Cool, Interesting, or Bizarre Cooking Techniques Our Parents used back in the Day

[dcbc 14235]

I grew up in the 70s/80s.  And there were a ton of awful cooking techniques my mom and dad probably leaned into more than I do.  But there were some things they did that were early precursors to what probably is, today, considered a good cooking technique, hack, whathaveyou.

 

So my dad was born in 1910 (I'm 50).  He had a ranch and a stainless grill somebody made him.  For steaks, he'd throw down a bed of charcoal (usually lump).  When it burned to embers, he'd toss some soaked hickory chips and pecans (not wood, actual pecans) from the tree in the yard, stir up the coal bed so it was a circle with a big space in the middle, and toss the hickory and pecans (shells and all) into the fire.  The the steaks would go on over this diminished fire.  It was like a reverse sear, but kind of all at the same time.  Low and slow over direct fire.

 

I don't know if he taught her this, but my mom used to cook brisket back in the early 90s after he died.  I assume he did, but I didn't remember too many briskets from him.  We still had the grill.  She'd get the butcher to trim a brisket and reserve the trimmings).  She would load a brisket up with seasoned salt (Morton's Nature Seasons) and do the steak method above.  She'd leave it on over the coals for maybe 2 or 3 hours with the fat trimmings draped over the top of it.  Then, she'd bring it in and wrap it in foil and cook it in the oven at 250 until done or times up, who knows.  It was really good, but the bark was probably so-so.  Who can remember?

There are more, but what are some cool techniques or recipes you grew up with your parents' putting together that may have been early stages of what we now think of as good cooking or technique.

Edited July 30 by dcbc

[Texzilla588 765]

My dad cooked the best steaks I’ve ever had. Nothing else has come close. Weber kettle. Charcoal briquettes down to coals. . Season the steaks with salt and pepper. He made a baste with butter, lemon, worchestershire. Flipped em. Baste. Cover. Done. Rest. Eat. Perfect medium rare with perfect crust.

He also made hotcakes on Saturdays. From scratch. Used an electric griddle he’d lightly grease with bacon grease. Thin batter that were basically two sides and no inside. Awesome.

[TwiceHorn 30834]

1 hour ago, dcbc said:

I grew up in the 70s/80s.  And there were a ton of awful cooking techniques my mom and dad probably leaned into more than I do.  But there were some things they did that were early precursors to what probably is, today, considered a good cooking technique, hack, whathaveyou.

 

So my dad was born in 1910 (I'm 50).  He had a ranch and a stainless grill somebody made him.  For steaks, he'd throw down a bed of charcoal (usually lump).  When it burned to embers, he'd toss some soaked hickory chips and pecans (not wood, actual pecans) from the tree in the yard, stir up the coal bed so it was a circle with a big space in the middle, and toss the hickory and pecans (shells and all) into the fire.  The the steaks would go on over this diminished fire.  It was like a reverse sear, but kind of all at the same time.  Low and slow over direct fire.

 

I don't know if he taught her this, but my mom used to cook brisket back in the early 90s after he died.  I assume he did, but I didn't remember too many briskets from him.  We still had the grill.  She'd get the butcher to trim a brisket and reserve the trimmings).  She would load a brisket up with seasoned salt (Morton's Nature Seasons) and do the steak method above.  She'd leave it on over the coals for maybe 2 or 3 hours with the fat trimmings draped over the top of it.  Then, she'd bring it in and wrap it in foil and cook it in the oven at 250 until done or times up, who knows.  It was really good, but the bark was probably so-so.  Who can remember?

There are more, but what are some cool techniques or recipes you grew up with your parents' putting together that may have been early stages of what we now think of as good cooking or technique.

Man, I thought I won the older parents Olympics.  You got me beat by a 19 year differential.

[dcbc 14235]

6 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Man, I thought I won the older parents Olympics.  You got me beat by a 19 year differential.

The fertile octogenarian.  He was a bad ass.

Edited July 27 by dcbc

[sith_horn 2322]

29 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Man, I thought I won the older parents Olympics.  You got me beat by a 19 year differential.

