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Comfort Food Secrets: Why Fall Recipes Feel and Taste Extra Good · Family Tree Food Stories

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Hey everybody.
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Welcome to another episode of Family Tree Food and Stories.
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I'm Nancy May, and I am here with my co-host, Sylvia.
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Lovely.
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Hello?
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Hey, Sylvia.
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Sorry I'm, I've got a taste of like too much coffee this morning.
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So talking about what we're talking about, that sounds redundant, but, , we
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are talking this week about comfort foods and I guess coffee is a
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comfort food too, Right, Food and experiences and favorites that we adopt
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as part of the human instinct is all part of the wintertime coming along.
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And it's a lot more than just harvest because we talked about harvest
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as be harvest before, but comfort foods, I wanna make this clear,
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they are more about the winter time.
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Our experience of the fall.
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There's a lot of sensory perception that goes on with comfort foods,
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we store our nuts for winter, don't we?
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We do store our nuts for winters under or winter under the sweaters.
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And the interesting thing, and Sylvia, you and I have talked about this,
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is that food uses all of the senses.
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So the senses and the fallen comfort foods, I think really bring a more
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rich experience to that whole thing.
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Yeah., And just think about it.
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Think about site.
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What do you see?
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Oh my gosh.
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in Kentucky, it's a big blue sky with a high sun, no, humidity, so it's
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a little bit of a chill in the air.
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And so that's a site.
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How about all those pumpkins?
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And people are decorating now for Halloween more than they ever did.
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, There's sound.
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I think of sizzling, like things kind of simmering and all of that.
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What about you?
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Any, sounds that come to mind?
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Oh , I would say the timer.
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On the kitchen oven,
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There you go.
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Because you finally turn it on.
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Yeah.
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right In the summertime you're grilling, but it's in the winter.
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Who wants to really cook indoors in?
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, In the summertime, it's just too much.
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So it's the heat off the stove when you open the oven door and that
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heat comes on you when it's done.
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I don't know about you, but I leave my oven door open just a
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little bit to feel that warm heat and it just feels good, right?
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And how about feeling, I think of a warm cup in your hands.
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, Sitting with a blanket around you, maybe out on a patio, on a really nice day.
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that's a feeling.
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Hot cocoa.
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And how about taste?
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Oh, yeah.
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Oh yeah.
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Taste.
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Taste rich.
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Something rich, , like a stew or a pumpkin pie.
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Something that , probably in many ways shouldn't even eat it.
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But it's so good.
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And that taste is just overpoweringly good.
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yeah, I have, I have this sneaky little, well, I'll call it confession.
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Mm-hmm.
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year around this?
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Well, it's just before this time.
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The, , Costco and Sam's Club and all the other places have , these fruitcake logs.
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Fruitcake is, I mean, okay, call me a fruitcake nut, but fruitcake is
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one of my comfort foods, and I will buy a bunch of them and I'll store
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them in the pantry or in a closet.
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And about this time of year, I'll think, Hmm, I want a little slice off that log.
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So I've got last year's fruitcake this year.
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I have a question about fruit cake.
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Can you keep it for a long time because it's the way it's made
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or does it, does it ever go bad?
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I don't think it ever goes bad.
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I think fruitcake, we might find fruitcake in one of those a hundred
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thousand year old barrels somewhere like in, I don't know, in Rome,
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Ah, We need to look into that for the holidays.
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And then, then finally there's smell,
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smell.
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some people say it's the best smell, actually keeps you safe
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'cause you smell bad food, right?
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You can smell it and they say you use your senses of smell, but
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smelling, just smell of fall.
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There's a mustiness in the air and I'm sure it's the leaves falling
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and there's a scientific explanation for it, but it's kind of that.
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Smell.
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Smell.
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And then there's the food.
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And I love walking in the neighborhood in the fall.
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near smell the cooking coming from the kitchens and you wanna
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go up and bang on the door.
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Can I come in and eat that?
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'cause it smells so good.
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the uninvited guest.
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Guess who's coming to dinner in a different way.
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But it's also about history.
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, The history from , immigrant families, that didn't have the ability to always.
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store foods for long periods of times, , the Italians couldn't get
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their grapes from the old country when they came over to the US here.
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And so trying to find new traditions, , Sunday sauce, which I think was
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probably always a big deal over in Italy, but I'm not sure since
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I'm not Italian, but I do Manja.
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Manja, so I guess that makes me part of Italian.
