food diversity

[flea]

Last night our nearest neighbors came over for dinner - the father was at work late, so it was two women and 4 kids, ages 6-18 months. Went fine, if a bit chaotic, but what else is new, and it was nice to have the company. I had easy-most-from-cans chili and egg noodles, and she brought au gratin potatoes, cheesy bread, and apple slices. All of which were good, but none of which were things I would ever cook for my family. And then I was heating up some leftovers at work just now (yes, I had first lunch at 10am - I'm on the desk 11-1 today, so it makes sense), and several of the housekeeping staff were having lunch. S. was opening two cans of those little Viennese franks, and another woman was heating up what I guess were frozen chicken patties to eat between slices of white bread. I remember having those little franks as a tiny kid - I guess they were easy meat for toddlers? Although I ate a lot of odd things as a kid, thanks to my grandmother - liverwurst, and tomato aspic.

I just find it fascinating what people choose to eat, and how thoroughly dictated it is by family, and culture, and the whole concept of comfort food, food that we like as much for the fact that we've always eaten it this way as for how it tastes. My "comfort food" dishes from childhood - now very rarely made - are tuna noodle casserole with cream of mushroom soup, egg noodles, peas, and NOT crunchy things on top, and macaroni and cheese with elbow macaroni, sliced white American cheese, and cream of mushroom soup. (My maternal grandmother was firmly in the "I hate to cook so I'll do it with canned soup" camp of the 1950s.) What are your family comfort foods?

A much easier morning with Dillo today, although I was up with him at 4 and never really got back to sleep.

Comments

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I remember both of those casseroles in great detail. But I don't generally eat tuna any more, so the former is out; and the latter I make from scratch. So good! So good! So good!

(There must be a reason I switched away from the can approach; probably it has to do with the hothouse-artificial flavor in the can. Or possibly the saltiness; I find a lot of canned soups way too salty these days.)

I do make potatoes au gratin sometimes, or something like it: sliced layers, some cheese, milk, and a stint in the oven. However, my Best Evar comfort food, or anyway something I love a lot, is to slice potatoes (and when I could tolerate them, onions) into the bottom of a pan, perch a couple of chicken thighs and maybe a bit of bacon on top, and roast the whole thing. The potatoes fry/bake in the chicken fat, and are awesome, and except for the slicing the recipe basically involves waiting for everything to come out of the oven.

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

We make almost the same thing, with the addition of carrots and/or sweet potatoes. The family name for it is "dog food" because it is, no word of a lie, what my late MIL used to cook to feed her dogs.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

I can't really do much meat any more. Like, the idea of cooking chicken thighs kind of makes me feel ill. So greasy!

On the other hand, I could eat bacon every day. I contradict myself.

[hecubot.livejournal.com]

My ex (the medical student) and I had a theory that you could type an entire socioeconomic class in America as Cooking With Soup (meaning those Cream of Mushrom type casseroles). We were both, of course, in that class.

Emmett's a pretty picky eater, but just being in the Bay Area he's had a variety of exotic foods as a matter of course. Not that beef satay is a hard sell.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

I think the Cooking With Soup Time is now a bygone era, though. My grandmother who Cooked With Soup was thoroughly middle class - father a college professor, husband parlayed the Navy into an engineering PhD and corporate management. My mother was their child, and went to college, and married a doctor. People in that class today, though (like me!) would NEVER routinely Cook With Soup. And my mother doesn't any more, herself. I blame Julia Child.

[hecubot.livejournal.com]

Isn't Rachel Ray's whole schtick a variation on Cooking With Soup?

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Huh. I have no idea. I don't actually know anything about Rachael Ray except I hate the word "evoo."

[nestra.livejournal.com]

No. You might be thinking of crazy lady Sandra Lee.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Oh god, yes. http://www.semihomemade.com/cooking/macaroniandcheese.htm Any recipe that BEGINS its ingredients list with a box of Kraft mac and cheese cannot legitimatey consider itself a recipe.

[hecubot.livejournal.com]

You are correct.

