I remember when my girls were little, they loved Kraft macaroni & cheese. One day remembering that awesome mac & cheese my mom used make, I decided to make it. Lots of cheese, buttered bread crumbs toasted on top. Looked delicious. My girls came in and said what is that & I said real macaroni and cheese. They said no it's not we don't want that. It looks nasty. LOL ;)
They liked the Kraft. So daddy and I ate good, ha ha.
Ya just never know what lies in our taste buds. :laugh:

We had the only two boys in the country who didn't like corn on the cob or spaghetti & meatballs!

I didn't like pizza until I was 20. After that and still now, I can eat it 3 times a day 7 days a week. LOL

And I could eat leftover cold spaghetti for breakfast. Although I do believe breakfast is a state of mind.:pepper2:

Ha, ha I had cold lasagna for breakfast this morning left over from Ricciardis :laugh:

Is it as good as cold pizza for breakfast?

No, pizza is a little better ! :laugh:

Funny, our daughter in law grew up on Kraft Mac and cheese, and turned her nose up at my wife's homemade. That was fifteen years ago, she has learned to eat a lot of things she didn't and has become a gourmet cook.

We use to have meetings once a year at a guys camp on the St Lawrence River.
On year an Armenian friend of the camp's owner agreed to cook for us. He made Armenian Kabobs stating in separate dishes that he marinated the meat and vegetables for 2 days. he made rolled grape leaves and wheat and rice cooked in chicken broth and a variety of desserts. wonderful meal

I like both the homemade style mac and cheese and especially the one served at Longhorn restaurants, and I like the Kraft box mac and cheese as well.:laugh:

It's all good comfort food to me ! ;)

Most people may find this hard to believe, buT a couple of the best dishes I ever had were prepared by the kitchen staff at one of the high schools where I coached. They made homemade yeast rolls once a week, and would give me an extra, which I would lather in commodity butter. Those were the best, fluffiest rolls I have ever eaten. They also made very creamy macaroni and cheese, with good commodity cheddar cheese which was to die for. Almost made it worth coaching and teaching for starvation wages.

Some of the best food in my memory was made by the German ladies who cooked at South High School in Columbus, Ohio. They made rolls and biscuits and killer soups; vegetable was my favorite, wonderful homemade ham salad sandwiches, chicken and noodles and some kind of peanutbutter/chocolate confection that would melt in your mouth. It was a big high school for the time, There was more than 350 in my graduating class. I worked as a checker in the lunch line and got my lunch free.

Yummy memories.

It all sounds so good, I enjoyed eating at my grandparents houses, all my grandmothers were great cooks. I grew up having great grands too. The chicken & dumplings, salty Smithfield ham, steak and gravy, yeast rolls, mashed potatoes, collard greens, and banana pudding. Need I go on, grew up in the South and have the appetite to prove it!! LOL. Those family memories with my grandparents mean more to me than words can say.

In other words, you're big on pizza.

I respectfully disagree with your premise that one can experience "the pure pleasure of eating" while thoughtfully discussing "any number of topics".

What gave you that idea !!! :1rotfl:
Yep, definitely my favorite food !! ;)

I love spaghetti with meat sauce and garlic bread and a tossed salad but not Italian dressing. I like poppy seed. That is my favorite meal.

Yum, love spaghetti and lasagna. I should have been Italian. ;)

I remember a Thanksgiving dinner with family where there was a lot of good food. As a matter of fact, there was way too much good food. "Good" meaning good tasting.

What I remember most, after all these years, was my brother trying to stop his wife from pigging out on mashed potatoes and gravy. She had taken about 3 helpings and was going for helping number 4. She was no longer hungry but just couldn't stop herself.

And the rest of us were complaining about how stuffed we were too. Holidays often bring out the worst behaviors when it comes to eating.

I remember the way we ate on Thanksgiving. My mom would have dinner at 3:00. After we'd be so stuffed. We would gather in the living room, watching movies on TV, with some of us taking a nap. About 7:30 - 8:00, we'd start pulling food out of the fridge and start nibbling. Like we needed more. LOL

Holidays also often bring the most wonderful, emotional, bonding memories!

But the bonding won't happen unless people stuff themselves with high calorie processed foods, right?

Villages PL, didn't your grandmother ever tell you that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar? Anyway, one of my favorite holiday memories around food was having my grandfather peel the orange in my stocking for me. He did it in one long amazing spiral. I can still smell that wonderful scent.

Actually holiday meals and Sunday meals were definitely about stuffing ourselves & I loved it. Can't do it quite as much now, but sure loved it then !!! :)

Our family's definately was. Lots of food and drink. Unfortunately family get togethers are spread far and thin since familys seem to spread out through the years.

To paraphrase a beautiful lady -- Boy Howdy!

My Mom and I were talking a couple of weeks ago while I was in Louisiana about how she use to bring my late Dad and I plate lunches while we were ginning cotton 40+ years ago in Arkansas. It really brought back a lot of good memories. Most of those memories involved her cooking and the incredible meals she made, my Dad and I raising all of the vegetables in the garden; it's no wonder I was a 250lb. chunky butt then (now a little lighter at 190). Ahh, the good old days.

Wrong. It's very true that food is often part of happy memories. Nothing wrong with bonding over a meal.
However, in the "olden" days, there wasn't a lot of processed food, but lots of good food, including vegetables!
And some people stuffed themselves with high calorie food and some did not. :shrug:
However bonding can certainly occur during cards or charades or singing around the piano as we used to do. Or in the afterglow of a camp fire.

Coca Cola, ice cream, cookies, pies, cakes and candies were probably around before you were born.

Thank you, Bonny, I knew I had that right.....:)

We had none of those things at dinners when I was a kid except for pumpkin pie.
For some reason, you are determined to paint a grim picture of holiday reminiscences.
Have at it. I'm done with this thread.

You are right, Polar Bear. It was fun hearing everyone's food reminiscences. Maybe somewhere down the line another person will start a similar thread and we can enjoy it while it lasts.

I wasn't sure if I finished talking about the pies, cookies, brownies, cakes, cobblers my grandmother made. If we wanted ice cream all the cousins had to take their turn cranking the ice cream maker.:smiley: We didn't want candybars. No room for them.

Can any of you recall a meal your mom, dad or other relative or friend made that you could describe as almost a religious experience? As an example my mother made pasta premavera (sp) she made each layer of vegetables separately. She insisted the pasta be al-dente. And she would trust no one to bring the cream to the required temperature but her. She carefully arranged each vegetable pored her cream sauce systematically over the very large platter and then and only then topped it all with cherry tomatoes cooked as she termed just enough . We would all applaud her as one of us carried her creation to the table.

Food reminiscences are important because it gets everyone ready for the really BIG Thanksgiving dinner. I just think some caution is in order being that 2/3 of people are overweight and many are suffering from diabetes, cancer, heart disease etc..

One day is NOT going to kill someone or cause them to develop Diabetes or gain a lot of weight.

My favorite meals in memory are connected to so many good and almost holy events.

The smell of onions cooking, the sound of the sear of meat, the laughter of children, the door opening and letting in cold and the sound of footsteps,..Daddy's home. The meal is a wonderful thing to remember.

I have wonderful memories (seriously) of sneaking unwanted peas and lima beans under the table to Joe the beagle. I was really good at it. Then one day I gave him a whole beet, which he hacked up on the carpet, and all hell broke loose.

Now that's funny. LOL.