What are some of the "comfort foods" you remember eating as a child? Some of my favorites were homecanned applesauce (my mother always added a touch of vanilla extract), my grandmother's hot rolls and peach cobbler. I might make some peach cobbler for dinner tonight.

Thanks for reading.

-- Dianne in Mass (dianne.bone@usa.net), June 01, 2001

Answers

Hand cranked strawberry ice cream! I would not have been legally responsible for my actions if someone got between me and the freezer when it was done (be careful around a six year old with a bowl and serving spoon :>)

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), June 01, 2001.

Mine are a tad differant. My family is Polish and I lived with my Polish Grandma. We had homemade kielbasa (the fresh type..not the smoked kind you buy at the grocery store), peirogis (kind of a filled noodle), glumpkies (stuffed cabbage), czaninia (duck soup), babbka (coffeecake. If Grandma was away for some reason during supper time, my Grandpa (who was not Polish) use to fry up a huge pan of fried potates, onions and fried ring bologna. Grandma also made great macaroni and cheese and the best fried chicken and the cookie jar was ALWAYS full!

Grandpa is gone now but Grandma now lives with us. She is 91 years old and only uses a cane from time to time. She doesn't cook any more but loves it when I make the old Polish foods for her from time to time.

Thanks for the great question...it has been nice remembering the happy younger days today!

-- Karen (db0421@yahoo.com), June 01, 2001.

Hay Dianne - A THICK slice of Hot Homemade Bread with fresh strawberry jam and a glass of COLD milk. My mom also made the best chocolate cake, with boiled frosting - all the boyfriends loved it - and as hard as I try I have yet to duplicate it.

-- Betsy Koehnlein (betsyk@pathwaynet.com), June 01, 2001.

Okay you guys; my mouth's watering! *grin*

My grandmother made cornbread sticks in a cast iron stick pan, then served hot with our own home-made maple syrup... (sigh)

My other grandmother ALWAYS made the most incredable coconut cream pie whenever I was going to visit. It was wonderful to be that loved!

Our family's favorite meal is Curried Tuna served over rice with Brussel Sprouts. My sister and I lord it over our brother since we've figured out the 'recipe'. It's one of those "add until it looks right" recipes! *grin*

Randle

-- Randle Gay (rangay@hotmail.com), June 01, 2001.

Mmmm... peach cobbler sounds good!! So do all the rest - you guys are making me hungry!!!

My all time absolute favorite is Mom's 'from scratch' lemon meringue pie... Followed closely by her French Apple... Mmmmm!!

-- Sue Diederich (willow666@rocketmail.com), June 01, 2001.

Us LiveOaks being Southern trees this here's my idea of comfort foods:

Potroast with rice and gravy, fried yellow squash, okra, or eggplant, field peas w/pot liquor, greens (turnips or mustards), and iced tea.

For desert, well that could be homemade banana pudding, homemade coconut cake, key lime pie or a slice of ice cold watermelon.

Homemade peach cobbler or peach ice cream made from the peaches you picked that morning ranks right up there too!

Damn, I gotta stop. Just ate my midday meal and I'm hungy again!

={(Oak)-

-- LiveOak (oneliveoak@yahoo.com), June 01, 2001.

My grandmas rassberry jam, sweet tart, Havent had it in 10 years as she passed on and I tried her reciepe but it turns out to sweet.Heaven is her jam on fresh baked warm bread.A close second my moms home frys!

-- kathy h (ckhart55@earthlink.net), June 01, 2001.

Oh gee, I hope I'm not throwing a wet blanket on this group munch-a- thon -- but here goes:

If this merry list is any indication, our favorite comforts are home- made foods. I often wonder what the comfort foods of my kids and future grandkids will be: McD's? Carl's Jr. fries? Wal-mart lazagna? Lay's Sour Cream and Onion chips? What are WE cooking these days, that will comfort our children when they are OUR age?

For my kids, I think it will be homegrown basil pesto on homemade pasta -- or potato pancakes. We ate an awful lot of them when we were ... uh... financially undersolvent. This was food we were glad to have because there wasn't much else. We always think of them with anticipation (and relief!).

-- Anita Evangelista (evangel@atlascomm.net), June 01, 2001.

You people sound overfed! As a kid the only comfort food was bologina sandwiches on white bread with mayo. They were a comfort because I could get them myself and there was allways enought to make a sandwich.

-- mitch hearn (moopups1@aol.com), June 01, 2001.

All sounds so good!!! When we were children, my brother always got homemade strawberry ice cream on his birthday in June, right at the peak of strawberrry season. Mine is in May, so I got vanilla. I can still feel those times every time I taste that delicious ice cream. Thanks for the memory, Jay.

I'd love to have Sue's lemon meringue pie recipe. That's always been one of my favorites. And I agree with Betsy about the fresh bread and stramberry jam. The best slice of bread is always the first one right out of the oven.

When you fry up your yellow squash, Live Oak, do you fry it with onions and a lot of pepper? That's how Mama always made it. Delicious!!

