What did your parents cook?

[vibrantflame]

My Dad was the cook in our house, and everything was made from scratch. Having kids of my own, I am now just amazed at how much he cooked and baked while having two kids around and no one to help (my Mom was sick and often couldn't get out of bed). The only processed food I remember eating was boxed mac and cheese or those "tv dinners" (and that was rare). We had two big freezers so my Dad would spend all day cooking and make tons to freeze. He'd make things like meat pies, all kinds of casseroles, home made pizza, muffins, home made bread (I never ate store bought bread until sometime in my late teens), pigs in a blanket, pasta etc. We had a lot of "meat and potato" type meals.

Things I didn't eat until I was an adult? I don't remember ever eating fast food until I was a teenager. Never ate any type of ethnic food, never ate store bought pizza, muffins, or bread.

Sometimes I feel guilty because I have my own family but I don't cook nearly as much as my Dad did, and he was dealing with a lot more then I am!

Oh and I forgot about the stews! My Dad made the best stews! Especially chicken or turkey stew, omg so yummy.

[FallenPixels]

Yeah, my dad used to make this amazing stew that if I describe, sounds disgusting but we ate it a lot as a child. He was in the army in Ireland and they used to make big batches of it

It is terrible for you and I have never managed to get it to taste like he did so I don't even try anymore, it has bacon, sausage, potatoes, peas, carrots (and any other veg you throw in) in a thick sauce (think cream of veg soup consistency). I wish he showed me how to make it before he died, it really was comfort food

[Mrsb07]

I miss my moms cooking. She was a single mom of 2 girls which was rare in the 60's. Breakfast and lunch were easy meals. Cereal and/or toast for breakfast and tomato soup or a sandwich for lunch. We always came home from school for lunch, year round whatever the weather. Kids were not allowed to stay at school for lunch except one girl who's mom (another single mom) was at work at lunch time. My mom delivered mail in the country so was always home before lunch hour. Supper was meat and potatoes except for when she ran out of meat before pay day. Then it was macaroni noodles mixed with a can of stewed tomatoes. For cereals she bought huge bags of puffed wheat and puffed rice. Tasted like cardboard! She tried to pass off powdered milk by putting it in the milk jug that the real milk came in but we always knew what it was and just could not drink it. So gross! Some of my favorite foods as a child I can't stand now, like fried Klik. I never had sea food as a child and still haven't. I can't get past the smell. I never had taco's until I was a teenager. A boyfriend made them for me one day and I made mom go buy the ingredients so she could make us some. She wasn't as impressed as I was. Sundays were a roast with all the fixings including yorkshire pudding. I liked her spaghetti best when the leftovers where fried up in her old cast iron pan. Ahh all the memories now.

[joseff]

My Mom was a stay-at-home mother of 5 kids. My Dad was a dairy farmer. Mom had a huge garden and most of our meat was tough, hard to chew beef from cows that were no longer producing milk. Not that I'm complaining. I just didn't know what texture a steak was actually supposed to be until well into adulthood.
We did have some processed food here and there - KD, boxed cereal, bologna sandwiches. Our "juice" was always koolaid. But mostly we ate home-cooked foods. I still cook everything from scratch -in some cases even more so than my mother did. Food sensitivities and budgeting have caused me to move away from what I ate as a child though. I don't eat bread or drink milk. I never have beef because it's too expensive. I only eat boxed cereal if I have an FPC.

