Foods from Our Childhood
If You Weren't Already Hungry, You Will Be After Reading This!
A friend once hosted a potluck dinner and asked each guest to bring a favorite childhood dish. Unsurprisingly, the menu was dominated by soft, pale-colored foods like macaroni and cheese, tapioca, rice pudding, and oatmeal. I thought of that party the other day as I was preparing my own version of macaroni and cheese, which remains one of my favorite foods to this day.
I got to wondering about foods from our childhoods. Are there any kid foods besides macaroni and cheese that adults still eat?1 Or, in Gil’s words, “This is making me think of all the 70s/80s junky food I loved—Oscar Mayer bologna, Chef Boyardee ravioli, Underwood canned chicken, Gorton’s fish sticks and—my favorite of all—Swanson’s meat loaf TV dinners! Pretty sure my parents would never touch those.” And do other countries have special foods for kids, or do the children just eat the same foods as the adults? Blessed as I am with friends from around the world, I realized that I had the power to get answers to my questions, and so I asked several of my friends about their favorite childhood dishes.
I will confess that I had a hypothesis going into this project: I was loaded for bear, prepared to shoot down complaints about picky American kids being coddled with their own menus. I was all set to point to examples of special kid foods from around the world. But readers, I was wrong. My unofficial, thoroughly unscientific survey has revealed that Americans really are unique when it comes to special food for kids,2 and that the complainers are correct: Kids in other countries eat the same foods as the adults. As my friend Geeta notes, “There were seven of us kids! My mother couldn’t have made separate dishes for all of us!”
One quick disclaimer: To research this essay, I posted an initial query on Facebook and also emailed a few friends. Other answers were obtained on long walks, over coffee, while knitting a sock, and on a drive to the Botanical Garden, during which I was somewhat distracted. So while I have done my best to render my friends’ responses accurately, there may still be errors, which are my fault, not theirs. Thank you to all my friends who responded and shared their stories of favorite foods!
Homemade Comfort Food
Contrary to stereotypes, not all American kids eat processed foods. When I was young, my mom was a follower of the nutritionists Adelle Davis and Frances Moore Lappé—thanks to her, I never developed much of a taste for sweets because everything my mom cooked was made from scratch and with very little added sugar. She made her own yogurt and mixed in applesauce and cinnamon for a healthy dessert. In summer we would pick wild raspberries and stir them into the tangy yogurt. My mom baked bread every week; my favorite was her rye bread, which she made with molasses3 and which was particularly lovely when hot from the oven and spread generously with butter.
Many friends, especially those who are my age or older, mentioned similarly healthy and delicious homemade meals. Ruth remembers, “We had cheese rarebit every Sunday night for supper before watching the Ed Sullivan Show (tomato soup with lots of cheese in it poured over toast).” Louise’s aunts would “break a slice of bread into tiny pieces and stir it into beaten eggs and cook it all in butter. It was like a fortified scrambled egg.” Shari’s elementary school lunch sounds so comforting: “Tomato soup with homemade buttered croutons, grilled cheese, a glass of whole milk, Lays potato chips, maybe apple slices or applesauce, a little table for watching TV.” And my mom’s cousin Marlys reminisces about her favorite dinner as a very little girl: “If mom fixed pork chops, I sucked the juice off the bone until I had teeth and could chew the meat off the bone.”
American Kid Foods Are as Diverse as America
As kids, many of us Americans enjoyed the foods of our immigrant ancestors and older relatives; American cuisine truly is as diverse as our people. When I was little, I looked forward to the Norwegian pastries my grandma brought every year for Christmas, and all Minnesotans of Scandinavian ancestry know that the best way to eat lefse (a soft, tortilla-like bread made from potato flour) is to slather it with butter and roll it up into a cone so you get that salty, buttery, potatoey goodness in every bite. My Polish-American friend Richard remembers eating the “food busia [grandma] and mother made: pierogis, kapusta [stewed cabbage], and golabki [cabbage rolls].” My husband’s ancestors came from the Pale of Settlement, and he, too, enjoyed his grandma’s cabbage rolls, as well as the mandelbrot (similar to biscotti) made by his other grandma.
