Why We Eat The Way We Do-- The Food Choices We Make

Sass Muffin

Sass Muffin

Coffee Queen ☕
NCT Patron
I've been thinking about this a lot lately.
Watched a program on television the other night and cannot for the life of me remember what it was.
Maybe it was a news clip or something on a food channel.

Anyhow, the point driven home was that most people eat and continue to make food choices all their lives based on what they'd had as children.

I think for the most part, this is true.

I was raised on mostly southern cooking from my Grandmother and my Mom, but got away from that a bit and explored other ways of cooking over the years.
I was a vegetarian and even vegan for quite a long time, then fell back into the old ways of cooking/eating fairly recently.

My Grandfather on my Dad's side was Welsh, so there was strictly a meat and potatoes influence there. You didn't dare talk at the dining table either lol

My Grandma (Mom's Mom) and my Mother were the biggest influences on my cooking and the way I eat today.
Keep it simple, make it taste good and don't use any fluff.

While I was living in England, I got the chance to explore a whole other way of eating and cooking.
Steven and I were vegetarian, mostly.
The things to choose from over there for healthy vegetarian meals far outweigh anything I have found here.

Then I discovered the chippies and Asian restaurants that blew my mind.. so we sometimes had fish with our meals.

I was so astounded at the availability of Quorn products and Linda McCartney food stuffs to keep us on the track, not to mention the open fish and meat markets with fresh produce, butchers.. etc..

Right now in 2011, I find myself falling back into the way I was brought up eating with a lot of appreciation as well. :heart:
You can go hither and yon, but at the end of the day, what lands on your plate is what was loved most by you via your tummy and heart as a kiddo.
 
i guess i don't fit the mold. :blob_blue:

i was raised on about 30 or so of my mom's very regular dishes. all very basic, very hearty, very healthy all american dishes. we rarely went out for dinner, and when we did it was always to the same chinese restaurant. in that restaurant, my mom and dad always ordered the same things for all of us: egg rolls, fried rice, and shrimp chop suey. everytime!

now, my mom is an awesome cook, so i never had any reason to complain. but curiosity got to my belly.

as soon as i got my first job after (some) college, even before i moved out to get my first apartment, i started eating out in restaurants as often as i could. and when i ate out, i tried everything.

i expanded my interests in asian food to japanese, thai, korean, malaysian, indian, and so on. anything but chop suey, lol.

with italian food, my mom made a few dishes that she called italian, but they were really italian american. as an adult, while i still loved those family favourites, i searched out regional italian foods, learning as i went along. i dated a few italian girls, so i was also able to try different dishes that were special to their families as well.

i've continued this trend my entire life, eventually convincing my parents to try some of the different things that i came to love to eat.

recently, upon a visit to my parents' house, i convinced my dad to try japanese food. my mom and one of my (also visiting) sisters refused, so i picked up a pizza for them. but my dad really enjoyed his miso soup, salad with ginger dressing, and a bento box of tempura, shu-mai, short grain rice, and chicken and shrimp teryaki. i was happy to hear my dad talking on the phone to my brother later that night, at how surprised he was to have enjoyed "jap" food. i guess to him, they're still the axis, lol.

so, i'm not so sure that our palates are limited to out childhood tastes. not for me, anyway.
 
LOL, I have no fond memories of any foods my mother cooked! She was a dreadful cook, with no interest in cooking; it was a chore for her. Her best meal was ice cream topped with fresh fruit, that she would serve when it was unbearably hot and humid. Otherwise, it was way overcooked roasts, and boiled to death canned vegetables. Some of her usual offerings was a cheese sauce made from Velvetta served over warmed ritz crackers, and dried beef gravy. She only used margarine. Better quit, I'm feeling a little bit sick:yuk::sorry:
 
goatherder said:
LOL, I have no fond memories of any foods my mother cooked! She was a dreadful cook, with no interest in cooking; it was a chore for her. Her best meal was ice cream topped with fresh fruit, that she would serve when it was unbearably hot and humid. Otherwise, it was way overcooked roasts, and boiled to death canned vegetables. Some of her usual offerings was a cheese sauce made from Velvetta served over warmed ritz crackers, and dried beef gravy. She only used margarine. Better quit, I'm feeling a little bit sick:yuk::sorry:
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Beth, I think we had the same mother. My mom was Queen of Convenience Foods! Everything cam from a can, box or bag. We never had fresh fruits & vegetables - they were always canned. My aunt still jokes about how at family get togethers mom always volunteered to bring the Jello.

My cooking is as far away from hers as it could possibly be. The foods I remember having all the time, I almost never eat anymore. I only eat meatloaf and spaghetti under duress!
 