I've got you beat by a good many years as well, but not dcbc.

I can't think of any unusual cooking techniques off hand. Dad was an excellent cook however. Better than mom and she was a good cook. Similar to Texzilla588's father, mine made the best waffles from scratch I've ever had on an old electric waffle iron probably made in the 40's or 50's.

 

 

[TwiceHorn 30834]

My Dad, born in 1921, didn't know how to cook for shit.  He went from high school, to college, to USN during WW2, back to college, and then married.  He never had any kind of bachelorhood.  Dad was a bad ass in the sense of always taking care of business, but, as an educated white guy had a leg up on everyone else.

A comical anecdote:  Dad was a big milk drinker all his life, such that keeping a gallon of milk in the fridge often drove Mom's grocery shopping.   For a while, he was always the first up in the house and would make himself a bowl of cereal for breakfast.  One morning, Mom had fucked up and we had run out of milk.  There was a 2-liter bottle of grape soda sitting on the counter.  That's what he poured on his cereal. Grape Nuts, IIRC.

[South Austin 51564]

Microwaving bacon.

[RPM 26090]

My BIL used to make a wok out of a plow disc. Put a couple handles on and it worked pretty f'n good over a campfire.

[NeverMarryAStripper 21765]

My dad could make the world’s best peanut brittle and he taught me all of his secrets.  

[sith_horn 2322]

12 hours ago, dcbc said:

The fertile octogenarian.  He was a bad ass.

This made me laugh, because it brought back a memory when I was about 14 years old. I was doing something I don't recall out front one morning near a stand-alone car port near our 1949 Allis Chalmers WD tractor where I grew up in rural east Texas. Father was standing about 40 feet away and caught sight of me. He looked at me, got a big grin on his face as he came walking over and said, "Son, do you know that every precaution known to mankind was taken to prevent you from happening?"

I shook my head and said, "No dad, I didn't know that." Of course, it came as no shock as it made perfect sense because father was not a young man and had already sired four children from two of three previous marriages, followed by my older sister and brother by my mother, his fourth and final wife. He wasn't looking to have any more.

At this point his grin got even bigger while nodding his head emphatically and said, "Yes, that's right."

To which I replied, "Well, I guess it's no wonder then why I'm such a strong swimmer."

He had a good laugh at that and said, "You weren't planned son, but I sure hit the right nut when I got you."

Ok, so as not to be totally off topic in this post. Neither mother nor father did much grilling. I learned a lot about cooking from both mom and dad by just observing them in the kitchen. And I was cooking substantial meals by the time I was in 3rd grade. Pork chops, mashed potatoes, eggs, fried chicken, etc. But when it came to grilling, my brother and I usually did that simply because, we pretty much had to if we were going to have it at home. I still remember the first time I grilled a ribeye steak. I had found a hibachi grill in our barn when we moved out to east Texas from Dallas. We didn't have any charcoal on hand, but we had no shortage of deadfall from several huge post oaks on our place. I gathered up well seasoned pieces for that hibachi grill and waited until they were reduced to embers and made a damn fine steak with it. That was my introduction to the wonderfull smoke flavor post oak imparts to meat and the first time I ever actually made note to myself assigning a type of hardwood highly desirable for that purpose.

Edited July 27 by sith_horn
Correct tractor year. It was a 1949, not '46, Allis Chalmers.

[Rip76 4880]

My Grandmother and Mother were very good cooks. 

Granny was from New Iberia, and basically passed along everything she knew to my mother.  Mom then passed that down to my older brother and to me.

My brother sort of ran with it all and was a Chef for many years in the Kemah/Seabrook area.  (We started a restaurant together that lasted for a couple of years - some of you know about this).  There weren't too many techniques that I can think of, but there is one I learned from my brother regarding making gumbo.

Over the years my brother made many a gumbo.  Normally after getting a roux the way you like it, you add the trinity to it and cook that down.  Then add your liquids etc, etc.  Well he taught me to make the roux first, put it to the side and cook the veggies down, then liquids then add your roux to that.  And that is the way I have always done it.  I think he started doing that because just ruining a roux is easier (at a restaurant) than having to start over with everything.  

