tuscl

OT:Food

Sunday, October 12, 2014 7:07 AM
Food. Growing up, I think my family did me a major disservice. They never prepared me for the miedra(shit) that passes for food in resteraunts, other people's homes, and sporting events. Here is the why and how. I grew up around real food. My folks, my grandparents, and the people around me made real food. I watched, helped, and learned how to cook by hanging around my grandparents. I'm hyper-critical of food because of my upbringing. I still hang with my Nona Maria while she makes homemade empanadas and noodles. She's 91 and has a rolling walket yet she won't eat pasta from a box. Before my Nana passed away, she taught me how to make tamales. I'd chill with her as a child, helping her out. I remember hanging with her, cleaning chiles, snapping chicken's necks, and other pre-Internet fun in the sun. I grew up mostly along California's central coast. Club_Goer knows very well where I grew up. It's Cali's old-school, cowboy country. It's where tri-tip, Pinquito beans, and salsa are the staples. It's where we use to go clamming in Pismo. It's where I shot my first wild pig(HWY 166 baby). It's where I learned how to bbq from my Pops(all boys should learn how to bbq from their dad). I guess I'm just rambling on about my youth and food but it does mean something. It shaped me. It shaped my tastebuds. My food opinions. I consider myself a foodie of sorts. Not cause I'm a snob but because I've been around. I've lucked out. Has your upbringing shaped your tastebuds? Did you grow up with good or bad food? We share stories here, not just sc adventures. With all the food talk we do, please, illuminate me with your tales.

31 comments

  • SlickSpic
    •
    10 years ago
    That's mierda.
  • sharkhunter
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    10 years ago
    Hmmm, I just noticed I'm hungry. I grew up with good food. corn, meat, and potatoes. In college I had bad food. An all you can stomach food plan. I threw up the first day I ate there. Then I lost about 30 pounds my first semester on campus. One weekend I went home and was glad I skipped out on eating anything on Friday before I left. I heard on the news hundreds of students were sick, some in the hospital due to food poisoning. The news team intervewed a student wondering why so many got sick. The student said about the bad meat, "it looked awful. It tasted awful but we ate it anyway because that was normal."
  • steve229
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    10 years ago
    ^^^^ Closet foodie
  • sharkhunter
    •
    10 years ago
    In college, I had to cut mashed potatoes with a sharp knife. I was slow to chew hamburger meat because you had to watch out for the bits of bone or hard gristle in it. Every time they invited parents, the food suddenly improved 500%. Sutdents ate cereal for dinner on a few occassions. Someone painted graffiti over the dining hall sign changing hall to hell. The student newspaper even had a bad comic strip one day where a student tried to take food out, not allowed. The food was a baby. I guess suggesting the food is like you had to be like a cannibal to eat there. They did on a few occassions have some ok food. Ice cream was good. There were almost no fat people on campus. A side benefit from starving.
  • sharkhunter
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    10 years ago
    Mmmm, bacon. Ok, I'm going to eat.
  • motorhead
    •
    10 years ago
    I totally get what you saying Slick, though my food background was totally different. Basic Midwestern farm food. What the foodies now call "comfort food". Meatloaf. Pounded Swiss Steak. Mashed potatoes. Homemade noodles and dumplings. Heavily influenced by the Amish and Mennonites in the area I grew up in Indiana. Healing spoonfuls of homemade noodles cooked in real chicken broth ladled over mounds of butter mashed potatoes was a Sunday dinner fixture. People from Indiana (and Ohio and parts of Pennsylvania) invented "double starches". Outsiders (even from as close as Chicago) never heard of - and are even grossed out by - the concept of double starches.
  • motorhead
    •
    10 years ago
    *heaping not healing
  • steve229
    •
    10 years ago
    *heaping not healing heaping helping (of their hospitality)?
  • steve229
    •
    10 years ago
    @motor - one of the "foodie" places my SB and I went to serves just the kind of food you're talking about [view link]
  • SlickSpic
    •
    10 years ago
    @Motor-Exactly. Different places, different people, yet the same vibe. I love it. Keep it coming. Or going.
  • motorhead
    •
    10 years ago
    Slick, It almost saddens me..,i drive past a place like Long John Silvers Sunday at noon and it's packed. Today's kids are missing out.
