aww

I honestly just miss grandma.

My Grandma learned to cook in postwar Britain when rationing was still in full effect, and refused to learn a single thing since. I don't miss any of it.

I'm just a nerd girl who knows next to nothing about cooking. But I have to reverse-engineer my late grandma's plum tarts one day.

Shrimp biryani.

Only me and my dad like seafood in my family and so we dont really cook it anymore.

My grandma insists seasoning and salt are unhealthy, but at the same time drenches everything she makes in fat. She grows all vegetables herself, it's her point of pride. But she makes sure they get a large as possible, so all the taste and nutrition are diluted beyond comprehension.

But her pierogi are the best thing in the world.

Carne asada con congris.

R.I.P Abuela

Oh she used to buy the dough and loads of meat and make pastel. She'd also put olives and eggs from time to time. Never found a pastel that tasted so good ❤️

Her risotto... layers of rice mixed with parmesan, sauce, and topped with ground beef. It was just perfect.

My grandma made the best meatballs. She showed me how she made them and I have the exact recipe, but I just can't get them taste the same.

Listen, I love my grandmas, but my sister and I are the only women in the family who should be allowed anywhere near a kitchen. The grandma who can cook tolerably consistently forgets dietary restrictions and doesn't use salt

Strawberry jam. Made from the strawberries grandpa grew in the back yard, and like 9 lbs of sugar.

Nothing really, didn't learn till I was older that pretty much everything they made was repeatable at home or even in restraints. Not all grannies are killer cooks

Both of my grandmas were dead before i was born. One Grandpa died when I was 6 and the other was a shell of a man with a bitch wife.

It's not so much the foods, though both were amazing cooks in their own ways, with some amazing standards meals they'd turn out. It's them making it that really hits as a loss.

Both of them contributed to me learning how to cook, and in some ways I ended up improving on what I learned from them by virtue of having both.

But, if I had to nail down one specific meal/dish from each that I miss the hell out of, I think my paternal grandmother's breakfasts are the most missed of hers. The woman could put on a spread! Eggs, grits, sausage, liver mush, biscuits, red-eye gravy, with her home made jams and jellies. Gods, you want to talk about feeding an army, when all of us grandkids would stay over at once, there would be her, my grandfather, one uncle, and eleven kids ranging from toddlers to teenagers at one point.

And she never missed a step, while doing it all with us young'ns under foot. She was damm fine baker, and a master of country cooking/soul food, but her breakfasts were next level.

My maternal grandmother could do that kind of cooking too, though not as well. Where she was a standout was with more of the suburban American cuisine. The roasts and casseroles and traditional holiday meals. I think those holiday meals are what I miss most, though her meatloaf and spaghetti were both amazeballs. My grandfather was a hunter, so some kind of bird would be featured often, be it goose, duck, or turkey. Sometimes as the only meat source, sometimes alongside a store bought turkey if a lot of the more distant family was showing up.

Even after she decided she was done babysitting a bird and my uncle took over that part with a deep fryer, her sides still wreck those I've had with other people. Sweet potatoes, three-bean salad, seven layer salad, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, asparagus, peas, all kinds of options, sometimes with all of those, plus others, plus desserts. Most of the veggies were from their garden, though they would be home canned fur Christmas, and some would be for Thanksgiving.

It wasn't that any given item was so good (though they were), it's that all of everything either made was so consistently amazing. Never a flop, never a dud.

Thanksgiving dinner.

She would put green chilies in with the turkey to keep it perfectly moist with just the slightest tingle of spicy. And she would make gravy that was to die for, and perfect cranberry sauce. Not served with potatoes, but with rice because she was a fine southern belle.

Her christmas cookies. She made them every year, and when she died, we realized that she didn't write the recipe down anywhere.

It's been nearly ten years now that she's gone, and every christmas i wish she were still here; She was one of the few normal people in my family.

Beef with lentils and red cabbage

Her cooking it. The joy in that kitchen was palpable. That's what I miss the most. That's what I'll always miss the most.

Her "strudel" not really actually strudel but just extra pie crust filled with whatever filling she had available, baked on a sheet pan

Her pie crust was from the red rose cookbook that just about everyone here era seemed to have had.

Cabbage rolls. My mom's comes close but she doesn't put the same effort in an there is a difference that is noticeable.

Her tomato macaroni casserole(I literally grew up thinking casserole was a specific dish like lasagna, or key lime pie and not a variety of dishes)

Hotcakes with homemade syrup. Cracker Barrel syrup comes close.

My dad's mom's Oyster Dressing. I do not miss merliton (chayote) though. She was from New Orleans but grew up rich, not a very dedicated cook, but that Oystah Dressin, I liked it and don't know how she did it.

My mom's mom was oh so southern and made such good biscuits and fried chicken, but what I miss are the pecans. After her abusive husband died (she divorced him at like 65 years old, finally had enough and he just left and died!). She had a pecan tree and would sit on her porch with her boyfriend and shell pecans for hours, and give us a bag when we left, I loved them.

Fucking everything. All of it. But once a year on christmas, she used to do apple-stuffed roast duck in the oven with sauce.

You. Would. Not. Believe.

Rainbow cakes.

She was Sri Lankan, and would make the best if everything sri Lankan. The beef curry, chicken curry, tuna curry, shark curry, yellow potato, green beans, beetroot. It was all amazing.

I miss her so much, she was the closest family member to me.

So many times I told her, I'll bring a piece of meat and you show me how you do what you do. I never did before dementia got to her. I'll never carry on her tradition and all the Sri Lankan food I do make, I compare to her taste but nothing I do can compare so Im forging my own flavour.

From my maternal Grandma: her arepas but not far off her pastina

From my fraternal Grandma: her empanadas and fish fry

Tortas fritas. Kinda... More the fact of doing them they weren't thaaaat good honestly... But being able to do it in the shape of Ryu and Ken was the best.

Easter brunch. There was this whole tradition from Slovakia where she grew up, but no one took up the mantle. Even when the following generation made one of the dishes, it was never the whole tradition. Now my Easter’s are with my own family and I have no idea what the traditions all were.

And it started with nut rolls and other treats made well ahead of time. Granted an obscene amount of effort for one person.

The “cheese” was most distinct although not my favorite. It was an egg thing that was “cheesed”, or strained through cheesecloth to become denser, more solid. I always wondered if it was called equivalent to “cheese” in Slovakian or if that was a missing translation

I don't remember even having anything my grandparents cooked. If I even had anything, it was when I was very little. All of them lived across the country from us and I basically never saw them beyond a few times they came to visit when I was no more than 6 or 7 at most.

I was always kind of jealous about my friends all having cool grandparents while I never really even knew mine.

I miss my granpa's cooking. His "daube de boeuf" (a dish where beef morsels are slowly cooked in a red wine based sauce) was delicious and he would always make that simple but lovely dessert for me with a fresh fruit salad and gâteau de semoule. I miss him !

Sleeping in, then waking up to the smell of breakfast casserole. Walking out of my room and everyone's there in the kitchen together.