h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm sitting eating a hot cross bun and remembering my ma-in-law Nell.We lost her 5 years ago but every Easter now she is linked with this particular food because it was a guilty pleasure we shared as we always took our annual Easter break with her in the wilds of Wales.

With my mother it's the pasta dish that she use to make that I still make from time to time.It was basically a tomato based sauce in which she chucked what ever cold meat was left and then served with spaghetti.We got some strange combinations like corned beef and bacon.It's now known as Leftover pasta.

Do any of you associate a particular food with a lost loved one?

My father's mother expired in '71. Living 2 doors and a creek-width away, Grandpa had myself, my brother or a cousin of ours with him for a week at a time. (He lasted another 14 months)

Born in 1889, full of tales and able to fabricate his own rules with every card car - he was a delight to live with.

And he made the very best ever fried potato pancakes and pork schnitzel that I have ever met. Any time I make it, or find it, it never measures up.

I don't associate any foods with people who have passed away, but we do have some traditions in our family nonetheless.

My sister was a work-study student at Mount Holyoke College on the 1960s. To earn money for her studies, she got up early every morning in the Spring to pick asparagus along the banks of the Connecticut River. She still lives in the area, so asparagus is always on the table when we get together at Easter, or any other time in the Spring.

My sister-in-law is Pennyslvania Dutch. The food she serves the most (apart from asparagus) is German potato salad.

I've tried to get her to serve deviled eggs at Easter every year. Maybe I bedevil her just a little.

I remember a dish a favorite baby-sitter used to serve, called 'porcupine balls', a 4 inch meat ball bristling with long grain rice.

I never have been able to successfully reproduce the recipe.

I would be afraid that the porcupine would come to the door asking for his back.

My Mum made porcupine balls - here's what I remember if you would like to try it.
Meatballs made with pork and beef mince, onions, egg etc and then uncooked long grain rice - she may have lightly rolled them in the rice too.
Into a saucepan with enough canned tomato soup to cover and slow cooked until done. I think that was about it - if she added anything to the soup she never told me - it was one of those easy dinners she made when babysitting the grandkids - they loved it!!

I'll give it thought.

The problem is keeping the porcupine ball from breaking up as the rice expands and shedding the rice bristles when done.

I may try Uncle Ben's converted rice next time I try, since its already expanded.

But was it the food or the person you remember?

Both.

Yes, many. From both my parents since my father, unusual for his times, was a man who used to cook.

This Easter I´ve been with my sister at her house( the family house She has bought to the siblings) So we have used some kitchen tools my mum had to make easter sweets like a forged iron flower.

We´ve cooked some typical easter dishes. So , part of our chatter has been: " not, I dont remember mama doing the cod balls that way, she used to put more parsley. Those chickpeas should boil a bit more, mama let them boil for longer...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xYN63Hi8neU/UVq5op59CvI/AAAAAAAAABo/CK3QPojroN8/s1600/P1040576.JPG

the flower to make sweets, more or less like that one.

My paternal grandmother was never very close to us - she was very old when we were born and lived a long way away. But I do remember a couple of things she would make for us in the run-up to a weekday lunch.

One was a leaf of salad, rolled up with sugar. The other was a dumpling fished out of the stew and served with butter and sugar. I have never had the inclination to reproduce either of them, and certainly not for my own kids or grandkids!

My great grandmother, Elsie (who everyone called "Big Mama" though she was too sweet to complain), made the best chicken & dumplin's. She made "sad" dumplings, rolling out the dough so they absorb the chicken fat and stay flat rather than puff up.

I can occasionally find proper sad dumplings in some Southern style restaurants like Black Eyed Pea and Cracker Barrel. They're good, but not quite as good as I remember.

I also remember her homemade doughnuts, fried in a stew pot on the stove. Those were fun to make. I loved the doughnut holes even better. No one makes homemade doughnuts anymore.

I think the Health Police have put the kibosh on home-made doughnuts.

Nah... laziness and the ubiquity of donut shops.


I seriously don' t know why so many people like Krispy Kreme.

I'm sure I'd like them if I could afford to try them.

They're not that good. The only flavor they have is pure cane sugar. And they're greasy.

"I seriously don' t know why so many people like Krispy Kreme" {baron Grim]

Funny you should mention them. They tried to expand into the northeast a few years ago. Massachusetts had an outlet in Dedham. The donuts were marginally okay, but the coffee was absolutely dreadful . Much worse than Starbucks coffee, which is bad enough. And you can't even call it coffee if your standard is the coffee at Dunkin (formerly Dunkin Donuts) or Au Bon Pain or Panera or Whole Foods Markets.

I like to satirize them by calling them Krappy Kruds.

Yeah, they're fairly new to this area. I think they moved in to Texas about a decade ago.