is your mom or grandma a good cook?

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

My mom is a horrible cook. She will throw all sorts of stuff into a crockpot and call it a soup I just stare at her with this "####### are you doing?" look. She knows I don't approve of her cooking and finds it hilarious. She will laugh to the point where she's crying or about to pee her pants when we try to discuss cooking. At least she knows she is not good at it. Most of the time she makes one of her weird thrown together meals. The meal turns out to be really gross so she feeds it to my stepdad who will eat anything, and then she comes over and has dinner with me. She even calls me before family get togethers to ask me what she's bringing. It's just a known thing now. I make something for her to bring and she pretends she made it even though everyone knows I made it.

My grandma is an awesome cook. All her stuff is always down home, no fuss, Paula Deen (minus 20lbs of butter) type cooking. I could never be able to live off of it without gaining about 500lbs but it's nice to have every once in awhile. I learned to cook from her. She makes this massive prime rib roast about once a year. Mmmmm.

I didn't know that about you. Happy you got away from the evil step mother!

I haven't tried your mom's food but it looks really good in the Thanksgiving and Christmas pics you put on FB!

Yep I helped her with Thanksgiving and Christmas!

I was forced to mature and grow up fast with a ton of responsibility being the parent when the parents couldn't be. Both my parents are divorced from those partners now. Both my parents have both had four marriages. My Dad is still married to the 4th and my Mom has been single from her 4th for about 8 years now. I haven't spoken about that part of my childhood on here or to anyone from here before even the ones I went to college with or know in person. People think they know me but they just know what I tell them. I don't like to usually talk about all the really messed up bad stuff that happened to me as an innocent child.

When the subject of cooking comes up it certainly reminds me of back then. I remember now that my Dad used to can his own salsa and we had a family garden on our ranch that we would take care of. His tomatoes were always too sweet for the salsa I thought. After he and my step-mom kidnapped us he also tried to start this family tradition of having gumbo every Christmas. It was his southern thing. His other holiday favorite thing to make that I did learn from him was his peanut brittle. I have tons of cooking memories from this family like making fresh bread, and well everything because I was made to be the cook and maid and second mother being the oldest daughter and second oldest kid left in the house after my oldest brother ran away.

Anyways... When I got older and was living on my own I started indulging in all the things I couldn't have much as a kid like candy and ice creams and junk food and going out to eat. But now I've suffered the repercussions of that lifestyle and I'm getting back to cooking for myself and being reminded of all the healthy stuff I liked to eat as a kid like squash, celery, carrots, raisins. It's a rediscovery process for me.

[Mags 112]

Discussing food memories in another thread made me curious about other people.

Is/was your mom or grandma a good cook?

If so, did you learn to cook from either of them?

What is your favorite dish they made while you were growing up?

Have you tried to make it and failed miserably?

If not, what's the worst meal you had to suffer through?

Discuss.

My Nan was an adequate cook, however, my Mum was an INCREDIBLE cook.

My best childhood memories are of her making cakes (normally one a week). Big, well risen chocolate ones that were moist and fluffy. I'd hang around and lick the wooden spoon.

The rest of her food was great too: she'd make curries, Chinese food etc from scratch and it would taste lovely. Her Yorkshire Puddings were heavenly, too!

She didn't teach me to cook, I just picked it up from watching her. However, once she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she spent the last year of her life teaching my Dad to cook all kinds of stuff. Now, he is a brilliant cook himself and holds dinner parties.

Edited July 24, 2010 by Mags

[DEDixon 39]

thank god i didn't get sensitive taste buds. i'd like to have them for a week just to see what it is like. i'd can imagine myself looking to the sky as i chew and also thinking "not enough salt, too much salt, not enough pepper, the wrong peppers, the bay leaves must not have been fresh, too many bay leaves.... " then i leave most restaurants pisssed off!

i'm so happy to eat in dives and think "that was great food!!" i really feel sorry for people who have fine tuned taste buds.

so to answer the question, no idea who is a good or bad cook.

[Amby 490]

I can eat things and taste everything in a dish. That doesn't mean I pick everything apart and complain about it (I do sometimes). I can't eat at most chain restaurants because the food just isn't for me. My family stopped asking me to go to those types of restaurants a long time ago

As for dive restaurants, there are some dives that have the best food. There's places that are known for one dish being amazing. I don't care if it costs $1 or $100, if it's good then it's good.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Great thread, Amber!

My maternal grandmother didn't know how to boil water when she first got married, according to my mom, but learned how to cook out of necessity and became a really good cook who never used measuring cups or spoons.

Some of things I remember her cooking/baking:

Navy beans and ham hock, along with corn bread

Potato salad

Black bottom rum pie

Peach cobbler

Rhubarb pie

Bread pudding with a lemon sauce - I've never tasted any that has even come close

Lemon meringue pie

.........

