childhood food memories.

[boomchakabowwow]

I made Congee last night. I make it often since the variable are endless.

every time I eat it, I remember being a kid. kindergarten to be exact. teacher was reading the story of Goldilocks and the three bears. I barely understood English then. I certainly wasn't confident enough to stick up my hand and ask a question. I listened to the story and my big takeaway was....."what is porridge?" I asked my mom, she didn't know. I couldn't google it. a friend told me was oatmeal. and I went with that for a long time. now I know it is any boiled grain.

so now everytime I eat Jook, I think of Goldilocks committing a B and E.

(my other child hood food story was when I tasted salted and buttered white rice, hahahha)

 

[Delat]

I grew up on a tropical island with all the tropical fruits you’d imagine. Just recently I had a couple that I hadn’t tried since childhood 40+ years ago and it was really amazing how the memories of the flavors came rushing back. Our brain’s memory capacity for taste seems really strong and unique compared to memories of other things.

 

[AT5760]

I grew up in a family of hunters. One of my earliest food memories is from deer season. Whenever someone shot a deer, we would hang it in my grandpa's barn and do the rough butchering on a table in the barn. Then I'd run the meat to grandma in the house where she'd finish portioning and wrapping the meat. She'd always pan fry some loin for me in butter - seasoned with nothing but salt and pepper.

 

[DitmasPork]

Visiting my parents for the next few weeks. Mom cooked up her jai for the occasion—a dish loaded with many childhood memories for me. Soul food.

 

[Michi]

Mom cooked up her jai for the occasion

That looks really interesting! Would you share the recipe?

 

[DitmasPork]

That looks really interesting! Would you share the recipe?

I don't have my mom's recipe yet, but have been meaning to get it. Her jai has at least 10 different ingredients—ginko nuts; chestnuts; mushrooms; fungis; etc.—not including seasonings. A very traditional Chinese dish.

 

[Michi]

I don't have my mom's recipe yet, but have been meaning to get it. Her jai has at least 10 different ingredients—ginko nuts; chestnuts; mushrooms; fungis; etc.—not including seasonings. A very traditional Chinese dish.

If you could share it at some point, that would be great. I’d love to give this a try!

 

[parbaked]

My family moved to Hong Kong from NYC in 1968. My whole childhood is a food memory…
One special treat, because we could only buy them during Autum Festival, was Shanghai style savory moon cakes. I haven’t been able to find them in the US, but last week an aunt dropped off a box that she sourced from a Shanghai restaurant in Union City.

The pastry is flakey from lard and the filling is a fatty meatball.

I made another HK childhood favorite, supreme soy sauce noodles, and enjoyed them for lunch…

 

[DitmasPork]

My family moved to Hong Kong from NYC in 1968. My whole childhood is a food memory…
One special treat, because we could only buy them during Autum Festival, was Shanghai style savory moon cakes. I haven’t been able to find them in the US, but last week an aunt dropped off a box that she sourced from a Shanghai restaurant in Union City.
View attachment 144353
The pastry is flakey from lard and the filling is a fatty meatball.
View attachment 144354
I made another HK childhood favorite, supreme soy sauce noodles, and enjoyed them for lunch…
View attachment 144355

I gotta land some of those Shanghai moon cakes!!! Very different from ones I’ve eaten.

 

[tostadas]

My fav dish was ketchup and rice.

 

[Michi]

I gotta land some of those Shanghai moon cakes!!! Very different from ones I’ve eaten.

They are not that hard to make. Just takes a bit of time. Recipe link in this post.

 

[TheNewMexican]

You guys got me running down memory lane now. Wish I had pictures to share, but will describe the best I can.

We would butcher a pig in the fall every year, the corrals being a couple "acres" away from the house for good reason (fly's and smell). My grandfather had built the equivalent of a "sled" that was roughly 4 feet wide by 6 feet long out of 4x4 lumber. I think the runners were 6x6's or something, very low to the ground. At any rate, after using a .22 to dispatch said pig, It would be pushed and dragged on to the sled for its last ride pulled behind a little red and white Ford 8N tractor. 50 gallon barrels of water had been heated to simmer, propped on bricks with a wood fire underneath. Gunny sacks were dipped and placed on the pig to steam the bristles, then everyone went to work with old hickory knives to scrape / shave the carcass. We had an old elm tree by the house which was roughly 3 foot in diameter at the trunk. A single tree and block and tackle was used to hoist the pig up from one of its big limbs, then butchering began in earnest. After cleaning out the entrails, the skin was cut into strips roughly 3 inches wide with a fat layer 2 inches deep.