Anyway, that's one that I can think of.

Dad made the best homemade popcorn in the history of popcorn.  (The combination of the right amount of popcorn salt, butter and the oil heated to the perfect temp.)  Paired with Budweiser in a can with salt on the rim.  I've tried to make it as good, but it's just not.

I love these stories.  

 

[locodos 5230]

My dad had recipes for food cooked on the exhaust manifold of various cars / boats.   He'd make things wrap them in foil and cook them on his way somewhere.   Not the best food ever, but you'd never know it was cooked on a chevy 350 for 45mins at 3200rpm.

Some of the fish dishes were very good.

Edited July 27 by locodos
forgot about the fish

[Texzilla588 765]

My dad could make the world’s best peanut brittle and he taught me all of his secrets.  

My dad also made killer peanut brittle learning after breaking a tooth on the thick commercial stuff. He figured out how to make it thin but solid enough to hold its integrity. Once he got a bushel of salt roasted Virginia peanuts and he decided he would make brittle with them. We spent a couple days shelling them and then he made his brittle. That juice wasn’t worth the squeeze he decided.

He wasn’t a regular cook. Certain things he wanted and he figured them out. Younguns don’t understand true seasonality. Red seedless grapes back then were in season cheap about two weeks a year. He learned how to freeze them on cookie sheets and we had bags of them.

He put in a garden every spring but was often on the road chasing bandits. I was the unpaid “gardener”. I had strict instructions on things like okra; he made a gauge out of a ruler that showed me the perfect lengths to make sure they were long enough but not woody. Sweet corn never went in the freezer. It was poached as picked. Huge pot on the boil with sugar in the water. Cut the correct ears and shuck and desilk. Into the pot in less than ten minutes to keep sugar from going to starch. Heat off. Poach. Out on platter with butter and salt on the table. Might be three ears a piece, might be a dozen. You are nothing else . He had been a physics major so everything was a precise measurement.

Mom was a housewife of the 50’s and 60’s. Convenience foods were are tried .magazine recipes.

[sith_horn 2322]

13 minutes ago, locodos said:

My dad had recipes for food cooked on the exhaust manifold of various cars / boats.   He'd make things wrap them in foil and cook them on his way somewhere.   Not the best food ever, but you'd never know it was cooked on a chevy 350 for 45mins at 3200rpm.

Some of the fish dishes were very good.

My uncle also did this. He was in the military and used this method on road trips in "old blue", a chevy suburban, with his family. We would meet them at state parks while they were passing through Texas for occasional family reunions.

[dcbc 14235]

Good stuff.  Keep them coming.

 

@South Austin Microwave bacon.  We definitely went through this phase.  My mom even bought special cooking apparatuses for the bacon to sit on in the microwave because . . . healthier.  

 

Like I mentioned before some of the recipes are a product of their time with the cream of mushroom soup thrown in for good measure.  Others---chicken fried steak, King Ranch chicken, etc.---were incredible, but nothing out of the ordinary.  Morton's Nature Seasons was on everything because, as my mom believed, "You cannot oversalt with it."  Narrator:  You can, but it's a pretty good seasoned salt nonetheless.  A lot of the better recipes didn't get made as often because she considered them to be a lot of work and a big mess.  But they were good.

 

When she was younger, she took a cue from her second husband (Dad died in 1990), and wrote her autobiography.  It was just for the family, but she worked really hard on it, self-published it in a hardbound book, and gave it out to us one Christmas years ago.  It's the coolest thing.  There are so many great stories.  I read it to my kids when they were younger and really treasure it.  As a corollary, she also put together a cookbook with a lot of the recipes she made over the years.  It's got a spiral binding with the idea that it could be added to, but she never did.  The pages all are laminated.  The amounts in some of the recipes seem off (she did a lot of cooking on the fly), but my wife has added notes to keep them updated or corrected.  The cornbread recipe gets made regularly (it was my grandmother's).  But I know that one by heart.