My mom did 2 things VERY well ............... Bit@h and COOK!! LOL

I find I cook ALOT of things she did (sometimes her way and sometimes with a twist of my own) AND new things. She made the best soutern fried chicken!! BUT I made it for her once and she said it was much better than hers. I felt so happy. She said I was a great cook. I was raised in the 60's on healthy food. She shopped at health food stores, farm markets and stores that had a WIDE variety of food stuffs that were organic and natural. She ate like a hippie but didn't look like one!! LOL She had an organic garden and had a green thumb. She had red ripe huge tomatoes usually on or BEFORE the beginning of july. We would many times take salt and pepper and a knife to trhe garden and we would eat breakfast of morning dew kissed veggies fresh out of the garden. There is nothing better than a sun warm tomato fresh off the vine salted and eaten with a fresh basil leaf pick from the bush. I still love healthy organic and natural foods and have added many new foods not widely available to her like flax and quinoa to my diet. I wish mom was around to share in these new foods with us.

Though she was raised on Italain home cooking she cooked many different styles of foods which included Italian, German, Jewish, Hungarina etc. She liked to give me lots of variety. She would pick up chinese take out whenever she got the chance because she loved it.

So to me childhood food could be an eggroll or a meatball or anything in between. LOL I learned how to cook (and try new food cooking ideas) and love of variety in foods from my mom.
 
I can definitely say that my mother had a direct effect on the way my sisters and I turned out, food wise. I left home at the age of 17 and even though I didn't know it at the time, I immediately started searching for and cooking "real food". I was in college so that was my main focus, but I was buying ww flour and making dinners from scratch, for my house mates. All three of us kids are foodies of some sort. We all garden and use the best quality ingredients we can find.

I did start cooking before I left home....to my mothers' delight. I remember making some pastry in a tube that made triangular fruit filled popovers (?), that's not the right term, but you would then snip off the end of a plastic pouch and squirt on a white icing.:bonk:

The only vegetables I would eat as a child were corn on the cob and potatoes, which were the only fresh vegetables we were served.......but I remember watching mom boil the corn for 30 minutes, and then mutter "I wonder if the corn is done?"
 
FooD said:
Lots of small children are fat. What are their parents feeding them?
Click to expand...

I don't know that it's just what they are feeding them. When I was a kid and dinner was ready, Mama would stand on the front porch and ring the dinner bell and we would come running from playing hide and seek, tag and other physical games or doing our outside chores instead of getting us to put down the game controller and get out from in front of the tv.
 
I love this subject, I will make it as short as I can, but I could write a novel :chef:

For me it is true… the food I had in childhood made a major impact on the way I cook.

I was raised by my grandparent, both very skilled farmers.

Since meat was available only on holidays or special occasions, we lived on fish that my grandpa caught every day.
We lived next to the river and fish was in abundance for us and the whole village.
There I learned how to catch, clean and cook the fish in many ways.
My grandmother must have been a great cook because I never got tired of fish and to these days I enjoy seafood as much, in fact it is my #1 choice when I dine out.

One great thing about being raised in a village is frugality. I learn to not waste anything or almost nothing, to cook great dishes with few ingredients.
A huge help to this skill was the “fasting days” where no animal products were consumed for 40 days, before Easter and Christmas. You had to be really good at it or you were sick and tired to eat the same dish all over again.

We had lots of domestic birds and animals but they were only for holidays or special occasions. The major holidays brought the large animal’s meat variety in out cuisine, while the special occasions brought the “right time for a bird or two”.
When someone was visiting I remember my grandma saying to me “go get the brown one (chicken) that gets in my garden all the time”.
She was so good at cooking, that in matter of hour and a half she had three meal courses on the table.

We also had a huge garden… grandpa insisted on having all the herbs, vegetables and fruits available. This garden made the cellar look like a grocery store.
Shelves adorned with jars of all kinds of canned veggies and preserves, the isle of barrels with pickles, the cured and smoked meats hanging from the ceiling.
The attic filled with grains, nuts and all the dried fruits and even fresh fruits carefully layered in boxes full of hay. I worked on the farm as much as they did, since we had no electricity, there were no electronics. Our games were gardening, outdoor and house chores.
Canning time was my favorite time. Each herb, veggie or fruit had a season, we hand collected, washed and cooked, and then we canned or dried them.
Also had a lot of grapes and grandpa made his own wine... red wine mostly.

The cuisine is very versatile, influenced by the many cultures the country is surrounded.
If we talk about stuffed grape leaves… each county if not each village is having their own way of making this dish.
Everything was made from scratch, that’s why today I have a difficult time to use anything that is boxed, canned or commercially preserved.

