My grandma insists seasoning and salt are unhealthy, but at the same time drenches everything she makes in fat. She grows all vegetables herself, it’s her point of pride. But she makes sure they get a large as possible, so all the taste and nutrition are diluted beyond comprehension.

But her pierogi are the best thing in the world.

Her “strudel” not really actually strudel but just extra pie crust filled with whatever filling she had available, baked on a sheet pan

Her pie crust was from the red rose cookbook that just about everyone here era seemed to have had.

Cabbage rolls. My mom’s comes close but she doesn’t put the same effort in an there is a difference that is noticeable.

Her tomato macaroni casserole(I literally grew up thinking casserole was a specific dish like lasagna, or key lime pie and not a variety of dishes)

I’m just a nerd girl who knows next to nothing about cooking. But I have to reverse-engineer my late grandma’s plum tarts one day.

My dad’s mom’s Oyster Dressing. I do not miss merliton (chayote) though. She was from New Orleans but grew up rich, not a very dedicated cook, but that Oystah Dressin, I liked it and don’t know how she did it.

My mom’s mom was oh so southern and made such good biscuits and fried chicken, but what I miss are the pecans. After her abusive husband died (she divorced him at like 65 years old, finally had enough and he just left and died!). She had a pecan tree and would sit on her porch with her boyfriend and shell pecans for hours, and give us a bag when we left, I loved them.

Carne asada con congris.

R.I.P Abuela

Oh she used to buy the dough and loads of meat and make pastel. She’d also put olives and eggs from time to time. Never found a pastel that tasted so good ❤️

Fucking everything. All of it. But once a year on christmas, she used to do apple-stuffed roast duck in the oven with sauce.

You. Would. Not. Believe.

From my maternal Grandma: her arepas but not far off her pastina

From my fraternal Grandma: her empanadas and fish fry

Tortas fritas. Kinda… More the fact of doing them they weren’t thaaaat good honestly… But being able to do it in the shape of Ryu and Ken was the best.

It’s not so much the foods, though both were amazing cooks in their own ways, with some amazing standards meals they’d turn out. It’s them making it that really hits as a loss.

Both of them contributed to me learning how to cook, and in some ways I ended up improving on what I learned from them by virtue of having both.

But, if I had to nail down one specific meal/dish from each that I miss the hell out of, I think my paternal grandmother’s breakfasts are the most missed of hers. The woman could put on a spread! Eggs, grits, sausage, liver mush, biscuits, red-eye gravy, with her home made jams and jellies. Gods, you want to talk about feeding an army, when all of us grandkids would stay over at once, there would be her, my grandfather, one uncle, and eleven kids ranging from toddlers to teenagers at one point.

And she never missed a step, while doing it all with us young’ns under foot. She was damm fine baker, and a master of country cooking/soul food, but her breakfasts were next level.

My maternal grandmother could do that kind of cooking too, though not as well. Where she was a standout was with more of the suburban American cuisine. The roasts and casseroles and traditional holiday meals. I think those holiday meals are what I miss most, though her meatloaf and spaghetti were both amazeballs. My grandfather was a hunter, so some kind of bird would be featured often, be it goose, duck, or turkey. Sometimes as the only meat source, sometimes alongside a store bought turkey if a lot of the more distant family was showing up.

Even after she decided she was done babysitting a bird and my uncle took over that part with a deep fryer, her sides still wreck those I’ve had with other people. Sweet potatoes, three-bean salad, seven layer salad, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, asparagus, peas, all kinds of options, sometimes with all of those, plus others, plus desserts. Most of the veggies were from their garden, though they would be home canned fur Christmas, and some would be for Thanksgiving.

It wasn’t that any given item was so good (though they were), it’s that all of everything either made was so consistently amazing. Never a flop, never a dud.

I honestly just miss grandma.

Her risotto… layers of rice mixed with parmesan, sauce, and topped with ground beef. It was just perfect.

Her cooking it. The joy in that kitchen was palpable. That’s what I miss the most. That’s what I’ll always miss the most.

My Grandma learned to cook in postwar Britain when rationing was still in full effect, and refused to learn a single thing since. I don’t miss any of it.

Nothing really, didn’t learn till I was older that pretty much everything they made was repeatable at home or even in restraints. Not all grannies are killer cooks