My Irish American grandma on my dad's side had two recipes. 'Roast Butt ', some pale greasy meat that was boiled until it was falling apart, yet still resisted cutting and chewing once it cursed your plate: the left overs of this were tossed into a pot with a can of La Choy 'Oriental Style Vegetables' and a bottle of some sweet sauce and dubbed 'Chop Suey', which was probably from a recipe she got out of an ad in the back of a TV guide in the 60s.

The woman could boil a mean potato, though.

My Oklahoma dust bowl era meemaw never really cooked anything that didn't come from a can, but she baked bread and 'English Muffins' from scratch that held up well when frozen.

The bread was really dry and tasteless unless you really slathered on condiments. The 'muffins' were flattened little lumps of dough that were as dense as a dying star, not a single nook or cranny in sight, with a chewy raw consistency not unlike chewing gum.

I actually liked those a lot, and was disappointed later in life when I had store bought English Muffins, which were more like a mutant crumpet than anything else.

My mom and sister have the recipes, but neither have attempted making them. I'm afraid to read them because they'll probably just say:

One box Jiffy baking mix, water, salt. Bake until done.

What is it with americans putting everything in jello? That's just gross. And then they make jokes about fries with vinegar (which is just ketchup without tomato (edit: and sugar)).

It can't be overstated how many of those recipes were some con to sell canned shit that Grandma cut out of a magazine. There's very little "in the old county we cooked like this..." that made it through the Boomer food filter. Best case scenario is it's Betty fucking Crocker.

The people who say that about younger women probably had Grandmas who were still in households that could be sustained on a single income.

Not saying it was ideal that their only choice was homemaking, but it stands to reason that a more significant amount of them got good at cooking and baking.

In her defense, we're quickly approaching the point where the only food we'll be able to afford is depression era food. Welcome back to splitting one streak between 7 people and water pie.

Both my grandmothers were great cooks. I guess I had a lucky childhood in that regards.

I grew up in the 70s with casseroles that would make your god cry.

If I’m diagnosed with cancer, I’m blaming old-timey cooking. Some things should be left in the past.

When I was in high school my older brother brought a cookbook with recipes from around the world. I tried to make couple that were fairly easy to make and was amazed by the taste. I couldn't believe food can have that much flavor. I later realized it's not that the recipes was so special. My mother's food was simply very bland. Not bad, but it was just variations of salt and sour. I don't make or miss any of her recipes. She makes very good deserts tough.

Yeah, even just having more different ingredients and spices available makes those recipes of old somewhat obsolete. But then you also have the internet to tell you all kinds of new recipes, so if the local cuisine isn't great to begin with, it is easier than ever to not bother with it.

I have three sets of grandparents. Only remember one of my granddads cooking, one of my granddads would bake.

Dad and granddad (his step dad) were the consistent, enjoyed cooking and playing with flavours cooks in the family 😅 none of the women in my family, including me, enjoy it other than my sister maybe!

My grandmother would put food in the oven before turning it on. When the timer would go off, she'd be frustrated that the food was dehydrated and undercooked, so she'd try her best to salvage it by starting the timer again for the same amount of time. Then she'd ask "what smells funny?" before pulling the food out from the oven, and complaining that the recipe was bad.

She never cooked before she got married, but she was married for somewhere around 70 years.

70 years.

In 70 years, she was never able to understand the concept of preheating the oven. When I was a child, she'd come over to my parents' house. If my mom was preparing dinner, and the oven was preheating, my grandmother would turn off the oven and tell my mother that she shouldn't leave the oven on. My mom tried so many times to explain preheating the oven, but my grandmother insisted that it was a waste of energy.

I had an elderly aunt that made "oyster stew" on special occasions. The recipe was as follows:

One gallon of 2% milk
One 16 oz. jar raw oysters with juice
Salt and pepper to taste

That's literally all that was in it. She'd mix it together, heat until steaming, then serve. Just a big pot of hot, oyster scented, salty milk, served with oyster crackers. Everyone hated it and none of her children carried on the tradition.

That recipe deserved to die.

Edit: oops, broken line breaks.

My grandma hand-wrote down all her recipes for her daughters before she died. A few years ago I decided a nice gift for all of them would be to transcribe the recipes into a printed book. While trancribing the recipes I realized that 80% of her dishes were just variations of ground beef, cream of mushroom soup, oleo, and shredded cheese.

