1. Write about a meal you never looked forward to eating when you were growing up.
Oh man, my childhood meals were polar opposites for this reason: my mom worked nights. For the most part when she was home, we had really good food. My favorites were carbonara, Italian meatloaf, and country style ribs. When my mom went back to work after my sister was born, she often prepped meals my dad could make, such as salmon patties. But there were nights she didn’t get around to prepping so he was on his own.
For years, I associated many foods with my dad. Some of his favorite dinner picks were ham steaks (with yellow mustard) and lima beans, tuna noodle casserole, and weisswursts, which I actually liked. But my least favorite was when he made bratwurst or kielbasa with onions and peppers. I HATED that meal, even though now I would totally eat it. I don’t know why it was so gross to me, especially because I liked the other sausages – the white ones not the red ones. I guess peppers and onions offended my untried tastebuds. I’d eat it though, because I lived in a time when we had to clean our plates because, you know, the starving children in China.
I guess there were some meals that simply included one thing I detested, like those big ol’ lima beans, Fordhooks. They snap in your mouth the way you might imagine a bug squishes. And I didn’t particularly like when he made broccoli.
All in all, we had some great food that I remember vividly, like the genuine German potato salad, London Broil, and lasagna. My dad is a much better cook of breakfast food than he is of dinner foods, in my opinion. But he tried really hard to make sure we got a solid meal every night so I can’t fault him for that!
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I need to google weisswursts! I know it must be a sausage?? I hate those huge lima beans, too!
They’re gross right? Ugh. Those sausages are white/gray and have a very sweet kind of taste, far as I can remember. Been a long time! The German deli we went to often had all that good stuff but we don’t have anything like that around here now.
My stepfather (who was, at the time, a priest) used to make those big Lima beans when he and Mom had “romantic dinners” together. They looked pretty bad to me, too, and I generally like Lima beans. I’ve never had weisswurst, but they sound like something I’d probably like. I spent a lot of time in Cincinnati at one time, and they had all the sausages (knockwurst, bratwurst, and mettwurst) in the concessions at Riverfront Stadium. I think I inherited my love of German food from Grandma (all of us are Irish, but she lived in Cincinnati when my grandfather was alive and loved all that German food). My stepfather (which see) was German, and the two of us would meet for lunch at The Berghoff in downtown Chicago…. anyway, German food is great. And kielbasa…. Mary is Lithuanian, so you know we’ve had that a few times…
Sounds like your dad was an OK cook….
He IS a good cook but through my childhood eyes it was awful. LOL. And yes, I do generally like German food. We had some in Fredericksburg, Texas, which was settled by Germans and has a long history. It was fantastic.
Dad’s do make a good breakfast!
To this day, my Dad’s waffles and pancakes, are “world famous!”
He made them for his 7 kids, and now he makes them for all his grandkids….
Oh yeah, those veggies are really hard for most kids to suffer through. Funny how as adults we can appreciate the taste it adds to a meal. Although I think I’d still pass on the lima beans. Nice try Dad!