  • mikeya02
    •
    10 years ago
    Wish I grew up like you Slick. My parents families were thousands of miles away and Mom was not a gourmet cook. It was a great day when she whipped out the fish sticks and french fries. Or when Dad took us to the A&W drive in.
  • SlickSpic
    •
    10 years ago
    @Mikey-At least you have rolled tacos. People don't know bout SD and rolled tacos, not taqitos.
  • steve229
    •
    10 years ago
    @mikey - well the A&W Drive-in was pretty great. Ice cold mugs of root beer, Papa/Mama/Baby burgers. Plus some of the hot girls from school would work as carhops there. sweet!
  • Dougster
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    10 years ago
    What's a "foodie"? Synonym for "faggot"?
  • SlickSpic
    •
    10 years ago
    Haha. Dougster, before I die, we need to hang. I want you reading my obituary.
  • georgmicrodong
    •
    10 years ago
    For me it was German food. After my Dad passed, we were pretty much dirt poor, and Mom was always making stuff from scratch from the garden and local farms, and since she'd grown up in an immigrant household, that's what she knew best. German potato salad, sauerkraut, fresh made bratwurst, etc, etc. I know exactly what you mean, Slick. There's no comparison in today's restaurants for the way Mom cooked. :)
  • mikeya02
    •
    10 years ago
    ^^^ would be fun to have a poker game with some of you guys. Doug would be a crack up as dealer. (Doug) Who wants cards? Ok, two for the fag...three for the homo.....holy shit, only one for the retard...etc ...lol
  • shadowcat
    •
    10 years ago
    My grandparents on my mothers side of the family immigrated to the U.S. from Bessarabia in the 1890's. They homesteaded in North Dakota and had 14 children. They ate what they grew and hunted. The girls all learned how to cook and can food. That included cooking all sorts of wild game. When my mother left home and moved to California in 1941 her first job was as a cook in a restaurant. So she saw and learned how things were done in a restaurant. Later she gave me tips on things not to order restaurants because they would not be fresh. She also taught me how to cook. During my 27 years of marriage, I cooked 90% of the meals. My ex wife, although brought up on a poor Mexican farm could barely boil water. I taught my kids the basics and now they can hold their own in the kitchen. I can afford to eat all of my meals out but I still cook 95% of them at home. I had to laugh a few years ago when my next door friends daughter called then from San Diego. Her and her boy friend, both Notre Dame Graduates wanted to know how to boil an egg. Looks like Mickey D's still has a future. :)
  • farmerart
    •
    10 years ago
    Bless you, slick, for this topic. All the discussions about fast food joints almost make me weep. That type of food is dreck. I was raised on an isolated farm that was almost 100% self sufficient in food - beef, dairy, poultry, pork, vegetables, most fruit, grains. My Mom even went to the trouble to mill flour for bread and baking from the wheat that my Dad grew. I still yearn for the sweet taste of freshly churned butter. Fresh fruit in the winter was problematic; that was purchased in a store in town. That era of glorious food all ended for me went I left home to go to work. For the next 4 decades I lived mostly on lousy camp food or meals from small town greasy spoons. One summer when I was just starting my first company I lived in my truck to save on camp fees. I bathed (infrequently) in streams or sloughs and I ate peanut butter sandwiches or bologna sandwiches for 5 months straight. Ugh! My stomach still churns at that horrific memory. When I finally settled at Rancho farmerart I vowed to put all that crap food into the past. I built a restaurant quality kitchen in my house and I use it regularly. I enjoy cooking and I have become an excellent cook. My garden provides me with great produce and I have easy access to local supplies of excellent chicken, pork, and beef. Much of my cooking is of the 'down home' style that my Mom fed her family when I was growing up. However, I am adventurous when it comes to cuisines. I will try anything and if I like it, I will attempt to replicate it in my own kitchen. Whenever I travel I always seek out highly regarded restaurants in whatever city I may visit. The Michelin Guide is not to be scorned. I have had some divine meals in Sweden, England, France, USA, and Canada. I am also willing to try the 'street' foods wherever I travel; even 'street' food will always beat Micky D's crap. This weekend is Thanksgiving in Canada. I am alone at Rancho farmerart this weekend but I will be making myself a grand dinner all the same. Roast chicken (free range raised by a neighbour); sausage stuffing (fresh Berkshire pork raised nearby); roasted garlic mashed Yukon Gold potatoes; creamed pearl onions with sage; buttered fingerling carrots; warm salad of brussels sprouts leaves and tomatoes. Dessert will be an apple crisp made with my own Harcourt apples. All veggies from the garlic to the herbs came from my garden. Happily, food in the exploration camps of my industry is infinitely better than it was when I was starting work. Unhappily, greasy spoon food in DirtyAss, Alberta is still awful. Thank heavens for the little fridge in the F-150.
