BS: Comfort food

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 12:00 PM

BEETS! done like the freda's potatoes.

(only they never get "fluffy" and they are red, but *so* good!)

Eggnogs

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: RangerSteve
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 11:53 AM

Any meal that doesn't require cutlery. Hot dogs, fish sticks, hamburgers, french fries, onion rings, corn on the cob, sloppy joes, grilled cheese, peanut butter and jelly on toast, fried clam strips, fried scallops, anything fried, except for squid rings, which should be thrown away.

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: GUEST,freda
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 10:07 AM

Potatoes cooked in a fire until their skins are charcoal, cut in half, steaming, insides all white and fluffy with butter, pepper and salt..

yum.

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: el ted
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 09:54 AM

I have never found food comfortable, it is too squidgy and when you roll over it gets in your ears. A proper bed is a much better idea.

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: Bert
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 08:51 AM

I know what you mean about gravy Foolestroupe. We usually start ours with a roux and add it to the meat pan then add some stock.

One time Theresa wanted to make a turducken. So of course I got the job of deboning the turkey and the duck and the chicken. Tree made the different dressings and assemled the thing. Of course she made stock from the carcases and then made gravy with that.

There was an awful lot of this gravy and it was absolutely delicious, just the best gravy you've ever tasted.

Well, we took everything along to the party. The turducken was good but the gravy just blew everyone away. People kept coming back for just another plateful of gravy. Every scrap of the gravy was gone and there was loads of food left over.

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 04:33 AM

This is GREAT! It's a rainy day here in Londontown, and once again, a thread found at Mudcat is making me smile and remember my past.

So, the yiddish version of "drippings", made from chicken fat, is schmaltz. I loved it hot and cold, slavered over a piece of rye bread. I also love hot drippings from roast lamb.

It's interesting to me how often our cultural heritages are showing through by what we still love and consider comfort food. With me as well, it "boils down" to my mother.

So here's my list (having had some of them recalled by you guys, thanks)

Kraft Macaroni and Cheese
Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Chopped Black Olives Sandwich
Tuna Salad Sandwiches on White Bread
Chocolate Phosphates (YES! I wouldn't have remembered this one, so thanks Martin Gibson)
Roast Chicken with Matzo Dumplings
French Toast
Eggs Eggs Eggs...all manifestations thereof
Crisp Bacon
Chinese Food...especially Egg Rolls and Moo Goo Gai Pan

There's more to this list, folks, but I've just made myself VERY HUNGRY! Thanks again for getting me reminiscing.

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: Morticia
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 04:30 AM

Boiled eggy and soldiers....the ultimate comfort food.You always knew how ill you were in my house by whether my mother bought Lucozade or not....it was very expensive and strictly reserved for the invalid in question.My brothers hardly ever got sick ( even the bubonic plague wouldn't slow those two up) so they would look on enviously while I drank it. I never did tell them it was disgusting and I hated every mouthful. Also Knorr Chicken and Leek soup from a packet with (real)buttered fresh bread.

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 12:10 AM

The Secrets of Gravy Revealed, which someone later kindly called "The Paen to Gravy". There are a few later subtle additions I made in subsequent posts, including "White Gravy".

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: mack/misophist
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 11:50 PM

Haven't had this since I was 17. I think about it at least once a week: fresh killed chicken, skinned, not plucked and cooked over a cedar and mesquite fire at 3 AM. If possible, serve with fresh vegs (raw) and/or melon. Water from the stock trough.

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 10:24 PM

well, when I was a kid, the 'special' treat was potato soup, with bacon bits in it. I didn't understand that we had it when money was short, because it was cheap.., but in 1946, bacon was cheap again, after the war.

during later kid-hood, it was home fried chicken, and Kool-Aid (my brother & I made up every possible combination of Kool-Aid flavors possible)
but then there was this dessert of something called "Cherry Pudding" my mother made where cherries and nuts (pecans) were embedded in a dough, like a thick cobbler, and 'baked' in a cast-iron skillet on stove top...then a hot sauce of sweetened, thickened cherry juice drizzled over it all. She made that once more for me a few years before she died, but I can't find the recipe in any of her stuff...*sigh*

And always & forever, it is peanut butter and GOOD honey on the best bread I can find, preferably fresh, warm whole-wheat...etc..

