Thursday 12 February 2015

The Three P's

Every time I open the freezer door a Pizza shouts at me.   It has been in there since Christmas when all three of my grandchildren came for a meal, along with their Dad and step mum and their various partners.   With the exception of their step mum they are all either vegetarian or vegan (some eat fish).  I laid on a buffet and covered the table with pizzas straight out of the oven, quiches with no meat or fish content. jacket potatoes, various salads and crisps, trifles etc. and they ate the lot.    I forgot one pizza and it still sits in the freezer.   Neither the farmer nor I really care for pizza.   But today I bit the bullet, made a batch of good vegetable soup garnished with strips of crisp dry-cured bacon and then had the pizza for afters. 

Eating it I thought about my parents - in the days when I lived at home they had certainly never even heard of pizza.   As for pasta - well we did occasionally have macaroni cheese or macaroni pudding but pasta with a sauce?? - are you joking.

For tea we had pastrami sandwiches with a salad tonight - they hadn't heard of that either, I am absolutely sure.   In fact, if I am honest, much of what the farmer and I eat would be looked upon with grave suspicion by my mother (who was an excellent cook ).
Did we ever have rice as a side dish?   You're joking of course - but by golly, I defy anyone to make a better rice pudding than she made, in the side oven of an open range, with full cream milk, and left ticking over all morning to form a good thick brown crust, then thinned down a little at lunch time with a drop of single cream.   Heaven in a bowl.

17 comments:

Heather said...

I was put off macaroni in my school days when it was served as a dessert with a dollop of winey plum jam - and invariably cold. Yuk! You can't beat a good old-fashioned rice pudding or any other dish our mother's and grandmother's made so well, but there are one or two modern additions to our diet that I enjoy like sundried tomatoes, pannini, and pancetta.

Twiggy said...

Ooo I love a home made rice pud with thick skin on the top. My hubby's Nana used to make them for us stuffed with sultanas. Yummy.
Twiggy

Yael said...

When I was a child we did not here of a piza or pasta either. My grandmother who came from germany lived with us and used to make macarony with cheese sugar and cinamon. I ate my first piza when i was 21 and went to Italy.

Rachel Phillips said...

Green peppers didn't exist and nor did spaghetti or pizzas or chips (except at the fish and chip shop) and rice was only a dessert in the form of a pudding that only mum would eat. We still don't eat pasta and consider it to be rubber in funny shapes and sizes. We never eat pizza.

the veg artist said...

That's just how I like my rice pudding, with that lovely brown skin!

Joanne Noragon said...

My grandmother and her friends cooked like you mother. Sadly did not pass the skill on to my mother, a true fifties housewife who followed every recipe published by Campbell Soup or Kraft Cheese.

Frances said...

This post rings so truly with me.

I love to cook, and wish that I had more time and space in which to cook. I like to cook "from scratch" and since moving to New York From Virginia. where I was raised, have been exposed to decades of culinary influences earlier generations of my family would never have known.

Having said all that, I will also admit that I carry lots of memories of traditional Virginia cooking that I do continue to practice.

Taste is one of our valued senses, and it seems a wonderful sense to indulge. Layer on experiences and new ingredients and techniques, but also do value the foundations of delicious meals that featured in your youngest years.

Hoping that this makes sense?

xo

angryparsnip said...

Your Mother's rice pudding sounds wonderful.
Do you have her recipe and do you make it ?

cheers, parsnip

Cro Magnon said...

When I was very small (around 1950-ish) my mother discovered Elizabeth David. Friends who came for lunch used to be amazed by what we ate. I suppose I was very lucky.

Bovey Belle said...

My mother was like Joanne's - the wonderful cookery skills of my Gran (who I seem to have taken after) skipped a generation in my mum! We didn't even have beans on toast as mum didn't seem to have discovered Baked Beans. I didn't even have cheese on toast until I was 21. Basic cooking in ours . . .

I still couldn't face Macaroni cheese - just too cheesy for me, and now I need to be dairy free I have an excuse never to revisit it!

Mum did make good roasties though (even if the beef joint ended up like boot leather). She also made edible Soda Bread, and nice little jam tarts with a pastry lattice on. Sunday high tea was a tin of crab, sandwiches, a salad (very basic with no dressing), followed by a jelly or blancmange (always pink, the latter), a tin of fruit cocktail, or if it was a high day/holiday, an Arctic Roll. (I still like them!)

I like pizza, but make my own. I always try to cook from scratch as the boughten stuff tastes foul these days and has so many extras. Recently I read the ingredients of a Chelsea Bun I think it was and there were about 40 ingredients in it. Home-made would have perhaps half a dozen.

thelma said...

When we were children, spaghetti on toast, sandwiches of brown sauce, or tomato sauce I think, this was the 'tasty' side of life. Rice pudding was always a school one,so not good, neither was semolina or junket puddings.

Linda Metcalf said...

We didn't know that rice was anything put the very best pudding when my grandmother made it for us with lots of vanilla and a shake of cinnamon.

Mac n' Janet said...

I grew up in a plain meat (well-done) and potato house. No rice, no lamb, so shrimp, other than spaghetti no Italian, certainly no Mexican or Spanish.

Gerry Snape said...

dad's statement..."no foreign muck"...was not racist...just the cry of a farmer's son brought up on the best meat, dairy etc possible!!

The Weaver of Grass said...

The trouble with reading all your comments is that my mouth is now watering. Thanks for them though.

Sandy said...

Well, I'm 68 and live in the USA and I didn't know about pizza until I was in 7th grade. Probably never ate it until high school or later. And if you knew how my Mom prepared spaghetti you would laugh - no sauce she just poured a can of stewed tomatoes over the noodles and meat balls. I didn't know it was suppose to be served with sauce until I visited one of my Aunts. Back in my childhood we never went out to eat. It was too expensive and just wasn't done. Now it seems like everyone eats out all the time. By the way I enjoy reading your blog.

Jay said...

Quite right - my parents wouldn't have known a pizza from pastrami, either. Although, my Dad may have done, since he was in Italy during WWII for a while, but he loathed what he called 'foreign muck' of any kind and wanted his meat and two veg, preferably with gravy. He'd never eat rice or pasta.

On the other hand, we eat more 'foreign muck' than anything else. Pork meatballs with pappardelle this evening!