Me and my brother both like to cook. We can only figure it was because we wanted some decent food in the house. My parents ruined me on hamburger helper, spaghetti, and ground beef tacos. I feel like I've eaten those meals every week for years. My brother and I started cooking when we were about 12. We created tabasco marinated burgers, pizza sandwiches, and how to dress up a Totinos pizza to rival delivery pizza.

Man I grew up on hamburger helper. I’ll never eat it again.

My Mom's fried chicken, mashed potatoes with cream gravy and corn (form a can), was the best. The sound of that cold milk hitting the hot cast iron skillet for the gravy was my "wash your face and hands for supper" call. She didn't have to say a word, with that meal, you hear that low sizzle sound and you know it won't be long before we're fighting over which one of us had to say the prayer.

Both of my parents were and are good cooks. I can't pick just one meal, there were so many.

When my mother fried chicken she always cut the chicken up herself. There was always a fight over the pulley bone.

Same here, but I was usually the one with the pully bone. Never seen chicken cut that way since my Grandmother and Mother passed. One of the few things I never learned from them.

My mother always did a fine job frying quail and making gravy. She did a great job frying deer meat as well. We put at least a dozen deer in the freezer every year. I still prefer my gravy with white bread instead of rice. She could whip up a meal in no time and the kitchen was clean when it hit the table. Wish my wife had picked up on that trick. Pork chops were awesome too. Everything at my house was fried unless it was cooked on the pit growing up.

Wish i liked cooking I like eating better.

For all of us from back "in the day", our mothers cutting up the whole fryer is a given. She fried in a cast iron skillet. Started by browning each piece, open, on some decent heat. When she got them to the color she wanted as finished, cut the heat and covered. Probably turned once and finished covered. Juicy with a good crusty coating.

Fried chicken

yep, no telling how many times mom would tell me to go get a chicken and I knew we were having fried chicken (as you described cooking) ... out back, grab one, wring it's neck and pluck, to mom to cut up and cook. how it was done back then.

Every Sunday we had tacos, loved them. She cooked the corn tortillas in hot oil while spinning them, bent them and into a warm oven. Browned hamburger meat and cut up onions, cheese, tomatoes and lettuce. Mighty fine meal with banana pudding for desert, my fav.

Not mom, but grandma made smothered pork chops in a pressure cooker. She weighed 95# and that pressure cooker loaded must have weighed 10#. Me, my dad and my uncle could hurt ourselves on those!