Fast forward, these fat strips were put over a board with the bottom placed in a wash tub. The fat was cut from the skin, then cubed roughly into 3/4" squares. We rendered in an outdoor cast iron kettle (looked just like a witches kettle and took two people to move) with just the smallest wood fire underneath to keep from burning the fat. After dipping the liquid lard into 5 gallon tin buckets with lids, the chicharrones (little bits of deep fried meat goodness) were set aside and some fresh tortilla dough was rolled out and "slapped" on to the sides of the cast iron witches kettle. They were some of the yummiest tortillas with a few chicharrones rolled into bites for good measure.

And that.... was that.........

 

[ptolemy]

Pelmeni for me. As kids we'd sell stuff at the beach and then swim all day, so on the way home after 10+ hours at the beach, we were tired and hungry. Nothing hit the spot as a double portion of pelmeni and cold compote. Sour cream and black pepper. Nothing else..

We called it: meal of kings.

I have had many home made pelmeni but it's just never the same. I don't know what it is...

 

[user 47770]

Biscuits and chocolate gravy.

 

[Keith Sinclair]

My aunt & uncle had lots of chickens. One of first jobs was going door to door selling peaches, apples, & eggs.

My mom would make
fried chicken with oil in a skillet on Sundays after church. She would save chic backs, necks etc. for me & sister job. Catching blue crabs with strings & a net. We had a pier that went over the marsh to shallow water. Pulling up blue crabs non stop. Mom would make blue crab casserole it was so good.

 

[chefwp]

As we enter autumn we are now a month and some change from that holiday, my favorite, celebrated in the USA and Canada <on different days>, Thanksgiving. It seems like besides the overrated and ubiquitous roast turkey, every family had it's own special twist. Something we put on the table, and I'm not saying nobody else does this I just don't know anyone personally, was a dish called scalloped oysters . It is layers of crushed buttered saltines, oysters and shallots, and then drizzled with the oyster liqueur and baked, casserole style. It about equally divided the family between lovers and haters but it had to be on the table. I loved it but don't continue the tradition, I'd be the only one eating it here these days.

 

[Keith Sinclair]

I'd like it, in the minority of people that like oysters.

 

[parbaked]

Oyster stuffing is a good thing…

 

[WiriWiri]

Most of my food memories are tied up with memories of my gran, a remarkable women who, following the death of her husband, left a gilded life in Guyana to set up home in London with her 16 year old daughter, getting her first job in her 70s down the local meter making factory. She has a reputation in my food-obsessed family that verges as legendary in the kitchen, folks still talking fondly of her recipes from the best part of a half century ago

But to me she was just gran, a woman who fussed over me and looked after me when mum was at work. And boy did she fuss well - I never realised how lucky or atypical my diet was for a kid in 70s London, but I was spoilt. Childhood is a fond blur of a dizzying variety of dishes that represented her Caribbean/Portuguese/Chinese roots - wonderful dhalpuri roti, plantain chips, saltfish cakes, amazing fried chicken, but also metagee, fufu, comforting wonton soup and rice chock, which I’ve subsequently worked out is basically congee (jook).

When she died suddenly when I was still in primary school, mum very much took up the family mantle, a restless soul always experimenting and foisting food on all and sundry. Food was served in generous portions, rarely a weekend would go by without ferrying huge pots of something to some cookup or occasion. And above all what stuck with me - as much as the wonderful flavours - was that cooking wasn’t really a hassle and could be something that brought joy to others. I doubt I‘d be half as motivated in the kitchen as I am without those lucky early years.

 

[tomsch]

I would always go deer hunting with my dad when in season. I really disliked venison that he butchered and put in our freezer. The only redeeming cut was when my mom would take a tenderloin, cut up to medallions, and deep-fry in beer batter. That was the best.

 

[DitmasPork]

Alright, been visiting Hawaii for the last 3.5 weeks. Much of what I’ve been eating are foods encased in many childhood memories.

Bowl of saimin with a hamburger, an old school combo, local fave. [Eaten at Shiro’s in Aiea, one of the best saimin joints in the state]

Chinese-Hawaiian style dim sum, crave worthy belly stuffer. Mom brought these home from Chinatown for lunch—she’d been gifting dim sum yearly to me for decades.

Chicken’s feet, tripe and other offal are some of my earliest cooking memories—grandma teaching me how to cook pig’s feet and peel pig’s tongues. [Chinatown, Honolulu]