The mind boggles

My grandmother made some good pulled pork when I was a teen, and I complimented it. She whispers to me, "the secret is a little paprika, isa little spicy"

I have a whole two nice memories with that lady. This one makes me chuckle as I load up ghost pepper sauce onto my rice.

There's comfort food, then there's food that makes you uncomfortable.

I've read somewhere once that serving jello was a flex, because it meant you were wealthy enough to own a refrigerator. I don't know if it's true, but I choose to believe it because there has to be a reason for serving hot dogs in jello.

Grandma made great food. Sharing my favorite:

"False crayfish stew"

500 g butter (the real shit)

1000 ml fish stock

800 g potatoes

800 g of white fish, any kind. This is poor people food

Copius amounts of dill, sprigs and all. She never measured

500 ml of canned crushed tomatoes

Melt butter, add fish stock and tomatoes. Boil potatoes in the mix, add water if to much evaporates. Add fish and dill at the same time when the potatoes are nearly done. Taste with salt and pepper when the fish is done.

Serve. Fucking incredible.

The 70s were truly a foreign country

Grandma on my dad's side can cook. Whenever we visit(she's super out of state), my dad and I gain some weight.

Puddings, pies, casseroles, flat enchiladas, pulled pork, bbq beef, mac n cheese, steaks— You name it. Fuckin' slaps! Unfortunately, grandpa died last year at 91, and there seems to be a historical tread among grandparents to dip out once the love of their life is gone. I should call her.

My gran thought putting mint in peas was the height of fancy cooking (while serving a full roast for dinner in the height of summer).

For those especially interested in this type of cuisine, I present for your review- The Gallery of Regrettable Food. https://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/index.html

One grandma thought cooking from scratch was old fashioned, so everything came from a box or can, and the other grandma cooked 99% from a 1950 betty crocker cookbook and a USDA home canning/pressure cooker bulletin. The chain of heirloom recipes being passed down was broken a generation or two earlier.

Mamaw made bacon. That's all she taught us, how to make 'pop-pop', our toddler name for bacon.

Omah couldn't cook and was very proud of that lol.

Mother could cook but thought she couldn't. Dad was a line cook (for a short time) so mom compared herself to him. She was fine.

Mother and grandmother were so proud of my being a good baker. Sometimes. Sometimes mother was jealous.

My abuela might have left my entire family with deep seated generational trauma, but she also left us with some killer recipes. That's the average Latino experience

Lol, my grandmothers did not have time to cook big stuff. Working full time while raising three kids gives you prioties which are oftentimes not frivoulous meals.

Reminded me of this guy who makes these "vintage recipes" on YouTube. He comes so close to throwing up every time:

https://youtube.com/shorts/E5QfGbh2lBE

My grandma on my father's side was a great cook (or so I heard), but she died too soon for me to remember much.

My grandma on my mother's side was a health nut, and I don't remember anything that I would classify as tasty from her. No sugar and very little fat make food taste sad.

From what I can tell of history cooking was a job that all cultures shared nearly equally between men and women - except for a short time in the 1950s when Americans called it a woman only task.

Note that individual families didn't always share equally. Often one partner was better than the other, or the realities of how their family situation worked made one partner the better choice. However there was not gender/sex linked reason for any choice. (even the 1950s you could argue it was a primarily a woman only task because the reality of men expected to work outside the house while woman stayed home meant the reality of the situation - Men often would cook for parties held in the backyard)

Nearly all cultures had a concept of the men (and sometimes woman) going off alone for long enough that they would need to cook without the other sex. Most common this was war, but there were also religious gatherings that were sex segregated in some cultures.

Men's work and Women's work did exist in most cultures. However cooking never seems to be part of that.

My grandma grew up during the great depression and the only thing I remember about her and food is that she ate a lot of cream of wheat.

My mom did all the cooking, and she made it clear she didn't enjoy it.

One of my favorites was "beans and hamburger", basically what it says, but whatever else she put in it was lost to time and Alzheimer's. I gave up trying to replicate it.

Probably, tuna casserole was the closest we got to hot dog jell-o. I liked tuna casserole. I liked pretty much everything my mom made for dinner. We often had canned peaches or pears over cottage cheese as a side.

However, she overcooked meat, and I thought I didn't like meat until I was an adult. My poor dad just put up with it, because the only alternative was cooking it himself, and that wasn't going to happen. But, even if he had, she would have complained, so the only time he got decent meat was at a restaurant.

The only thing I remember my dad making was rice pudding. he made it with raisins and it was delicious.

Guy here, but at least one of my grandmother was the laziest and cheapest cook. She managed to ruin Goulash stews by leaving out almost all the spices other than paprika. My mother made it even worse by leaving out bullion, since she heard about star chefs trashing them for being "low class". Result: food that tastes like something you get in a hospital or similar place.

Hot dog jello fish sounds fire unless you're a coward

My grandmother didn't know how to preheat the oven and turned everything into jerky.

It is a little sad from the cultural perspective of a non-WASP, my comfort foods that complete me are all ethnic foods grandma made and passed down. No jello to be found, just hearty, working-class meals :)

American and British food living up to thé stéréotypes.

Meanwhile, i miss my grandma's food.

Baked green apples with cinnamon. Silver dollar cornbread pancakes. Thick, steaming pea soup with hot dog chunks.

Now I'm hungry and I miss my grandma :(

It’s true! I’m not a woman and also learned how to cook from my dad! What have we become?!

Yeah, the disgusting food from my grandparents (and to some extent my parents) must at least partially be to blame for me becoming a picky eater. Which is a really difficult thing to unlearn

Step right up, step right up folks! Gasp at the culinary horrors of mid-century WASP culture, preserved like an egg in aspic at The Gallery of Regrettable Food!

Boggle, boggle, pop-o-matic bubble.

That's all I have to contribute.

It wasn’t meat flavored…

My mother was an exceptionally mediocre cook who was convinced she was a Michelin rated chef because she had a Graham Kerr cookbook.

Most of what we ate were ground beef casseroles with lots of canned tomatoes and limp zucchinis. Despite having a garden and greenhouse with fantastic tomatoes most of the year.

Also, she taught nutrition at the college level.

The profile pic of that woman looks like someone I would like to be a sibling to and ejaculate inside frequently. On the pill, obviously. I am not an immoral person! I care!