I can remember All Day Meetings at Church. We'd break from preaching around noon and retire to the church yard for lunch. All the church ladies always put out their "best". Tables and tables loaded down with the absolute best home cooking anyone every tasted. Rows and rows of pies and cakes of every kind, all kinds of salads, deviled eggs, and plenty of ham and biscuits and gallons of iced tea and lemonade. Boy, that really takes me back. I guess now-a-days, people would hesitate to eat food from people they didn't know well, but I sure miss those all day meetings!

-- Dianne in Mass (dianne.bone@usa.net), June 01, 2001.

The first thing that comes to my mind is a bowl of my Grandma's fresh homemade noodles with plenty of real butter melted on them! Her "s" cookies were always plentiful and there was always a bucket in the 'fridge with feta cheese floating in brine to spear a hunk of (Grandpa was Greek). I'm kind of sentimental about red pop and 50/50 too. And "push-ups" from the "corner store". Treats that we didn't get at home.

-- Jean (schiszik@tbcnet.com), June 01, 2001.

I also liked Anita's response. What are the comfort foods our children will remember? I've pretty much always cooked from scratch although I don't cook fancy. Both children are grown now, but are always calling home asked how to make different "home cooked dishes". I finally decided to write up a "Mom's Tried & True Recipes (Taste tested by Dad.)" cookbook as Christmas presents for both of them. The recipes in this book include all their favorites like Macaroni & Cheese (not from the box!), Shepard's Pie, Fruit Cobbler, Pineapple Pie, Deviled Eggs, Granny's Vegetable Soup, Ma's yeast rolls, etc. All the "comfort foods" they grew up with. They both loved it!

-- Dianne in Mass (dianne.bone@usa.net), June 01, 2001.

Mom's home-made cinnamon rolls as big as a salad plate! She seems to always have had fried cucumbers going when I'd get home from swimming so now whenever I go swimming I crave fried cucumbers. On Sundays we almost always had a roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, home-canned green beans, home-made noodles, cole-slaw, and some type of home-made pie for dessert. I sure didn't know how good I had it, and I sure miss my Mom.

-- debra in ks (solid-dkn@msn.com), June 01, 2001.

Grandma's canned crabapples, Grandpa's huckleberry pie, raspberries in heavy cream for breakfast, and my dad's buttermilk pancakes with fried fish on the side.

I think my kids will remember my dad's pancakes as he makes them every visit for them and they will remember my beans and cornbread that I make for their Grandpa when he is here.

-- Laura (LadybugWrangler@hotmail.com), June 01, 2001.

Popcorn with lots of real butter, homemade macaroni & cheese, french frys and onion rings (of course also homemade), and fast becoming another favorite: grilled cheese & vidalia onion on 12 grain bread sandwiches.

-- Rose Marie Wild (wintersongfarm@yahoo.com), June 01, 2001.

P.S. Why don't any of these comfort foods sound really healthy??? They sound full of the calorie, sugar and cholesterol we've been taught to avoid. I think that's telling us something about ourselves, though I'm not exactly sure what.

-- Rose Marie Wild (wintersongfarm@yahoo.com), June 01, 2001.

I"m going to print this out, hang the fat, My mom made the best chicken soup with home made noodles, and a yellow cake with fudge frosting, everything on this post sounds wonderfull, Irene

-- Irene orsborn (tkorsborn@cs.com), June 01, 2001.

You all were lucky, my mom was a terrible cook. Thank God my dad's grandmother was a great Irish cook and passed the joy of cooking on to him. Weekdays weren't anything to shout about but come the weekend dad took over and then we really ate. Pot roast with lots of veggies, mashed potatos, fried chicken, potato salad, cole slaw, baked beans, good stuff like that.

In answer to my childs favorites buiscuts and gravy, peas fresh out of the garden (most times she dosen't make it in the house with enough to cook), grilled squash on the BBQ. Mc Ds and the others are treats for her.

Dianne - I loved your mention of a family cookbook. We found a bunch of old recipes from GGrandma and Grandma and put them into a cookbook with the current generations favorites. We've given them out for wedding and Christmas gifts and they are truely appreciated.

-- jennifer (schwabauer@aol.com), June 01, 2001.

Yumsters!

Ya know, it's suposed to be a fact that high carbohydrate, high sugar, and chocolate added foods slow us down a tad on the inside, and hence bring a little inside comfort to the outside.

Martys list - my mom made great biscuits and gravy! I still remember smelling it on the way down the stairs. Then off to chores and then school.

I can't forget fresh picked strawberries still warm from the sun, baby okra right off the vine, and Jonathen Apples top the naturally tasty list. Even today Ruthie (my toddler) was at the stawberry patch, prepared to start pulling green berries if we didn't promptly intervene and help her find some red ones.

My grandma's salisbury steak, with tender thin slices of steak, lots of home canned tomatoes, red onions, and fesh picked bell pepper slices, and all those secret things she still hasn't told me, but I sure can still smell 'em today!

