Foods today and yesterday

Too many foods to name!
Wow! Where to start? Ice cold buttermilk? "Real" buttermilk - from Guernsey cows. Churn the super-thick cream by hand in an old-fashioned dasher churn. Leave a few lumps of butter in the poured-off liquid. (Not as many calories as one might think.) Chill thoroughly. Hm-m, hm-m, good!

mine would be hawaiian foods. the foods i remember growing up with. the new commercially available foods are pretty decent, but don't compare to the original.

My mothers home made, from scratch, chicken and dumplings. Nothing better on the planet especially on a damp rainy day.

My gradmothers recipes of soups, pies, cakes, etc.... I miss her cooking.

Good question, cavfancier

Of course, it's still possible to make most products that most people usually buy...and make them so much better/more authentic than the supermarket versions.

Bread - can be a hit-or-miss event to bake oneself, but everyone should try it at least a few times.

Mayonnaise - there is little comparison between home-made mayonnaise and Hellmans...but you don't want to do that every time you want mayo in a sandwich!

Stock - the most work and ingrediens for flavoured water! But it is so much better than just water or a (poor) stock cube.

Houmous - so easy to make and delicious variety of outcomes is possible.

But if I have to concentrate on one item on which so many people miss out, it would be home made cakes, scones etc. My grandmothers always made their own, and the process of making them, the smell of the kitchen as they bake and the delicious lightness of a pure sponge made of butter, sugar, flour and eggs, with a very simple flavouring is unbeatable!

Hey KitchenPete, amazingly, when made with very fresh eggs, fresh mayo will keep for a week or so in the fridge, even with the raw egg. We generally have a little homemade and a little Hellman's in the fridge on any given day. Everything else you mentioned I generally make myself, except I am only proficient in a couple kinds of breads and quick breads...that is indeed a whole other art.

I was lucky enough to learn baking from my grandmother, but it still took years to transfer her teachings into "every-time" successful recipes, but the point is, I learned, that instinct always wins out in the end.

I am thinking....how about a chance to taste real Greek wine from an amphora....thousands of years old? Wine originated there, and it is only speculation as to how it would have really tasted...my guess is something like Mavrodaphne (a very reasonably priced substitute for Tawny Port, btw), but to try the real thing....hmm....

Amen to the stock, KP! It's wonderful you get a sauce made from real stock, instead of something out of a package.

Homemade jam comes to mind, from selfpicked berries, oh joy!

My grandmother's recipe for potato knishes, which none of us (my mother, my aunt, my cousins and me) can seem to get quite right. She never wrote the recipe down, but you can see her making knishes in, of all places, the old home movies of my mother's Sweet Sixteen party. :-D

uh, my mother made codfish cakes from canned codfish, in the fifities, near chicago. Added potatoes, etc. But I am wondering about that can....

signed, purist food person, mostly

I always loved the homemade stuff so much that I make tons of stuff from scratch. Every year during the season we pick berries from the local u-picks, which includes strawberries and raspberries. We also pick blueberries, but those are free because they grow wild next to our house along the woods. I make enough homemade jam with those to last throughout the year and since we get lots of those berries, we freeze the rest in our deep freeze and use them for pies, tarts, etc. We also buy peaches when in season and I jar them so we have plenty for the year. Apples are another thing we like to buy, prepare, and freeze. In the summer I grow tons of stuff that I also freeze and jar for the year. People wonder what I do with all the stuff I plant for just a family of 3, but nothing goes to waste because I am constantly making homemade soups, chili, spaghetti sauce, stuffed peppers, stews, etc... I also love to make homemade bread, but I do cheat there because I use a bread machine. I even make my own wine, lol! To me, nothing beats homemade. I never use pestisides in my garden, so it's great to know that all my veggies are chemical free. Now that I've said all that, I'm itching to start gardening again in the spring :-)

My grandmother made great knishes, too, jespah, but I miss her blintzes more...

I still make cookies from scratch. You just can't beat the taste.

Or my mom's cinnamon rolls!

Nice thread! Now I'm hungry.....

I'm going to go off and start a few new ones asking for recommended recipes for some of these things. Don't want to muck up the thread here. I'll post the links for anyone whose interested in posting recipes.

Not to divert attention. Keep those memories coming <stomach growl>

Here are some of the recipe threads I've started - will just keep posting them in this response:


Hummus, Chicken Stock, Mayonnaise, Tomato Sauce, Creamy Soups, Tartare

Dang jespah, my great Aunt took her perfect knish recipe to her grave I have had some success with reproducing it, but it is never the same as I remember.

ossobuco, was thinking....could use good-quality salted cod (should be flexible and meaty, not thin and dry as a board), soaked a couple of days and follow a traditional crab cake recipe, substituting the crab for cod and get a very nice cod cake indeed.

cav, I should send you the video of Mom's Sweet Sixteen. Maybe you can figure out what the hell Baba was doing to make the knishes.

Heh heh, Jespah, lots of schmaltz, methinks....