Mother's cooking

[Bondbug 32]

I recall some of you drooling about your mother's or grandmother's cooking, in the days when peer, social, political or economic pressures did not drive women out to work - or often because the male felt obliged by similar pressures to be seen to be the bread winner. In those days 'mum' more than earned her keep by providing better, more tasty, more healthy meals at half the price of the pre-prepared supermarket stuff of today.

 

My mum was not a working mum. I don't particularly remember her cooking. Standard, simple, natural for the time when ready-made stuff was not available, supermarkets and microwaves did not exist. Dad brought home rabbits for the price of a cartridge and picked enormous mushrooms in the fields. She made bread buns on Saturdays when dad brought home rugby lads after the match and they ate, drank and had a singsong (mum at the piano). We were not city people - that make an enormous difference.

 

What I do remember was my old great-aunt Jinnie's yorkshire pudding. She was an old widow in a dark old terrace house in a mining village in Co.Durham where the pits had closed long ago, and everyone was on the dole. Semi-blind, she produced the most wonderful Yorkshire pudding in her cast iron range. The terrace is long gone, but Great-aunt Jinnie is still here in every Yorkshire pudding I eat.

 

The modern mum has other priorities. I won't say she does not have the time. More often she has different ideas of pleasure, different values, different priorities...and enough cash to buy rather than make.

 

So what do you think or remember of your mother's cooking. Is/was it worth remembering or not? Is it something you go home for from time to time?

[myles 2]

A great topic.

 

I dunno about others, but I exercise to eat. Well I will talk about Granny instead though. (Let's just say my mom has been a full time teacher with zero cooking ability)

 

I have said somewhere before that my father side of heritage is South and my mother side is North, so naturally I managed to enjoy a mix of two traditional styles of Chinese. For those who cares to know: Shandong & Cantonese. Cantonese should be familiar, 70+% of western Chinese food falls in this style (or a mutant from it ).

 

The same can't be said about Shandong. Of all the western cities I have visited (plenty but not many, granted), I have failed to find one true dish from it. Kinda sad... you can find Jing and Shanghai easily, and these two are not one of the old eights.

 

(Btw, those Jing and Shanghai that I tried, many awarded and acclaimed by western magazines, were not true to the style they claim to be. The food was good, but I felt very badly about this. It is still fraud no matter how you look at it. Don't trust a western Chinese restaurant is the conclusion I made )

 

But I'm off topic, the dish I wanted to say is a kind of plain dumpling. It is a Northern recipe among commoner, and each Chinese new year we used to gather and make it. Following the tradition, so to speak. We stopped because of granny's age nowadays and it is the one dish I truly missed.

 

The dumpling itself has no sharp flavor, but it is comfortable to the stomach. In fact, it is both the rice and the course. While the recipe is important, the key is still the skin, and there is no shortcut to it but polished skill.

 

I think it is a really important feature that is ignored in modern Chinese (and not just Chinese). Food that is comfortable, hearty, and healthy.

[Bondbug 32]

(Btw, those Jing and Shanghai that I tried, many awarded and acclaimed by western magazines, were not true to the style they claim to be. The food was good, but I felt very badly about this. It is still fraud no matter how you look at it. Don't trust a western Chinese restaurant is the conclusion I made )

 

But I'm off topic, the dish I wanted to say is a kind of plain dumpling. It is a Northern recipe among commoner, and each Chinese new year we used to gather and make it. Following the tradition, so to speak. We stopped because of granny's age nowadays and it is the one dish I truly missed.

 

The dumpling itself has no sharp flavor, but it is comfortable to the stomach. In fact, it is both the rice and the course. While the recipe is important, the key is still the skin, and there is no shortcut to it but polished skill.

 

I think it is a really important feature that is ignored in modern Chinese (and not just Chinese). Food that is comfortable, hearty, and healthy.

 

1 score for the grannies.