Eli says, “We’re somewhat Armenian. Tabouleh, stuffed grape leaves, sweet breads, kibbeh (either raw, baked with pine nuts, or fried), and shish barak [meat dumplings]. We all worked the prep, and we all ate the results!” Viv’s Costa Rican grandma made “oven-roasted plantains with mozzarella cheese, oven-roasted red apples with cinnamon, and orange pudding cups (in the orange itself).”
We Americans also love the foods of our immigrant neighbors. As Viv says, “I am not Cuban; however where I lived in NJ at that time, there was a large Cuban community in the area. So most of my typical ‘snack/lunch’ foods were Cuban.” Susie agrees: “My mom always made traditional curry for my birthday every year. Even though we were Jewish by culture and heritage and she did make amazing matzoh ball soup, I always looked forward to the curry we had on my birthday, and that really introduced me to different kinds of foods besides American.”
Favorite Childhood Dishes from Around the World
Denmark. Tilde testifies to the advantage of being required to eat the same foods as the adults: “We always had dinner together and we were never allowed to leave something on the plate. Which meant that I ate pickled herring, olives, feta, kidneys, liver, all vegetables, EVERYTHING from the time I could eat solids. No exceptions! So, my sister and I were the least picky kids ever! And I love all food today as well!”
Egypt. Dalia reports that “In Egypt, kids love koshari (lentils, rice, pasta, and garlic tomato sauce mixed together) and molokhia (a soup made with green leaves) mixed with rice.
Of course adults eat them too, but almost every kid I know says one of those two dishes is a favorite.” Dalia is one of the best cooks I know, and I wish we all could sit down together to enjoy her koshari. If you want to try to make koshari for your own kids, here is a recipe that looks terrific.
Greece. Alice “always looked forward to grilled shrimp. We could buy them fresh from the ocean. My mom would grill them and serve them with olive oil and lemon, and nothing else.”
Iceland. Svanhvít “used to love puffin soup! It is the best way to eat puffin, because they get nice and juicy in soup, but otherwise they can be dry because they’re all dark meat. My mom used to put two in a pot of water, add in some stock and dried vegetables, and cook them together. I liked to stir my meat and potatoes into the soup, but my dad would have them separately with my mom’s white sauce. We hunted the puffins with a special net on a long pole. You would scoop them out of the air.”
Indonesia. Ann ate “steamed rice with deep-fried fish (usually mackerel) or fried egg, sweet soy sauce, and sambal belacan.” Sambal belacan is a Malaysian condiment that adds a spicy kick to any dish. Here is a quick recipe.
The Philippines. My sister-in-law Ro was born in the Philippines and has a tempting list of favorite dishes: “Lumpias (Filipino egg rolls) were a favorite (everyone loves these).
Chicken and/or pork adobo (a type of Filipino stew marinated in soy sauce and vinegar) and beef caldereta (tomato-based stew) were also favorites. Arroz caldo (warm rice soup dish with chicken) was a great comfort food for me. I loved longunisa (Filipino sausage) with eggs for breakfast, and my favorite dessert was halo halo (this means ‘mix-mix’ in Tagalog), which is shaved ice and condensed milk on top of all sorts of ingredients with different textures.”
Singapore. Singapore, whose population comprises Chinese, Malaysian, and Indian cultures, has a rightful claim to having the best food on earth (in my opinion, anyway). Geeta is now Australian but grew up in Singapore, and she remembers that her mom could prepare three or four dishes in one hour—her delicious chicken curry, rice or chapatis, and a side dish or two. “We ate vegetarian most of the time. Chicken was a special treat reserved for Saturdays.”