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Oh, and I don't know if you ever saw this commercial as a kid.
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On Wednesdays, you'd see this commercial sort of nostalgic look of this kid
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that's running through the streets of New York and down the alleys to get home.
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And you see his grandmother or mother leaning out the
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window , of the alleys with the.
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The wash lined up, you know, outside of the windows and the woman is yelling
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Anthony, it's Prince Spaghetti Day.
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So Wednesday was Anthony Prince Spaghetti Day in the New York area.
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But, that brings a sense of nostalgia, just warmth all around this time of year.
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And you've got all sorts of things going on in Appalachia to stretch
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the harvest with corns and beans and potato stews and whatnot.
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Right.
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And they, found this stuff in the wild and like I still to this day don't
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know how my grandmother found grapes to make that grape juice that my
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brother and I would run to the cellar.
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' cause she had just jars and jars of it.
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So it was preserved, but it was so good and somehow she did it.
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But she got by without me ever asking her how she did it.
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Don't you just regret that
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sometimes?
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do, I really do, , and I know other people who talk about recipes
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that are lost, and those recipes are actually referred to sometimes
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as ghost recipes, which are, or ghost recipes, I should pronounce
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that more correctly on a podcast.
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But that's right up our alley of what Family tree, food and story is all about
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a simple definition these are the old recipes that we got somewhere along the
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line, but we forgot where they weren't like Halloween stuff, but , grandma kind
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of did this, but you're not sure if it came from grandma or maybe some other
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person that had something along the way.
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But you know about ghost recipes as well, right?
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Yeah.
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You know, , it's interesting though, if you Google Ghost, ghost.
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Ghost food, something like that.
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What you get are cookies shaped in the form of ghosts and all that.
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So it's reminiscence of what we're gonna be talking about at
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the end of the month of October.
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But,, ghost recipes are when you reach back to find them.
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I think you had found something as like, grandma's apple butter or Chow Chow.
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Ah, you know what, that is something that's making a comeback.
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You know what that is, Nancy?
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I saw it recently at a farmer's market down here and I bought
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it, but I don't know what it is.
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I have to confess, I bought something in a jar that looks interesting,
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but I don't know what it is.
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And don't know how it got its name.
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Chow Chow.
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That's the other thing you get is the chow dog.
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So anyway, I finally found it though.
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It's a veggie relish.
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Sweet and tangy, and it has green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, and peppers.
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And it's making a comeback with young people who we've talked about before.
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Born after 1990 or 29?
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1, 1, 1, 9, 9 7. Okay.
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I'll get, get in the right century.
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But they are young and they are remaking all these old recipes and
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it is really kind of a cool thing, And some upscale restaurants in
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the south are actually serving it.
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Maybe even with a twist, , with different kinds of veggies, but after some of the
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theme that we tout is that you reach back and young people are reaching back.
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Uh, there's something missing in their lives and they're
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reaching back to food and recipes.
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It's interesting, see what's happening on front.
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It's very heartwarming, , , to know that people care enough about
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the history of foods or recipes and where they all came from.
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And I know at one point I had mentioned to you that I love
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going into these old antique or sort of junk shops and looking at.
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If they have them , old recipes from, , old cookbooks and inevitably
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there's the old church cookbooks or the Women's Circle or something else.
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And.
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I have to say they're fun to look at, but quite frankly, there's a lot of
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the same from book to book to book to book, and they were done as fundraisers.
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I dunno if people understand that, but in order to raise money for a
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church or a club or something, people would submit their family recipes
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or a recipe that they like, and then they'd sell advertisements in these
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little s spiral bound books typically.
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and then sell them from kind of like a Tupperware party for, for recipes.
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But the similarity right across the board from different regions of the country
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in these books is really fascinating.
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a friend of mine had a recipe years back at a party that she did
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a Christmas party and said, Mary.
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Mary Elroy up in Connecticut and,, Mary Elroy Lou, I should, clarify that.
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And I said, this recipe is delicious.
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It was like a, an appetizer kind like a, an egg kind of thing.
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And I said, what is it?
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She goes, oh, it's a recipe that my mom had from her church cookbook.
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It was amazing and was so good and so elegant.
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And so , basically, real quick.
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You take a bowl and you do a bunch of chopped onions and you line the
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bowl with a bunch of chopped onions and then you you make a, a very.
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Dry egg salad and you put that in it.
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So now the eggs are sort of packed in there, really tight.
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I always added a little different thing to it.
