I’ve said this already but I’ll say it again: I have a cold. It’s the tail end of the cold but I’m still stuffy and gross. Because of the cold I’ve had a lot of time to sit around and think about things, mostly, what do I want to eat and what kind of food will make my cold go away. I guess when I’m on my down time I mostly think about food.
I spent a good part of Tuesday trying to remember what my mom would make us when we were sick and remembered just two things; an elaborate consomme and canned tomato soup. If I’m fair to my memories we only got the consomme once, the rest of the time it was tomato soup.
Campbell’s tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches made with American cheese and white bread, Pepperidge Farm white bread if we could get it. The tomato soup comes out of the can like a jelly, mom would reconstitute it with milk (that’s cream of tomato soup according to the helpful directions) and toast up the grilled cheese sandwiches.
Tomato soup, books, and bed rest. When I was a kid, this worked every time. That stuff didn’t work for this cold, at all. What this cold needed was something spicy. But the problem is that my family didn’t do spicy.
So, I asked Twitter what I should eat to take care of a cold and they mostly came back with “whiskey”, which isn’t at all helpful since I don’t drink anymore. Some people said “Jewish Penicillin” and there were the folks that said “chicken soup” but not a single person recommended kimchi stew which is what I had my eye on because I had some kimchi in the fridge that I hadn’t touched in a month. I looked at the ingredients, which were kimchi, gochugaru, meat, soy sauce and more red pepper flakes and thought “this should be spicy!”
But it felt weird thinking about making Korean soup. I’m not Korean for starters. I have no tradition of making food like this. And yet, I make curries (Thai and Indian), chile colorado, Kimchi soup, and hundreds of dishes from around the world. I simultaneously felt like I have no traditions and that I was taking from others that which I didn’t earn. I still wanted some Kimchi soup though.
We had one traditional dish that my mom would make which was “spicy”: Shrimp Dino. I’ve done some internet sleuthing for this old recipe and best I can tell it’s from one of those cards that moms would pick up at the grocery store with “recipe ideas” on them. Like dinosaur bones, those cards were put on earth by the Devil to confuse us about God. Let me just explain what went into the recipe:
- rice
- bechamel sauce
- curry powder (the stuff from the 70’s not the real curry powder people get these days)
- shrimp
- swiss cheese
Put those ingredients into a casserole dish and bake it until the shrimp are no longer edible or until the swiss cheese is melted and brown. I ask you seriously, if there was a God, and he is all good, then why did he allow Shrimp Dino? Why did we eat this food? I don’t know. But I know that we made it at least once a month. Until the day that I had a shrimp accident.
I was peeling shrimp for the Shrimp Dino when a piece of shell flew in my eye. My eye swelled shut. We went to the emergency room. The doctor took the shrimp shell out of my eye and told me “you’re probably going to be allergic to shrimp from now on.” We never had Shrimp Dino after that.
In my teen years I experimented with shrimp* and it turns out that I’m not allergic to them. I have no idea why that doctor decided to tell us that I could never have shrimp again.
All of this got me thinking, what traditions do I have? And which ones have I carried forward and taught my daughter already? Here are the food traditions I have carried on:
- “taco” night (there was no spice in this, unless you count cheese, tomatoes, and canned black olives)
- mac and cheese
- homemade bread
- Tomato soup and Grouchie Sandwiches
- Pot roast (done with beer – which is the Belgian way – or with wine, or even just with stock)
- Scones
- Roast beef (and Yorkshire pudding)
- Thanksgiving: turkey (always overcooked but served with gallons of gravy), cranberries from a can, stuffing, and mashed potatoes
- Christmas cookies
Those are all of the food traditions I could think of in the last two days. I bet I have more and I’m not remembering them. I’ll probably start making something for dinner and remember helping my mom make it when I was a kid. Maybe that’s the real tradition. Just me and mom in the kitchen cooking together. Cooking anything. Even shrimp with cheese.
Anyway, I made the Kimchi stew and plenty of rice. And I can report that it is not only delicious but also the perfect way to clear out your sinuses for a few hours when you have a cold.
*Not a metaphor.
I love it when you write about food and family.
I’ve never eaten kimchi stew but I am 100% going to make it very soon
Try Indian Hakka if there’s a restaurant that does that in your part of the Pacific Northwest. It’s the Indian adapted version of Chinese Hakka cuisine and very popular with the South Asian community here in Toronto. A stereotypical dish would be chilli chicken – typically very spicy – and guaranteed to clear your sinuses. Crab corn soup too – delicious.
You’re welcome.
Great post! Cooking is my go-to in spare time, so I love when you post about food. Do you really worry about cultural appropriation when cooking recipes outside your own tradition? For me, food is a great way to share my own culture with those outside of it, and to appreciate and explore the cultures of others. When I visit other countries or cultures, the first thing on my mind is what I’m going to eat there! And sometimes I’ll try to re-create those recipes at home, often going to great lengths to source a special ingredient that I won’t find in my local grocery chain.
