Widows & Widowers Support Group
This community is dedicated to those who have lost a husband, wife, or partner. Anything is open for discussion here, with the hope that we can focus on grief, bereavement, life after loss, and continuing on after a great loss.
Something lighter before the weekend ahead, weekends which are for many of us a difficult and lonely time of the week. Cooking and food have appeared on this site many times. Food is an emotional subject for all of us.
My husband always said my cooking was the best in the world (I modestly believed him, of course). However, he always maintained that his mother's Sunday roasts were the best ever (she died many, many years ago, so I did not see her as threat in the culinary department, also being French, I did tell him I was born with the cooking gene). My daughters swear that my crepes, savoury or sweet, are the (and I quote) finest, thinnest, tastiest one in the world, to these add my chicken casseroles, my spaghetti bolognese and my chicken curry. All subjective of course.
I still feel my own mother's cooking is the best. Before I retired, I was working I a very international outfit with people originally born all over the world and when someone was feeling homesick, they would talk at length about their mother's cooking being of course the best I the world, going into details as to what they liked and remembered.
The same goes for chocolate. Every country has a different tasting chocolate and for some reason we only like the one we grew up with. I never could stomach British chocolate, I only like dark French chocolate (with one exception for the Belgian one).
Was your mother's cooking the best?
I wish you peace this weekend.
My husband always said my cooking was the best in the world (I modestly believed him, of course). However, he always maintained that his mother's Sunday roasts were the best ever (she died many, many years ago, so I did not see her as threat in the culinary department, also being French, I did tell him I was born with the cooking gene). My daughters swear that my crepes, savoury or sweet, are the (and I quote) finest, thinnest, tastiest one in the world, to these add my chicken casseroles, my spaghetti bolognese and my chicken curry. All subjective of course.
I still feel my own mother's cooking is the best. Before I retired, I was working I a very international outfit with people originally born all over the world and when someone was feeling homesick, they would talk at length about their mother's cooking being of course the best I the world, going into details as to what they liked and remembered.
The same goes for chocolate. Every country has a different tasting chocolate and for some reason we only like the one we grew up with. I never could stomach British chocolate, I only like dark French chocolate (with one exception for the Belgian one).
Was your mother's cooking the best?
I wish you peace this weekend.
It was so rich and good that I always asked for it for my birthday. My mom would make it on my birthday for me even after I got married. After my mom died ( way too soon ) my sister would make it for me when I was stressed out ( when my daughter died I think that was the only thing I are that whole first week ).
A couple of years ago my sister taught me the secret recipe, and I bought a kitchen aid mixer to make it. I've made it a bunch of times with great reviews, lol. I made one for the patients and staff at the chemo center, and made one for a guy who was having trouble keeping weight on - he gained five pounds that week I made it for him, lol. his mother asked me to make him another one, and I ended up making him three more cakes for him.
I won't share the secret, but it has five eggs, three cups of sugar and three cups of flour.
You are correct, food can have a very calming effect, and we all miss our mother's cooking.
My father taught me from about the age of 7, frequently stopping me on my way out to play baseball with my brothers to show me how to do something, ignoring all protests from me. I am grateful he didn't listen to me. My mother gave me my first cookbook for my 10th birthday - it's a sweets cookbook and I still have it - stuffed full of recipes. I don't have scrapbooks - I have cookbooks stuffed with family recipes, recipes from friends, newspaper clippings, kids drawings, etc. When Cliff and I got married, my parents gave me another cookbook, which I also still have, likewise chock full of stuff. I sold or donated 98% of my library when I moved from the US to the UK, but I held onto those cookbooks.
I have recipes handwritten by my father and mother - both long dead now, and I was the only one in the family to get them, so they are an heirloom now. I have family recipes from Cliff's family, too, including his grandmother's recipe for Swedish coffee bread (boola). I have the first grade cookbook with my older son's drawings that his class made together which includes his recipe for "Alligator Cookies." I have the recipes I developed for parties for Amaretto Peach Ice Cream in the years BC (Before Children). And then there is Cliff's crepe recipe. Viviane, his may have been Swedish and not French, but thus far I have never had one to top them. I miss his crepes, which he always made with much fanfare and theatricality. I haven't the heart to make them somehow, but I cherish the recipe. Is that weird?? Maybe someday...
My father's signature dish was his beef stew - he had customers that drove 50 miles to have it on specials day. My mother's pies and homemade candies were her best stuff - it's a cliche, but she made a killer apple pie. I knew I was a real cook when I could finally make Momma's apple pie.
Hard to say what mine is. My sons' favorite is my baked treacle ham, and my meatloaf I think. My signature dessert is a pineapple upside-down cake. Yes, I can do something other than chocolate! LOL!
I would have to say, though, that my father's beef stew still remains very much a "comfort food" dish.
Love and Hugs,
Martha
His mother made the best fried chicken I ever ate. But my grandmother made the best pies, biscuits, in the world, especially chocolate pie. My mother never cooked, she stayed in hospitals and bed. So I taught myself how to cook, and cooked for my family at home.
When I get homesick for my family that has gone, I have a lot of people to think about.