The taste of Home

[primsong]

Discovering a small European deli near my daughter's dance class, I wandered over to explore and pass the time - wonderful little shop, stuffed top to bottom with goods from Bulgaria and Turkey mostly, but plenty of other fun stuff as well. I asked the proprietor what he considered to be the taste of 'home' - what did he associate with regular home cooking when he was a kid, and he directed me to jars of lutenica, a sweet and spicy veggie relish.

"Every year, all the houses, you have all the grandmother, aunts, mothers, everyone comes together and makes this," he said with a faraway and happy look that told me I was on the right track. "You put it on everything, I sometimes start eating a jar of this, just dipping in crackers and cannot stop! Everybody's mother, they all have their own recipe, you know how it is, but yes, yes. This is good, you find this in the country."

I took a big jar home and by golly, he's right - hard to stop when you start dipping in crackers or celery sticks or whatever... we put some on pasta too, mm. I can picture children in Bulgaria, maybe on a small farm, sniffing the air and being sent to bring in more veggies to wash and slice for the aunties - or opening that bright jar later in the cold months and tasting the warm black pepper and sweetness after a long day of chores and school.

But it made me think - if someone from some other part of the world were to ask, what tastes like "home" to you? What do you remember everyone having, making, preserving? Not just common condiments (ketchup), but what was home-made and no one made it quite like (insert loved relative here)?

I had to conclude for me it might be apple crisp or possibly the thick oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips - both from the hands of my grandmother, my mother and now myself. Cinnamon and apple and oatmeal, with a touch of chocolate - that would be 'home'.

What would be the taste of your Home?

Comments

[piplover.livejournal.com]

My mom's sugar cookies. My mom would make up the dough and set it in the fridge to harden, and my sister and I would sneak big bits of it to eat raw. She had to chase us out and keep guard over it, it was so good. But the cookies themselves were really good, too. Just - there's something about that sugar cookie batter that is irresistible!

[primsong.livejournal.com]

You make me hungry for sugar-cookies just reading about this - I love picturing little!you and your sis in the fridge like that.

[thisbluespirit]

Interesting. I really don't know, except maybe a nice, roast dinner!

And my Granny was the only person I ever knew who made coffee kisses.

[primsong.livejournal.com]

Coffee kisses! That sounds just utterly delightful - do you ever make them yourself? I'm wondering now what they're like.

[thisbluespirit]

:-)

I do! I shall have to do so soon and post a photo or something. You see, I have her secret recipe. :-D

[siradaono.livejournal.com]

okay now I'm hungry, not the country.;-{>

PS

[siradaono.livejournal.com]

a man can live on anything if he has enough Rosemary ;-{>

Re: PS

[primsong.livejournal.com]

:-D Very true! (((O)))

[lin4gondor.livejournal.com]

Depends on which home you are talking about, lol! Home where Mom was would be Molasses Crinkles (cookies) or Sandbakkelse (Norwegian butter cookies).

From one of those other homes, the taste of "kadhi" brings back all that I hold dear about Pakistan! Yum! Think I'll have to go down to the corner snack shop here in Chicago and get me some! :-D

http://www.khanapakana.com/recipe/templates/cooking-recipe.aspx?articleid=B4BA0E9B-B034-4210-8B42-AC3AB066D170&zoneid=11

[primsong.livejournal.com]

Oh yum - I think I had this at a restaurant once and it was amazing, is it a 'regular home food' kind of thing there or something for special times?

[librarylover82.livejournal.com]

Aw, I loved this story! My mother was an awesome cook, and for the most part she didn't have recipes for anything except baked goods. (Let's face it, baking is chemistry, and the proportions have to be right!) She made a wonderful baked chicken casserole that I loved. One of my sisters has recreated it, and it's close, but it just isn't the same.

[primsong.livejournal.com]

No one bakes like Moms do - I think they add a sprinkle of Mom-Love.
Your speaking of the chicken reminded me of another 'home' dish my mom always made, Chicken Divan...a casserole with broccoli and sauce and cheese. I used to ask for it for my birthday dinner, I liked it that much. ;-) Of course, I also loved broccoli and my brother and I would fight over canned spinach with lemon-pepper on it, so maybe we didn't have typical 'kid' tastes.

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

What a great story! Asking which food reminded the proprietor of "home" is a wonderful idea; I now want to run out and try that with the multiple little ethnic stores in my area. As for me, the first thing that came into my head is the charoses my mother makes for Passover. It's a bit of a strange answer considering we only have it once a year, but it's one of those foods where everyone has their own recipe and makes it their own way, so my mother's version very much reminds me of home. If you've never had charoses, it's kind of like a sweet apple-nut salad. My mother makes it with apples, walnuts, raisins, cinnamon and sweet Passover wine, but as I said, there are a thousand variations.

[primsong.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a lot like a spiced apple strudel filling, minus the strudel and plus wine - with sounds really, really tasty just now.

[shirebound]

A toasted bagel filled with lox, cream cheese, and a thick slice of tomato. Yummy, that's a taste from my childhood that I still love.

[primsong.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a nice one - and so easy to duplicate any time you need a bit of comfort food too, kudos to your mom.

[pippins-scarf.livejournal.com]

For me? One of two Lebanese dishes (both of which start with the same meat).

Ruz and Yachnee or Hashuwa.

1) chop onions and saute them in 1/4 stick butter
2) add small cubes of a steak like London Broil (with the fat cut off)
3) Season with cinnamon, allspice and salt and pepper and cook until yummy.

Those smells are the ones that make home smell like home.

For the Hashuwa: Put rice in a big pot and use chicken broth instead of water. Add the meat/onions mixture. Cover and cook for 20 minutes. It's an excellent side dish.

For Ruz and Yachnee: Break some vermacelli in half and saute it in 1/4 stick butter. Add this to rice and cook rice as per normal.

Then take the meat mixture and add a can of crushed tomato. Let it simmer for awhile, then add a can of young peas (I like the Le Suer ones in the silver can). Simmer some more. Serve it over the rice/vermacelli mixture.

MMMMmmmm.... I guess I know what I'm making for dinner this weekend!

[primsong.livejournal.com]

Wow. Now *I* want this for dinner too!

[blackmare]

Hm. Fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy.

Fried okra, perhaps.

Pork chops, rice and tomato gravy.

Grandma's peach cobbler with ice cream.

Real Key lime pie, which in case you've ever wondered, isn't ever, ever green.

Iced tea. Not the instant stuff or the kind you buy in a bottle. The kind you brew in 2-quart batches, using Red Rose or Lipton or Luzianne.

Watermelon in summer.

Backstrap (venison) with rice and gravy, in winter.

Collard or mustard greens with hot pepper vinegar.

Breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon, grits with butter and salt. And if you're lucky, biscuits, though those were more often something you got at supper.

Oh, and calling it supper instead of dinner. Because in the south, dinner is what you have at lunch time.

[primsong]

This list makes me positively drool - we lived in North Carolina for a while when I was growing up and you bring it all back to me, the lightning-bugs and humid summer nights and big slices of watermelon eaten while sitting on the curb. I still buy those instant grits from time to time.... Sounds like a very tasty childhood.