and other family stories...

My Egyptian relatives were all very much about the food, "eat as much as you love me", "you'll feel hungry once you start eating" and such...

Do you have any family food sayings or stories?

Or actually, unique family traditions of any kind...for example, my grandfather used to say things like "when in doubt, punt", "remember the Alamo", and we still say those things, half-jokingly. My favorite is still "Praise God and pass the ammunition".

quote:

Originally posted by cate:
Do you have any family food... stories?

My grandparents had chickens, turkeys and rabbits... Thanksgiving usually prompted stories of butchering gone bad. My grandmother had "pet" rabbits and "food" rabbits and one time her favorite bunny was accidentally butchered rather than one of the other rabbits and she cried and cried… while cooking him. A few other more grisly stories involving turkeys were always brought up.

Really freaked Nelson out…. My family sitting around happily eating while telling these gory, awful stories. Nelson sat there in horror listening to these stories. He is really a vegetarian at heart... except for his little burger habit.

If we still had food on our plates at the end of the meal, my grandmother used to say, "Well, if you are not going to eat it... I'll feed it to the dog".

I often got this vision of my dinner morphing into dog food within a matter of seconds. One minute it was eggs and toast and the next it was "Alpo Sausage with Real Egg Protein" and that made it sort of unappetizing.

This was before I gained or lost weight. I think that it has helped me in the long run. I don’t have a big problem leaving food on my plate or “wasting” food. One moment it is “dinner” and the next it is “compost”.

My grandma's favorite line was about the Starving children in ____________

Old sayings I grew up with:

"If you reach and get a biscuit (or whatever food) and you already had one on your plate, it means you are going to have company and they will be hungry."

"If you drop the dishtowel you are going to have company & they will be dirtier than you are."

"If your ____ palm itches venture."
"If your ____ palm itches fortune."
(one is left & one is right but I never remember which is which)

I'm sure there are more but I can't remember them right now.


Some things I have always heard my father say:

"You can't get there from here."

"Never be intolerant of anything except intolerance."

"To belittle is to be little"

One that comes to mind is a Mutts comic strip where the cat is really tucking it in, and then after eating till s/he is the shape of a balloon says something like "There, there, my little tum-tum". Dh and I immediately adopted that saying.