The greatest cuisine gift my grandparents gave me: don’t be afraid to use your spices.
 
I think there has to be a balance. It's ok to have a Happy Meal occasionally, but not 3 or 4 times a week. We cook most meals at home and limit sweets and sweetened drinks and we push physical activity too. Gotta get off the sofa!!! :) I try to involve my kids when I'm cooking. Those are some of my best memories - cooking with my mom and grandmother.

I agree with you too Mama. We had no such thing as Wii or Playstation, etc. We came running when dinner was ready. For us, we let our son play his Wii for an hour a day, max. The rest of the time, they go outside and play or we go to a park, the batting cages, etc. Sometimes it causes a major meltdown because he wants to "finish this level" but I just turn it off and send them out anyway, otherwise he'd never stop. Once he gets out there though, his imagination takes over and he's happy and ACTIVE.

As far as cooking influences go, I learned everything from my mom and grandmother. I've expanded my horizons quite a bit as far as the types of food I cook, but all the basics I learned from them. I still cook chicken soup, meatloaf, chicken and dressing and chicken and dumplings, just the way they taught me. Vegetables especially - fresh from the garden, all seasoned up...nothing better!
 
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FooD said:
Lots of small children are fat. What are their parents feeding them?
Click to expand...

Home cooked meals... this tradition is dying.
Chores and outdoor activities are also dying.

Mickey D, pizza and chips, candy bars... are not tradition.
The couch, video games, TV and computers are taking over young generation's lives.

Depends on the parents to shape their children's life style.
 
This is a great thread, Sass, and everyone else who has contributed!!

I pretty much ate to live, until I was in my mid-30's. When my brother moved in with me, I taught him to cook simple things, and together, we then explored cooking all KINDS of cuisines, from all over the world!

My horizons and food loves have expanded exponentially over the years, and, though I enjoy a huge variety of foods when I am eating out, I am cooking for myself now and I anticipate going back to the simple foods I had growing up - roast chicken, meatloaf, spaghetti and meatballs, etc.

Lee
 
me & my Mom conversed over this matter yesterday over lunch. i would say my i was influenced by my Pap & my Dad, & inadvertantly by my Mom & both my Grandmas, though i delved into cooking the way that i cook now on my own. that said, i am swayed strongly by the food i was raised on.

while elementary weekday breakfasts consisted of, say, pop-tarts & milk, there were weekend brekkies often. we cooked together. we dined together.
lunches were purchased & now & then we took packed lunches. the usuals- chicken ala king, baloney sammiches. whole milk. chips & frozen snacks.
weekends, there was macaroni & canned soup. later i cooked my Mom lunch during summers.
dinner, despite my Dad owning a busy business & my Mom an (at least) 8-5 employee, most nites there was dinner together @ the table, & weekends there were dinners my Dad cooked most of the day.
i was raised on stew, pasta, chili, swiss steak, ham/cabbage/potato, roasted meats, same 'ol & that got old. we went 2 restaurants very often on weekends, family-style places

i veered away, bored & busy w/ my socializing & that. thus a foodie was born.
i get fancier & fancier, though i crockpot foods, make soups, make items from then, dine @ places that others prefer, get double cheezeburgers & sprites. i get bitter @ that

there is army food that my Pap taught us, i am professionally educated, i make my own recipes, one nite there's escargot & another soup. i vary. i shy further & further away when when there's pre-made foods these days, though @ this point, i am kinda being made 2 rely on the foods available 2 me & the items get monotonous.

on the matter of kiddos getting pudgy these days, hm. i was raised on sugar & meat, baloney & kool-aid, plasti-cheese, lard-fried eggs, butter sammiches, oreos, chips & dips, canned items & potato. there was fruit & there were veggies, though. we went & played though. we went outside. there was recess, gym, tag, & i played sports of various sorts. i was spindly & healthy.

my opinion & that~
 
If you are what you eat, I am cheap, fast, and easy. . .NOT the way momma raised me.

She was a Chef in her former life, and a graduate of the Culinary Institute of Switzerland. growing up(looking back)every meal was a salad, an entree and simple dessert, like cheese or frozen grapes that had been rolled in sugar. I thought that is how everyone ate, it was the norm.

Me now, hell no. . .I have a horrible habit of maybe eating once a day, and when I do eat, it isn't the best type of food, and I know better, it's just dumb on my part.

I would love to have the time/energy after a full day to dedicate to coming home and cooking, but I just don't. It isn't fiscally prudent(it's just me), and I have too many places within walking distance that offer great $5-$10 specials on the daily.
 
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