I love challenging these omnibus posts claiming to list the ‘Best’ dishes on a certain theme. Today, I face the ultimate challenge: ‘The 34 Best Dinner Recipes of All Time‘. Really? I’m primed and ready, and the critical juices are flowing!
Classic Shepherd’s Pie: Took the wind right out of my sails…
There I was: locked and loaded to debunk yet another ‘Best of’ omnibus recipe post, and raring for a snark-fest. But then I scrolled down to the first recipe…
Stopped me cold!
… And I stopped in my tracks. It was Shepherd’s Pie. The Scottish classic I first ate my mother’s and her mother’s knee. When I was about 4 years old. And was regaled by the elder ladies with tales of the dish’s history, heritage and consummate Scottishness…
In that moment, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to scorn this post as harshly as I wanted to.
I scrolled down a screen. And was confronted with one of the most beautiful lasagnas I’ve ever seen online. Damn! Next came my beloved French Onion Soup. Then Homemade Pizza, and Classic Roast Beef. The list went on and on… Classic Baked Chicken, Grilled Marinated Flank Steak, Eggplant Parm-esan, Chicken Fajitas… Would my humiliation never end?
Found a way…
I eventually found a way to justify the preamble to this post… By prioritizing the recipes presented and isolating my least faves for closer scrutiny.
Among my nominees for ‘duds’ of the list, I chose:
Baked Ziti
One of the most overrated Italian dishes ever. Unless you’re of Italian heritage and hold it dear for reasons other than culinary. It is the Godfather of a whole shadyfamily of baked pasta casseroles,of which I have had too many.
Pasta Carbonara
Sorry carbonara lovers… I’ve always thought this dish was too hard to make properly consistently. And offered very little of substance aside from the starch.
Tuna Croquettes
I had enough of those in my single-digit childhood to last me a lifetime. If I live to be 100. Familiarity breeds contempt.
Classic Meatloaf
The familiarity factor strikes again. All the time I was in elementary school, we had it meatloaf least once a week for supper. I swear. And a day or two of meatloaf sandwiches for lunches thereafter.
Swedish Meatballs
Ditto. Too many family pot lucks whee there was always a big pot of Swedish Meatballs – amid other dishes I didn’t recognise. I defaulted to the meatballs, out of an abundance of caution.
Salmon Croquettes
See: ‘Tuna Croquettes’, above…
My take
So all I could find to demonize out of 34 Dinner Recipes on the ‘Best of All Time’ list were 6 dishes, most of which were every-day menu items in my childhood. They were cheap and reliable and – in the case of the ground beef and canned fish ones – made even more economical by the addition of bread crumbs.
Mom regularly stretched a single can of salmon or tuna into enough croquettes to feed 4 hungry diners. We were only three at our table. But Dad always ‘cleaned up’ the last one. On the bright side… No leftover Salmon Croquette sandwich for lunch the next day!
The moral to this story has to be: Childhood memories still speak strongly for or against foods we either liked or disliked when we were ‘young and impressionable’. Fortunately, at my age, I can at least try to argue that I truly am too old to change!
~ Maggie J.