Food-Related Advice from our Past

I started reading EvA's post on how some people will not eat fresh bread until the next day, and immediately thought it was a thread about advice our parents/grandparents passed down to us. Turns out it was something else entirely (a very interesting thread, indeed) but it got me thinking. For instance, my mother insisted you should never leave a serving spoon in the fridge because it will poison the food, i.e., if you make a lot of potato salad and leave the spoon in the bowl to serve yourself the next day, you're in for trouble.

My grandma was superstitious about not letting me eat any of those little ham cubes from buffets if they had the skin on, and watched me like a hawk to make sure I didn't. I'm not sure why this is.

My father always left a few bites of his meal uneaten on his plate. Although he never spoke of this practice himself, my mom told me his religious upbringing had ingrained this in him so that he would have enough to eat in the afterlife. He passed away in 2006; I hope he's enjoying many tasty dishes, wherever he may be.

As for myself, I nearly always clean my plate (or my husband will finish it for me). If there's an afterlife, I'm afraid I'll spend eternity eating nothing but gristly bits.

Jasubar wrote:As for myself, I nearly always clean my plate (or my husband will finish it for me). If there's an afterlife, I'm afraid I'll spend eternity eating nothing but gristly bits.

Hey, me too!

To this day, I still don't know if the advice about waiting forty-five minutes after eating before going in the water is an old wives' tale, or sound advice.

Wow, I only heard 15! But since I'm probably the only one on the planet who doesn't know how to swim, maybe that was the wading rule.

My Calabrese grandmother told me to cook mushrooms (even store bought) with a silver spoon so I could tell if there were any poison ones present if the spoon turned; family story is that grandpa had an old silver dollar he used for the same purpose and would clean it with booze in between mushrooming trips.

I have a half-memory of the grandparents on the other side admonishing someone for drinking milk in the same meal as wine. As long as grace is said, my own parents have a much more pragmatic approach to food, though I think there are some recipes for which my mom absolutely must use a wooden spoon or not make the dish at all.

My dad ingrained in me from a very young age that you absolutely must NEVER eat fish and dairy in the same meal, or risk being very ill. It could be just mental at this point, but it never fails to prove true -- even today when I followed up salt and pepper shrimp with a chocolate malted, 20 minutes or so later.

MincyBits wrote:My dad ingrained in me from a very young age that you absolutely must NEVER eat fish and dairy in the same meal, or risk being very ill. It could be just mental at this point, but it never fails to prove true -- even today when I followed up salt and pepper shrimp with a chocolate malted, 20 minutes or so later.

So much for lox and bagels, cream herring, sole with mornay sauce, that slice of american cheese on the tuna melt...

JoelF wrote:

MincyBits wrote:My dad ingrained in me from a very young age that you absolutely must NEVER eat fish and dairy in the same meal, or risk being very ill. It could be just mental at this point, but it never fails to prove true -- even today when I followed up salt and pepper shrimp with a chocolate malted, 20 minutes or so later.

So much for lox and bagels, cream herring, sole with mornay sauce, that slice of american cheese on the tuna melt...

I'll deal with the sick stomach for lox and bagels, but that's about it. Nothing else is worth it, and the thought of cream sauce or cheese on fish is just horrifying even to this day, given my raising. For some reason, butter is okay. My dad is a special, special person.

Edited to add: Llama exasperated pointed out this afternoon when I realized my sin that if fish-and-milk didn't give me a sick stomach, worrying about it would. Perhaps he was right, but I still avoid the conflict altogether if possible.

My mom told me if I left food on the plate, ghosts (or monsters) would come and finish it. Not wanting to attract ghosts and/or monsters, I did my best to clean my plate.

Mom also told us kids if we ran around like maniacs right after eating, we would get "up-in-the-scientist". We had no idea what that was, but it sounded vaguely scary, and hey, my mom's nurse so she would know these things. I think I was in college when I finally realized she was saying "appendicitis" but the heavy filipino accent made it sound much more scary.

I'm totally scarred for life.

grace

Jasubar wrote:My father always left a few bites of his meal uneaten on his plate. Although he never spoke of this practice himself, my mom told me his religious upbringing had ingrained this in him so that he would have enough to eat in the afterlife. He passed away in 2006; I hope he's enjoying many tasty dishes, wherever he may be.

Neighbor lady told me if I put too much sugar in my morning tea I'd get ants.

My dad told me that eating candy would put holes in my teeth, which is true, but rather then being put off I was intrigued: I envisioned little holes right through my teeth such as you get in a hard peppermint candy if you carefully suck it down to nearly transparent thinness. I thought I'd be able to whistle through these holes in my teeth, which appealed to me because I couldn't (and can't) whistle, no matter how much my dad tried to teach me how.

Put a bowl of just-out-of-the-oven spiced walnuts and almonds out on the table for my BF and his mom to snack on. As we were popping a few in our mouths, mom says "I shouldn't be eating these even though they're delicious"--when asked to explain (figuring is was a "diet" thing, was dumbfounded to hear "because eating warm nuts causes the runs". OKAY. Never heard that one before. BF later claimed that she was correct. I, of course, was fine. Go figure

Not quite on point, but maybe close enough, my mother told me that couples who registered for stainless instead of silver when they were getting married would get divorced.

And my grandmother told me that couples who slept together before they got married....... oh never mind.

Guess I'm doomed!

Close to 22 years later, our stainless is still going strong and so are we!