Weird foods your mom made

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom would put a slice of deli turkey on top of white bread, and then pour gravy over the top. She also regularly made the above "tuna noodle casserole".

Open faced turkey sandwiches. Have you never been to a diner?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is what my mom did: cook some macaroni. Drain, and add three tablespoons of butter into the pot of macaroni and stir. Spoon it into individual bowls. Add a tablespoon of ketchup into each bowl. Sprinkle some salt on top. Stir. Give a bowl to each kid for lunch.

My mom did something really similar, basically the Asian version:

Fresh hot white rice, add big pat of butter, stir and mix with a little bit of soy sauce and sesame oil.
I’ve heard other moms did this with PB but I don’t think I’ve ever tried that.

NP - that's weird? I'm not Asian, but I love rice with butter, soy sauce and sesame oil. Just had it earlier this week.

PB does sound a little more odd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Brains. But she thought it was too good for us and kept it -- "them"? -- all to herself.

My moms family ate squirrel brains. Sometimes it was squirrel brains and scrambled eggs. Rural south.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Brains. But she thought it was too good for us and kept it -- "them"? -- all to herself.

My moms family ate squirrel brains. Sometimes it was squirrel brains and scrambled eggs. Rural south.

We have a winner.

[Anonymous]

My mom added butter to PB&J sandwiches. She would butter the bread, then add a layer of peanut butter on top of the butter, then add the jelly. I never realized it was strange until I was in late elementary school and my friends started to comment on it - and they all loved my mom's PB&Js! It was actually quite tasty.

My parents still do this. They claim the butter "seals" the bread so that the jelly won't run into the bread or make it mushy. I watched them do it a year ago as they packed their lunch for a road trip and was kind of horrified, yet it made me wonder if they had done it all along and I never knew.

School lunch was a slice of white bread, slice of bologna (from the Oscar Meyer tub, red rind pulled off) and mustard. Every day.

We ate that chipped ham barbecue a lot living in Northeast Ohio.

I'm about to make the cranberry jello mold my grandmother always made for Thanksgiving or Christmas, whichever holiday we were there for. Problem is, the recipe calls for sliced strawberries in heavy syrup, which aren't made anymore (remember the spinach type boxes of frozen everything, 10 oz or so?). So it never really comes out right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

My mom added butter to PB&J sandwiches. She would butter the bread, then add a layer of peanut butter on top of the butter, then add the jelly. I never realized it was strange until I was in late elementary school and my friends started to comment on it - and they all loved my mom's PB&Js! It was actually quite tasty.

My parents still do this. They claim the butter "seals" the bread so that the jelly won't run into the bread or make it mushy. I watched them do it a year ago as they packed their lunch for a road trip and was kind of horrified, yet it made me wonder if they had done it all along and I never knew.

School lunch was a slice of white bread, slice of bologna (from the Oscar Meyer tub, red rind pulled off) and mustard. Every day.

We ate that chipped ham barbecue a lot living in Northeast Ohio.

I'm about to make the cranberry jello mold my grandmother always made for Thanksgiving or Christmas, whichever holiday we were there for. Problem is, the recipe calls for sliced strawberries in heavy syrup, which aren't made anymore (remember the spinach type boxes of frozen everything, 10 oz or so?). So it never really comes out right.

We had a thanksgiving jello mold thing that featured these strawberries and canned pineapple. No idea they were made anymore!

[Anonymous]

My dad was the one fond of cooking weird (to us) things.

Sliced beef heart, chitlins (stank up the house and no one touched them), homemade kimchi and ceviche when probably less than 5% of America knew what those things were. He was super excited when my sister befriended a newly arrived Vietnamese immigrant. He had my sister invite her over for an afternoon of cooking. I walked into the kitchen at one point and saw her squatting in a corner pounding spices with a mortar and pestle.

I can appreciate the specialness of some of these things now in what was otherwise a standard American 80s household, but at the time I thought they were weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bread slathered with ghee and sugar and toAsted on a pan till the sugar caramelised. I’d eat it dipped in warm milk. Still my favorite comfort food.

Are you Punjabi? My younger brother's nanny was Punjabi, and she used to make this for him. I really liked it too. My mom tried, but she could never quite get it the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

My mom added butter to PB&J sandwiches. She would butter the bread, then add a layer of peanut butter on top of the butter, then add the jelly. I never realized it was strange until I was in late elementary school and my friends started to comment on it - and they all loved my mom's PB&Js! It was actually quite tasty.

