Culinary 'tradition' in your family?

[Mrs Magpie]

My Mum supported the family with her cooking...and the overseas people who lived in our house often cooked their traditional dishes...although the Ethiopians had real problems getting substitutes for things like tef. Even garlic was hard to find then...


btw Cloo, I have 'Jewish Cookery' by Leah Leonard which is 1950s iirc. Lots of different traditions of Jewish food in there....you're welcome to borrow it.

 

[LilMissHissyFit]

When theres a baby in the family the 'baby' has to stir the christmas cake
Even if that means mum or dad holding their hand ( the parent who was the previous generation baby) and 'mixing'

and of course a piccie is taken for posterity

I think its lovely

 

[Stobart Stopper]

My mum used to make lovely curries, proper ones with bones in.

When we lived next door to a Muslim family in Walthamstow I was always getting bowls of food from them, loads of different things that I would never be able to cook myself.

 

[cyberfairy]

Sephardi (middle eastern) Jewish stuff offers more of this than the Northern European - tabbouleh variants, and the like.

Quite a lot of Jewish people are veggie - I know some who are because it means they just don't have to deal with the issue of kosher at home! In gsv's case it's ethical, though.

I had a jewish veggie cookbook but not sure if its still floating around-will get back to you if it is

 

[Schmetterling]

by the time i was born, my mum was all into cooking wholesome food.

loads of bulgar, brown rice, and other grains. unfortunatly she wasn't a particular amazing cook in the sense that she would follow recipes. however in a way i am now cooking similar to her.

my dad was the vegetarian so we ended growing up with very little meat. my dad can not even heat up a meal. it's unbelievable!

one important tradition we and most familys in germany have is to eat plenty of bread and sandwich type of sit down meals. we usually had ours around cofee time called "kafee". my father in his best days used to eat about 7 slices of schwartzbrot then. in the morning we had either muesli or bread again.

usually lunch and supper would be a warm meal. mjam!

*puts on Homer Simpson voice* Hmmmmm - Abendbrot!
And Kaffeetrinken (though we usually called it Vesper).

 

[May Kasahara]

A habit I haven't picked up (yet ) on my mum's side of the family is coffee and schnapps every morning at about 11am. My grandad was Danish, so I guess it started with him. I have very fond memories of my gran, mum and aunts all sat round the kitchen table with coffee and schnapps in hand, talking away like their lives depended on it. My gran had a heavy hand with the schnapps, she got the postman drunk on it once and he crashed his bike into her hedge on the way out

 

[Cloo]

I had a jewish veggie cookbook but not sure if its still floating around-will get back to you if it is

Oh, cool - let me know, that would be great.

Passover is the real bitch - gsv insists on not cheating, and following the Ashkenazi rule of no beans, no pulses, no rice (Shephardim sensibly said 'Fuck that' to that idea, given they're from the middle east and that's rather a lot of what they eat). Given he's not eating meat, and fish a few times a week only, it becomes almighty hard to actually come up with a veggie meal every twice a day for eight days.

I'm actually declaring an amnesty on observing Passover when I'm not at home this year - last year I was so bloody hungry during the working day, because a salad (with no filling bits like bulgar, pasta etc) was about all I could buy for lunch. Given I'm preggers, I have no intention of being that hungry this time round!

 

[Cloud]

I guess it has to be meat and potato pie with relish.

Fisrt made by the great grandmother, then my nan, my mother and finally passed on to my wife. None of them could cook apart from this one dish. They all used tinned stewing steak topped with a huge pastry crust and it was a fairly simple affair. I tried to do a proper version but somehow it wasn't as good. Has to have relish, I remember that was always the main part, splashing tons of the stuff on.