What’s a favorite dish that was passed down to you from your mom? —Suzi M., St. Louis
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When I was young, I had a fondness for breakfast cereal (especially the overly sweetened kind) that lasted into my late teens. It was only then that I began to appreciate my mother’s cooking. Her vegetable soup was what steered me away from Campbell’s, forever. Her Thanksgiving dressing recipe (well, with a few minor tweaks) is as good as it gets. Her beef stew? Still make it, still love it. And when I was really young, I thought that “Eggs in a Nest” was the best thing I’d ever eaten and that my mom invented it.
We asked several chefs and restaurant owners to recall special dishes:
Rick Lewis, Grace Meat + Three, Grace Chicken + Fish: “This question hits home in this season of life since losing my mother this past January. I find myself missing some of her signature dishes. One in particular is her Friday spaghetti. It’s simple enough… good olive oil you could take a swim in, a generous amount of rough chopped garlic, chili flake, tomato paste, and crushed tomatoes all fried and caramelized in the oil. Not so much tomato to make it saucy but just enough to make an oily, tomatoey glaze, and a splash of pasta water to pull it together. She would finish it with basil and a tremendous amount of parmigiano cheese, like a lot, the more the merrier. The flavors are rich with toasted garlic and umami from the tomato and parmigiano. Nothing is more comforting to me than a bowl of that spaghetti.”
Molly Cooper, The Piccadilly at Manhattan: “I would have to say one of two things, both pretty far from each other on the food spectrum: pot roast and lasagna. I grew up requesting pot roast for my birthday in August—it was that good! The only special ingredient is good beef. We always use chuck. And lasagna—it’s the perfect comfort food. Cheesy and beefy and with pasta, of course, but Mom does not use ricotta. She uses white American cheese. (Sorry, Mom, George asked for a special ingredient!)
Aaron Teitelbaum, Herbie’s, Kingside Diner: “I have one from my mother and my grandmother. My mother made the best chocolate chip pancakes. She would make them for us on Sundays and continued the tradition with her grandkids. Her secret was using olive oil to get them crispy. And my grandmother Rosie made rolled cabbages for everyone she could. She would serve them in my restaurants when she was in town.”
Dave Bailey, Baileys’ Restaurants: “My mom taught me to make hamburgers…cooked in bacon fat or butter depending on if we had drippings around. Sounds like a joke, but it is true. When I was 17, I was on my own in an apartment with three roommates and could pound a full pound of ground beef with just garlic salt wrapped in a tortilla. That was back when organic beef was 99 cents a pound.”
Ben Poremba, Bengelina Hospitality Group: “So many, but if I have to zero in on one, it would be my mom’s stuffed artichoke bottoms with peas, turmeric, and lemons.”
The SLM dining team shared some fond memories, as well:
Cheryl Baehr: “My mom was the loveliest person in the world and the most kind, loving parent anyone could ask for. She also wasn’t the best cook. She wasn’t bad; cooking just wasn’t her favorite thing to do, and she was a product of the 1950s, so our meals were often of the Hamburger Helper, canned vegetables, cottage cheese, and Cool Whip “salad” type. Like most 1980s moms, she loved any dish that involved Campbell’s soup. Her casserole piece de resistance was something called Simmer Simmer—an odd name because there was nothing simmered about it. The best way to describe this concoction is a cheeseburger casserole that involves ground beef, dehydrated onion, cream of mushroom soup, tater tots, and—wait for it—Cheez-Whiz. When I was a kid, I thought it was the best thing on the planet. I hadn’t had it in decades, but I recently made it for a nostalgic casserole-themed party and came to the revelation that it gives White Castle double cheeseburger vibes. I can’t say it’s good, but I also kind of liked it, less because of the taste and more because it reminded me of her. “
Abby Wuellner: “My mom was an incredible baker—I don’t think we had store-bought bread in our house my entire childhood. And on Christmas and Easter, she would make these caramel rolls that were extraordinary. Apparently, there’s some art in making them, because even when I followed her margin-marked recipe card to the gram (she weighed everything because she said measuring cups weren’t precise enough), they never turned out…until this Easter. Seeing my kids fall in love with the recipe my mom passed down to me filled my heart with joy—and maybe a little pride.”