Funny...that old dairy cow still is hard to chew! Wonder if we're still eating parts of the same one? And I don't eat a whole lot of beef because of that old dairy cow. Can't get over the chewing we used to do (although I KNOW it's not supposed to be so tough)
But I do remember KD being much tastier back then, and I never knew there were more cereals than rice krispies, corn flakes and cheerios.
And veggies were always from the freezer, homemade jam, pickles...most things were baked and not bought except for the 12 loaves of bread in the freezer every week.
I don't eat like I did as a kid anymore, it's much much harder to have a family and a job and still have a homemade meal, but I do try

[sueshe]

I too miss my mom's cooking. We owned an orchard and grew apples,peaches,apricots,plums and grapes. Mom had a huge veggie garden and a beautiful flower garden alongside it. She had a Ukrainian background and every week she made homemade perogie(all kinds)and cabbage rolls,usually just made with bacon not ground beef,and the rolls were tiny one bite ones. We had meat at every meal,beef or pork roasts,roast chicken,pork chops and burgers. Sometimes just baked kielbasa or maybe fried fish. We also had dessert every night,often pies or cakes,but sometime just canned fruit with icecream(and nobody had a weight problem!)

Mom took great pride in her cooking and home. We had fresh flowers from her garden on the table always during the summer and in the winter we had bowls of apples from the cold storage room.

I remember feeling envious of my friends who had store bought bread as we rarely had it. Almost always homemade,along with home baked buns,cinnamon rolls,tarts,etc.

I am happy that Mom passed down to me her love of cooking,and to my brothers and sisters too. My Dad was pretty useless in the kitchen but was often called to peel mounds of potatoes!

[MrsSunshine]

My Dad was the cook in our house, and everything was made from scratch. Having kids of my own, I am now just amazed at how much he cooked and baked while having two kids around and no one to help (my Mom was sick and often couldn't get out of bed). The only processed food I remember eating was boxed mac and cheese or those "tv dinners" (and that was rare). We had two big freezers so my Dad would spend all day cooking and make tons to freeze. He'd make things like meat pies, all kinds of casseroles, home made pizza, muffins, home made bread (I never ate store bought bread until sometime in my late teens), pigs in a blanket, pasta etc. We had a lot of "meat and potato" type meals.

Things I didn't eat until I was an adult? I don't remember ever eating fast food until I was a teenager. Never ate any type of ethnic food, never ate store bought pizza, muffins, or bread.

Sometimes I feel guilty because I have my own family but I don't cook nearly as much as my Dad did, and he was dealing with a lot more then I am!

Oh and I forgot about the stews! My Dad made the best stews! Especially chicken or turkey stew, omg so yummy.

sounds alot like my Dad when my mom went back to work and he was off.. he did alot of cooking. i wish i'd stuck around to watch him do it. but learned growing up he had no choice but to learn to cook early on in life for his siblings. with the war and all going on. it amazed me how much he knew to cook and all from scratch. he loved it. didnt' do too much of it. even at nearly 80 he occasionally made xmas breakfast. damn it was good. i just wished he'd cooked more dinners etc. while i was growing up. but his siblings were very lucky as he cooked with only what grew in the garden and it was always healthy. he always appreciated my moms cooking. the only stipulation he ever had.. has.. is do NOT mix my veggies. LOL. anyway thats my two cents on that.

[walkonby]

Seems we have something in common vibrant and MrsSunshine, my Dad too was a terrific cook. I believe he developed much of his skills from the WW2 service. He used to joke about KP duty( ?) and said he would have to always peel so many spuds.
Anyways, the sorts of meals we were raised on were " filling " ones. Carb heavy I guess. I can honestly say I have very little memory of veggies other than canned ones. ( peas, cream corn, pork'n beans ) Maybe carrots we had fresh but fresh was costly I think. The odd salad, but the greens he would go pick the dandelions from the fields and I could never choke that down ( ugh! ) Their food choices came from trying to feed a large family ( 6 kids) on one low to modest income.
Plenty of bacon, eggs, toast, porridge,for the mornings. Breakfast was his time to shine. When I say toast, I mean he would do up a couple loaves of bread and it would be all stacked up on a plate on the table when we got there.

Pastas, stews, soups, things had to be made from scratch, there was just no other way in my parents mind. I remember he hated white bread, called it " air bread" .