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I a little bit of curry to it to give it a zip, and then you've refrigerator
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it really tight and then you unmold it.
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Basically it's a teacup or something.
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And then you cover that mold with sour cream.
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Like a whipped sour cream.
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And then you add, well, we added, , I'm trying to think of
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the name of Flying Fish Row.
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So like caviar, cheap caviar on the outside.
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And it's so elegant and so delicious, and voila, it came from a church recipe.
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Go figure,
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. Hey, there's , an interesting phenomenon.
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Maybe I'm just kind of like picking something out of the
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air here, but help me with this.
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You see in a lot of those old cookbooks, you see a lot of, well, fruit cake.
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You mentioned fruit cake.
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Well, what about things like prune cake?
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I never hear of prune
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never heard of prune cake.
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It's just kind of, I don't know why those kind of things were so prominent, although
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maybe prunes were just very available
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They're just plums that are kind of stewed.
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Plums, I guess, are the same thing as prunes and dried out
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Well, I think maybe they probably keep longer or something.
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I, I remember these are more sturdy cakes.
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It's like rum cake and things like that, and maybe they just last
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longer and people just had more time.
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I also think a lot of these prune cake things, and I'd love to hear from people
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about this, take a little longer than the box and then, , add in, eggs or whatever.
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These are like scratch cakes.
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There's a lot of those scratch foods and those cookbooks,
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maybe we'll get back to that.
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they're not that difficult to do.
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The other, this is slightly
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off subject, right?
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Well, slightly off subject, but it's still dealing with comfort
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foods because we talk pancakes.
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Pancakes are a comfort food, right?
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So pancakes on a cold winter morning, and , my husband one day said.
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Not too long ago, let's make pancakes.
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He said, well, I gotta go out and get the box.
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Like, no, you don't need the box.
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My mom never made pancakes from a box.
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I shouldn't say she never made 'em from a box.
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And he said, you can make pancakes from scratch.
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And I said, yes.
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It's not that difficult.
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So sure enough, we made pancakes from scratch.
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He's like,
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I do think, I do think it's a comfort food thing.
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I think it takes, takes more time than getting that box.
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And I think we're in the mood.
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Maybe it's that.
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All that comfort food stuff that you were talking about and the science of it.
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, We are more likely to stand over a stove and make things
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from scratch than we are today.
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And I think that's making a comeback.
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And, you know, I think this is a great idea, by the way, doing ghost suppers
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for as the, as the,, native Americans did.
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They did ghost suppers in honor of their ancestors.
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Is that cool?
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I like that one.
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It's, not quite the day of the dead tradition, but this is really bringing
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back a recipe that hadn't been used in a long time to honor grandma
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or grandpa or even mom or dad.
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Yeah.
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You know, in honor of them.
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, That's such a cool idea.
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Hey, let's start a thing.
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Let's start a movement.
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we are gonna, we are gonna recommend that everybody does a ghost recipe, supper,
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or dinner with friends and family.
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Well, it doesn't even need to be family.
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Everybody brings a dish that was in their family somewhere
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that maybe got lost or forgotten about, and just bring it all back.
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Let's do it.
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Absolutely, Bonnie Manning.
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in our group had mentioned, , one of her comfort foods was
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popovers and Yorkshire Pudding.
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oh my God.
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I love both.
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My mom used to do Yorkshire Pudding occasionally when we were kids because
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her parents came over from the uk, so that's kind of flat popover, so I
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would call it a little bit more dense,
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Yeah, there's a bunch of those.
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There's just a bunch of those.
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my 8-year-old granddaughter.
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I love this one.
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I said to her one day, I said, what's your fall comfort food?
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Burnt marshmallows.
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Oh, my favorite, right?
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Oh my
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And then , I said, oh, but you don't eat 'em, do you?
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Oh yeah.
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That's the best part.
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And I cringe because you that it's that that kind of food is supposed to be not
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good for you.
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But anyway,
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like you said, the hot dog at the park, just
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and.
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Given.
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Yeah, given your Girl Scout background, that's what she wrote me an essay about
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what she missed most about summer.
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It was Girl Scout Camp in the fire outdoor fire where they did marshmallows
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Oh, I love that.
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Oh,
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and s'mores, that kind of thing.
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And one of my personal favorites is my brother-in-law, . John Kerry who said he,
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, thought back of his wife Sandy, who's my husband's sister, , about her enchiladas.