  • Clubber
    •
    10 years ago
    Has your upbringing shaped your tastebuds? Did you grow up with good or bad food? Yes, and neither. My youth was all EXCELLENT food. Back in the 50's, there was little pre-prepared food. I remember when the Royal Castle opened in town, the Burger King, the McDonald's, all the FF places. Certainly has changed!
  • steve229
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    10 years ago
    Good to see all the foodies coming out of the er, pantry. Sure, some on here will disparage you, but they're probably the same killjoys that hate pop culture references.
  • crazyjoe
    •
    10 years ago
    My childhood was cometely different as food goes. My mom was the worst cook ever. She would make macaroni and cheese from a box and it would still have dry clumps of powdered cheese in it. My brother I and I loved going out to eat or to someones house for dinner. We would stuff ourselves beyond full. When I could drive I would leave and go get taco bell. It was 100 times better. My grandma on my moms side even asked me how we survived growing on food like that. She figured we hadnt had any good food and we didn't know any better. I have an ex wife that couldnt even boil water. I ate a lot of fast food for years. In more recent . Years I have been getting beef or bison meat from local ranchers. I have become an ok cook. At least it is better than fastfood or what I grew up on
  • Duke69
    •
    10 years ago
    I used to be a chief and baker by trade...i understand you bro ham
  • mikeya02
    •
    10 years ago
    geez Art, your thanksgiving dinner sounds awesome. And your place sounds great, almost like Paradise......except for the occasional thunderous blast from your shotgun :)
  • shadowcat
    •
    10 years ago
    Art - You have mentioned your garden many times on here but the summer growing season is very short up there. Can I assume that you have a large green house and a gardener to take care of it during your many absences?
  • Estafador
    •
    10 years ago
    I grew up with "clean" food. Not necessarily organic food, but lots of plants and chicken, once in a blue steak like your supposed to, lamb even less and pork possibly moreso than chicken, but I stopped eating that a while ago. Pinto beans, black eye "ass" peas and red beans were staples in any meal and soup and not necessarily pumped with testosterone as a lot of chicken was. And being I had a bad split between meats and vegetables growing up, with vegetables outdoing the meat, and not a lot of money to spend on fast food like McDonalds and "chinese food" (which isn't chinese food at all) kept me with a very clean respiratory and digestive system. Home baked mac and cheese (none of the boxed stuff that was luxurious lunch once in a blue), collared greens, all that good ol' soul food minus the surplus of salts since we never took our greens out of a can. And I'm still slim with no gut looking to pack on the pounds. Of course that wasn't an every day thing. Still good shit either way. Of course I also had my Dominican friends bring their good food in my presence. Good stuff I say.
  • farmerart
    •
    10 years ago
    @shadowcat, Just a small greenhouse for starting seeds to be set out later in the garden - cabbage, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and tomatoes. I fire up the heat in the greenhouse in February, shut off the heat mid May. No gardener to look after things during my absences though my neighbour's wife keeps an eye on things while I'm away, mostly to water all the herb pots on my lower verandah. My fruit orchard consists of saskatoons, high bush cranberries, choke cherries, raspberries, apples, and a strawberry bed. All are hardy to the Alberta climate and require little maintenance. I mulch the strawberries with straw to keep the weeds down. An automatic drip irrigation system keeps the trees happy with moisture. The vegetable garden is mostly root crops - carrots, parsnips, potatoes, beets, radishes, garlic, onions, turnips, rutabagas or the late maturing cruciferous family - cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi. I do go crazy with tomatoes - I had 60 plants this year of 45 different varieties. I grow some broccoli, peas, and beans but I am often away at the harvest peak for those veggies so that produce will go to waste. Same straw mulch for weed control and same automatic drip irrigation system that I turn on when I am away. I freeze and preserve much of my produce or put it away in my root cellar (potatoes, carrots, apples, beets, cabbage, etc.). I also give away lots of my produce to the local food bank. I took about 200kg of tomatoes to the food bank 3 weeks ago, for example. It is not the perfect way to tend to a garden but it works for me.