Amy De La Hunt: “My mom studied in Mexico during her college days, in the 1960s, and she learned to cook authentic staples like enchiladas, refried beans, rice, and pico de gallo. There weren’t any Mexican restaurants in the very rural part of North Dakota where I grew up, so whenever she hosted an enchilada supper, folks came out of the woodwork. She taught countless students in her high school Spanish classes to make enchiladas, too. The technique of flipping tortillas with bare fingers (and then dipping them in simmering tomato sauce, also with bare fingers) is seared into my motor memory—and I’m convinced that’s the secret of infusing love into the dish, so I still do it today.”
Pat Eby: “My mom wasn’t an inspired cook, but she made a good one-dish meal she called Spanish Rice that kept me and my six younger brothers full and happy. She cooked pretty much the same things every week. I think this was her Wednesday night dinner. She browned ground beef with onions, green peppers, and canned chopped tomatoes. Her secret ingredients? Uncle Ben’s Minute Rice, McCormick’s Season All, and garlic salt. The best part was she made garlic bread, thick sliced white bread, toasted, then brushed with melted butter and garlic salt. It beat the Friday rotation by a hair—fish sticks with mac and cheese and coleslaw. She did have seven kids, however, and we all survived.”
Bill Burge: My mom’s cooking is a product of the home economist era, and there are three items we cook from her stash: chicken or turkey tetrazzini made using a can of cream of mushroom soup. Spaghetti pie with cottage cheese. And cheese toast. I don’t really know what the last is actually called, but it’s white bread slathered with butter, canned Old English cheddar, beau monde seasoning, and dill, stacked three high, cut into triangles, and baked until golden brown. It’s heaven, and we’d beg her to make it as kids. Only when I was older and made it for myself did I realize how laborious and messy it was, and I was grateful she ever did.”
Denise Mueller (Certified Sommelier, Certified Specialist of Wine): “I don’t really have a set dish/recipe that I have made that was passed down to me—some things are best left to the chef themselves. My mother loves casseroles and lasagnas (in our case, gluten-free, as we are both celiac). Interestingly, I am more a grill and sauté person myself. So when it comes time for a holiday meal, I’m always so happy to enjoy her homestyle dishes, baked with love, and, of course, gluten-free. (I would note that drinking wine is a strong tradition for the women in the family, one that I kept alive and built on!)”
Lynn Venhaus: “Among many memories, I have one distinct one, but I wish I knew what sparked my Mom deciding to add chop suey to her culinary repertoire… As a single working mother raising five children, obviously budget played a factor in feeding the family, but she was open to trying new things, bringing home recipes from co-workers. For an occasional Sunday night supper, much more exotic than the family staple, baked chicken, my mother would make chop suey. This was quite exotic for the 1960s, and it became one of our favorites. The ingredients were purchased from the small ‘Asian’ section in the grocery store, and this was at a time where you did not have access to fresh snow peas or any kind of mushroom other than buttons. In Belleville, there were no Chinese restaurants during this period, so to have something with an international flavor was special. She would serve it over plain white rice and sprinkle those crunchy chow mein noodles out of a can on top, with a bottle of soy sauce on the table. She always baked brown ‘n serve rolls to accompany this dish—again, I don’t know why, but it really went together well. We’d always be happy when we heard that it was for dinner. It was our first introduction to ethnic cuisine, and I’ve loved it ever since.”
Dave Lowry: “My father, a New Englander, married my mother, who was from a little town on the prairie in southeast Kansas, in the early ’50s, when Italian cuisine was about as popular in that part of the country as sushi. My father had grown up eating Italian food, but because he didn’t come from an Italian family, he had no recipes. My mother had never heard of spaghetti, never mind spaghetti sauce. My father described what the sauce looked and tasted like, and my mother gradually, through trial and error, concocted a version of it, the recipe for which I still have today and which I would never, ever consider making myself. I think it includes cumin. Seriously.”
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