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, Sandy died about four or five years ago, an untimely death.
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So, , he's remembering her with that.
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And so that was, that was a good one too.
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so what are some others?
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We had some others, didn't we?
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Well, before we go there, let's talk a little bit about what, we're first
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going to take a break, but we're gonna talk about some of the psychological
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needs and desires of comfort foods and why we crave these things.
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Because, let's figure out why we're packing it on our thighs for some reason.
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Right.
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So stay tuned.
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We'll be right back.
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Well, talking about comfort foods.
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I mean, we, we all know what comfort food is, right, Sylvia?
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That's a no-brainer.
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Hit me on the head with a wooden spoon kind of thing.
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there actually are some, really important interesting psychological
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reasons as to why we crave comfort foods beyond the, some of the basics.
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We think, , it's fall, it's cozy, we need this, but the temperature and heat.
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Change actually Comfort foods help us conserve calories.
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So we have to, well, we have to bulk up in order to use all those
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extra calories that we need for shoveling snow and, everything else.
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And there's something called a diet induced thermogenesis.
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Now, do you know what that is?
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No.
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So that's the process of eating food that generates heat , which is a result
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of dense foods like stews and Turkey.
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And it creates , a, a feeling of comfort because, your body is now warm.
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I mean, your body actually heats up with these foods, which is interesting.
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I didn't think about that.
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then now you have this extra energy in your body too.
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To use it for raking leaves and shoveling snow.
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Well, hopefully we haven't come to the snow sea, the snow season yet,
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but certainly raking leaves and, and that we, we lived in the woods
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in Connecticut one year, and my, when we first bought the house, my
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father-in-law and, , my husband's, stepmother came up for Thanksgiving.
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they looked at us and said, what do you do with all these leaves?
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Well, we didn't have grass, we just had woods.
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. And we just looked at each other and laughed.
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Said, we just blow them into the woods.
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Oh, okay.
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So we didn't have to use too much comfort food for that.
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But so the other thing on comfort food is the reduction in daylight.
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That's important because our ability to produce serotonin actually goes down,
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which regulates mood and sleep and appetite and everything else like that.
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And we kind of need that to keep things going in the wintertime.
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So think pasta and potatoes and corn.
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Um.
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Beef Stew is my favorite go-to.
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And we did a little poll in our group and Jennifer Long Worthy and Lisa
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Olson, my husband's cousin who we used to spend Thanksgiving with and um, Amy
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Hillard all said they like beef stew.
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You mentioned your granddaughter's burnt marshmallow.
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Diane Bedard said mac and cheese, and Jen Hardy said something about.
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A food that I'd never heard of called Kanji, which is her ultimate comfort food
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and polish chicken and dumpling soup.
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And I don't know about you, but if you've ever had Polish food, I think
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every bite of Polish food, no matter what it is, is kind of like comfort
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food, I think of like babushkas,
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Yeah.
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There you go.
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Hey, you know what?
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I keep going back though, to what you said.
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You just that feeling of fall and you said something about you didn't know how.
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It makes me think of that Supreme Court justice trying to define pornography.
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And he said,
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he said, I can't tell you what it is.
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I just know it when I see it.
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So, okay.
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So there you go.
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That, that's one of the things.
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And then you've got, uh, my cousin Tracy Harkins offered up Thanksgiving
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and , I can kind of conjure that up in my mind, how good Thanksgiving
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smells and so that's good.
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But, um, can I tell my story though, of the apple dumpling
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recipe?
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All right, so I found this, and it is clearly in my aunt's handwriting,
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my Aunt Ruth and my Aunt Ruth.
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Somehow this just shows you the journey of a recipe.
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Okay?
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One tiny little recipe for apple dumplings and.
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The recipe in the corner, it says Mary Jane's recipe.
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Well, Mary Jane was my grandmother on my father's side.
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Aunt Ruth was my mother's sister.
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So somehow it crossed the divide here.
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Okay.
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And it became Aunt Ruth's, uh, attributed to Mary Jane.
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Well, Mary Jane wasn't a terribly nice person, and I'm not quite sure I can
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even envision her doing this, except she was really obese and you know.
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Died as a result of that.
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So, uh, you know, she may, she ate a lot of apple dumplings, but there's this
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huge long thing of a recipe that, we'll, you know, at some point we can post.
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And, um, it, it includes a lot of very strange things like Mountain Dew.
18:44
Uh, I don't know you
18:45
even had Mountain
18:45
Dew back then, but anyway, and Mountain Dew.
