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Heritage foods

Something on another thread made me start thinking about the emotional attachment we have to foods eaten in childhood. My mother, for instance, loves bread sauce because that is what her mum made for her when she wasn't well as a child and it reminds her of comfort and being cared for. Anyway, I thought it might be fun (and possibly inspirational) to post the foods we 'inherited' from our parents and those we want to pass on to our children. Mine are:

Inherited from my parents: Asparagus dipped in melted butter. We had a huge asparagus patch at the bottom of our garden and my mother used to make masses of soup every year but the best bit was cutting fresh aparagus, steaming it and eating it with our fingers dipped in melted butter. It is the taste of summer for me.

I want to pass on to Peter: either my bolognaise sauce or my soda bread. Both are comfort foods but also foods that I make when I want to welcome people. The bolognaise needs to cook for three hours in the oven and I always make it in the pot that my husband gave me for Valentine's one year, so it has a lot of history cooked in to it. The soda bread is just very easy to make and always gets me compliments when I serve it. It can be eaten with any meal and Peter adores it already and I hope always will.

So what are yours?
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Replies

  • ah, what a lovely idea! Im not sure we really have traditional foods, but maybe I can invent some for our future generations... love the sound of bread!
  • Was only just talking about this with a work colleague!!

    This time of year for me it would have to be blackberry pie - i'm taking shea blackberry picking later today and we'll make a pie together, just like I used to with my mum.

    the whole baking thing really - my mum used to bake flapjacks, cookies, cakes, boiled sweets, coconunt ice, homemade toffee and fudge - all those "bad treats" we "shouldn't" have!!!!

    On a "good" food note another would be my husbands "osso bucco" - or any good slow cooked italian dish!!
  • Lovely thread!

    Inherited from my Mum...coconut cake...the best recipe ever from her Mum...I even have the original version from 3 generations ago. I love the smell when it's just come out the oven and the taste cures the worst problems!

    I would like to pass onto my children...my cottage pie as it's warm and comforting and I hope it will remind him of warm cuddles by the fire in the winter!
  • none of my family ahve ever been much into cooking, i ahve no memories of my mum or nan ever baking cakes or breads or anything, i remember my nan making sausage rolls but thats about it lol so mine are all really simple, not at all baking, type foods, hope that makes sense...

    from my nan... welsh rarebit, not sure if it is or not but tahts she always calle dit, was cheese and egg mixed together and then grilled on toast, yummy, and its the only time i ever eat tomato ketchup lol.

    from my mum...stew, juts a good ol' hearty stew, load veg, some nice chunks of meat, leave to cook for hours and hours, and make the day before u actually want to eat it (always tastes better the next day)

    from me to austin... banana cake! i love it! so simple yet so yummy and the bananas means it never comes out dry, i change it by adding walnuts or raisins sometimes too. never lasts more than an hour in our house lol, and i just make it with sunflower spread (no milk or butter) which means ds can tuck in (milk intolerant)

    oH to austin...oh anything that he can get in belgium that he can't here lol, frikadellen, proper chips (apparantly english chips are cr*p), goulash on chips (yes i know goulash is hungarian but its quite a big thing in belgium), stoovlees, all different kinds of meats and sausage...obv OH can't make the sausages and meats, but i think he'll make damn sure ds has a good knowledge of them, and ds is already a fan of stoovlees (yuck!) and goulash on chips....

    i really want ds to have memories of us making and baking together and would like to start soon (as its something i wish i had) but not entirely sure what or how i can do with a 18month old?

    x
    27+5
  • Ah, some lovely things on here! Claire a bell, I have two litres of blackberries bottled and more in the freezer so will definitely be making pies at some point. And I can't wait to take Peter blackberrying next year - he was a bit young this year, not sure how to avoid the brambles and more interested in squishing the berries! :lol:

    WoW Baby, you got me thinking, because there are some New York foods I want to pass on from childhood, like H&H bagels (truly the best in the world!) and proper pretzels with mustard. Yummy! image

    As for cooking with them at this age, what about peppermint creams or gingerbread? You can make up the dough/mixture and let A help roll it out and punch out shapes with plastic cookie cutters. Peter currently has a tendency to throw the mixing bowl on the floor but he loves playing with the scales so I let him get on with that while I mix things up. I am getting him a baking kit for Christmas, though, so hopefully he can start mixing alongside me soon. :\)
  • Ok, how about warm cheese scones and butter and home made chocolate birthday cake mmmm. One of my faves is lentil loaf, v simple and I thought baby friendly until I saw the nappy it produced!!! Be warned!
  • Oh, lordy! Lentils are a nightmare, aren't they? We had them last night, so nursery had to deal with the result today. They didn't look too happy when I picked him up this evening! image
  • I haven't got anything like this, my mum wasn't into cooking! My fondest memories are takeaway Chinese on a Saturday night after horseriding :lol:

    BUT whenever I was ill she would buy me a bunch of grapes and a bottle of Lucozade! (I wasn't normally allowed fizzy drinks) I swear I actually believed it was medicine.

    Now whenever I'm ill hubby buys me grapes and Lucozade :\) I actually find Lucozade a bit grim now but drink it anyway!
  • From my Nan - thick sliced bread toast with golden shred-less marmalade on with proper butter for breakfast, it always makes me feel 6 and home made Yorkshire puds and Sunday dinner. Oh and pastry from my great grandma.

    My mum was bolognese and a lush stew. Everyone raves about my Lasagne made with the bolognese.

