Vegetables with special meaning

[seedcorn]

Blame this on the Southerners..........

So what do you grow because it brings back good memories as well as loving it?

For me, toss up. Tomatoes for my Dad. Okra for my Dad's southern mother-my grandmother. Two vegetables-yes, I know one is technically a fruit-that I will prepare and eat in an unhealthy way and don't feel guilty! Use lard or bacon with grease-don't start how they aren't unhealthy as my ulcer will disagree with you.

 

[Carol Dee]

Not sure how you can blame baymule for this one LOL
Sentimental vegetables... Like you tomatoes for Dad (Beets and radishes, too.) Horse radish and parsnips for my FIL. I love those parsnips and wish he was still around to grow them for me as we have very poor luck growing them. We have not had much luck with the white peach tree we started from their peach tree. Only a few last year and none this year.

 

[Smart Red]

Summers, mom and dad both worked at LIBBY'S canning factory. Sweet corn and peas were staples from there and someone always had a few bushels of extra tomatoes they brought to work as well.

I refuse to buy sweet corn so many summers when I don't grow it, we go without, and peas right off the vine are a favorite of our son, since he was a toddler, and both his children so peas are always in the garden plan. But the veggie (fruit?) that most leads me back to my youth is the tomatoes. I have never eaten "enough" tomatoes. Like Jello, there is always room for more.

 

[digitS']

I've been growing, preparing and eating them for so long that the garden veggies have a complex of memories associated with them.

Whenever I think of vitamins in food, I think of Mom. B vitamins in whole grains. Don't eat that white bread! Vitamin C in kale. Leafy greens!

My Grandmother Goldie pulled baby beets and cooked them with bacon. They are probably my favorite vegetable. It was from her garden that I experienced my first taste of garden-fresh vegetables, I believe.

Steve

 

[seedcorn]

Not sure how you can blame baymule for this one LOL
Sentimental vegetables... Like you tomatoes for Dad (Beets and radishes, too.) Horse radish and parsnips for my FIL. I love those parsnips and wish he was still around to grow them for me as we have very poor luck growing them. We have not had much luck with the white peach tree we started from their peach tree. Only a few last year and none this year.

Tommy toe tomatoes! Got me to thinking. Always a dangerous thing.

 

[baymule]

Why do I always get the blame??

Uh-oh, ya'll watch out.......seedcorn is thinking...... I guess that explains the beads of perspiration popping out on his forehead.

 

[baymule]

Sentimental vegetables? My Daddy always grew a garden, my earliest memories are of toddling after in him in his garden. I grew the long skinny Japanese eggplant this year. My Daddy grew it when it was a new thing, he loved anything new or different, I guess that is where my quirkiness comes from. My Daddy always grew so much that he had plenty to share. He gave away the eggplant, telling people that it was black bananas, that they didn't have to peel them, just slice, roll in cornmeal and fry. Several days later he was laughing telling us that his friends told him those were the best bananas they ever ate! I can't look at a long skinny eggplant without thinking about my Daddy.

Tomatoes, that's a given. My Daddy always grew gobs of them. we ate all we could and he shared the rest. There was no particular variety, like my husband and his Tommy Toes.

One thing that I want to grow that I haven't, is peanuts. I must have been 3 or 4 years old, helping my Daddy dig peanuts. I squatted down, gathered up all the leaves out of the way of the shovel, and Daddy dug around the clump. He eased them out of the ground so I could pull them up. I grabbed a wad of leaves and there was a copperhead. Right by my little hands. Quick as a wink, Daddy chopped the snake's head off with his shovel. Then, with shaky hands, he said we needed a break. He smoked Pell Mall cigarettes and he could barely light one, his hands were shaking so bad. We went back to digging peanuts, but Daddy brushed the leaves around before I stuck my hands in them. We let them dry in the garden several days and then pulled them off the vines. He and I loved parched peanuts and ate them many times over the years. We spent many a night roasting peanuts in the oven, waiting for them to cool, watching Red Skelton as we shelled out peanuts and ate them.

 

[seedcorn]

Wish I would remember to grow peanuts. Use to fry fresh peanuts in butter, salt, eat! Didn't like Illinois gumbo but they would like Indiana sand if I could get them ripe

 

[seedcorn]

Why do I always get the blame??

Uh-oh, ya'll watch out.......seedcorn is thinking...... I guess that explains the beads of perspiration popping out on his forehead.

I didn't blame you specifically, that was Carol Dee

 

[Carol Dee]

I didn't blame you specifically, that was Carol Dee

Thanks Seedcorn, throw me under the bus. (I guess I had that coming. )