Yahoo Finance This Mother’s Day, We’re Reminiscing The Foods Our Mums Used To Make Us
One word that sums up my mum? Superwoman. Growing up, my mum has juggled working life, married life and family life all while suffering from a life-long diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. And did I mention she’s the designated household cook?
Don’t get me wrong, my dad dabbles in the occasional bacon bolognese, and English breakfast, but when it comes to weeknight cooking – mum’s your guy.
Now, I love all that my mum cooks. In fact, I can’t name a single meal she’s ever cooked that I’ve not enjoyed. But there can only be one mum-made meal that sits rent-free in my mind day after day, after day. And that’s avgolemono.
It’s the most comforting soup that’s ever graced our dinner table. And it lives on to be one of my absolute favourite home-cooked meals.
Perfectly seasoned and bursting with fresh lemon flavours, this is the one meal that, however many times I try and make, I just cannot replicate her perfect recipe.
My boyfriend might tell you otherwise, but I think that’s just because, you know, he’s my boyfriend…
Having lived away from home during University, I always craved my mum’s avgolemono soup (especially when I was hungover, but don’t tell her that). Which is why whenever I got the chance to visit home, I always requested it for dinner.
Made in a matter of minutes (seriously, she’s a whiz), avgolemono was, and still is, our go-to meal for when we’re feeling poorly. Or, when we can’t decide on what to cook for dinner.
For me, avgolemono is an all-year round type of meal. I’ll be craving it in summer, just as much as I would be during winter. There’s just no seasonal limit to this delicious soup.
As much as I could go on about how much I love my mum’s avgolemono, I want to show you guys just how important our mums cooking really is. Here, eight people pay tribute to their superwoman mums, and talk about the delicious meals they were fed growing up…
Vicky Chandler, Editor
“While I love the whole “oh how I crave my mum’s cooking” narrative, unfortunately… my mum can’t cook. No offence to Jo, but her cooking does leave a lot to be desired. Nonetheless, what my mum can make is a really good egg sandwich. In fact, I’d say my mum’s egg sarnies are famous to those who have eaten them.
Every Christmas growing up we’d have a huge Christmas Eve party, inviting all our neighbours on the street to ours for a pre-Xmas bevvy and often ending in us jigging around the living room to A Fairytale of New York. Mum would spend the day before in the kitchen with mountains of fluffy white bread, diligently making enough egg sandwiches to feed an army (cut into triangles obv) along with tuna and cucumber, sausage rolls and everything else you quite rightly expect on a proper British buffet. She may not be a great cook, but she’s a BRILLIANT host, and knows exactly what her guests need when wine and cocktails are involved!”
Anna Lewis, Digital News Editor
“When I was four years old, my mum was asked to give weekly cooking classes at my primary school. In her first class, Mum taught us how to make her famous Rice Krispies Treats. As the weeks went by, she – and my teachers – soon realised that these Rice Krispies Treats were as good as things were going to get as everything else in her repertoire was a bit of a dud. So, she started giving weekly pottery classes instead. Something she was much better at.
Mum’s a good cook, but baking has never been her strong suit – her birthday cakes were more like birthday biscuits, and orange jelly with tinned mandarin segments were about as good as it got when it came to pudding. But those Rice Krispies Treats were spot on every single time. Outrageously sticky, absurdly gooey, and impossible to get out of your hair if your brother threw one at you, the mix of Rice Krispies, butter, marshmallows and a secret fourth ingredient are unbeatable.
To this day, Mum’s Rice Krispies Treats are my go-to when there’s a birthday in the office or I’m in charge of sweet stuff at a picnic. Plus, in the current climate, they’re great for sending as gifts as these lighter-than-air morsels won’t cost you a fortune is postage. Plus, the amount of sugar in them means they last for days and days (just in case Royal Mail’s having a moment and everything’s stuck in delivery limbo again…).
“And before you ask… the only way you’ll get that secret ingredient is by clawing the recipe out of my cold, dead hands…”
Bobbie Edsor, Social Media Editor
“Growing up, my mum would always ask my siblings and me what we wanted for our dinner on our birthdays. She’d ask well in advance, to make sure she had everything she needed to make our birthday dinner extra special. Every year, without fail, I asked for her creamy chicken and leek pie. With a heady hit of Dijon mustard and more sauce than you could shake a stick (or a hunk of bread) at, I lapped it up every single birthday without fail. As a family, we eat much less meat these days – but the chicken pie lives on and makes a celebrity appearance at least three times a year, with quorn pieces or mushrooms tucked inside her inexplicably creamy pie instead.”
