So what is your most memorable meal ever? I know mine. I think that I was about 5 years old and it was near Memorial Day when we always went up to northern Wisconsin to visit family. My great aunt Lolly lived in Suring and was a teacher and I was staying there sleeping on her porch. When we arrived the day before a former student brought her a big bucket full of native brook trout swimming around. I can still envision it. For breakfast I had pan fried brook trout. I can still remember how great it tasted and even where I was sitting in her kitchen. I could see into her living room from where I sat and see her fireplace and piano. Many years later I stayed at her house when I was in grad school with a friend of mine after a long canoe trip on the Menominee river and a short drive. We both needed showers and we arrived unannounced. We were welcomed.
Thanks - nitrates sounds about right. I remember that from back in my college days. The 70's living in Gainesville you were exposed to a lot about healthy living. Does anyone remember the "New Harvest Restaurant"? It was right across from the campus on W. University Blvd. if memory serves. I mostly remember the brown rice. which was included with about any entre....lol. The female wait staff were all so natural and beautiful looking too. Hard to forget that part too. I don't think I'd like eating grey colored bacon so for now will just try moderation, but thanks for the reply and comments, Lurk.
That's a nice story and memory. Good for you to have that. Uncles and Aunts are great, aren't they? When we moved to Florida in 1970, it was because my mother re-married a man who lived in Oak Hill and he had a huge family. One brother and bunch of sisters. Instant Aunts and an Uncle! The Uncle lived in Jacksonville and on two different occasions a good friend of mine and I went up to surf at the north jetty and attend the Mountain concert at the coliseum. We spent the night at Uncle Ray and Aunt Kay's house. They were so nice and that's a memory I'll never forget. I was still in high school at that time.
I’ve tried to recall just the memory that you asked for and to be 100% truthful I have to say I’m directly in the middle of two Memorial meals. Both were traditional to our family. The first comes from Daddy’s Mama and Dad, we never called them Grandpa and Grandma they were always Mom Horne and Dad Horne. Mom Horne early in the summer with fresh vegetables available would always have us over for Sunday dinner (lunch—the evening meal was supper at our house). Her spread was her own home raised chickens, fried, soaked in butter milk, eggs, salt and pepper and then rolled in self rising flour. She had field peas w/snaps, fresh cream corn, fried okra, mashed potatoes and chicken gravy, sliced tomatoes and her fried cornbread. She always mashed her cornbread up in her field peas w/snaps. Her favorite desert was her sour cream pound cake with black coffee. Mama and Daddy put on the other memorial meal in our family every Thanksgiving. Daddy always used the Cajun Cooker cylinder smoker and he would smoke a whole ham and whole turkey. The ham always went on the bottom rack and the turkey on the top rack. Mama would make her cornbread dressing and cranberry sauce. Along with that she would have Cream 40’s & petite butter beans, cream corn, fresh steamed yellow squash and onions, deviled eggs, and yeast rolls. Her favorite desert to serve was her homemade deep dish peach cobbler made with home grown Georgia peaches.
Bill - thanks for the trip down memory lane. As much for the family-orientated theme - as for the mouth-watering menu description. Much to be grateful for. This board can be great at times. Happy Labor Day friends.......Life is good in Gator Nation!
On another forum I frequent....we have an "off topics" sub-forum and an ongoing thread - like this one. It's supposed to be a photo thread though as the difference. There's also accompanying text with the photo(s) and, like here, I enjoy reading what other folks are cooking. We had another thread pop up about including more steak/red meat in one's diet. Lot of interesting responses. Here's one I will share from a bloke in Sweden: People confuse lean meat with healthy.... Animal fat is good fat. What is problematic is what you eat with the meat and what you stuff you mouth with between the steak dinners..... and to some extent what meat you eat. They say "you are what you eat", that's true for the animals too and it replicates up the food chain. Most chickens are raised terrible, stuffed with crap to just grow fast and not get sick (antibiotics). That kind of meat will never be good. Same with a lot of beef. An animal that has eaten what its supposed to eat, like grass for beef and a for chickens seeds/bugs/worms etc, produces a good and healthy meat (or eggs). Processed meat, like sausages, are for some reason also not very good. Find good meat "grown" as natural as possible with as little antibiotics as possible. Care less about how fat and red it is. Beef, lamb, egg that really good food. Combine that with veggies, salad and fruit and nuts. I stopped going to the gym around Covid, but when I did I ate about a pound of red meat a day. Going back to the gym soon. I'm a bit jealous of you Americans, you have so many good steak houses for a reasonable cost. Had a marvelous ~32 ounce steak in Chicago last year. Just have to avoid the equally marvelous cheese cake after it... For a visual reference....I just Googled 32 ounce steak and found this image. I thought that sounded a little big! I couldn't - nor would I - eat that much in one sitting!
32 oz is nothing. I have been to this place and saw a guy meet the challenge and have dessert. The 72oz Steak - The Big Texan Steak Ranch
My kitchen is smelling good with posole rojo. Still a ways out, though. It does take a long time to cook in my 12 quart cast iron Dutch oven simmering on the stove top.I have some radishes, avocados, cabbage, and epazote as garnishes.
I bet they were fried in lard and the ladies doing the cooking ate the livers. That was the way it was when I was a kid visiting the family farm. Added in edit: The family farm is well north of Green Bay and was homesteaded in the late 19th century. There is a cemetery carved out of the homestead where my parents and my grandmother on my mother's side and her last husband (long story, my grandmother was somewhat wild) and my older sister are buried. The church where many of these funerals were held is no longer functioning as a church and was also on donated land. I remember going to my Grandmother's funeral and it was bitter cold. They couldn't bury her until spring because the ground was frozen solid. I also remember going up there in the early 1980's and they still didn't have touch tone phone service. It was still rotary dial and click counting. I think it was in the early 1970's that they finally got direct dial. Before that you had to call the switchboard and ask to be connected.
Plucking chickens was one farm task that I learned in my youth. Slopping hogs was another. But they had just got milking machines so I never had to learn how to milk a cow. But I was great at finding the wild asparagus in the ditch.
Oh yeah, we were forever going to pick wild blackberries for cobblers and jam as well as wild scuppernongs for jelly.
I did have some friends that lived in the country west of Gainesville that had wild black berries. So good. Scuppernongs are OK, but never high on my list of grapes. Added in edit: The piece of road where I picked wild asparagus is now on a "foodie" website for where they say you can get some. When my relations want some they go out in the middle of the week and get it early before the "foodies" can get to it on the weekend. I think that there is too much for them so there is always some left over. Way back when I was a kid it wasn't an issue and there was always an abundance. If you like asparagus you would love what grew up in that ditch. Best I have every tasted.
Posole is almost done. Extra pepper sauce for those that want it hotter. Avocados diced and hit with lime juice. Radishes diced.
This is fantastic......"Woodstock - the Director's Cut" is on TCM right now. Joe Cocker was so young! And Ritchie Havens. Heck - all of 'em!
Well, today Ms. Jan and myself celebrate 47 years together. That said Ms. Jan has requested fried catfish tonight so there ya go! Tonight it’s fresh fried catfish, cheese grits, homemade coleslaw, sweet pickles, and hush puppies. Our afternoon/evening adult libations are on ice and chilled for the day. Life is good in Gator Nation!
