What's comfortable in your kitchen?
What’s your favorite “comfort food”? Taking a step back, what constitutes comfort food to begin with? Maybe it’s something you grew up on. Maybe something your mother or grandma or aunt made that nobody else in the family did. Hell, some people I know think that Dunkin Donut’s coffee and a cruller makes for comfort food.
It’s curious, what different parts of the country think. I can point to a few New England favorites that never seem to have made it elsewhere. Boiled Dinner springs readily to mind; take a smoked shoulder, cabbage, and a bunch of aromatic vegetables and throw it in a pot and let it simmer all day. Most folks would probably find it bland, but I’ll go so far as to cut everything up, put it in a deep mug, and spoon the cooking broth over it for ‘soup’.
Mashed potatoes seem to be universal, but personally, I’m just not that much into them. Sure, it’s great with a steak or other things, but it seems impractical to me. Then we have the bastardized comfort foods that are easier to get in the instant or prepackaged variety….Macaroni and cheese, for one. Good ol’ “Kraft Dinner”, macaroni in a box with dehydrated, cheese-flavoured ‘sauce’. My mother always made mac & cheese from scratch, and baked it in the oven. I can cook many things, but somehow, this one eludes me; I have been unable to make a good one. Boston Baked Beans, too. I’ve never had them any other way except out of a can. I can make Cuban black beans from scratch, but I’ve never made the attempt on the New England staple.
There’s desserts on that list, too….how about an icebox cake, or just the simple joy of “cook & serve” pudding? (Instant doesn’t count.) My great-aunts invented a version of the well-known ricotta cream cheese pie for my mother’s generation when they were kids, since they wouldn’t touch the one with lemon rind and citron fruit in it. We’ve been making it with cinnamon and chocolate for over half a century now.
Last night, I made an old favorite American Chop Suey. That’s a real curious one; ground meat, tomato sauce, and elbow macaroni…embellished with fresh peppers, extra tomatoes, and basil and oregano from my garden. Of course, I had to embellish it by adding my favorite hot sauce, but that’s another story entirely.
I guess in these economic times, we tend to go back to what we know. There’s a ton of depression and WWII era dishes out there that made the most of meager resources. The way the economy is going, we’ll be going back to that soon, methinks.
It’s curious, what different parts of the country think. I can point to a few New England favorites that never seem to have made it elsewhere. Boiled Dinner springs readily to mind; take a smoked shoulder, cabbage, and a bunch of aromatic vegetables and throw it in a pot and let it simmer all day. Most folks would probably find it bland, but I’ll go so far as to cut everything up, put it in a deep mug, and spoon the cooking broth over it for ‘soup’.
Mashed potatoes seem to be universal, but personally, I’m just not that much into them. Sure, it’s great with a steak or other things, but it seems impractical to me. Then we have the bastardized comfort foods that are easier to get in the instant or prepackaged variety….Macaroni and cheese, for one. Good ol’ “Kraft Dinner”, macaroni in a box with dehydrated, cheese-flavoured ‘sauce’. My mother always made mac & cheese from scratch, and baked it in the oven. I can cook many things, but somehow, this one eludes me; I have been unable to make a good one. Boston Baked Beans, too. I’ve never had them any other way except out of a can. I can make Cuban black beans from scratch, but I’ve never made the attempt on the New England staple.
There’s desserts on that list, too….how about an icebox cake, or just the simple joy of “cook & serve” pudding? (Instant doesn’t count.) My great-aunts invented a version of the well-known ricotta cream cheese pie for my mother’s generation when they were kids, since they wouldn’t touch the one with lemon rind and citron fruit in it. We’ve been making it with cinnamon and chocolate for over half a century now.
Last night, I made an old favorite American Chop Suey. That’s a real curious one; ground meat, tomato sauce, and elbow macaroni…embellished with fresh peppers, extra tomatoes, and basil and oregano from my garden. Of course, I had to embellish it by adding my favorite hot sauce, but that’s another story entirely.
I guess in these economic times, we tend to go back to what we know. There’s a ton of depression and WWII era dishes out there that made the most of meager resources. The way the economy is going, we’ll be going back to that soon, methinks.
posted by Unknown at
09:02
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