[PantsTent 1995]

As a kid I always liked the bbq chicken my dad and uncles would make.  Homemade pit had no fire box so the fire was built off to the side and would shovel the coals as needed directly under the meat.  I guess the technique part is the mop sauce.  Saute onions and maybe bell peppers in some butter, then add more butter, a little vinegar and Worcestershire, and some salt and pepper I think.  The mop was in the freezer from last time.

The pit had a busted thermometer on the lid with no cover over the needle.  They would tell all the kids that it was to control the heat.  Fire's getting hot, better turn it down a bit, followed by pushing the needle to a lower temp.  Once you were old enough to realize they were full of shit, you got to help convince the younger cousins. 

[Underdog 28118]

5 hours ago, South Austin said:

Microwaving bacon.

Will have this with cereal, muffins every so often... 

 

Dad thought it was a good idea to mix up a can.of tomato soup with a can of Spanish rice, it was not a good idea. 

 

 

Edited July 27 by Underdog

[South Austin 51564]

Sizzlelean or GTFO.

[next2naus 436]

my dad was born in rural Wisconsin back in '36. All bias aside, then man could cook circles around everyone of you and your families. I shit you not. He learned what tasted like shit from the Navy but it also helped him find was was amazing and different from his travels in that Submarine. He spent time in SEA with the Ford Foundation in the 60's and his "work" kept him traveling all over North America. Wisconsin State Journal came to house and did a story about his Chinese cooking, meals were planned and executed around the writings of James Beard and Craig Claiborne. He would drive out of his way to find small restaurants and markets and make friends with the proprietors and learn new shit from them. I won't ever order sweet & sour pork anywhere because its just crap everywhere and not like how dad made it. Same for Ratatouille. He traveled 2 to 3 days a week, and. loved it when he was home because I missed him but also because of the food he'd make, sometime friend tofu, always made in the garage in one of the plug in electric fryers or I;d find dough rising on the counter for homemade pizza, always thing crispy crust. 

Ice Cream...he made a mean homemade ice cream, usually it went into a float. We most him in '88 and I still see him on my mind in the kitchen, apron on. 

[dcbc 14235]

7 hours ago, next2naus said:

my dad was born in rural Wisconsin back in '36. All bias aside, then man could cook circles around everyone of you and your families. I shit you not. He learned what tasted like shit from the Navy but it also helped him find was was amazing and different from his travels in that Submarine. He spent time in SEA with the Ford Foundation in the 60's and his "work" kept him traveling all over North America. Wisconsin State Journal came to house and did a story about his Chinese cooking, meals were planned and executed around the writings of James Beard and Craig Claiborne. He would drive out of his way to find small restaurants and markets and make friends with the proprietors and learn new shit from them. I won't ever order sweet & sour pork anywhere because its just crap everywhere and not like how dad made it. Same for Ratatouille. He traveled 2 to 3 days a week, and. loved it when he was home because I missed him but also because of the food he'd make, sometime friend tofu, always made in the garage in one of the plug in electric fryers or I;d find dough rising on the counter for homemade pizza, always thing crispy crust. 

Ice Cream...he made a mean homemade ice cream, usually it went into a float. We most him in '88 and I still see him on my mind in the kitchen, apron on. 

Right on.  Now let's hear about the techniques and recipes.  Unless we carry that stuff on, it just hangs on the cloud of memory.

[Tylerocks 2532]

 

The aforementioned microwave bacon tray.

 

No real techniques, but my childhood (late 70's and 80's) consisted of a shitload of casseroles and crockpot meals.

3 of my favorites, which surprisingly I haven't tried to re-create as often as I should:

King Ranch Chicken

Chicken Tetrazini

Beef Tips over rice

 

 

[Texzilla588 765]

My uncle also did this. He was in the military and used this method on road trips in "old blue", a chevy suburban, with his family. We would meet them at state parks while they were passing through Texas for occasional family reunions.

The guy that developed this was on all the talk shows and carson back in the 70’s. He’d put an aluminum packet on the engine of a New York taxi then they’d go down and eat it . It was an idea to keep from heating up an up air conditioned house in the summer. Take your meal to work. Throw it on the block for the commute home. Eat with a nuance of Castrol and Quaker State.