[dxmachina.livejournal.com]

Cheese bread - grated American cheese (nowadays marketed as Mac & Cheese topping) sprinkled over buttered bread and broiled. Taylor ham (cuisine regionale du New Jersey); chicken a la king; liverwurst (which is the only form of liver I'll eat); bologna sandwiches (in my lunchbag right now, in fact); tomato soup; grilled cheese; chicken noodle soup (the first thing I learned how to cook, although these days I usually start from scratch); and sauerbraten hamburgers, which were basically large, flattened meatballs in a sauerbraten sauce.

I'll have my mom's tuna casserole if she makes it, but I never make it myself. I prefer chicken versions. Mac & cheese is comfort food, but it came late to my family. Never had it until my mother started buying Kraft boxes when I was in high school.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

mr. flea's is definitely tomato soup and grilled cheese. Also, sadly, Spaghetti-os. (shudders at mere thought of sweet tomato sauce.)

[dxmachina.livejournal.com]

I like my tomato sauce a little on the sweet side. The one time I tried Spaghetti-Os when I was a kid, though, I absolutely hated the texture of the pasta, and never tried them again.

On a side note, I went to high school with a relative (grandson or great nephew) of Chef Boyardee.

[hecubot.livejournal.com]

Oop - I didn't answer your question.

Nowadays hot and sour soup is my comfort soup, and I only really seem to seek that food comfort when I've got a cold. I usually get it at the Citrus Club on Haight Street, but last week Emmett was sick and I made him a hot and sour soup from scratch that he loved.

JZ favors a Vietnamese hot and sour soup with tofu, pineapple and tomatoes. I always drive over to Mai's to get that for her when she's sick or stressed. She also likes tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for comfort food.

Growing up, I really liked a big chunk of ham cooked with green beans and potatoes and recently started doing that for myself a couple times a year. It's so simple and has that hearty quality you want.

I'm also very fond of a beef stew that EM used to make (with wine and spicy sausages), and I requested a pot of it (when she offered something) after Matilda was born.

I guess I like the hearty, homey foods that fill up the kitchen with their scent. Or oatmeal.

[(Anonymous)]

For me, it's anything Italian -- who can go wrong with carbs and cheese? To this day, if I hear opera, I crave lasagne (because you have to listen to Pavarotti when you have a big Sunday dinner, of course!). And fresh bread, and homemade muffins. I was in college before I realized that people made cakes from a box, so homemade baked goods take me right back to being a kid. I find myself doing the same things for my kids, but so far my older one will eat neither tomato sauce nor cheese.

Clare

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

My mom's spaghetti sauce wasn't particularly good, or authentic (neither is mine, I hasten to add) but I loved it. Also Kraft Dinner with ketchup.

Comfort foods I like to make myself now are braises, soups, roasts: anything that can cook unattended for hours & fill the house with good smells.

My mother & grandmother are/were stupendous bakers so my childhood comfort food was all about their pastry: apple pie, saskatoon pie, butter tarts. Which reminds me; when my parents came for T'giving, my mom baked pie & left some of her pastry dough in the freezer. I should use it this weekend...

[cass404.livejournal.com]

and cream of mushroom soup

I think you might be the first person (apart from ME) to list this as something you'd even eat as a soup, much less as a comfort food. It's totally my comfort food and I have no idea why because it was never served to me as a kid. But if Cass is sick or having a Really Bad Day? I am going to be making a can of cream of mushroom soup and drinking it huddled on the couch from my very large white mug.

I even make mushroom soup from scratch but it's a totally different beast.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Oh, I am so sad to disappoint you, but the cream of mushroom soup actually goes INTO the mac and cheese. I have never eaten it just as soup. But I am glad it comforts you!

[cass404.livejournal.com]

So I really *am* a unique (and undoubtedly precious) snowflake? ROCK!

[nestra.livejournal.com]

Red beans and rice, which I have to try making myself some day. Grilled cheese. Omelets made by my dad.

[mearagrrl.livejournal.com]

Heh. There are a number of things listed above that I would totally eat as comfort foods...if someone else would make them. But *I* wouldn't make them. Potatoes au gratin are TOTALLY comfort food, but way too much effort for me! And a lot of the things-with-soup make too much food for me to eat, as a single person. I think the only thing-with-soup I make regularly is the green-beans-with-soup-and-crunchy-onions, for Thanksgiving, and sometimes once or twice more a year.