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My grandmother used to make Creamed pea's and Potatoes,Asparagus on
Toast and Rhubarb Pie.
I have never seen these items cooked anywhere else.
Is this something regional?Anyone else tried these?
The Creamed pea's and Potatoes are really good with Butter and pieces..
Of bacon!
realize this is a very old (10 years) thread but the creamed peas and potatoes can still be found on our plate from time to time. I think we both grew up eating them and when the tiny new potatoes show up in the markets I love to buy them. Yes, asparagus toast is something we used to have, but not much into Rhubarb pie. I will say, here in NWA it is pretty popular. It is simply Rhubarb is so expensive. I just don't bother.
Other dishes we used to have you never hear of now days: creamed eggs on toast for one. Grandma used to also serve lettuce wedges with thousand Island dressing. well we all know that has made a come back. WE used to have more desserts than we have now most cooks used a lot more bacon grease for cooking, not to mention the veggies were cooked and cooked and cooked. actually in our house the veggies were not cooked until they were mush, but I know many homes they did think fresh veggies needed to be cooked forever to be edible. That is one reason spoiled brat didn't like veggies that much when we got married. Now, he liked them. And growing up who would ever have thought of roasting veggies?
My grandma on moms side was a cook at a private girls school in Colo Springs. i didn't know her too well as we lived in CA. but when we did visit she would put on a huge spread for us. She grew up as one of about 14 kids, yes, on a farm but they didn't own the farm. She must have learned to cook from her mom who was born in Germany. I do know she was an awesome cook, With very little money to spare, she could still make a simple meal almost gourmet. My dad's mom was a fair cook, we lived near her so ate at her house pretty often. she is the one who made the lettuce wedges.
My kids' grandma on DH's side used to open a can of green beans and boil the living daylights out of them. I think they're already too mushy!
My mother explained the reason for that. She said it dates back to home canning and the danger of food poisoning.
MIL grandma's children pleaser was pancakes. Stacks and stack of 'em harking back to when she was raising her seven boys. When the grandkids came pancakes were the order of the day. My son was in heaven.
She also kept a coffee can of lard and a coffee can of bacon grease on top of her stove. No worry about them going rancid as she used them lavishly. I once saw her drop a huge glob of lard into a giant sized cast iron skillet to fry hamburgers. They were fairly swimming in it.
Say what you will about calories, a hamburger fried in lard is mighty tasty. Tastes like grandma's cooking.
I still make peas and new potatoes in cream sauce but it doesn't count. There are no grandchildren to enjoy them. Sob.
Oh - pickles! How about grandma's home-canned pickles? Those were a treat.
My kids' grandma on DH's side used to open a can of green beans and boil the living daylights out of them. I think they're already too mushy!
My mother explained the reason for that. She said it dates back to home canning and the danger of food poisoning.
MIL grandma's children pleaser was pancakes. Stacks and stack of 'em harking back to when she was raising her seven boys. When the grandkids came pancakes were the order of the day. My son was in heaven.
She also kept a coffee can of lard and a coffee can of bacon grease on top of her stove. No worry about them going rancid as she used them lavishly. I once saw her drop a huge glob of lard into a giant sized cast iron skillet to fry hamburgers. They were fairly swimming in it.
Say what you will about calories, a hamburger fried in lard is mighty tasty. Tastes like grandma's cooking.
I still make peas and new potatoes in cream sauce but it doesn't count. There are no grandchildren to enjoy them. Sob.
Oh - pickles! How about grandma's home-canned pickles? Those were a treat.
hate to brag, but actually my home made pickles are better than moms or grandmas and easier to make. No more brining for days.
It’s a nice old thread to revive.
My grandmother lived with us after my mother died. She was a good cook. I still have her handwritten cookbook.
One thing she always made was the Bisquick Velvet Crumb cake, with either the broiled coconut topping or mocha frosting. I still make it too.
A couple weeks before Christmas my grandmother would make candy.