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: Jeri
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 06:24 PM

My dad only made one dish that I remember - EVER. Once in a while, on Sundays, Mom would clear out of the kitchen and my dad would begin the Ritual of the Western Omelette. I got something else, because I didn't like them. The thought of chewey bits of meat in eggs seemed...just wrong. Maybe I had a previous life as someome who kept a kosher household or something.

Number 1 for me is Campbell's Chicken and Rice soup and a glass of milk.

Another is soft-boiled eggs and toast. You have to get them just right, though. "Soft" means a bit of dark yellow, but not runny. Runny eggs used to make me barf. (Now, I love them.) The eggs must then be cut up so the bits are in tiny squares. Rectangles are OK, but they must be pretty uniform in size and small enough. The eggs must then be lovingly arranged on a piece of buttered toast, medium brown. In a perfect world, the bread would be round. Well, in a perfect world, it would be Mom's bread, and she baked round bread.

Cream cheese and green olive sandwiches. (Preferably on Mom's round bread.)

From later years:
Kraft macaroni & cheese - the kind with the powdered cheese; pasta with butter, garlic, onion, salt and pepper.
Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. Bat Goddess has a whole ritual involved with cream of 'shroom soup, which I've adopted since the time I was sick as a dog and she fed me it.
Pot roast was my favorite meal when I was a kid. I've made it a few times. (And lived off it for a week. It makes a nice dinner for a family and a store of provisions for a single person.)
Pork roast was my 2nd favorite, but I've never made it.
I vote for grilled cheese sandwiches, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 04:58 PM

A scrape of Marmite across some buttered white English toast. With a cup of tea.

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 04:54 PM

I learned to scrape the burned part into the sink, but for whatever reason, mom did the much of the cooking. I usually mixed the batter for pancakes on the weekend but my mother always cooked them on a griddle at the table. With as many kids as in your family, clearly your parents had no choice! (I love waffles, but we never cooked them for some reason. Probably because we didn't have a waffle iron.) My first taste of waffles was at the Bavarian booth at the Seattle World's Fair. Such wonderful decadent things with whipped cream and strawberries!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 04:36 PM

SRS - "we" solved the burnt grilled cheese sandwich problem in our household (9 kids) because

a) when we had grilled cheese sandwiches it was our job to assemble them

b) we either cooked them in the electric griddle at the table (again- a job delagated to the kids) or on the kerosene cooktop - and then it was a "do it yourself' job.

waffles (another DINNER item in our household) were also kid-made at the table to order.

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 04:27 PM

Depends on my mood. Right now I could really go for some deep fried tofu on basmati rice with stir fried fresh veggies. mmmm tofu mmmmm...

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: Bert
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 04:25 PM

ooohh! YES. Homemade pot roast. Tree makes that quite often.

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 04:11 PM

I interpret "comfort food" a little closer to home than I perceive in the aura of some of the suggestions above. Comfort food is something your MOTHER used to fix for you (assuming your mother could cook, blah blah blah, along with the "dads can cook also" disclaimer) and when you grew up you developed your own favorite version. Something that your children quite possibly consider as vital as mother's milk. So as much as I like beer, for me it doesn't go with the category.

