After Jar made the comment that he wasn't interested in cats and hummingbirds, I started racking my brain for a subject that would interest both him and me. I am interested in sports, fishing (which I don't think he cares to talk about), flowers (he forgot to mention flowers), eating. My gosh, that has to be it. Food. He can't possibly pass up this one.
What is the favorite food that your mother used to prepare?
For me, it is fried chicken. My mother's fried chicken was both well-seasoned and crusty, beat any of the major chefs today. She used a cast iron skillet and lard. The chicken was freshly killed and cleaned for cooking. Then it set in a pan of water until time for cooking. When the lard was heated to the right temp in the iron skillet, she would pick up a piece of the chicken with her bare hand, give it a gentle squeeze, roll it in the salt, pepper and flour mixture and lay it in the hot grease. When the skillet was filled, she would then give the chicken a sprinkle of salt and a dash of pepper. That was all. Just salt and pepper, no other spices were added to the flour. It was the spiciest, crustiest chicken possible. We fought over the cracklin's and the gravy she made off the drippings was pure heaven.
Can you beat that?
I can't "beat it," but I can "match it." That's pretty much the way my Mother used to fix fried chicken, with the same wonderful results. I especially love homemade Vegetable Soup with cornbread, and I think it was because the Vegetable Soup she made was wonderful, and that's the way we make it, "today." So many other good things that "our Mothers" made. I think probably we all would agree that our Mothers were wonderful cooks!
I can't beat or match that either. However I have not found anyone that made Scrapple like mom did! Fried in bacon grease to the right goldern color, and with maple syrup on it......no one told me that was po' food! I thought it was great. Add 2 eggs over easy, toast with homemade jelly....off to school!
Umm, Ummmm!
ready
Everything my Mom made was great. Fried Chicken, Deviled Eggs, Potato Salad, Strawberry Jello Cake, Thanksgiving Dressing, Spaghetti and Meat Sauce, Beef Sandwich spread ground in the grinder with sweet pickles-capers-Miracle Whip, Oven BBQ Ribs, Bread, Funnel Cakes, and Tuna Cassarole covered in potato chips. All of which I had her tell me how to make when I moved out of the house. She had to make them and measure the recipe for me since she just made them by feel. My favorite is the funnel cakes. The funniest thing though is my Mom laughed when I asked for the Tuna Cassarole recipe, since it was just a budget stretcher that neither she or my Dad liked. It was made out of necessity. She never thought it would be one of the "traditional" family recipes that the kids would want to have. I still make all of those today.
Growing up I thought my Mom was the greatest cook on the Earth. Since I got married I have to tell my wife Angie that she is the greatest cook on the planet, that is if I expect to get anything to eat! LOL
Charlie
Quote from: flintauqua on October 20, 2012, 09:07:56 PM
Growing up I thought my Mom was the greatest cook on the Earth. Since I got married I have to tell my wife Angie that she is the greatest cook on the planet, that is if I expect to get anything to eat! LOL
Charlie
In my house I cook and the girls know how, but they prefer to do the dishes. I hate doing dishes so I always cook. They won't complain about my cooking, even when I want them to because I am testing out a recipe. I am a much harsher critic. Now I know why they won't complain. They think I won't feed them. If they just complained I would probably make 3 more "improved" versions.
p.s. Charlie you mentioned your wife's name is Angie. Is that Angietown that I know from the forum and mentioned in another thread?
Fire Elk
I know my Mother's cooking was the best ever. Let's face it and Mom, I will always think you are a wonderful cook, it is the great big serving of love that really makes it the best.
It is truly the simple dishes that stand apart. I've never had meatloaf better than Mom's anywhere. Don't know what she did to it. I can hardly eat anyone else's. Wilted lettuce with bacon, fresh from the garden I "got" to weed. Chicken and homemade noodles, over a bed of mashed potatoes.
Fire Elk, Angie Town is Jeff Town's wife. Now she is Lookatmeknow.
Wilted lettuce with bacon is one that I was never able to master. No matter what I did, it wasn't the way my mother-in-law did it and my husband let me know that it wasn't. I didn't care much for home grown lettuce anyway and now any kind of lettuce is a no-no for me.
Real homemade mincemeat! Gonna have some of that on Thanksgiving. Her baked beans are outta this world. Weren't we lucky that our Moms cooked instead of driving us thru Mc Donald's for a happy meal? Yes, yes we were!
My grandma's fried chicken was the best. I wish I could make it that way. Mother, why do you think she would give that piece of chicken "a gentle squeeze"?
My mother always made the best roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy. She would do that for Sunday dinner sometimes because it could cook while we were at church. I miss my mother's cooking. Oh, yeah. She makes really good pumpkin pie. Yummy.
My other grandma, Thelma Furrow, was the best at making bread and us grandkids would argue over who got to eat the heel. Fresh out of the oven, butter, and you couldn't beat anything like that.
I also liked my Aunt Cleo Weyrauch's chicken and noodles, but my niece, Teresa Ursy, has got her beat now.
My mother and my niece are the only ones in this post that are still alive. I will tell you this. I like my Thanksgiving dinners that I used to make at the jail. I believe I can roast a good turkey, make the best turkey and noodles, and make the mashed taters.
I say that she gave it a gentle squeeze because I could see her do it. A gentle squeeze and a shake to remove excess water. Then directly to the hot grease in the skillet. Not a hot grease bath, but just enough to come half way up the pieces of chicken. When the down side was brown, she would turn the pieces and brown the other side, then make sure it cooked long enough to be done. After the chicken was done, she would pour off most of the left over grease, retaining whatever breading had accumulated in the pan, then make her gravy on that.