Then a dude started doing meals cooked in your dishwasher. Nope.

[Texzilla588 765]

I buy huge packs of hormel ready cooked bacon at Sam’s and it’s fine for sandwiches or salads. I also buy bags of hormel crumbled bacon which is great to add as a flavoring to all kinds of things

[Deej 76156]

My mom was a wizard at mixing canned meat with mayo, mustard, pickle relish, and seasoning and sending us to school with some sort of mushy sandwich.

[WBT 20212]

5 hours ago, Tylerocks said:

 

The aforementioned microwave bacon tray.

 

 

Best way to cook bacon.  Also easy to pour the grease off into a coffee can for later use.

Edited July 28 by WBT

[Texzilla588 765]

My mom was a wizard at mixing canned meat with mayo, mustard, pickle relish, and seasoning and sending us to school with some sort of mushy sandwich.

We had tuna fish all the time but she’d sometimes do that putting ham or leftover roast thru her meat grinder for a salad. I loved that stuff.

[Judge Roybeanbag 11728]

Just now, Texzilla588 said:

We had tuna fish all the time but she’d sometimes do that putting ham or leftover roast thru her meat grinder for a salad. I loved that stuff.

My mom made deviled tongue salad one time.  A actually liked it.

[CooterBrown 17724]

The one thing I don’t quite understand is all the dudes in the 70s and 80s mopping BBQ. I remember it happening, I know the mop recipe my family used. But I don’t even remember what they were mopping. I don’t think it was brisket or ribs.

[CTC2 2641]

Had farming grandparents in East Texas. Every summer all my cousins would come up and we had to work in the fields for a week.  
My grandmother would fix us a lunch. She would take potatoes and cut them into round slices, fry and season, put them in between two pieces of Wonder Bread with mustard.  Sounds gross to me now but back then it was awesome.  She would also include a broken piece of that red peanut patty. 100% sugar for energy.  I’d go into a diabetic coma if I ate one today. 
I can also attest that pimento cheese sandwiches made out of that 70’s government pasteurized cheese product and Wonder Bread was pretty damn good. 

[Texzilla588 765]

She likely fried the taters in bacon fat. My parents kept a huge crock of it. Depression food. When most of us were poors. Though they didn’t have pre sliced bread back then.

My old man would grow tomatoes and when they came in we’d have tomato sandwiches. Most of us have. But he’d go back to his Depression years growing up and make a BGLT…bacon grease, lettuce, tomato. He’d griddle the bread in bacon grease. So fucking good.

Mom was picking cotton at 5. Think about that. I looked at my eldest granddaughter when she was heading to kindergarten. And thought of my mom at the same age, pulling a long bag in the Texas heat, cutting her hands and legs up on cotton plants, getting slapped by my grandmother to speed up. Going home to a tarpaper shack with a dirt floor and eating greens and leftover cornbread. Life was so hard back then and they were so tough. She never complained about it but was less nostalgic than dad about the food from then.

[Masshole Horn 759]

On 7/27/2024 at 10:59 AM, Rip76 said:

Over the years my brother made many a gumbo.  Normally after getting a roux the way you like it, you add the trinity to it and cook that down.  Then add your liquids etc, etc.  Well he taught me to make the roux first, put it to the side and cook the veggies down, then liquids then add your roux to that.  And that is the way I have always done it.  I think he started doing that because just ruining a roux is easier (at a restaurant) than having to start over with everything.  

I discovered this technique on my own. I like it especially for sausage gumbos. I develop a nice fond and deglaze with trinity.

 

My dad's parents lived on a lake in Minnesota about an hour north of MSP. In the summer we'd take a bunch of local sweet corn, remove the silk, and wrap in wet newspaper and foil. We'd build a big bonfire and once it was down to coals, we'd toss the corn in and cover with coals. I think we left it on for an hour or so. Best damn corn I've ever eaten.

[next2naus 436]

my old man was known for his Eggnog.

