
Also my Mom's Carolina style clam chowder and clam fritters.
I grew up on pancakes with peanut butter and cane syrup. Ate them at least 3 to 4 times weekly. When dad a good paycheck mom served bacon.
Pancakes make me sick to this day, but I loved them as a kid.
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When I was a kid, every year at the Mullet Festival regatta in Swansboro, NC, various civic groups would set up deep friers for hush puppies and catfish: cut in half a 55-gallon drum and melt lard in it over an open flame. Deep fry the goodies. Enjoy the hardening of the arteries. YUMMMMIE!
I'm a vegetarian, now, but that doesn't ruin the memories.
My Mom's milk gravy and fried potateos.....yummy! I also loved to make sugar bread...put sugar on bread and drip water on it from the faucet, then eat.....very bad for the teeth, but as a kid, I loved it.
Fish sticks and Tater Tots!
My Sicilian grandmother used her excess pizza dough to make a fried bread called "Wushdede." No member of the family has any idea how the word is spelled, just how it is pronounced (rhymes with push-pay-thee). The dough would be shaped into round rods, each about six inches long, fried until golden, then shaken (while piping hot) in a bag of granulated sugar. Soooo good.
Sadly, the dialect of Sicilian which my grandmother spoke is pretty much a dead language. I never pass a Sicilian or Italian bakery without stopping in to see if they have ever heard of the bread. No luck in twenty years of asking.
"So, what were the best foods you remember as a kid?"
I was blessed to have both of my Grandmas (and one Great) until I was 26 and 43, so I had my Grandmas a long time.
My Grandma Anita was an awesome cook. She could make a feast out of a potato, I swear.
I would say my best memories were of eating at her house with my teenaged uncles and aunt, (my Mom is the oldest and is 14 years older than her siblings, so my aunts and uncles are less than 10 years older than me) feeling so grown up to be included in their hi-jinx, and eating Grandma's homemade bread, steamed cauliflower with burnt butter topping, any veggie from her garden, her homemade pickles were to die for, a roasted chicken she had raised, killed and dressed herself, and of course no meal was complete without one of her apple or pumpkin or berry pies. With coffee, of course! When I was with her we had coffee morning, noon and night...with lots of milk and sugar. Mom was not always happy when she picked up her hyper chatterbox at the end of the day/weekend, LOL!
I developed my love of simple, wholesome foods from her, for sure. She also showed me how to stretch a meal and to always make enough for leftovers for lunch the next day, and she was the one that inspired me to be a Chicken Farmer. "There's no more useful critter on the planet than a chicken, Honey." ;)
Now, my Grandma on my Dad's side was the other end of the spectrum. (Envision Shirley McLaine from "Terms of Endearment.") Grandmother Edith ("Do not call me 'Grandma!') hated to cook, and was just lousy at it. But she was my "rich" Grandmother, so my food memories of her were of the times she took me out to eat at fancy restaurants, taught me all I needed to know about a wine list, reminded me to keep my elbows off the table and to use the correct cutlery, not to be afraid of Escargot, and she bought me my first string of real pearls to wear when we girls "dressed up and went out."
I was blessed. I had the best of both worlds when it came to Grandmas and food. :)
P.S. I married a Chef. Go figure! (And amazingly, I don't weigh 300 lbs. either, LOL!)
When I was a about 10 mom and dad took us to the beach. We bought shrimp and crab fresh off the boat and boiled it in seawater right there on the beach. So yummy. I have never had sea food since that tasted that good.
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