My mom was a good cook in her own right, and she taught my brothers and I how to cook (although a lot of the meals were more assemblage than mixing the right amount of herbs and spices. Things like:

Lasagna and spagetti (using pasta sauce in a jar)

Cake (from store bought cake mixes)

My father also grew a lot of fruits and vegetables that my Mom would either can or prepare with meals:

Okra

Asparagus

Swiss Chard

Watermelon

Corn

Tomatoes

Cantalope

several varieties of squash

Peas

Carrots

Plums

Apricots

And we raised Rhode Island Red chickens, goats, cattle, one sheep, ducks, and turkeys. We tried eating some of our chickens for the first year, but no had the stomach to do it after that. We ate the meat from the turkey, cattle and goats, but we had a butcher take care of the dirty work.

[Amby 490]

Steve - my grandparents didn't have any cattle, but we always had loads of fresh fruits and veggies from the garden. I guess my mom can "assemble" things too. if she buys everything ready to go she can make things that are sorta edible.

[engineer21 51]

My grandma was an amazing cook (may she rest in peace). She can saute, deep fry, bake, grill, and steam anything and everything.

She lived with us for most of my childhood and cooked every single meal for us.

We never had less than 3 entrees at the dinner table because she literally spent the entire day cooking.

And then there was always desert. Pudding.. or brownies..or pound cake.. or cookies.. or crepes..and countless different kinds of pastries!

she made everything from scratch

Because my grandma did all of the cooking, I never found out if my mom is a good cook or not.. I know my mom can cook but she didn't do it often when I was growing up. I don't think mom likes to cook that much.

According to my mom my dad was also an excellent cook.

I was never really allowed in the kitchen because that was grandma's teritory, so no, I didn't learn how to cook from her.

I am, however, a pretty good cook I learned from food network and the internet

I have tried to make my grandma's eggrolls and failed, but not miserably, just a little..

Because I made it only from memory (no recipe) and was too lazy to make the wrapper from scratch

Next up is her steamed sponge cake. It's an Indonesian version of a cupcake.

Took a while, but I finally got a hold of the special cups to make them in.

Now I just have to buy a steamer

Here is a pic of the Indonesian cupcake still inside its special tin cup..

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Pras' mum and grandmum (maternal) are both excellent cooks--and Pras' recipes mostly come from grandmum.

My own maternal grandmum and mum were decent cooks--but my paternal grandmum was absolutely atrocious.

[CDAgirlMI 51]

It's a good thing I can cook. Hubby almost killed himself boiling eggs one night. He is no longer allowed anywhere near the stove.

LMAO!!

To answer, my mom is a great cook & excellent baker for that matter.

Best dish she taught me to make is lasagna.

Best dessert she taught (just to add) is tiramisu. Hate to brag, but its sooooo good!!!

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Yes. So is my wife.

[Amby 490]

bump...anyone else?

[Jenn! 918]

My great-grandmother (mom's mom's mom) was your typical southern italian grandma chef. She cooked all the classic italian dishes. My grandmother is a decent cook, but she's not at the same level - doesn't make her own pasta, for example. Also, she's more health-conscious so she uses less oil and cheeses, so naturally things aren't quite as tasty. My mother is passable, but she doesn't enjoy cooking. She has about 10 dishes that she just rotates. Hubby isn't a big fan of either my mom or my grandma's cooking. They make things like steamed vegetables, which he thinks are just gross, lol.

I think I'm pretty decent as a cook. I'm able to reproduce things I've eaten pretty well without recipes. My dad is a very good cook. He caters on the side.

[Empress of Groovy 373]

Neither of my grandmothers was a terrific cook. My maternal grandmother (Nan) would rather eat out than cook, which was great, because whenever we saw her, a restaurant was usually in the plan. She was sort of urban bon vivant kind of grandmother. When she did cook, the dish was usually full of fat (she didn't believe in draining the grease from ground beef, for example) and involved at least one weird substitution. My mother told me that one Passover, Nan attempted to make homemade gefilte fish. She tested it a little too early and ended up with a tapeworm. I don't remember my dad's mother cooking much, except the usual turkey and ham on holidays. She always served cream cheese on celery.

I think my mom saw cooking as a chore for a good number of years. Although she was pretty health conscious and limited junk food, her cooking was pretty basic. It was really her longtime boyfriend, who moved in with us when I was about 10 following my parents' divorce, who got her into cooking and demonstrated that it could actually be enjoyable. He was a sort of adventurous cook and liked to use lots of spices and experiment. He constructed a smoker in the backyard and made his own wok. He rarely went by recipes but would read cookbooks for ideas. Since then, my mother has enjoyed cooking a lot more. That was actually one of the few good things that came out of an entirely dysfunctional relationship, but I guess that's another subject altogether...

Edited July 25, 2010 by Empress of Groovy