Long Gone Foods ...

Oh, the things that pop up as I go through piles of old throw-away stuff! When I had been living abroad for two years after highschool, I came to spend the summer at home, where I got a summer job. I imagine I must have been looking forward to it and also that I must have been missing a lot of things from home. My mom must have been looking forward to having me home too. In any case, I must have been looking forward to coming home, renewing my experience with familiar things and possibly having my mom cook me my favorite dishes, because among my papers I found this list of foods:

. Salted lamb with mashed potatoes (while I didn’t actually care that much about the Pea Soup that goes with it, but I so do now! I’m an absolute sucker for it!)
. Pan-fried fresh haddock in bread crumbs
. Haddock with apples and curry on a pan
. New potatoes in the skin with butter (so basic, but when they've just been recolted they're just so good!)
. My mom’s Lasagna with lots of thick white sauce
. Lamb Meat Soup exactly like my mom makes it
. Hot Dog with mustard, ketchup, remoulade and onions
. Fish gratin (and here I forgot to mention “cauliflower au gratin” another big time favorite)
. Homemade pizza with pepperoni, oregano, bell peppers and tomatoes (still appreciated, I guess, and my sister makes a really nice crust, however, with the arrival of Domino’s and the pizza boom, I’ve come to find this food kind of dull)
. Chow-chow (a spicy stew my mom came across some thirty years ago; now a legendary family recipe)
. Mexican chicken curry (a family recipe again, don’t know what’s mexican about it, but the fun lies in the little accompaniments you assemble with it: dried raisins, red and green bell peppers, dried almond flakes, sour cream, salted peanuts …)
. Potato salad in vinegar dressing with onions (no mayonnaise; however, I over-ate on this, at some point)
. Iceberg salad with tomatoes (Dunno' how I could possibly have been missing that; well, the French mostly eat this slightly bitter green salad, never Iceberg)
. Ground meat stew with rice (Kind of boring, right? Off you go ...)
. Sweet and sour shrimps in tartelettes (What the hell is that?!?)
. Leg of lamb with glazed potatoes, corn, red cabbage and brown gravy (the classic Sunday dinner from our childhood)
. Party dish with bread, eggs, ham, aspargus and cheese baked in the oven (comfort food)
. Halibut fried on a pan (oh, I love halibut, halibut, halibut …)
. Boiled salmon with lemon (kind of homely and nostalgic)
. My sister’s tuna salad (her secret: HP sauce)
. Barbecued lamb and grilled bananas with chocolate (I maintain that nothing barbecues better than lamb …)
. Soft ice cream
. Lamb chops fried in bread crumbs (yet another classic, I would even eat them cold as a kid)
. Hamburger from the Night Grill (a sleezy down town joint that doesn’t exist anymore; I'd eat leftovers that my brother would bring back home at the end of his night shift)
. Pita (like the one we girlfriends used to have when we were doing math on Saturdays in highschool ...)
. Mutton spread (Sort of a paté, although akin to the French “Rillettes” except with mutton, and we mostly eat it with rye bread or flat cakes)
. Fake hare (Now, that’s a Danish dish, but I grew up with it; it’s basically a meatloaf with bacon served with brown sauce and mashed potatoes)

I think I can proudly claim that my culinary tastes are somewhat more sophisticated today, and that what I miss now are mostly the products I used to have when I was living abroad. This list however brings up some very pleasant feelings, and is most certainly a tribute to my mom's cooking …