    The thing I love making is cupcakes and hope to pass that onto my DD along with my bolognese and Sunday Dinner and amazing roast potatoes. We're from Yorkshire so my Nan and Grandad have everything with gravy and still eat bread and dripping (urgh) so lots of comfort types foods for us.

    Good thread plus loads of ideas too. xxxx
  • G/c, mum used to make the best fish pie ever and my dad does a stonking roast. My kiddies are a little older than babies (5 and 2) and love helping me cook already. DS, the 5 yr old, "makes" a cracking lasagne and DD adores baking. I think it's a great skill to pass on and will certainly be encouraging my two. Roast potatoes, lasagne and homemade puddings are what I'll be passing on!
  • my mum is a great baker and used to spend sunday afternoon cooking and we had a great supper of cheese straws, and victoria sponge cake!
    my comfort food is my dads scrambled egg on toast...not sure why but his always taste sooooo much better than anyone else's!
    mmmmm!
  • Does anyone else have really bad foods that they had occationally in childhood? Mine was chicken noodle or tomato packet soup after swimming!! bliss!
  • Oh, yes! Like PTB, Chinese food on a Sunday night when my parents couldn't be bothered to cook. Pan-fried dumplings, chicken with cashew nuts, yum! image
  • Great thread!
    For us it would be my Grandad's version of cottage pie - he used corned beef instead of mince. So, it was a layer of corned beef and onion, a layer of mashed carrot and a layer of cheesy mash on top. OH adores it as does his son an I can't wait to cook it for Bing when he's old enough.

    As for really bad food Em - yours sounds positively angelic compared to KFC after a hard days ballet on a Saturday!
  • My Gran taught me from being tiny (standing on a chair backwards!) how to cook everything, perhaps thats why I am now a cookery teacher!

    The most memorable was a meat pie, cold hands for pastry, stewing steak and a layer of finely sliced onions with nothing but lurpak butter in everything she made. As she made it she told me she was teaching it me so I could make my husband smile! It worked!

    WIth my mum its vegetarian sausage rolls, Delia Smith ones that we make every christmas, she supervises and still tells me and my sisters off at every step! And Mince pies, made in batch from October as we take them anywhere we go in December!

    My other gran taught me how to make stuffing from a packet, (not a cook!) and makes the best bacon hotpot in the world, I ring her everytime we are on our hols and book in for one on our return. This was passed onto her by her mum, along with Barley meat and Onions, that only me and my Grandad eat!

    Can you tell I love food!

    I want to pass cakes and pretty things onto Isabelle, at the minute I make lots of food look fun for her, smiley pizzas, Sunshine hoummous, toast with start cut out and an egg fried in!

    She has sat in her highchair and watched me cook since she could sit up, and before that I would put her big pram in the kitchen with me and give her a running commentary! Now I let her play with the spatula and give it a mix, and try everything I do as I am doing it! She always plays with my mixing bowls and likes potato peel!

    She had better be and amazing cook!
    Bets XxX
  • em, bad food ... tinned soup whenever we felt a bit poo with bread and butter, or if it was tomato soup it would be with cheese on toast, mmmm. i would def like make my own soups but i really do'nt ahve much freezer space lol, if/when i get a chest freezer i'll be giving that a good go so ican make it in big batches...also, slush puppies, after ballet on a wednesday and saturday, the ballet school was right next to a little confectionary shop that sold them so used to always get on to walk home with...next time i'm in canterbury think i'll have to get one as not had one since then and i'm sure the shop is still there...oh and every friday my mum used to ahve to take me to my nan and grandad's to stay the night cos she was working on a saturday and there was no one to keep an eye on me and i always had a fillet'o'fish meal from mc d's or my grandad would go to the chippy and get fish and chips for us all. wow! amazing the memories we have of food?!
  • i always had lentil soup which i still love dd 1&2 are not that keen yet lol they love veg soup i make tablet a family recipie full of sugar though so they have only had it once so far.i make a lovely veggie spag boll which my girls love i hope they always love it. After swimming treat was always a bag of nik naks and a slush puppie image
  • Ah what a lovely thread...

    From my mother i will pass on Rhubarb crumble and custard. We had a rhubarb patch at the bottom of the garden and had loads of the stuff. We used to have sword fights with it, use it as umbrellas etc but there was always a plenty of rhubarb in the freezer for crumble.

    I also want to pass on blackberrying, was always (and still is!) one of my favourite things about autumn. Similarly we'd go strawberry picking in the summer and have a huge bowel with sugar on when we got home.

    Our "naughty" food was that we were allowed to have crisps and yoghurt after going swimming.
  • hehehe, just remembered, when my mum was making jelly (from a packet) she would give us a cube of jelly and we would roll it in sugar UGGG!!! Cant believe it now, lucky we only had jelly once in a while...also there was 6 of us, so how any jelly actually got made i dont know!

    Em x
  • mostly from my gran (now 90!!) as my mum is a bit of a pants cook!!

    fairy cakes - my fairy cakes actually frickin rock, everyone loves them and I love being able to vary the decorations on the top for christmas, halloween, birthdays etc etc

    Apple pie/crumble - I go and pick the apples with ds and then we go home and make them

    Homemade vegetable soup - oh yum so nice and warming in the winter

    Hot chocolate - when its really rainy and I've just picked up ds from school or when we've been out in teh rain or playing in the snow its on with warm jammies a nice hot chocolate and toast with butter yum yum

    my ds1 loves all of the above too and I hope ds2 will aswell.

    I'd like to pass all of these as well as my lentil soup and cottage pie, I love cottage pie as you can make it for loads of people and have friends round etc etc with not much more effort oh yum yum yum I'm starving now!!
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