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But anyway, in the coroner it says.
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There's a note to me again in my aunt's handwriting and this shows, okay,
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so on top of all of that, we have a generational handing down of a recipe.
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'cause she says, Sylvia, if you don't wanna make this, she knew me all too well.
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If you don't wanna make this, give it to Ross, my oldest son, and he will make it.
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And he may even add scotch.
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Oh, that's funny.
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My
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In honor, yeah, in honor of our Scottish heritage because he and Aunt Ruth would
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were sewing him a kilt, , one day.
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And so he wore a kilt that he got married.
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He's a very eccentric, interesting young man, but that is the journey
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of a recipe and I just think it is so cool and he's gonna make this recipe,
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but you know what he's gonna do?
19:35
He's gonna research Mountain Dew as he's a scientist.
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That's one of his.
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Degrees.
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He's gonna research Mountain Dew and find out what it is that
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Mountain Dew adds to the recipe.
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'cause he will not use sugar
19:46
in his cooking.
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and so anyway, there you go.
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that is Mountain Dew.
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I haven't heard of that.
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Is, that is a definitely weird ingredient to add to something.
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But,
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I know,
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All the rest is just gooey
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Or like peanut butter or something.
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Like, there's lots of strange things that people add to recipes that just make
20:05
it so delicious that you wouldn't know, like our, like our zappo zucchini pie.
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But yeah.
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So talk about favorite foods.
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Can I tell you about a favorite food experience that,
20:18
that, that really evokes fall and comfort?
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, This happened many years ago when my husband and I were just newly
20:25
married and we were renting a garage apartment in western Connecticut.
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And every fall we would gather friends together no matter where we lived and how
20:33
big our house and how small our house was.
20:35
Our houses were always tiny anyway.
20:37
Could never cramp.
20:38
You get, no, everybody never, not everybody could fit inside.
20:42
We all had to sort of fit outside.
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We went Apple picking up in the Aspen Tuck, apple orchards, and we were
20:49
going to invite some friends from the city and they said, well, we'd
20:51
love to come, but we can't because we've got customers in from Germany.
20:55
And I said, well just bring them along.
20:57
They're here for the weekend.
20:58
They have to experience a New England fall comfort food style.
21:02
So they came along, we went apple booking, and I had made a beef stew.
21:07
It was just kind of crisp outside.
21:10
So it was warm enough to sit outside, but you still kind of
21:13
needed a blanket on your lap.
21:14
And I make beef stew with Wine and potatoes and brown meat, you know the
21:20
cheap chunks and you just put it together.
21:22
And then I take a pumpkin and you roast the pumpkin, just enough to get it warm.
21:26
So it's not like solid, hard and cold, but just a little bit warm inside.
21:30
And then I use that as a turine.
21:32
So I put all the beef stew in the pumpkin and brought it
21:35
outside on our picnic table.
21:36
And here are the, the Germans, and then my friends and some other friends, and we're
21:41
all sitting there eating this beef stew.
21:43
Kind of cold waiting for the fall to like kick us out and go
21:47
home because it was too cold.
21:48
And lo and behold, in the backyard, two big deer come gently
21:54
walking across the backyard.
21:56
One had a big rack of antlers and the other was a dough probably.
22:00
And the Germans are like, oh my God, is National Geographic in your backyard?
22:05
Did you plan this?
22:08
It's like we laughed to start close.
22:09
We also were drinking a few beers along the way too, because it is fall.
22:13
Right?
22:13
And they were German, so we gave them American beer, not German beer.
22:16
Anyway, so then one of the guys said.
22:19
I love this beef stew.
22:20
Can my wife have your recipe?
22:22
And I laughed.
22:23
And they said, do they have Campbell's French onion soup in germany?
22:27
yummy.
22:28
I love that.
22:29
He didn't know what Campbell's French onion soup is.
22:31
I said, here's a can.
22:32
This is what it looks like.
22:33
You don't need to use Campbell's, but french onion soup and lots of red wine.
22:37
Don't put anything else in it.
22:39
so he took the recipe home.
22:40
I'm presuming that that was a traveling recipe that became
22:43
a ghost recipe in Germany.
22:45
So that is our comfort food story of
22:48
Yeah, I love that.
22:49
Hey, you know you can't go very far in this, so if you're talking to Beef Stew,
22:53
I'm gonna talk about its competitor
22:55
chili.
22:56
chili.
