The Pure Pleasure of Eating
 

I had the opportunity, as did most in my generation, to grow up in a family that spent most of their time sitting around the kitchen table eating and discussing any number of topics. Holidays were especially "special"and conversation extended way into the evening as did various courses of food.

Like most I cannot give you one favorite meal. However one that comes to mind for me is a nice steak with a side dish of pasta and a glass of red wine.

God has given us many special gifts and the pure pleasure of eating is one

What say you?

I remember Sunday dinner at my Aunt Ida's and she would make the most incredibly delicious breaded steak and a broccoli dish with breadcrumbs. We would be at the table for what seemed like a long time and the more wine we drank the louder it would get. My brother recently reminded me those steaks were slathered in lard before breaded which is what probably gave them that wonderful flavor. And I lived to tell about the pure pleasure of eating that meal.

Where I grew up lard was considered a staple.....if it was fried it was in lard....how I miss those meals....lol.

I enjoy the pleasures of the table. On Sunday's our family would gather at my grandmother's after church. (They didn't go, but we did) My grandmother would bake a yellow cake from scratch and it was moist and delicious. She usually served fried chicken, (home raised) mashed potatoes and lots of cooked vegetables. and either slaw or wilted lettuce. If it was winter the vegetables came from her home canned stash and if it was summer we had them from the garden. The cousins all played on the swing or in the sandbox or out in the yard we played red rover, hide and seek or other games and we got drinks from the well in the back yard and the grownups would sit around the table and drink beer and talk. Sometimes we kids would get tired and just fall asleep on a comfortable couch or chair.

Whose mother didn't have one of these to carefully save all the bacon grease and other drippings? That is, if she hadn't already used it to make gravy. :)

Spaghetti and meatballs is one of my top three for sure.

I have taken our son for a colonoscopy for many years (preemie twin now with Crohn's) and always ask what he wants to eat after the procedure. He watches what he eats for 3 years and that one day he wants a Philly Cheese Steak with everything. After hitting the magic age of 50 and recommended a colonoscopy, I wanted stir fried vegetables.

At the time of going without food, what we may crave is far different than what we may want on any other day. We have had the wonderful pleasure of spending time in The Villages and tomorrow is our last day. I wonder what our guilty pleasure might be? I'm guessing my husband will have a steak and I will have blackened salmon. Then we return to PA and eat vegetables, limited meat, and look forward to indulging when we have the pleasure of returning to The Villages.

There are so many favorites of mine that my mom made. Pan browned pork chops with milk gravy was a favorite with home made pickled beets. When I think of all of the fried food we ate and the yummy home made desserts, this day and age we would be so over weight! I'm glad I ate well back then!

I was so thin that my Mom was always pushing milk shakes and second helpings of fried chicken, mashed potatoes with butter, etc. etc. Those were the days all right!

Love to eat. "Have fork, will travel".

I will always miss the seven course Italian meals that my aunt use to make, during the holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

My uncle was a quiet guy that really enjoyed having the whole family to his house, and there were many of us. About 20 for the formal dinner, with 40 or more, coming for coffee and cake.

Topped off with a visit from Santa, for the kids and grown-ups. Another uncle had cancer one year, and lost all his hair. Santa delivered a "hair brush" to him. He got the biggest laugh when he opened his gift. Sadly, he passed a few months later.

I fondly miss those days.

I will always remember the meals my grandmother made on their wood burning stove at the farmhouse in Virginia. My grandfather had a diary farm. Every morning he was up at 4 am to build up the fire in that stove, which to me seemed at the time to be the size of a volkswagon. My grandmother cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner and made pies and cakes with that huge stove every day. Three weeks a year was a huge treat for me and if we were there during the winter that was an extra treat.

My favorites growing up were my mom's pot roast, fried chicken and scalloped potatoes with pork chops !!
Those were always on a Sunday and we always ate about 3:00.

We usually ate Sunday dinner at my grandmother's. Often it was fried chicken, mashed potatoes and white gravy, homemade egg noodles with cheese and buttered bread crumbs on top, homemade bread with real butter and burnt sugar cake. Very light! On the other hand I would give anything to sit down with my mother over a home cooked meal one more time.

So would I!!

I have one of these but older, came from my granny's

Miss my grandmother's pasty. She was from the upper peninsula of Michigan (Yooper) where pasty's are well known. It was always a Sunday meal and they were delicious. The crust was made with lard and that's probably why I can't recreate this recipe because I don't use lard. I made them this past Sunday and they were good but they just weren't grandma's.

a number of posters mentioned eating breakfast at Grandma's. After mass on Sundays we would go to my paternal grandmothers for breakfast. My Grandmother had always spoiled her kids. So we could have any variety of breakfast items but my Dad's mom made him a huge bowl of meatballs without the sauce which cued my grandfather to go down to the cellar and bring back a bottle of his home made wine. As kids we were allowed a shot glass serving of wine

On the other hand my maternal grandmother lived in a rural area and we had an opportunity s kids to take turns spending a month at grandma's in the summer. She had an extremely large garden full of vegetables and fruits and we would go out early in the morning and pick the days entries I can still see Grandma using her apron as a basket gathering fresh strawberries . Sunday's dinner was traditional Italian started promptly at noon and always with pasta accompanied by a roast of some sort. Grandma's lemonade was made to perfection. My grandfather had huge thumbs and so three of his homemade gnocchi could fill you up:mmmm:

It sounds as if you had a really happy and healthy childhood.
It's nice to hear the love for your grandparents shining through the words of your posts.