Lily De’Villeneuve, Masters Student
“My mum always seems to throw together the most delicious meals for us all, and I would simply run to the table every time I was called for dinner, already drooling at what I was going to gobble down. Her speciality though would have to be baking. My sisters and I would sit at the kitchen table watching her literally whip together any flavour cake in about 5 minutes, using absolutely no measuring tools and I quote just "going with the feel”. My favourite was her almond and chocolate cake, perfectly gooey when warm out the oven and with a subtle hint of coffee that just hit the spot.
Unfortunately, I found myself quite unable to recreate her amazing cooking when I left for uni. When my mum found out I’d resorted to a peanut butter-sandwich diet, she took immediate action and filled a notebook with all of her signature dishes including the famous cake! Definitely the best present I’ve ever received although sometimes her “feel” got the better of her. The famous chocolate and almond cake recipe ends like this: “bake until firm and golden, goodness knows how long that is, I can’t remember and I made up the recipe!”
Laurence Mozafari, Editor
“My favourite meal by my mum, Lorraine, is her spaghetti bolognese. It’s always made in huge portions, with a gorgeous rich sauce with both pork and beef mince, half a bottle of red wine, all slow cooked with carrots, big mushrooms and so much more.
This dish simply feels like home to me. I always stock up on frozen portions when I visit. It’s been an anchor to my mother even though we’re so far apart, a delicious and warm embrace, that comforts me when I’m weathering the storms of life. It was a godsend in the early weeks of lockdown but didn’t last long, as I have to share half of it with my girlfriend nowadays.
I’ve tried a few times to get my mum to teach me how to make it, and never quite got through the lesson. Now I’m determined to do it, at least so I can pass on the recipe, and hopefully make it as special for my kids as it’s been to me and celebrate my mother for years to come.”
Megan Di Girolamo-Lyon, Affiliate & Partnership Marketing Executive
"There’s a generational dish in my family. My mum can make a simple tomato pasta sauce that tastes so other worldly. In fact it was the only thing I requested for my birthday in lockdown. She was taught by her mum, my wonderful grandma. I try and replicate it but it never quite tastes the same, maybe there’s some magic when you reach a certain age or become a mum that just alters the taste, whatever it is, it’s the best!"
Alessandra Lauria, Sicilian Pasta Maker
“If I had to choose a favourite meal growing up, it would have to be my mum’s minestrone soup. She’d blend it super fine and call it “passato di verdure.” And If we were lucky, she’d even add spaghetti.”
When I was younger, I couldn’t wait to come back home from school and devour a bowl full of the stuff! Minestrone soup was how my mum would make me eat vegetables. She’d just blend it all very finely, so that it was impossible for me to understand what it was made of.
To serve, of course, she’d always drizzle a good amount of our delicious extra virgin olive oil, which we got directly from our family land. Along with plenty of well-aged Parmigiana Reggiano. It really is super delicious!”
Matt Hill, Group Digital Strategy Director
“My mum has always been really good at deconstructing and recreating meals we had on holiday. I was strangely obsessed with Kenny Rogers Roasters as a kid, a chain of chicken and rib restaurants started in the US by country music’s greatest beard.
I always had the same thing – chicken pot pie, which was basically a big cob of bread hollowed out and wearing its removed top as a jaunty hat, filled with chicken, vegetables and gravy, with a quite stunning cheese, bacon and spring onion mash – and it became a real comfort-food classic.
Brilliantly, my mum somehow magicked it up back home in Harrow, and it tasted exactly the same – despite no doubt including entirely different ingredients, from entirely different supermarkets – and I would request it regularly for birthdays, sick days, any time I could influence dinner basically. It still makes me feel very nostalgic even thinking about it.
Alas, I have no idea how to make it – having not been in close contact with my mum for a year now I may suggest we make it together when we get out of all this as a trip down memory lane. The closest I’ve ever come to recreating it in my daily life is Eat’s chicken pot pie soup, which tastes a bit like the filling, but dilutes the comforting cob part of it for a big pie-like crouton in a portable-friendly dish. And, well, the mash – I’ve never had mash that good anywhere since. And I’ve eaten a lot of mash.”