My parents still do this. They claim the butter "seals" the bread so that the jelly won't run into the bread or make it mushy. I watched them do it a year ago as they packed their lunch for a road trip and was kind of horrified, yet it made me wonder if they had done it all along and I never knew.

School lunch was a slice of white bread, slice of bologna (from the Oscar Meyer tub, red rind pulled off) and mustard. Every day.

We ate that chipped ham barbecue a lot living in Northeast Ohio.

I'm about to make the cranberry jello mold my grandmother always made for Thanksgiving or Christmas, whichever holiday we were there for. Problem is, the recipe calls for sliced strawberries in heavy syrup, which aren't made anymore (remember the spinach type boxes of frozen everything, 10 oz or so?). So it never really comes out right.

Couldn’t you just thicken some simple syrup a bit - “heavy syrup” is just thickened sugar water, basically, right? - and add that with the frozen strawberries? And frozen strawberries in heavy syrup sounds like a thing they might care at dollar stores that have bigger grocery departments.

[Anonymous]

Buttered toast w/ powdered sugar for breakfast!

[Anonymous]

My mother and grandmother both made fairly standard German-Norwegian Midwestern foods, which I never thought of as weird.

I see that many think jello salads are bizarre; ours never had the mayo on top (I can’t say that I like mayonnaise enough to add it to dessert salads), but I loved my grandma’s Golden Glow - orange jello, carrots shredded on the fine side of the grater, pineapple tidbits and sometimes minced green pepper.

And I loved their meat paste - leftover roast goes into the countertop meat grinder and comes out silky meat paste, perfect for putting on Grandpa’s homemade rolls. Also not really weird, but I don’t think a lot of Americans are delighted by meat pastes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mother and grandmother both made fairly standard German-Norwegian Midwestern foods, which I never thought of as weird.

I see that many think jello salads are bizarre; ours never had the mayo on top (I can’t say that I like mayonnaise enough to add it to dessert salads), but I loved my grandma’s Golden Glow - orange jello, carrots shredded on the fine side of the grater, pineapple tidbits and sometimes minced green pepper.

And I loved their meat paste - leftover roast goes into the countertop meat grinder and comes out silky meat paste, perfect for putting on Grandpa’s homemade rolls. Also not really weird, but I don’t think a lot of Americans are delighted by meat pastes.

Never heard of meat paste! I'm going to try it in the blender, though. Sounds like it would be great on toast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My mom added butter to PB&J sandwiches. She would butter the bread, then add a layer of peanut butter on top of the butter, then add the jelly. I never realized it was strange until I was in late elementary school and my friends started to comment on it - and they all loved my mom's PB&Js! It was actually quite tasty.

My parents still do this. They claim the butter "seals" the bread so that the jelly won't run into the bread or make it mushy. I watched them do it a year ago as they packed their lunch for a road trip and was kind of horrified, yet it made me wonder if they had done it all along and I never knew.

School lunch was a slice of white bread, slice of bologna (from the Oscar Meyer tub, red rind pulled off) and mustard. Every day.

We ate that chipped ham barbecue a lot living in Northeast Ohio.

I'm about to make the cranberry jello mold my grandmother always made for Thanksgiving or Christmas, whichever holiday we were there for. Problem is, the recipe calls for sliced strawberries in heavy syrup, which aren't made anymore (remember the spinach type boxes of frozen everything, 10 oz or so?). So it never really comes out right.

Is it true? No more frozen strawberries in syrup? I used to love eating those with cereal. I haven't looked for it in the freezer section but I know exactly what it looks like in the little white box.

We had a thanksgiving jello mold thing that featured these strawberries and canned pineapple. No idea they were made anymore!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will never stop shaking my head at my mother's idea of spanish rice.

Make white minute rice.
Pour jarred spaghetti sauce in.
Mix.

haha. it least it wasn't ketchup. My grandmother (who was otherwise a good cook) for many years used ketchup as a tomato sauce for pasta. I think this was a thing in the 50's but I'm not sure. This was in long island, NY so there were italians and italian food around. I'm not sure if it was a money saving thing or something else. I recall she had canned tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes around so I really don't think it was about money.

I emigrated from Eastern Europe in the 1980's as a child with my parents and grandparents. They always served spaghetti with ketchup. I think I was in middle school when I finally figured out that it was totally not what Americans did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom would take a tube of jimmy dean sausage, a brick of cream cheese and mix it with a can of rotel tomatoes. Then we'd eat it with a bag of tortilla chips.

I tried this once as an adult and was so grossed out. I loved it as a kid though.

I love velveeta and rotel, with cilantro.