 

I saw your post about this super looking 'dumpling', we are going to look it up when we get home to our cook book library. It also looks very similar to the triangular fried things we see in Thai & Vietnamese cooking which are more common here, though Chinese has arrived (in France). To northern English dumplings are not stuffed but more or less solid balls of suet, usually cooked in a meat stew. Once you start stuffing them they become suet puddings! Did you post a recipe for this 'Chinese dumpling' (for want of a better name for now).

 

Yes, it is very noticeable that Eastern cooking is always adapted to local taste when it arrives in a cookbook. And even more so in the restaurants. Very disappointing. I noticed in Indian restaurants that when the staff had their meals it was not the same watered-down stuff we were offered. I never managed to get to know Chinese meals. First time I tried I got chop suey that was like washing up water, and put me off for about 30 years. Now I cheat by opting for the set meals where there is no real choice!

[erialc 2]

Ahh Bond....you make the greatest food threads

 

Mothers cooking...oh god ofc that ritual of the Sunday Lunch! I remember not so long ago there could be anything up to 14/15 of sat chowing down for lunch, vino in hand debating the topics of the day, but even when I was much younger I loved Sundays with all the 'grown ups', listening eating taking it all in, just really loved it! Made me feel part of a clan I think there were so many of us, my Grand Parents on the English side, Aunt's Uncles, Cousins LOL how the heck she did it for so long, then again all the Aunts would help and we ofc had the end product of washing up. Do you know Onion Sauce Bond? We always had it with our roasts, that stuff has taken me years to learn to make and even now I can get it very wrong! Yorkshire puddings higher than towers and thick dark gravy! mmmmm...ahh brings a very nostalgic tear to my eye actually! You know how it is, my grand parents are both no longer here, we all move around and somehow now that ritual is not every Sunday but I used to look forward to that meal every week! As soon though as I can get them all together I try my best and we still have fun! Now my kids are in the place I was! My Mom made great food though, Spag Bol, meatballs and pasta, stews though I only ate the gravy and the tatties and the dumplings! hahaha

 

On my Irish, side my mouth is really watering now! My Nan used to make the most awesome breakfasts, they were like a weeks meal! Soda bread, potatoe cakes, bacon, sausage, black pudding, white pudding, eggs, fried bread, tea haha then she would be up and at it whilst we would groan at how full we were! OMG that woman could COOK! Dinners..Irish Stew, colcannon, boxty, you name it she could make it....but home made warm soda bread with salty melty butter (did I mention that already?) were equally huge! and ALWAYS with dessert afterwards!...haha bedtime...hot milk haha with a sneaky splash of poteen...you'd get locked up for that now!...I always thought the fresh air made us sleep!

 

Can't believe how much I just wrote and I am not even half way there!...Bond I salute you, you gave me such a wicked memory trip! And your singing round the piano! how wonderful! You take me right back to Ireland with so much of your post!

 

Myles...Oh how I'd love to have tasted the food you grew up with as a child!

 

Amazing thread come on peeps lets go back in taste bud time!

Edited July 21, 2009 by erialc

[Bondbug 32]

On my Irish, side my mouth is really watering now! My Nan used to make the most awesome breakfasts, they were like a weeks meal! Soda bread, potatoe cakes, bacon, sausage, black pudding, white pudding, eggs, fried bread, tea haha then she would be up and at it whilst we would groan at how full we were! OMG that woman could COOK! Dinners..Irish Stew, colcannon, boxty, you name it she could make it....but home made warm soda bread with salty melty butter (did I mention that already?) were equally huge! and ALWAYS with dessert afterwards!...haha bedtime...hot milk haha with a sneaky splash of poteen...you'd get locked up for that now!...I always thought the fresh air made us sleep!

 

Must admit I had to look up Boxty, in an old farmhouse cookery book. Boxty bread and Boxty pancakes, made with tatties (being Irish).

 

Butter on the one side,

Gravy on the other,

Sure them that gave me Boxty

Were better than me mother.

 

Publish the recipe, Erialc, and we will have some tomorrow. YUMM.

 

 

On another tack, my old mum (she would have to be old wouldn't she) would have been staggered by the incredible range of shepherds pies and dumplings turning up in this forum.

Edited September 2, 2009 by Bondbug