 

[dcbc 14235]

On 7/27/2024 at 10:59 AM, Rip76 said:

Over the years my brother made many a gumbo.  Normally after getting a roux the way you like it, you add the trinity to it and cook that down.  Then add your liquids etc, etc.  Well he taught me to make the roux first, put it to the side and cook the veggies down, then liquids then add your roux to that.  And that is the way I have always done it.  I think he started doing that because just ruining a roux is easier (at a restaurant) than having to start over with everything.  

I'm intrigued.  What's the advantage here?  Is the danger that you'll burn your roux while sauteing the veggies in it?

[Rip76 4880]

33 minutes ago, dcbc said:

I'm intrigued.  What's the advantage here?  Is the danger that you'll burn your roux while sauteing the veggies in it?

I believe so yes.

From yesterday.  😊

 

 

[Masshole Horn 759]

1 hour ago, dcbc said:

I'm intrigued.  What's the advantage here?  Is the danger that you'll burn your roux while sauteing the veggies in it?

I prefer to brown my proteins before I add the roux; Not sure how much Maillard you get from cooking chicken, duck, sausage, etc... in the roux and you inevitably lose a bunch of that flavor transferring from a separate pan.

[Classic Rock 256]

My Grandfather kept a Fry Daddy on his back porch. I don't think he ever changed the oil. He fried oysters, fish, pork chops, and fries. Fries were always cooked at the end of what ever he was making because he said it helped clean the oil. I did see him strain the oil every so often, but I don't think he ever changed it. I called it the cooking oil equivalent of Perpetual Stew.

[huge 3774]

10 minutes ago, Classic Rock said:

My Grandfather kept a Fry Daddy on his back porch. I don't think he ever changed the oil. He fried oysters, fish, pork chops, and fries. Fries were always cooked at the end of what ever he was making because he said it helped clean the oil. I did see him strain the oil every so often, but I don't think he ever changed it. I called it the cooking oil equivalent of Perpetual Stew.

I came to post this

[Sbbruin 21587]

My dad passed down this awesome chili recipe.

[CTC2 2641]

2 hours ago, Classic Rock said:

My Grandfather kept a Fry Daddy on his back porch. I don't think he ever changed the oil. He fried oysters, fish, pork chops, and fries. Fries were always cooked at the end of what ever he was making because he said it helped clean the oil. I did see him strain the oil every so often, but I don't think he ever changed it. I called it the cooking oil equivalent of Perpetual Stew.

I remember my father putting a wooden match in the oil and when it flared it was hot enough for the fish to go in. 

[Deej 76156]

 

[texashorne 1177]

My dad couldn't cook for shit. But when we went to the deer lease, this responsibility fell on him. Pork and beans were eaten cold with bologna sandwiches. Ranch style beans were heated up; the can put directly over the fire. And he always though he was masterchef when he poured Coors light over the burgers to give them flavor. Said burgers were actually giant meatballs because he couldn't form the patty properly. 

[pops 6956]

Mom's parents were poor as fuck dirt farmers but got damn could my grandpa cook. 

They had 9 kids so when we all got together for cookouts there were a grundle of us but it was always the same meal. Fried chicken, Dutch oven potatoes and Dutch oven peach cobbler.   

It was an all hands on deck affair.  Once you were about five you were allowed to go chase the chickens.  At 10 you could watch them get their heads cut off. At 12, it was your job.  There girls then de feathered.  

Chicken was fried in the Folgers cans full of bacon grease.   Potatoes and onions from the garden in another dutch oven.  All sliced razor thin on what I can only assume passed for a mandolin in the 30's or whenever my grandpa got it. They would splurge and put a few slices of Velveeta on top at the end.  Salt and lots and lots of black pepper.  

Peaches for the cobbler were from the orchard.  

What I wouldn't give for one of those dutch ovens. And one last serving of those potatoes. But my mom was the youngest and shit was all claimed by older siblings/cousins after they died. 

[Texzilla588 765]

On my dad’s side family get togethers usually included that most dreaded of Texas food traditions : the congealed salad. My grandmother and her sisters would make these awful things. Like lemon jello with tuna fish, pineapple and pecans. Or lime jello with mayo and sour cream with pimentos, peaches, ham, and marshmallows. Awful. My dad just made me try a bite of everything. If I didn’t like it fine. But those jello salads were always terrible.