22:56
Everybody's got a chili recipe, something that they do.
23:00
In my case, mine is I make my burger, I make that, , and I put in
23:04
all kinds of goodies, even onion.
23:06
I sneak in onion because Bernie won't touch onions.
23:09
So he picks them
23:10
out
23:10
you put beans in it or no?
23:12
Beans.
23:12
I do, I do beans and , and then, and then the other thing I do mine is bland.
23:17
Bernie has a history of ulcers, so he, that's why he stays away
23:20
from all those kinds of things.
23:21
, But it's really good.
23:22
And I do it in a slow cooker and I freeze the, what we don't eat 'cause
23:26
we're empty nesters and it's so good.
23:28
How about you?
23:29
Oh, well , we put chili out at Christmas time for our Christmas parties, but I
23:32
learned a way to store the extra chili.
23:35
Now this is kind of interesting from one of our guests, , Mary, my friend, when
23:39
you've got too much chili and you've.
23:41
Just you after a party, you take a small sandwich bag, like a freezer
23:45
bag, and you put your chili in there per serving, or for two servings,
23:49
and then you squish it flat and then you can store flat in your freezer.
23:53
How's that?
23:54
That pretty cool,
23:56
Use Tupperware, but that's a good idea.
23:58
Right.
23:58
Yeah.
23:59
that's, that's just a, an option.
24:01
But, all sorts of comfort food.
24:02
There's are lots, there's a lots that we actually, there is a lot that we,
24:07
we can share about comfort food and fall foods and maybe just storing a
24:11
few extra nuts and yeah, nuts come
24:13
out around this time of year too, the nutcrackers.
24:15
Right.
24:16
yeah, but didn't your dad add beer?
24:20
My
24:20
See, you did wine.
24:21
He said, uh, but you said.
24:24
thought you did anyway, but he
24:26
my, my dad, yeah, my, my dad would've added scotch, not,
24:30
he wasn't a beer drinker.
24:31
If he is gonna put anything in something, it was gonna be scotch at the time.
24:34
So, anyway, that's, uh, make sure that you've got somebody's favorite drink on
24:40
the side, although, you know, most of 'em turning to a lot of non-alcoholic
24:44
beers now too, , which is also good.
24:46
But, um.
24:47
And peanut butter.
24:47
Hmm.
24:48
Peanut butter.
24:49
Peanut butter and jelly.
24:50
That's a good one.
24:51
And we can't forget lasagna.
24:53
, Joe had mentioned,, in our group, , Joe d Francesca, who actually
24:57
also makes his a pasta company.
24:59
He, his a pasta manufacturing company or the pasta machines he makes.
25:02
So Joe knows about lasagna.
25:05
And true Italian lasagna.
25:07
He grew up in our area when we were kids, but there's lots of comfort foods that
25:10
bring us all together this time of year.
25:12
And if you're not careful, you're gonna be wearing that winter
25:14
sweater into the summertime,
25:18
I promised my hairdresser, Jean, I would mention her full fa favorite,
25:23
and she got the recipe, I think out of a magazine or something,
25:25
so, we'll, we'll talk about that.
25:27
But, , she goes to Trader Joe's and she gets there.
25:30
Nochi pasta, and then she adds in sausage and Brussels sprouts and Parmesan
25:35
on top, and it sounds delicious.
25:37
She said that is her go-to.
25:39
So anyway, thank you Jean.
25:41
Thank you, Jean.
25:41
That's interesting.
25:42
I don't think about Brussels sprouts as comfort foods, but
25:45
I do love Brussels sprouts.
25:46
Although Bob calls Brussels sprouts, nature's turds
25:52
on that note, fall foods, it's not just about comfort for the sake of comfort.
25:57
There's a whole reason as to why we're packing it on for the winter time.
26:01
So we have more energy to get through those holiday times in the winter and are
26:04
ready to, well roll out the pie crust and.
26:07
Have more friends and family, keep us close and warm and
26:10
keep those stories going.
26:12
So on that note, please share this story and share this episode
26:16
with others and stay tuned because there's a lot more in store or a
26:19
lot more to lay aloud, right Sylvia?
26:21
That's correct, and it's, I gotta go in there and get my chili going.
26:26
Mm-hmm.
26:26
we'll hear you soon, and we'll see you soon because every meal has a
26:29
story and every story is a feast.
26:31
Lale it up.
26:32
Take care, and ciao.
26:33
Bye-bye