And the A-1 favorite?? Brown bread ice cream (plain sweetened ice cream with fresh ground vanilla bean and grape-nuts cereal mixed in toward the end - ahhh)

-- Marty (Mrs.Puck@Excite.com), June 01, 2001.

Some of my favorites (from the 40's and 50's)--fresh hot bread with gobs of home-made butter as soon as we got home from school, floating island, fried chicken and gravy with mashed potatoes, fresh green beans and ripe tomatoes. Probably our kids will remember Herman sour dough bread, onion pie, home-made lasanga, chocolate chip cookies (is there any other kind?) and Christmas isn't Christmas without home- made dipped chocolates, especially peanut butter. In reply to the fat and sugar laden statement: my brother-in-law's heart specialist told him that the area of southern Ill., Indiana and Ky. has a much higher percentage of coronary artery disease with strokes and heart attacks than any other part of the US. Probably because we LIKE the sugar and fat!

-- ruth in se Illinois (bobtravous@email.com), June 02, 2001.

My mother made a custard pudding and put bread in it, so good. I remember helping my mother during canning season and eating peaches right of the hot water to loosen the skins for peeling. I still like to eat a hot peach when I'm peeling them for the freezer.

-- Joanne (ronandjo@sisna.com), June 02, 2001.

My mother made a custard pudding and put bread in it, so good. I remember helping my mother during canning season and eating peaches right out of the hot water to loosen the skins for peeling. I still like to eat a hot peach when I'm peeling them for the freezer.

-- Joanne (ronandjo@sisna.com), June 02, 2001.

Two of the meals I always asked my Mom to prepare were Swiss Steak (not the normal recipe- and I still can't figure out what she did to make it so wonderful!) and Poulet Grandmere (sp) which was baked with wine, bacon, rosemary, potatoes and onions MMMMM My kids would say Roast Sticky Chicken or Baked Macaroni and Cheese Or Stuffed Eggplant : ) By the way, Thanks to all of these wonderful suggestions, I'll probably spend the next three days cooking and gain ten pounds. Thanks a lot you guys!

-- Kristin, in La. (positivekharma@aol.com), June 02, 2001.

Hm...oh my, the memories of childhood. It IS an interesting question what the comfort foods of todays children will be...I shudder to think. And have you noticed on these posts how many say "GRANDMA's" whatever? Why not 'Mom's?? Were our grandmothers really better cooks (okay, in some instances, they were!) or was it because we remember our grandmothers who had more time for us than our moms who were scrabbling to take care of all those kids? Gramma always had time to make us each special...

Whatever the case, what I remember was mostly that my Gramma Edna, who lived next door, was going downhill by the time I came along and she didn't bake bread much anymore, but I have fond memories of my two favourite treats at her house -- a brown egg scrambled in butter, or Cambrick Tea, which was a cup of hot water with some sugar in it, and a splash of Half and Half.

At my other grandmother's house, who we saw maybe once or twice a year, the atmosphere was quite different. She too was going downhill, but the times that we would get home baked cardamomon bread (also with real butter...my mom was doing the margarine thing because we'd been told at the time how much BETTER margarine was for you than butter) were pretty special.

Another great comfort food for me were smoked suckers -- yeah, those 'trash' fish that run in the spring. My grampa Joe (Edna's husband) would go out to the crick with a net seine and come home with a bunch that he would fillet and smoke in the smoke house he built out back. There was NO eating like those in this world or the next!! In retrospect, I will say that they WERE delicious eating, we weren't so dumb as to think they were beneath our interest, but the important part was that Grampa had caught and prepared them himself, for us, and he'd let me help. I was never in the way when I was 'helping' Gramma Edna and Grampa Joe with whatever tasks they were doing, be it cutting wood, plucking ducks, sulfuring apples, or whatever.

I'm sure they could have gotten their work done quicker without me in the middle of it, but they never made it seem that way. Heck, with an attitude like that, I was willing to eat the gelatin off of cold canned ham because that's what Grampa Joe did, and loved it. With the way that my tastes have changed, that's really gross now, but it had more to do with 'who' than 'what'.

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), June 02, 2001.

Mom's standby's were soups. Creamy potato and onion top soup with bread, butter and strawberry jelly. The only boughten thing on the table was the crackers. Tomato and hotdog soup is really good. Oh and.. vegetable soup! oh my... now that stuff was so delicious...

My kids will not remember soups as much, as their dad doesnt really care for them as well. I do serve soups occasionally, but not at least once a day, as my mom did.

The foods my kids will remember are things like the rhubarb crunch they overate last week... The warm chocolate cake with no icing that they request often... the homemade vanilla pudding with whipped cream folded into it...

My little girl said just now that what she will remember is amish bean soup. You heat milk to the boiling point, and open a can of navy beans into it. Salt and pepper it and throw buttered toast cubes into it. She loves that stuff.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), June 02, 2001.