My dad couldn't cook rice for shit. Always put way too much water in the rice cooker. On his last Thanksgiving, he made rice with something that turned it pink, honest to God not sure if he used food dye or something else.

And I'm convinced my hatred of liver ties back to how he'd drop beef liver in various soups. I'd never know if the meat I was biting into was goat, turkey or liver until it was too late.

He also gave us food poisoning twice. Yeah, he was a shit cook. Fortunately his cooking died with him.

Turns out I don't actually dislike vegetables, I just dislike how my mother's and grandmother make them. Did you know they can be served with colour still on them?

Church potluck every Sunday when I was a kid. A whole buffet line of jello based not dessert dishes. Usually peas in green jello, shredded carrots in orange jello,or hotdog in jello abominations. If not jello, there were at least 10 mayonnaise based atrocities.

I ate a lot of dinner rolls.

My grandma wouldn’t give me her recipe for my favorite dessert and she died:( My aunts try to reassure me by saying she probably didn’t have a recipe she probably felt it out.

Is it weird that I can't recall my grandmother ever cooking for me? She may have at some point, but there was never any special reverence for her cooking the way I hear a lot of families have. As far as food goes, my strongest memories are about how she'd keep a cup of jelly beans in her car. I was always excited to ride with her because of it, haha.

The big deal cook in my family is my dad, who would have everybody lining up for his chili when he'd cook food for games and fundraisers. He became known for it. When a home game was coming up, football players would ask my marching band brothers if our dad would be cooking for it.

It's interesting too, because despite being born in a foreign country, and nearly my entire extended family being of the same culture, he doesn't cook in that style. His recipes are entirely his own. The key difference is that he uses a lot of sorrel, which is rare in the US but very common in the country he's from. We grew it in our backyard garden, and he gifted me a potted plant of it when I moved out.

I used to get annoyed when he'd invite himself to join me whenever I cooked... but I miss it now.

Great depression, to rationing to factory farm byproducts and processed food.

Family recipes are great though. Not women's job, but they are great and should be preserved. Unless they involve gelatin.

Tradition is peer pressure from dead people. Just because they did this to live most definitely does not mean you are to live this way. Britons and "headcheese".

A lot of people really don't want to admit that their family recipes are trash.

The very bad neighborhood of Flavortown.

Here's another thing, they used to cook the shit out of food. Not burnt? Can't serve it. And don't get me started on ketchup. On your steak? Seriously?

I grew up on shredded carrots in raspberry jello. Both the texture and the taste left a lot to be desired lol

mormons got it covered lol. there's a fair bit of survivorship bias here

Mid-century recipes were buck wild. People who'd grown up with six ingredients suddenly had access to exotic raw materials like cheese from Switzerland, and they were doing mad science in a casserole dish. It was fusion cuisine from people who would not recognize sushi as intended for human consumption.

This is my grandmother's recipe for ribs, which means it's 1950s American suburban cuisine. It's not high culture... but it's not bad, and you'd never try it otherwise.

Par-bake 5 lbs of pork ribs, in a deep pan, in the oven, at 325 degrees Farenheit.

While that's happening, mix a sauce from the following:

8 oz dark corn syrup or molasses
40 oz ketchup (seriously)
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic
~16 oz canned mandarin oranges (or pineapple)
12 whole cloves
1 cups vinegar (white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar)
3 tbsp "salad oil" (i.e. some lightly-flavored vegetable oil)
4 oz French's yellow mustard (again, seriously)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
3 oz Heinz 57 (a steak sauce, similar to A1)
2 tsp Worcestershire
1 tsp Tabasco
3 tbsp butter

Apparently I don't have the intended cooking times on this computer, so you'd have to bodge other recipes for ribs in sauce. Use a mat thermometer and don't worry about it. Basically just get them half-done, then pour on this "Polynesian" sauce, and check temperature / baste every so often. The result is a very sweet, tangy meat, with abundant extra sauce intended to go over fresh short-grain rice. Because I expect my grandmother died without ever hearing the word "basmati." My family stole the basis for this from Good Housekeeping, and they've only sent goons after us, like, twice. Incidentally you get about twenty pounds of ribs per goon.

Any idea who is being quoted in the tweet?

I will never understand why some people prefer to boil hotdogs instead of just microwaving them. They taste better and it's way faster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwbnzEJSbRg

Holodetz

https://youtu.be/XAdRX76_Udo

Not gonna lie, I'd eat the shrimp jello.