In her award-nominated food memoir Apron Strings (Goose Lane Editions), journalist Jan Wong serves up witty, thought-provoking observations around the food culture and customs of some of the world’s best food destinations. As epicurious ALU-ers, we were inspired to share some of our own favourite family memories involving food and feasting.
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Julia:My family has always loved to do a fondue for special occasions like New Year’s Eve. Rather than the cheese fondue many people are familiar with, we do an oil fondue, frying meats, veggies, and our favourite: cheese cubes battered with tempura to create deliciously melty “cheese balls.” I mastered cooking beef and chicken to appropriate doneness at an early age, but the cheese ball takes special care: if you don’t thoroughly batter your cheese cube, or let it sit in the pot too long, you’ll elicit cries of “cheese leak! around the table. In high school, I loved to invite friends over to participate in this fun tradition (we didn’t know that fondue was considered a relic of the 1980s, and if we’d known, we wouldn’t have cared!).
In adulthood, my partner and I have continued the tradition and now do a fondue for two every New Year’s Eve, cooking veggies and tempura-battered cheese balls, and using my mom’s marinade recipe to prepare pieces of chicken and beef to fry up.Horel Family Fondue Marinade:
1½ lb beef or chicken, cut into pieces
2 green onions, chopped
¼ C soy sauce
2 Tbsp sesame oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp sugar
⅛ tsp pepper
2 Tbsp water (or beer)
Mix all ingredients and pour over meat
Let stand at least 1 hour (I refrigerate overnight for maximum marinating time)
Prepare meat as desired (preferably in delicious fondue)
Leftover meat also makes a great stir-fry!
Tan: We pickle. Dill pickles, mustard pickles, pickled beets. I can’t buy these things in stores anymore, because they never taste the way my mom makes them. I raid the pantry with every visit home because I can’t make them the way mom does either. My brother’s had much better success in replicating her recipes. (Thankfully, he shares too!)
Mandy:Olivier salad (aka the potato salad that will ruin you for other potato salads) has been a given at most Persian celebrations in my family — and at most Persian buffets in general. It’s THAT tasty. While there are multiple variations from other countries, the one my family makes was passed down from my paternal grandmother’s kitchen in Azerbaijan. The salad is a creamy combination of potatoes, shredded chicken, eggs, dill pickles, green peas, and carrots mixed together with mayo, olive oil, and a squeeze of lemon. It’s best served with its co-star Barbari, a super tasty Persian flatbread, and some stretchy pants.
Lauren:Ever since I was little, we had ciambella (“cha-MEL-la”) with our pastas and stews — rings of anise-studded, braided bread with a crunchy crust and a stringily-soft inside. They kept in the freezer for a year at a time, and our Nonna (grandmother) would always restock us whenever we needed. After suffering a stroke, the day’s work that went into making these breads became a little too much. We all agreed that we missed ciambella, so set out to learn from her expertise – Nonna’s a fierce and unrelenting supervisor.
Our day of three generations getting a massive heap of dough to rise, coating our amateur rings in anise seeds, and boiling and baking around 40 breads was helped along by homemade wine, a lot of laughter, and Nonna telling us we’d do better next time, with more practice.
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