Food History

Today I have lots of memories and recipes and thoughts about people and food to start your week off just perfectly. It is, in fact, a very food history edition of Carnival of the Recipes.

Shawn is the co-ordinator and I want to start with her food memory, since I, too, co-ordinate a carnival and it helps me appreciate the work she puts in. She says ” My mother always made it for us - and now it’s become one of my staples too.” Yum! .

That’s the easy bit of presenting peoples’ memories: start with the ones you know. Don’t you do that? When you’re talking with people about food, start with the friends and family and start with the dishes you share?

What works in a live conversation and sparks more memories and ends up with deep discussion into the wee hours over hot drinks or wine doesn’t work so well in a blog, so I’m going to order this post by the tried-and-true method of creating a menu. I’ve reversed the order of some of the recipes in each category. This is not to confuse you. It’s to pay tribute to the fact that most of you are walking upside down in that strange place called the Northern Hemisphere.

Menu:

Other
Shredded pork sandwiches
frittata
chocolate smoothie

Entrée (this post is coming to you from Australia in the Springtime, so by “entrée”, I mean delightful appetisers)

Amanda has brought in an adorable grilled seafood salad and Sally gives us the perfect cold soup for the coming warmth or the perfect cold soup to make summer last just that little bit longer. She suggests we make some Gazpacho before tomato season is over . This gives me months of gazpacho, not just a single evening.

Main course (what some of you might call Entrée and what I often call ‘tea’ when there are no befores or afters

I love a good roast. It’s the centerpiece for so many types of meals. Thelly has a lovely roast chook for us. I might even offer to carve it. My carving is highly creative and always produces interesting results.

Gus Van Horn’s Sherry Spaghetti looks rather yum.

Slow Cooker Recipes’ Corny Ham & Potato Scallop looks pretty good too. I’m tempted to offer to cook it for Mum. She keeps very, very kosher and I want to see her face when I offer to make her a dish with two forbidden ingredients. I guess this makes me (officially) the dinner party guest you would rather not have. But the recipe looks so delicious!

The shredded pork sandwiches look kinda interesting also. They’re what I would feed my teenage nephews as they dash in, dash out and wave ‘hi’ to the dinner party guests. At least, they’re what I would feed them if it weren’t for the Jewish thing.

I might have to get friends to cook these recipes and do me taste reports. In the meantime, Thelly’s supremely yummy Chicken and Dumplings ought to preserve me from my family’s ire. They look like something my grandmother might have made, too, which will get the family stories rolling again.

We have two recipes for macaroni and cheese this week (or ‘mac cheese’ as all my US friends persist in saying). The first is from World Famous Recipes and has no story but is quite important, as I need to lose weight. There’s always someone at a dinner party who has to lose weight and asks worriedly about fat or the calories or carbs. I’m sorry it’s me. I’ll try not to do it again.

For the rest of you, Csara has intuited your needs and gives you a fullscale recipe .

Every family has their favourite sauces and condiments and each sauce and condiment has its own story. Discussion over the Expat Chef’s Apple Cider Sauce takes us right back to where the Chef came from. Does it really matter that apple cider sauce and macaroni and cheese don’t match?

Dessert

Dessert is a time of leisure. It’s the moment to sit back and listen to a story about melons (and maybe cats) and appreciate the gentle delights of the late evening. Deputyheadmistress gives us a refreshing fruit bread which matches the sorbet with some lovely memories of her grandmother.

For those who have room for a more substantial dessert (some of us ate the low fat version of dinner, and now you discover our ulterior motives – though I admit, the grilled seafood salad as mian course would have been even better …. if only I weren’t Jewish) there’s Mama Squirrel’s Elderberry Pie . A note to other Aussies: if you find elderberries, please tell me where – I need to make this pie!!

Post-prandial nibbles (where Uncle Bob walks in late and hungry so you fry him up an egg while everyone else has chocolate and nuts)

This is when we talk politics and religion and the other serious stuff. Just remember that it’s a dinner party and you don’t have to be too serious, sit back and drink Cehwiedel’s Strawberry Shake while you raid Dani’s Nutmeg Sugar Cookies and Kathee’s Turtles.

And then there’s chocolate. Always and ever, chocolate. Elisson is a man after my heart and reminds us why some of the old recipes are worth reviving. I have the perfect historical excuse to indulge myself with the perfect chocolate pudding . What really worries me is I have every single one of the ingredients already on hand…

PS Suzanne’s says she’s bringing fritatta which is wonderful. I adore frittata. The reason it’s not in the menu is that I can’t find it. Just as well in a way – we have so much food. Check it out later and make it for lunch tomorrow! Either that or feed it to Uncle Bob, to stop him complaining we ate all the chicken and it wasn’t his fault he forgot that dinner was tonight and if he starves to death he will haunt us, evilly.

PPS Joel Fuhrman, MD has the next-day pickup, a healthy Chocolate Smoothie . Though he would probably argue we should be eating healthy all the time, not make the smoothie when we feel guilty because of a night of overeating and no sleep.

PPS You’re wondering where my recipes are? I sneak them onto this blog, regularly. Towards the middle of the week there will be a family recipe for one of the best Jewish New year honey cakes you’ve ever eaten.

food history, Carnival of the Recipes, recipes, madeleines and memories, gazpacho, grilled seafood salad, roast chicken with garlic mashed potatoes, chicken and dumplings, sherry spaghetti, corny ham and potato scallop, macaroni and cheese, apple cider sauce, elderberry pie, sorbet swirl, Virginia’s Apple Orange Bread, strawberry shake, Nutmeg Sugar Cookies, turtles, shredded pork sandwiches, frittata, chocolate smoothie, mac cheese