Slovakia. Zuzana grew up in Slovakia under Communism. She remembers simple but hearty dishes: “The pattern of the food that we ate was less meat (meat was only on Sunday, and the [leftovers] on Monday and Tuesday). The rest of the week we ate some kind of cheaper food mostly consisting of potatoes and flour.” She liked the “typical Slovak ‘national’ meal, halušky (potato dumplings with goat cheese),” as well as “prívarok, which is a thick sauce or gravy, usually made with vegetables, that you ate with potatoes and eggs.” Zuzana reports that the only foods she hated were liver and “grandmother’s remedy when I had a cough: onion tea with honey.”
Sweden. Bodil says that it is traditional in Sweden to have soup and pancakes every Thursday. First is the soup—the typical version is yellow split-pea, sometimes with bacon—and then everyone enjoys pancakes. These pancakes are made in a special pan and served with Swedish jams like lingonberry (Bodil’s brother’s favorite) and Queen’s Jam (Bodil’s favorite—a combination of blueberry and raspberry). “You roll the pancake up around the jam and eat it with a fork. If there were any pancakes left, my mom would roll them up with sugar. When they are cold you’re allowed to eat them with your hands. It’s still quite common in Swedish restaurants to see pancakes on the menu on Thursdays, and any kids’ menu will include pancakes.”
Switzerland. Franziska says, “I loved Milchreis [milk rice] as a child. It may not be a special kids’ dish, but actually most Swiss children love it, as it is easy to eat, and nice and sweet.” The recipe she sent me is in German, so I will translate: Heat up 1.5 liters/6.5c of milk with half a vanilla bean and 4T sugar. Add 300g/11oz arborio rice and cook for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. When the rice is soft, serve with a bit of cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top.
Turkey. My sister-in-law Mel was born in Turkey and “loved as a child what I still love today—burek, which is filo dough with spinach and cheese.”
UK. Alison and Deborah both wrote about their favorite comfort food, which they have been unable to replicate in the US: “Baked beans on toast is a classic UK after-school tea choice, or at least it was when I was a kid. I still love it to this day. . . . Another UK staple is similar [to what you can get in the US]—fish fingers (fish sticks).”
Vietnam. Ha tells an amusing story: “I always loved these rice cakes. The outside was coated with ash from the fire, so they looked black. Inside was coconut and green bean paste. Every morning my mom would give me a coin for my lunch—one coin was all it cost—and every day I would buy a rice cake. But then I thought, ‘What if I don’t eat lunch and just save my coins? I will have so much money!’ I saved my coins for five days and liked to hear the coins jingling together. But then on the fifth day I was so hungry that I couldn’t stand it, so I bought five cakes. I ate four of them at once and was so full! But I still like those cakes.”
Let’s Sing Some Unsung Heroes
Hail to our moms! Hail, I say! Hail! Think of the hard work and planning our moms put in every day throughout our childhoods to get those dinners on the table for us to enjoy. Some moms, like my mom or the mom of my friend Amy, exercise their creativity in accommodating and planning around our sensitive palates (Amy notes that “Growing up I only ate two foods—tunafish sandwich and lamb chops!”). Other moms are the first to sacrifice their portion so that their kids can eat when the family is on a tight budget. As Ruth remembers, “My mother only liked shellfish or tuna fish, which I guess was expensive, so we had frozen fish sticks heated up. Of course there were never enough for my mom, so she had a fried egg.” Or, like Marlys’s mom, they cook every single day without a break because “We never went out to restaurants. We couldn’t afford it. And restaurants were not common when I was a girl in a small northern Minnesota town.” And any mom who has ever cooked for teenagers knows that it can be a challenge to churn out enough food to keep up with teenaged appetites. I have been known to cook two entire dinners for our family each night to accommodate appetites for both calories and meat (when the family tires of incessant vegetarian food).
I hope this little article has inspired us to give our moms (and dads) a call to thank them for feeding us so many wholesome and delicious meals over the years. How about you, readers? What was your favorite childhood food? Please share your favorite dishes in the comments!
