Hey Pandas, What Is The Most Nostalgic Food To You? (Closed)

Cheese sandwich. When I was a kid and we didn't have much, I had a cheese sandwich for lunch every single school day, for twelve years. Umpteen years later and I still get the Anton Ego in Ratatouille moment when I eat one.

Viennetta ice cream - only served on special occasions when I was a kid and was eaten with a fork

Banana pudding (my granny always made it from scratch and always with REAL Nilla Wafers. Funny thing is that at some point as a kid I decided I didn't like it - stopped eating it and wouldn't for several years. Then one day I was served banana pudding at my best friends house, only it didn't look anything like my granny's and I ate it without realizing what it was. More vanilla than banana, so I didn't suspect anything. When I found out later that it was banana pudding, I was very sad not to have appreciated my granny's recipe more. My mom started to make it, and I have loved banana pudding ever since.

Bread and butter pudding. It's a baked vanilla custard with slices of buttered bread and sultanas in it, with a sprinkling of nutmeg on top. Some people (Philistines!) put marmalade or jam on the bread before baking.

It's chicken Frikassee.

That's a roux made with chicken broth, cream and lemon juice, it contains chunks of chicken meat. And is just spiced with salt, pepper and nutmeg, very simple but full of flavour if done right. Some people add vegetables like mushrooms, peas, even asparagus but I don't like that. I prefer mine just plain with some rice.

It's my absolute favourite dish since childhood, and my mom always made it for me when I was sick to cheer me up.

Whenever I eat it I feel very nostalgic. I get that warm, fuzzy feeling of being loved. Since my mom died last year, it also makes me feel connected to her.

The gnocchi my nonna made in Italy.... can' t eat gnocchi without thinking of her

(My nans) soda bread, with homemade butter (from her own cows).

So simple, but so satisfying when eaten while sat in front of the fire with a bowl of mussels cooked on said fire.

Not a dish…so breaking the rules here.

Circus Peanuts. When I was young, my twin sister and I would go grocery shopping with our mom. We’d sit in the backseat of her green 1974 Dodge Dart, not wearing seatbelts (it was the early 1980s) - and basically having fun riding in the car. But I knew that every once and a while my mother would buy us circus peanuts to eat during the drive home. They were bright orange peanut-shaped candy that tasted like bananas. Each time she treat us those little peanuts tasted like magic. They were truly out of this world. And my sister didn’t care for them so I ate most of them! Sweet memories!

So even 40+ years later, when I’m shopping and I run across a bag of circus peanuts, I remember back to the good times in my childhood. Heck, sometimes I’ll buy some for the nostalgia (and their great taste).

Gado-gado. An Indonesian dish. My grandmother taught me how to cook Indonesian food and this was the first one and I still love it. I have her recipes too. I can still remember the smell of her kitchen: bread, spices and other lovely things :)

Canned pickles. Grandma always made them with lots of dill and hunks of garlic. She would fill all the cupboards with them when she'd go to her winter home in Florida, and I'd snag a jar every time we'd swing by to check on the house. Favorite part was always the garlic that I'd fish out and eat first.
She taught me how to make them before she passed, but it doesn't taste the same without her dash of love.

It's "Wurstweggen". A kinda sausage rolls. But with bigger sausages. Take some puff pastry, put some (real) swiss cheese on it, then the sausage. Then some spice, mayo and mustard. Roll them up and in the oven.

Always looked forward to these when I was a kid on some special saturday nights. Didn't have them often, since you need about 3-4 a person for a dinner. And we didn't have much money back when I was little. So it's a really special meal for me, even though it sounds simple. I still like them. The way my mother prepares them.

My mother would occasionally make us tuna cakes for dinner. Think crab cake, but tuna, and very flat like a hamburger patty. I loved them! I've never seen anything else quite like them. They were light and crispy, not fishy at all. I would kill for one right now!

Campbells Tomato Soup, grilled cheese on the side.

This is a very Irish thing, but I miss Cheese & Onion Tayto sandwiches made with Brennan's bread. Tayto is an Irish brand of crisps and Brennan's bread is a basic white sliced loaf, but in my opinion, the best one around.

My great-grandmother's chocolate cake. She passed the recipe down to my grandfather, and when my mom and her siblings left the house, they each got a binder with family recipes, including said cake.

This cake has made appearances at almost every type of celebration: anniversaries, new jobs, birthdays, new children, you name it. It also holds a special place because it was one of the first things I baked with my grandmother.

Boiled peanuts! Raw peanuts boiled in salt water til they're soft.
My mom got me started on those. We'd be out and stop at a roadside stand and get a big bag of them. 😋

My grandmother's Sunday dinners: Fried chicken (the BEST ever), mashed potatoes, peas, cathead biscuits with chicken gravy. She passed away twenty years ago, and both of my parents within the last 4 years, but when I close my eyes, I can vividly recall the smell of her kitchen, and the sounds and conversations of all my extended family as we sat down down to eat. I miss those dinners! (BTW, she called them cathead biscuits because she said she made them the size of a cat's head.) size

I'm a Brit so prepare yourself for a lesson in haute cuisine;

Fish fingers, chips and baked beans*. Swimming in vinegar.

*Extra marks for baked beans with little sausages.

For me, it is a close race between two foods:

Biryani. My mom’s biryani is the best I’ve ever had, and it has been a dish throughout my childhood, so every time I eat it, I remember coming home from school on Friday and her preparing a big pot of it. It’s a staple across South Asian parties. You basically cook chicken in a spiced sauce with ginger, garlic, tomatoes, dried plums, and all kinds of aromatics. In the mean time, you infuse anise, cinnamon, and cumin into a pot of boiling water, and add rice. You only boil the rice until it’s about 80% done, then drain the rice, and layer it in a pot with the sauce and chicken. Leave it to steam in it’s own moisture for some time, then mix it all together.

Gulab Jamun. Every South Asian kid has grown up with these. A sweet treat to celebrate an accomplishment, found across South Asian parties, the go-to whenever you need sweets all of a sudden. It’s made of Khoya, which you get when you cook off a lot of milk’s water and turn it into a thick, pastel substance. Add some flour, rising agent, some ground cardamom, and make little balls of dough. You then deep fry the dough balls until dark, and add them to a cardamom (and saffron too if you’re feeling overly-fancy) sugar syrup. You leave them in the warm syrup to soak up all the moisture, and serve warm.

Hot Jello.
When I was little and didn’t feel well, my mom would make jello. But instead of chilling it, she would put some in a mug so I could drink it warm. It would help my throat if it was sore and was very comforting. I gave it to my child when she was little, too, and as a young adult she still makes it when she is sick.