This lighthearted anecdote takes readers on a journey through the author's childhood, recounting their parents' unique and often unorthodox cooking habits. From overcooked meat and hard-boiled eggs to unconventional seasoning techniques and a strange aversion to sharp knives, the author paints a vivid picture of their family's dining experiences. It's a relatable and amusing look at how cultural and personal preferences shape our memories of food.
Every piece of meat had to be cooked to almost burnt. Any sign of 'juice' meant we would die. I hated all forms of meat, and the idea of eating my mom's steak made my gums actually hurt. Also, my dad would make one meal over and over and over until he perfected it, all in succession and never following tutorials. He'd just make small tweaks here and there. We once had lasagna eight times in a row. And I love lasagna but...no.
My parents boiled hard-boiled eggs for a minimum of 20 minutes until the yolks were dark gray. It was only in adulthood that I discovered the magic of properly boiled (and medium-boiled!) eggs. My mother made 'garbage soup,' by which she boiled water, added salt, chopped up every leftover from the week, and dumped it in. Hot , lasagna, garden salad, tuna casserole, and anything else were fair game and were added to the soup. My parents put oil in pasta water to 'keep the pasta from sticking together.' I learned later that adding oil to pasta water is frowned upon. It does nothing but waste oil. My parents would buy ground beef, and instead of just freezing it like a normal person, they'd cook it first. Very well done, with no salt or seasonings, and would let all the fat drip out in a colander over the sink before packing it away. They'd pack it in glass containers with layers of tinfoil between each serving. All our meals involving ground beef would be dry, flavorless, grainy, overcooked, freezer-burnt, and disappointing. Sometimes, you'd be lucky and find a bit of foil in your meal that didn't get peeled off all the way. My mom used a ruler when cutting green beans. She read the original recipe, which said to cut them into one-inch pieces...so she forever measured them. My dad got a new cast iron pan. It was massive and he bought it impulsively at the hardware store for dirt cheap. Anyway, he decided to season it as you do with cast iron....' '...How he went about it was to pour in all of every herb and spice in the house, a whole container of salt, and various condiments from the fridge and boiled the concoction all day long so it soaked. The smell was awful. He seemed to be under the impression that cast iron somehow stored all spices and knew which ones to apply to your food automatically when cooking. When microwaves first came out, my mom took a class on how to use them and told my dad she had to have one and we could get rid of the range (oven). The initial microwaves were quite large, and the class taught her how to 'cook everything' in the microwave...''...So Thanksgiving was usually at my Grandmother's house, but my mom wanted to host because she had a new microwave. The initial microwave did not brown food at all. We got ready for turkey; it smelled pretty good. My mom pulled out the turkey, and it looked like it wasn't even cooked, like a raw bird. She insisted it was done. We all sat there, and my grandmother said, 'I'll be doing Thanksgiving next year.' No one ate the bird. When I was a kid, if my dad cooked chicken, he would wash it in the sink and then put it on the (empty) dish rack to drip dry. And he did not clean the dish rack afterward. I asked him, 'Won't bacteria get into the rack from the chicken?' And he was like, 'oh it's fine.'''We were Catholic, so on Fridays (fish day), it was a filet of sole, topped with Kraft Single and a single canned, stewed tomato, then broiled until they disintegrated into cheese melted. The 'done-ness' of the fish had nothing to do with it: THE CHEESE MUST BE MELTED! My mom would cook steak until it was grey, and then she'd get mad when I would put ketchup on it to be able to eat it. Also, all of our veggies came out of a freezer box or can. My mom is scared of sharp knives, so my dad sharpens them when she’s out of the house. She’s fully aware. Apparently, it’s fine so long as she does not acknowledge the transition from dull to sharp. My mom never cooked with salt and told me to completely omit salt when cooking. As it so happens, food tastes a whole lot better when salted. My mom often waited for the smoke detector to tell her dinner was ready. I had no idea food tasted good until I was a teenager and ate at other peoples' houses. Spaghetti night in my family was not complete without baked beans on the spaghetti. I still get made fun of for not liking baked beans on my spaghetti, as if I was the weird one! Midwestern white cooking is something else.... My parents were great cooks, but my mom liked to turn the leftovers from any big holiday meal into a 'loaf,' which basically involved shoving all the leftovers into a loaf pan and baking it. I like leftovers but not those tortured into a rectangle shape. My mother always put a packet of Lipton’s onion soup mix in everything she makes. I'm talking about every single dish! Rice, mashed potatoes, taco meat, etc. It was always the only consistent thing about her cooking. My entire childhood, we had margarine and never ate real butte
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