What is a dish from your childhood that you fear you just won't ever have again?

[Michael_in_TX]

My mother makes the most exquisite spaghetti and meatballs. It is a recipe passed down from her mother, my grandmother. It is so good. My sister and I have made sure, in recent years, to watch my mom make it. We also have my grandmother's original recipe card, handwritten in cursive and faded as it is.

Both my sister and I believe we could recreate it with decent fidelity. (Not perfect, because one can never replicate one's mother's recipe perfectly, of course.)

Yet, there is one recipe I miss terribly that has been lost to the sands of time.

When I was growing up, my family and I would always go down to Galveston to visit my grandparents (father's side) for Thanksgiving. There was turkey and all of the fixings, to be sure, but -- as this was Galveston -- there was some distinctive seafood influence. Fresh Gulf Shrimp scampi, shrimp cocktail......but.....what I remember the most was this absolutely exquisite, absolutely delicious, absolutely delectable oyster stuffing.

Oh how I wish I knew how to recreate it!

Unfortunately, neither myself nor my cousins had the foresight to get the recipe from the time these yearly gatherings declined (due to us going off to college) and my grandparents' passing.

All I remember is that is my favorite thing every Thanksgiving. Wish I knew how to make it.

[Debra]

Mine would be my Grandmothers home made cherry pie. Cherries picked off the trees in her backyard.
Granny is gone and the trees are long gone. Both left memories.

[bbqLuv]

Baked egg cheese and zucchini. I have tried to reproduce the dish, but it is not like I remember.

[synodog]

Grandma’s tamales! My mom, wife and sisters made them with her help a few years before she passed but haven’t made them since.
Grandma and grandpa’s and Mom’s homemade flour tortillas. We’re so lazy we buy the raw tortillas so all you have to do is cook them on the comal.

[realdocBBQ]

Tamales are SO MUCH WORK. I can't fathom doing that on a regular basis like some of these immigrant ladies - then selling them as cheaply as they used to! Now... not so cheap anymore...

[texastweeter]

Possum soup.

[klflowers]

You fear you'll have it again???

[texastweeter]

Try this, his is pretty dang good.

https://altonbrown.com/recipes/oyster-dressing/

[Debra]

Oyster dressing was a special treat. VERY exotic fare for Kansas farm people. Delicious.

[mrteddyprincess]

Debra my grandparents were products of The Depression and they were, well, let's just say frugal. But at the holidays they splurged and bought oysters to make dressing. I love it to this day. Same as you, only Indiana farm people.

[Steve R.]

Hoecakes. These were a staple of my grandparents, but unheard of around here except for some of the wannabe, hipster places in Louisville. I have taken it upon myself to keep that tradition alive anytime I make pulled pork or ribs.

[Starsky]

Have you ever posted the recipe? I'd love to try to make them

[Troutman]

I think I remember a girlfriend who had that nick name

[Steve R.]

Starsky, the way I do it is essentially fried cornbread. Some people add wheat flour to give it a little more pancake-like consistency. It's one of those things that there is really no right or wrong way. Except don't put sugar in it, I really hate that.

[Jerod Broussard]

My mom's Meatball Fricassee was good. DARK gravy for the rice. Maybe I can get her to cook that when I head home for Christmas, or she can cook it when they visit for sausage making.

[Troutman]

How ya doin' Margie, how's the fricassee? (name that movie)

[holehogg]

My mom's Mac and cheese. I think I get close but no cigar yet.

[tbob4]

After branching out to my own, I have gone back to making mom’s. Much, much easier and so satisfying

[WI Bubba]

The fried chicken from Slater's BBQ in Waukegan, IL. The restaurant lost the battle against "progress", and Ma and Pa Slater have long since moved on from this world. But to this day I can still hear Ma saying "I'll get the chicken going, while you decide what else you want" everytime I walked in. Even when I hadn't been there in almost a year due to working out of town, Ma got the chicken going, then asked where the heck I had been.

On the home front, my mom's chicken and dumplings. Thick as stew with slickers, not floaters. There never was a recipe, and despite watching her make it a dozen times, I can't come close to getting it right.

[Troutman]

Used to be a place I believe was in Palos Hills, IL called Kegel's that had the best fried chicken ever. We begged them for the recipe but they just weren't going to give it up. It was a 'we could tell ya but then would have to kill ya' type thing !!

[58limited]

Fortunately I was able to learn most of my favorite recipes from mom. I have her recipe cards and grandma's cook book even though she usually didn't use them except as reminders. I don't have her turkey stuffing recipe though.

[Mark V]

Mom used to make a bean soup with German bread dumplings (semmelknodel). I haven't been able to make either the soup or the knodels as good, don't have her recipes. I haven't seen that type of dumpling in any German restaurant I have been to.

Grandma on the other side of the family used to send over red pork tamales. I once asked an uncle if he had her recipe, and he laughed. Said she used to buy them from an old lady who set up outside of a grocery store. I have tried to duplicate them, and had them in restaurants and from stores, but just not as good.

[jfmorris]

My grandmother's coconut cake. She would only use fresh coconut which she would grate by hand, or if I was around as a kid, have me grate for her. Cracking that coconut was always an adventure! It was multiple thin layers of white cake layered with this white coconut icing and literally coated with it on the outside. She made some other dishes like her pot roast in a pressure cooker that no one in my family has ever duplicated. My mom has most of her recipes, but it's never been the same.

I will say that it was a different time, and I'll hazard a guess that most of her cooking involved lard and Crisco. As kids, in the late 60's until the mid to late 70's, my sister and I would alternate spending the night with her on Friday nights, going home on Saturday afternoon. I remember a lot of the things we ate at her house included fat back (steak o' lean she called it), fried spam or bologna sandwiches on white bread, and there was always ice cream. Sunday dinner is when the pot roast and cake occurred.

[synodog]

Lard. That’s why my refried beans never tasted like grandma’s refried beans.

[jfmorris]

synodog folks just don't appreciate lard like they used to...

I actually imagine much of my grandmother's cooking involved bacon drippings she saved in a used soup can usually, and put in her fridge.

[klflowers]

Streak o lean here. They still sell it in Food City

[Jim White]

My father's homemade ice cream. I watched him put it together many times and even helped crank sometimes. I'm pretty sure I even have the recipe, but somehow I just don't feel it would taste right without the whole family around to enjoy it (and I no longer have an ice cream maker).

[jfmorris]

I seem to be the ice cream guy in my extended family and in-laws family. I make it for all the summer get togethers, which have been few the past several years. I'm using the same recipe my folks were using back in the 1970's when I was hand cranking it. But I don't use raw eggs anymore like we did back then. I use the Egg Beaters stuff since its pasteurized.

[Red Man]

jfmorris I’m pretty sure I recall you having a sous vide circulator. You can pasteurize eggs with SV.

[jfmorris]

Red Man I'll look into that, but with the no-cook ice cream I'm usually mixing it up and then dumping into the churn and getting it going - so starting with cold ingredients at the last minute.

[Skip]

My Mom made homemade egg noodles that were good. She rarely bought any pasta. It was always her egg noodles. There are recipes on the net. I might have to try sometime?