By the way, since you like cooking, you might like https://foodwishes.blogspot.com/, a video recipe site (he posts a video about twice a week, and it’s all over the map in terms of quick snack to haute cuisine). I’ve been cooking his recipes for ages now, and the dishes invariably come out between good and amazing. I also subscribed to Cook’s Illustrated for a few years, which was awesome (though I felt after two years that I had a pretty good handle on the techniques I wanted to learn).
I follow Chef John and Avie and I are making his gingersnaps and posset this weekend.
I think my problem is not so much appropriating (which I’m painfully aware of) but rather the paucity of traditions that my own family handed down. That was more my point. I’m curious how many traditions everyone else carries?
Yeah, but your Shrimp Dina story and recipe is amazing (and I’m going with the free will theodicy on that one, as in, you’re free to make Shrimp Dina, even if God wants you to make Shrimp Fra Diavolo).
I think if you were middle class growing up in 1970’s and 80’s North America, you ate your share of “recipe ideas” from cards or the sides of soup cans. My grandma used to make a chow mein bake with leftover turkey that called for a tin of cream of mushroom soup. I still make it about once a year as it reminds me of my childhood, but my wife thinks it’s disgusting (she grew up in a family of hunters and gatherers, and her tradition is salmon, deer, moose, and vegetables from the garden…no tinned anything!).
My own food traditions are Indian and Russian-Ukrainian, reflecting the two very different sides of my family. I grew up eating lots of curry, naan, perogies, and borscht. However, I was raised in Canada…I don’t know what makes Canadian food distinct from American (unless you’re from Quebec, which does have very tasty dishes like tourtiere and poutine). I guess now that I live in America, I’ve observed that Canadians are a bit less obsessed with hamburgers, casseroles, and barbecue (which is a verb in Canada, but a noun in America).
Loved the food traditions post. The main family tradition I carried on is creamed chicken. Campbell’s cream of chicken soup poured over chcken breast that’s been roasted and shredded with a fork. Served with mashed potatoes and peas. My kids love to mix it all together into a slop, just like I did. Your tomato soup reference reminded me of that. Forgot to mention Pho yesterday when you asked for food recommendations. It’s my go-to when I have a cold. My favorite place puts shaved fennel into the broth. Then I add a few jalapenos and chili paste. I prefer it with veggies and tofu, but chicken is good too. Feel better – thanks for a great post.
Good call on pho. Spicy miso ramen is also great when you have a cold…or pretty much whenever.
Emery’s youthful lineup certainly opening up Vorskla sinuses.
We just to need to not beat ourselves.
Interesting Jenkinson at CB. Shades of Monreal. Desperate times call for out of the box thinking.
EMR looking sharp except for presenting Vorskla with their most dangerous chance of the first half with a sliced clearance.
Looks cold there in Kiev.
Would Dean give us that stone cold PK on Ramsey? Tbd Sunday.
Kids look alright in the first half.
An early ‘Kane’ sighting in the second half from Vorskla.
Medley (CB), Gilmour (MF), and Saka (MF) were some of the kids brought on in the second half.
Nketiah desperate for a goal.
The job was done and dusted. The fuss, no muss.
Darn, Cazorla not starting for Villareal v Rangers
Now that was fun!
Topped the group with a game in hand, the kids played very well for the most part despite the difficulties surrounding the match with a solid 1st half.
18 matches, 3 competitions, 2 1/2 months without a loss and counting…
Watching Ramsey take his pen Hazard style I couldn’t help but think back to the previous thread and I have to say my take on the Szczesny/ Fabianxki undressing of Payton is a bit different than most others.
“Hazard shoots the opposite side you dive in” – translation: “don’t dive until he picks his corner.”
“He shots this side and that side but best use your own judgment” – translation: “his placement is pretty random, go with your gut feeling.”
And finally, the video session was clearly intended to bring Szczesny down a peg or two , and must’ve come from Wenger himself.
How much of a stretch would it be for him to fu#k off in training every now and again given some of the things that got reported outside of the club’s ranks. Clearly there were reasons Wenger got rid of him the way he did.
I can’t imagine a less vindictive person than Wenger.
As for Fabianski having to rebuilt his confidence or whatever he called it after leaving Arsenal – nothing out of ordinary, most bit part players when leaving for new clubs need to start from almost nothing confidence wise.
Whether or not Payton was up to scratch at this level is another thing entirely , but I agree with the poster who said there’s always two sides to every story.
Tim, I really like your posts on topics other than football itself.
Cooking, Politics, you name it.
Keep them coming.
The most memorable ones that stuck with me till forever have nothing to do with football actually, so wipe the snot from your nose and get to work.
Add cooking demonstrations to the 7amkickoff conference agenda. Arsenal match, political discussion and cooking demonstrations. Sounds like a fantastic event.
Making feijoada (a brazilian black bean stew) is mine. Not that I explicitly learned how to make it from my mother but it always served as a bond to my brazilian heritage. But my gf is vegan, so she’s not too hot on a slave’s dish-leftover-pork-scraps with pig’s feet and tongue and opportunities to cook are few and far between.