[Hook1997 5239]

My parents didn’t cook.  I mean mom made a salsbury steak with parsley that was actually good and spaghetti and that’s about it.  My dad put things in the crockpot occasionally including mushrooms from our septic runoff before…. I lived off Swanson potpies that my dad would but a ton of when they went on sale for like 2 for a dollar and el patio microwave dinners when they did the same kinda sale….  I swear we weren’t actually poor growing up. lol. I was just a last late child that raised themselves.  But holy cow neither of my parents could cook, me and my siblings really appreciate nice food now though because of it.  

Edited July 30 by Hook1997

[ImissWallyPryor 9044]

On 7/27/2024 at 10:00 AM, locodos said:

My dad had recipes for food cooked on the exhaust manifold of various cars / boats.   He'd make things wrap them in foil and cook them on his way somewhere.   Not the best food ever, but you'd never know it was cooked on a chevy 350 for 45mins at 3200rpm.

Some of the fish dishes were very good.

I had many a can of Chef Boyardee heated on the exhaust manifold of oil rig diesel generators. Yours sound better. 

[ImissWallyPryor 9044]

My sisters and I always had fond memories of my mother’s cooking, especially her potato salad, casseroles, and deserts. However, we discovered a darker side of her after she died when we found some contributions she made to her church’s cookbooks. Truly horrific recipes like a jello salad made with canned salmon and canned asparagus. Just awful sounding concoctions that we kept just for laughs. 

Edited July 30 by ImissWallyPryor

[dcbc 14235]

5 hours ago, ImissWallyPryor said:

My sisters and I always had fond memories of my mother’s cooking, especially her potato salad, casseroles, and deserts. However, we discovered a darker side of her after she died when we found some contributions she made to her church’s cookbooks. Truly horrific sounding recipes like a jello salad made with canned salmon and canned asparagus. Just awful sounding concoctions that we kept just for laughs. 

Those church cookbooks are usually a pretty mixed bag.  Good on her for throwing some stinkers in there to teach lessons to the uninitiated.

[Al_4_ISU 12229]

On 7/26/2024 at 8:20 PM, dcbc said:

I grew up in the 70s/80s.  And there were a ton of awful cooking techniques my mom and dad probably leaned into more than I do.  But there were some things they did that were early precursors to what probably is, today, considered a good cooking technique, hack, whathaveyou.

 

So my dad was born in 1910 (I'm 50).  He had a ranch and a stainless grill somebody made him.  For steaks, he'd throw down a bed of charcoal (usually lump).  When it burned to embers, he'd toss some soaked hickory chips and pecans (not wood, actual pecans) from the tree in the yard, stir up the coal bed so it was a circle with a big space in the middle, and toss the hickory and pecans (shells and all) into the fire.  The the steaks would go on over this diminished fire.  It was like a reverse sear, but kind of all at the same time.  Low and slow over direct fire.

 

I don't know if he taught her this, but my mom used to cook brisket back in the early 90s after he died.  I assume he did, but I didn't remember too many briskets from him.  We still had the grill.  She'd get the butcher to trim a brisket and reserve the trimmings).  She would load a brisket up with seasoned salt (Morton's Nature Seasons) and do the steak method above.  She'd leave it on over the coals for maybe 2 or 3 hours with the fat trimmings draped over the top of it.  Then, she'd bring it in and wrap it in foil and cook it in the oven at 250 until done or times up, who knows.  It was really good, but the bark was probably so-so.  Who can remember?

There are more, but what are some cool techniques or recipes you grew up with your parents' putting together that may have been early stages of what we now think of as good cooking or technique.

And here I was feeling over the hill having a kid at 38.

[huge 3774]

41 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

And here I was feeling over the hill having a kid at 38.

Married at 38, had second kid at 43.  Missed dbcb's dad by 20 years.

[stc 1441]

my parents recently bought a new microwave and needed help getting rid of the old one. i picked it up for them and noticed it was the same GE microwave i remembered from childhood. the date on the back was 1979...a 45 year old microwave! it still works too, the only reason they got a new one was because the interior light went out.