Divinity; little rum balls; haystacks (I think that's what they were called - straight noodles dipped in butterscotch); peanut chocolate clusters; and probably some others.
Because her hands had bad arthritis, she enlisted me to do all the stirring. (and of course I got to clean off the spoons and pans) I also remember the trick of deciding if the melted sugar was hot enough by dropping a bit into a glass of cold water and seeing if it cracked.
My other grandmother I never knew, as she died before I was born.
My third grandmother made the most delicious Tex-Mex food you ever ate in your life. Not restaurant food, but the real home style stuff. She and my aunt rolled out the tortillas right there in the kitchen using a broomstick with all the paint removed. I tried that a few times and mine were weird misshapen things; theirs were perfectly round, perfectly even in thickness, and all exactly the same size. I don't think any machine could make a stack of tortillas faster than they did.
hate to brag, but actually my home made pickles are better than moms or grandmas and easier to make. No more brining for days.
I believe you, nmnita. There have been a lot of changes in technique over the years. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed when I think of the sheer amount of time those dears souls spent laboring in the homes. Many shortcuts.
I'm still quite a bit of a traditionalist myself thinking good things take time. Perhaps sometimes I'm wrong? It's really good to have quicker ways to do chores so we can enjoy the finer things.
I promote "bragging" here! Why not? Isn't this where we share our best with others?
Laughing now and remembering also how those women kept telling us not to appear to be too satisfied with ourselves. What was the rest of the message "or someone will take you down a notch or two?" My mom would say, "Don't tempt the Fates."
I don't remember the grandmas bragging about their cooking but all the rest of us did.
It’s a nice old thread to revive.
My grandmother lived with us after my mother died. She was a good cook. I still have her handwritten cookbook.
One thing she always made was the Bisquick Velvet Crumb cake, with either the broiled coconut topping or mocha frosting. I still make it too.
I had a family cook book that I had put together with lots of my grandmas recipes, my dad's, moms, aunts, mine and even a few of my daughters. Unfortunately when we moved from Texas to NM our moving van got stolen and there went the family recipes, never to be replaced.
My Grandmother taught my mom how to cook. This was my dad's mom. She was an excellent cook! Her roasted chicken was out of this world, when the chicken was done she would thrown in 2 cans of peas into the roasting pan with the drippings, turn up the over to 500 and let the peas crisp. Yummy! She made homemade pizza (Sicilian) and I miss her Cruschiki cookies.
in the big picture of the past decades..... my grandmothers grew up in a time..most women did not work outside of the home....they were the mothers and nesters..
they were very good at cooking/sewing, etc.
after 1980, 80% of young women went off to college more than ever before which is a good thing.... and working full time in the workplace... now the house had two incomes...can buy more outside the home for convenience like pizza and take out..
because the lady of the house no longer had all day to cook ..
fast forward to today....I think cooking is less of a chore and more of a hobby/interest...
we have unlimited kitchen gadgets and ovens …. to make things easier..
Location: Living near our Nation's Capitol since 2010
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My Dad's Mom (mother of 12 kids!) was a very plain cook. She had years of feeding a huge family, so she developed many abundant but inexpensive meals.
My grandparents lived in a HUGE old Victorian farm house on an 1100 acre farm. She did not have an electric or gas stove, she had a wood stove. She refused to give it up until they finally moved too a smaller place when they were in their 80s.
One early childhood memory I have of her was her fried chicken. She would go out in the early morning with an axe, select and kill a chicken, dress it, cut it up, and throw it into seasoned flour. Then she fried it in a combination of lard and bacon fat over a wood fire, then served it for Sunday lunch. I cant describe how delicious it was! I have never had chicken like that again. Sad to think now that I kind of thought that was how everyone cooked chicken!
Grandma also churned her own butter from the milk my Grandpa collected from their herd. She let us take turns churning and then salting the resulting butter. We drank the buttermilk left over.
What fond memories!
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