  • shailynn
    •
    10 years ago
    Lol I was in the same situation as Mikeys. My dad travelled a lot for work and it was just my mom and I and a lot of nights were going through a drive thru somewhere or ordering pizza. That turned me into a very picky eater when I was young. I stayed with my grandparents a lot on the weekends and my grandfather always took my grandmother somewhere really nice on Saturday nights so I got to experience fine dining. My mom was not a good cook and my grandmother was even worse. Luckily my mom knew how to make a few staple dishes pretty good. These days I travel a lot plus I'm so damn busy when I'm at home I often eat out or pick up something to take home. Luckily there's lots of healthy options these days so I eat a lot of chicken and fish (always baked, broiled, grilled). On the weekends I will eat pasta or have a dessert as a treat. Btw farmerart - what you're doing sounds great!
  • joker44
    •
    10 years ago
    I apologize for bumping this thread with such a very late post. I first read this topic about the time of the last posts but I was too busy to write an appropriate response [and happily distracted by the baseball playoffs -- #GoRoyals] BUT, hands down it’s one of the very best OT topics in recent memory. Thanks, Slick, for the idea -- And thank you and the other members who posted about their families and the food they ate as kids. I really appreciate your willingness to share; I very much enjoyed reading your descriptions. So here’s my [woefully tardy] contribution: Both my parents’ families came from Eastern Europe. We lived in the Midwest rust belt, in a city of under 200,000 dominated by mills and factories. At the time of my birth and for several years after my parents owned and operated a neighborhood grocery store. After he sold the store my dad worked for a local wholesale company. His accounts included businesses in the city and nearby towns and villages. Among his accounts were locally-owned grocery stores and markets. Traveling to visit these accounts gave him an opportunity to stop at country markets and farm stands to buy fresh produce. During the growing season he might surprise us with fresh-picked corn-on-the-cob or strawberries. To paraphrase *motor*: Our diet was basic Midwestern made with farm fresh ingredients supplemented by my parents’ family recipes. My mother also learned new recipes from in-laws, neighbors, and people who shopped at their grocery store. Meatloaf, meat stuffed bell peppers or cabbages, casseroles, roasts, stews, soups including REAL chicken soup -- remedy for the common cold. Potatoes -- mashed, oven-baked, pan-fried, fresh cut deep fried french fries. [ The closest example today are the Five Guys fries, deep fried in peanut oil like my mom’s :-) ] A large bowl of mixed green salad with fresh tomatoes, celery, cucumbers, radishes, bell peppers etc. In the summer, homemade Cole slaw or potato salad. And a fresh vegetable. Most everything was homemade and often made from scratch, including mac & cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, baked beans, & some salad dressings. My mom even made her own BBQ sauce! Although my mother did not make her own pasta or noodles she did make her own pie crust and pastry. We had fresh fruit pies during the season. But it was during the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas that the serious baking started. My mother and her older sister made [kolache] loaves of sweet, flaky pastry enclosing swirls of various fillings -- poppy seed, apricot, cottage cheese, prune, and a walnut and raisin mix . Loaves were halved, wrapped and passed out to family and friends. Of course, the remaining loaves were frozen to be enjoyed in the weeks after New Year. So yes, Slick, I had good food as a kid and it did shape my tastes. I don’t consider myself a foodie or food snob but I do appreciate fresh food, well prepared. I tolerate fast food as a convenience not as a source of delight. Nevertheless, I wish there were more affordable restaurants making good food not corporate-franchise cookie-cutter, trendy, or gourmet *food*
  • farmerart
    •
    10 years ago
    @joker44, No apologies necessary. My thoughts about this topic are the same as yours. It was very interesting to read of other guys' food experiences.
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