Prefer Top of stove or oven cooking?
 

Like most my wife and I are opposites. One way we differ is that is she likes most things cooked on top of the stove (grille cooking included) and I prefer most things cooked in the oven, except of course pasta and pasta sauce

How do you differ and what is your preference?

I prefer smoked and grilled, Lila Cooks with sauces. I like what she cooks and she likes what I cook, though not as spicy.

Here in Chicago it is oven in the winter, grill in the summer. Soon it will be more grill than oven!

I think seafood must have been a lot cheaper in the 'olden' days because my mother frequently made this mixed dish of scallops, crab and lobster sauteed on in a pan and topped with crunchy seasoned bread crumbs. My father didn't really like beef. pork or chicken so we very rarely ate them except if they were sliced paper thin before cooking. We mostly existed on anything found in an ocean. I also remember my mother letting us go scrape mussels off the jetty for our dinner. Wish I could afford to eat like that every night now, lol.

When our kids were little we actually ate a lot of steak. We would get porterhouse. We'd give the kids the filet part and we would eat the strip part. It wasn't that expensive back then. We shopped on the military base and it was pretty cheap back in the day. Not anymore ! :(

I grew up on shellfish because it was much cheaper than meat in the Maritimes (eastern coast of Canada).
I thought everyone ate oysters and clams and lobsters all the time.

In the olden days, farmers used lobsters as garden fertilizer.
Lobsters were know to be bottom feeders and people thought they weren't fit to eat.

For Native Americans near the Chesapeake Bay (where I grew up) oysters and crabs were staple foods. They were cheap as dirt even in the 1950s and we ate them constantly. Even had stewed oysters for breakfast. No lobsters though. I never ate a lobster until I was an adult.
I love lobster but I still think of them as large insects that live in the water.

This type of thread, (what's your favorite candy bar etc.) has been beat to death and is beginning to look like an unhealthy obsession. If it's unhealthy to be interested in living a healthy lifestyle, then this preoccupation is the flip side of the coin.

Doesn't this thread make you feel good, remembering family times around the table.......and hungry too?

Hi villagesPL: I respect your view if there is any healthy dish you wish to share with us it will be very welcome

Personal Best Regards:

lovsthosebigdogs: I am so intrigued about what you wrote. I love sea scallops, shell fish shrimp clams, etc wow you must really miss those days. I would have too.

Veal was not costly once and my mom cooked veal at least three time a week when we were growing up on the stove in the oven.

Metrands mentioned outside cooking vis a vis oven given we live in Florida.

Spot on Mrs. Rubicon biggest issue when i ask for a pot roast or beef stew oven roasted chicken, etc her response we have to wait for the cold weather which always comes back to my saying on which day of the year do you believe it will occur?

My dad was one of 12 kids. I have 50 first cousins (the Italian side of the family). After church on Sunday as many as could make would go to Nana's for a homemade meal....pasta, roast potatoes, peppers, veal, etc. On the other hand my Mom's family is old Yankee from Maine. I loved summer on the rock beaches with clambake of freshly caught lobsters, mussels, corn from the garden, etc. I'm making myself hungry just thinking about it!

Yes, I could easily get into that frame of mind, but is it productive? Imagine a group of ex-alcholics geting together to think and talk about how great it was to go to parties and get drunk when they were young. How does that kind of talk lead to anything productive?

I don't think old people can maintain good health for very long if they try to eat the way they did when they were young.

I had one aunt who did that at home and she died of cancer. Not to mention the fact that my aunt an uncle ran a hotdog and hamburger stand and ate these items for lunch.

dbussone: you received the best of two worlds. In my OP I mentioned that there were too many favorite meals. I mean how can one choose? Hence the reason for the title Pure Pleasure Of...... and wonderful meals do not have to be expensive or take long to prepare.

Again God was most generous here and many of us are eternally grateful

Absolutely

VillagesPL: you may not always be right but you are always VillagesPL. God bless your heart.

Please don't try to turn this thread into another lecture on unhealthy eating.
People are merely reminiscing about happy childhood memories, not mapping out food plans for the future.

We had squirrel, venison, rabbit, pheasant, frog legs, trout, etc. whatever was in season. Delicious gravy/biscuits......Great memories and good food.

Families at dinner. Good memories for most of us.
 

Well said Bare. :clap2::clap2:

:BigApplause:

Someone has a very big obsession with eating only something, that will make them live forever!!!

That's not going to happen, as we all will die, a physical death!