My mother cooked and baked most things from scratch, so those elements figure strongly into comfort food at our house:

As someone said, "breakfast, in all of its permutations" falls in this category. Sometimes we're all tired, we want something to fill us up and sooth our tired souls. Pancakes and sausage or bacon, with good syrup (homemade strawberry, in particular!). Macaroni and cheese (homemade, and I've posted my recipe elsewhere on Mudcat). The kids simply inhale it when it is put on the table in front of them. Other comfort foods: those little frozen chicken pot pies. You can't go wrong with one of those if it's cold out and you're not sure what you really feel like eating. Homemade potroast (in the crockpot all day long). And the ultimate comfort food I try to have ready for friends or family who have had hard or long or cold days: home baked bread, hot from the oven, and homemade beef vegetable soup. If you smell that when you walk into the house, and it's there and ready to eat as soon as you take off your coat and wash your hands, you're set.

I should note that I also love that creamy tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich combination--but mom always burned the grilled cheese sandwiches. So even though I didn't care for her sandwiches all of the time, I still love the combination. She had four children, so I know perfectly well WHY she burned the sandwiches, doing a million things at once. I have two children and its a real struggle to keep them from getting too dark. My kids know to step over to the stove and effect a rescue if necessary. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: beardedbruce
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 04:02 PM

I don't think my cardiologist would approve... sounds delicious.

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: Bert
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 04:00 PM

Drip, or dripping, is the fat from roast beef that collects in the bottom of the pan. When it's cold the next morning you spread it on bread. It's best when it has a little of that dark congealed gravy with it. Add a sprinkle of salt and you're done. Use good sourdough bread, not that fluffy full of air grocery store stuff.

It's like roast beef flavor concentrate, Mmmmmmm.

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: Once Famous
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 03:53 PM

Joe, corned beef sandwiches served at the finest Jewish delis in New York City and Chicago are not served with beer. They are served with either a chocolate, cherry, or strawberry phosphate.

the finest "joints" in Chicago do not serve beer with any of the Chicago culinary delights I mentioned.

And we drink "pop" not soda!

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 03:39 PM

Did you notice how well a cold beer goes with all of the above? Above all others, I'll take just one item from Jim Dixon's list - bratwurst with sauerkraut. Oh, well - maybe just one other: pastrami or corned beef on rye with sauerkraut, and beer.

Oh, one more: biscuits and sausage gravy topped with poached eggs, and a cup of strong, black coffee - best served south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Then there's the barbecue I got in a restaurant in a small town in Alabama, that I've never been able to find again; and the cup of coffee with cream I had after a snowy walk in Boston.

I was driving through "The Hamptons" on Long Island a couple of years ago and passed a restaurant with a big "comfort food" sign outside. I wanted to stop there for dinner on my way back - but then I couldn't find it. Was it a mirage, appearing and disappearing amidst all the fancy restaurants?

Are rich people in the Hamptons allowed to eat comfort food - or is that a pleasure reserved to us commoners?

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: beardedbruce
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 03:27 PM

the shrimp and chicken quesadia at Longhorn...

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: Once Famous
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 03:25 PM

What is "drip"       Does it?

cheeseburgers
hot dogs
Polish sausage
Italian Beef
Italian sausage
BBQ ribs
corned beef sandwich on rye
bowl of motzoh ball soup
Kung Po chicken
beef chow mein

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 03:20 PM

poached eggs and cheese on toast (cut into 'soldiers')

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 03:18 PM

Meatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy.

Italian bread and butter.

Canned chili and plenty of saltines.

Braunschweiger sandwiches on white bread with mustard.

Grilled bratwurst and sauerkraut.

Peanut butter and crackers (saltines).

Blackeyed peas.

Breakfast in all its permutations.

Subject: RE: BS: Comfort food
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 03:05 PM

mac 'n cheese; tuna noodle casserole; quahog chowder; CREAMY tomato soup; grilled cheese sandwiches; creamy tomato soup WITH grilled cheese sandwiches; tortellini in brodo; sauteed onions.

Subject: BS: Comfort food
From: Bert
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 03:00 PM

I just had a couple of slices of bread and drip. Thought I'd died and gone to heaven for a while there.

What are your favourite comfort foods, or traditional old time folk foods? Blue collar gourmet or whatever you call them.

When and if I ever get back to Blighty I'm gonna go hunt me down some Buckling.