The Tidbit
Macaroni and cheese is that rare kid food that has become an honored part of American culture: In Karin’s words, “Macaroni and cheese is a big part of African American family celebrations. Often, a family will designate one person to make the macaroni and cheese, as they make it the best.” Another friend, Karla, reminisces, “Our college dorm floor held a Kraft macaroni and cheese study break—testament to its status as a comfort food. But bitter arguments ensued as to whether it absolutely MUST be eaten hot and gooey or leftover cold and gloopy. (My bias is apparent.)”
My bias is apparent too! I love crunchy macaroni and cheese that is loaded with sharp cheese and baked until it’s golden-brown and bubbly on top. So here is my version of this classic dish:
Crunchy Macaroni and Cheese
The key to this recipe is to use an amount of cheese that will seem, not to put too fine a point on it, deranged. But trust me: This will be the best macaroni and cheese you’ve ever had. And if it seems a bit too rich, just have a small portion and round out the meal with a salad so you still feel virtuous. This dish serves eight if you have a side salad, or it serves a hungry family of four with leftovers for lunch the next day.
Ingredients:
About 500g/1lb cheese, or more: I use, in an approximately 3:1 ratio, sharp cheeses like aged Cheddar and milder, meltier cheeses like Gouda. But you can use any of your favorite cheeses, so long as you stick to a 3:1 mix of mostly sharp and a bit of mild. This is a great recipe for using up the odds and ends of cheese you have cooling their heels4 in your fridge. WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT STINT ON THE CHEESE! Whichever blend you like best, grate everything up coarsely in your food processor or, for an upper-body workout, use a handheld grater.
250g/2c large macaroni (about half a box). Don’t use the small noodles; you want noodles that are almost as big as mini-penne; smaller noodles soak up too much liquid and ruin the dish. I use Barilla Maccheroni, which are thin and about an inch long.
250ml/1c whole milk
50g/4T unsalted butter plus 25g/2T for greasing the pan
50g/4T flour
1/2tsp smoked paprika (omit if you’re using smoked Gouda)
Method:
Preheat the oven to 375F/190C. Generously butter a 9 x 13 lasagna pan.
Boil the macaroni until it is al dente and drain. Be sure not to overcook.
In the same pan, over medium-low heat, melt the butter and stir in the flour and paprika until smooth.
Add milk and cheese alternately, beginning with a third of the milk and ending with the last third of the cheese, stirring until smooth after each addition. The mixture will be very thick.
Dump the macaroni back in, stir everything up, and spread in the prepared pan.
Bake about half an hour until crunchy and brown on top.
When I posted my query, my friend Rick commented, “I don’t think I ever saw an adult eat a bowl of Cream of Wheat,” and almost immediately several friends chimed in to say that they still love Cream of Wheat. Who knew?
Hashtag not all Americans; numerous American friends told me that they were required to eat what the grownups ate with no exceptions, ever.
Imagine my disappointment when I first tasted New York rye bread—so sour, dry, and overwhelmed by caraway seeds—when I had expected it to be dark, rich, and slightly sweet like my mom’s.
I’m actually quite proud of this pun.
There is a lot of mentioning of 'the mom' as the cook. In my childhood home, my dad would be the primary cook. I thought all dads were growing up. And I must say, that in Denmark it's a shared chore in most homes - then and now (just not in mine as my husband can't cook).
With my own kids, they just ate what we were having, or didn’t. I’m definitely of the belief, “if they’re hungry, they’ll eat even if it’s not their favorite, and if they’re being picky, it means they’re overfed, so there’s no problem if they miss a meal.” Neither one of my kids was a picky eater. We never had discussions about what they ate or not, or tried to get them to eat or not. Eat it or don’t, but sit at the table and converse pleasantly!
When I was a kid, I mostly enjoyed having food at other people’s houses. I remember the first time I had kielbasa at someone’s house and that became a favorite.
And my step-grandma and step-great-grandma made good meals. Basic meat and potatoes stuff.