[krysta lynne]

my mom cooked lotsa pasta. like kd.

she wasnt a very cook cook. though she did make some amazing cinnamon pinwheels. and this veggie dish we only got at xmas that was really good

[Budgetwise73]

We grew up on a farm so we had a lot of fresh veggies and fruit right at the time of harvesting that my mother would freeze or can...money was often tight and I think that my mom did an amazing job of planning out nutritous meals.
My mom didn't work and stayed home to watch my sister and I. Although I am very grateful for the good life and upbringing that I had, in retrospect we did eat a lot of beef dishes because my parents would buy a half a beef for the freezer. Today I rarely eat steak or other beef cuts as I had so much of it growing up; I prefer chicken and fish only. My mom did make a delicious roast of beef though in the oven with potatoes and carrots browned to perfection.
One memory comes to mind about fruit cake...I grew up having the almond icing fruit cake that my grandmother always made, and now I buy a small one every Christmas to relive that memory since she passed many years ago, and I love fruit cake, but I know not many people like it. Both my grandmothers always served huge meals at Christmas with every type of meat, veggie, dessert, etc. you can imagine. How we ever ate two huge meals in one day every Christmas I still can't imagine how!

[Brandy Hunter]

My mom didn't/doesn't cook much. My mom bakes a lot, and it's all really good, but theres so much sweets one can take
I do most of the cooking, and have, for as much as I can remember (I don't remember much of my childhood) but I remember being little and my Dad making me a tomato & cheese toasted sandwich with a can of 7-up. I still love that to this day, and reminds me a lot of him.
My mom cooks 6-7 meals out of the month, the rest I do, we eat take-out (not too often) or frozen meals.

I definitely don't want it to be like this with my future kids, although this helped me learn to cook, I don't want to put that big a responsibility on them.

[couponandoff]

grilled, baked, smoked, and canned salmon - chinook, pinks, winter, steelhead - you name it. If if was salmon, we were eating it. yuk. cant stand it.

Much better was the enchilada, taco, madras curries, crab, prawns,avocado salad, garbanzo bean salad, vinegar cucumber tomato & onion, blackberries, rhubarb, a couple different breads - white buns, cornbread, sourdough friendship bread, an indian one called hovis that was baked in a coffee can. We had lots of nuts - walnuts, pistachios, almonds, pecans, swiss chard, snap beans, boiled potato, lots of relishes... usually a strange buffet. We ate from the garden for 4 months & from canned for the remaining 8. Summer was definately better food than winter. Groceries were purchased once a month in town. Grocery day absolutely rocked. My brother and I would gobble up everything that wasnt rationed and then mourn the empty box/bag. CHEERIOS!!! SHREDDIES!!! RICE KRISPIES!!! FRESHIE!!! ICECREAM!!! JELLO!!! Fresh ground beef for tacos and Sloppy Joes!!! But no sooner had we celebrated HAM and commerical cereal, we were back to salmon and hot oats... yuk.

[couponandoff]

caesar salad... never had that growing up.

[janetta]

My family always had a nice home cooked meal. Mum was at home looking after my brother and I, while dad worked. We were brought up eating a variety of foods from different cultures! We were always well fed and food is a huge part of our family.
We ate a lot of traditional Chinese food while I was growing up, we still have it a day or two during the week.

Later on, when my brother was grown up enough, my mum starting working full time again and we split dinner duty. It was a duty at all, as my dad loves food and cooking as do I. I also bake a lot! We enjoy trying out different recipes and prefer to make dishes that we've had at restaurants, at home. We're big on Indian cuisine, Japanese, Italian, American, Mexican and Greek.

I was brought up eating a pretty balanced meal, at all times. Vegetables were always a must, meats/protien, gains/carbs and dairy. Fruit would be dessert, maybe eaten with cake, ice cream etc.

I'm super open minded when it comes to food and will most likely try everything once!
We love all kinds of fish, pork, beef, chicken, lamb, goat, sea critters, game...my vegan boyfriend calls me a savage. lol

[robert12]

My mom cook everything that I like but dad doesn't cook anything.