Memes, We've Got Memes!

I'm going to combine 2 memes at once that I've been tagged with by Sher over at What Did You Eat? over the last few weeks.  Yes, I'm a cheater. :-) 

The first is  a meme created by Melissa over at The Travelers Lunchbox.  Inspired by a BBC poll of 50 things to eat before you die, Melissa whittled the question down to what five foods have you eaten in your life that you think everyone should eat once before they die?

The second meme was the top 10 Foods I Miss.  I did start working on that one but I got so caught up in the memories of the first few that I never got around to finishing them!

So here's what I did. I combined them into being The Top 5 Foods or Food Memories I Hope Everyone Experiences Before They Die...

1. Sushi.  Nothing but sushi, cooked or raw, could be farther away from the culinary arts of my growing up. I was raised on mostly beef, pork, and chicken (rarely fish), potatoes, and fresh vegetables from the garden, all prepared very traditionally southern with lots of frying and boiling going on.  Nothing could be more exotic to my taste buds than sushi and that's exactly what I like about it.  I love the clean-ness, the lightness, the delicate-ness of the flavors.  I'm simply addicted.  I cannot go more than a couple of weeks without calling friends (Gene's not so enamored) and saying one word "Umi?" and hearing a sigh of pleasure and "What time?" 

2.  A perfectly baked, from scratch white cake with no icing.  Perfectly baked meaning not over-baked, where the layers tip out of the pan and have only barest hint of gold on the sides, no brown at all.  Where the texture is as light as air and the cake collapses on the tongue with its moisture still intact, no chewing involved. It dissolves like good champagne, leaving you anxious and yearning for more to solidify a memory of its taste.

3.  Fried green tomatoes. Not the commercially wrapped in batter where the batter is more important than the tomato.  I'm talking about the homemade kind where the tomatoes are fresh picked from the vine outside the door, still warmed from the sun, and dusted lightly in flour and white cornmeal after being dunked in buttermilk.  Where fried means sauteed not deep-fried in a basket.  The kind of fried green tomatoes where the juice in the juicy bite comes from the tomato, not the grease, and the bite in the juicy bite comes from the acid of being green.  Every few summers my goal will be to eat all of my tomatoes green and fried.

4. A Mother's cooking for holiday meals. I know we all have that feeling because holidays are so deeply entrenched in us.  My Mother died in 1987, when I was 25 and my brothers and sister were even younger so our memories of those holiday dinners the way they were will forever be the way they WERE.

In our family, from Halloween through Christmas were our happiest times.  I love my mother but I'd be lying if I didn't admit it was rough growing up. Now, as an adult, I can look back and see that my mom was probably bi-polar. She exhibited a lot of the symptoms.  But it doesn't mean I don't miss her.   I miss the good times.  I miss that she didn't get a chance to know her grandchildren. I love the quote in Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides where Tom looks at his father and thinks that being a grandparent is God's way of letting people absolve the mistakes they made with their own kids.

My Mother was amazing in the fall. She loved Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, so during those months our house was a blur of crafts, costumes, decorating, and cooking.  It was nothing for her to make dozens of different kinds of cookies to give away at Christmas. At Halloween she made all of her own treats and put an address and phone label on every popcorn ball and caramel-ed apple so that parents wouldn't have to be afraid of letting their kids eat them. Of course, we also lived in the country so few strangers came to the door.

So from Mom, I miss popcorn balls and caramel apples at Halloween, homemade chocolate covered cherries and oatmeal cookies at Christmas, and her Sweet and Sour Pork for my birthday and hope that everyone will have known the love of a mother's cooking in their lifetime.

5.  A grandmother's cooking.  Again, like my mother, the list is long.  Nannie is still with us but she's not so good with the stove anymore.  I grew up on all of her food too but I have to single out one thing. For my birthday all I ever wanted was her banana bread. It was my most special treat.

Okay, one more, but it's not really a recipe.  I spent every Christmas holiday at Nannie's house from the time I was in elementary school through high school so I celebrated New Year's with her. Each New Year's our treat was to get into our pajamas and sit up watching Guy Lombardo ring in the new year and she always made special "mock-tails" for us (Shirley Temples) of Sprite and maraschino cherries served in her crystal glasses. I knew I was a "big" girl on that one evening to get to sip out of "the crystal". 

She gave me those glasses a few years ago. I love them. They're one of my dearest treasures. Every time I look at them I see all those New Year's Eves that I was the lucky person who got to celebrate with her.

For everyone who reads this I hope you will have known the love of a grandmother poured out for you into her best crystal glasses as Sprite with a cherry.

For the original meme of What 5 Foods do you think everyone should eat before they die?, I tag:

Lisa at Champaign Taste

Coffeepot at Coffee & Cornbread

Rosie at Bitchin' in the Kitchen with Rosie

Jeff at C for Cooking

Along with anyone else reading this who would like to participate.

Comments

[Rosie]

Gee...thanks Glenna!!

This is gonna be a toughy...

[gattina]

Saw your fried Twinkies not long time ago, how can I relate you with sushi and clean white cake huh?!?! Glenna, I just couldn't hold my tears when you talked about your mom...

[coffeepot]

Glenna your list is wonderful.

I too love sushi. I too about cried when you talked of your mom and grandma.

My grandma gave me a little of that homecooking before she died while I was very young. My mom just never cooked...lol
I remember one time when she tried to make a turkey for thanksgiving. She left all the paper and giblets in and boy did my dad cuss.

They divorced. She is dead now too.

[coffeepot]

I had to come back because I shouldn't have said my mom "never" cooked. She did make some mean fried grits and decent peanut butter fudge.

Other than that I grew up on sandwiches and Lucky Charms cereal.

Sorry Mom I love you.

[sher]

Some day you and I are going to stuff ourselves with sushi!!! I so enjoyed your words about your mom and your grandmother. I so often think of the meals I shared with my mother and grandma. That's why preparing some foods is so special--they are so alive in my memories then.

[Glenna]

Rosie-- :-)

Gattina--See? That's my point in when I rant about church basement casseroles and WOBAT. The food world is big enough for both fried twinkies and sushi! Thanks. I miss Mom.

Coffeepot--I laughed at your "come back". Totally understand. And a mother who makes fried grits gets cooking points in my book. Grew up loving that stuff.

Sher--Amen to the sushi and to the moms and grandmas!