PASS IT ON: THE BUNGLAOW CHEF

Recipes by Mike Mech, The Bungalow Chef

By Judith Mara

*find the recipes on page 64

Bungalow (Home-Style) White Bread

Smoked Gouda Mac and Cheese Bungalow Style

What do you consider to be comfort food: lasagna, sushi, goulash, jambalaya, kimchi, turkey and dressing, mac ’n’ cheese, chicken soup, steak or potatoes? That answer depends on many factors, including where you grew up, by whom you were raised, your age, your ethnicity, your childhood religion, and your family traditions.

While comfort food choices may be as complicated as people are different, they all have something in common; all provide a sentimental or nostalgic feeling. To be clear, “favorite” foods are not the same as comfort foods in that our favorites simply taste good. We also select favorites because we trust them to fill us up when we are hungry. Comfort food though holds the trump card because of its emotional connection, which in turn is comforting to our well-being.

We all have gone to a restaurant to feed that “comfort” craving. It makes us feel content to order a bowl of soothing matzo ball soup at a deli or a bowl of tangy carbonara at an Italian trattoria. But somewhere in time, odds are that someone (including yourself) cooked that dish from scratch for you in his or her own kitchen. And often the benchmark of how much you like a restaurant dish is how much it “tastes just like what I remember.”

There is nothing like home-cooked meals to bring back warm memories—which may be the most comforting food of all. Some are these beloved dishes are part of a holiday tradition,

Pork Ribs and Sauerkraut

sometimes from a happier time in your life, and others are from simple family weekday meals. More than likely a home cook prepared them with love. Or, at the very least, to provide nourishment for you.

By tradition, generations of great-grandmothers, grandmothers and mothers have been charged with handing down these recipes to their daughters. But it’s interesting that one of today’s most vocal and passionate spokespeople on the subject of keeping those family comfort food recipes alive is Mike Mech, The Bungalow Chef.

While most 7-year-old boys in the 1960’s were outside swinging a bat at softball practice or catching crickets in a jar, Mech was at his greatgrandmother’s side learning to make a perfect pie crust. By the time he was old enough to reach the stove, he was scrubbing cucumbers and dill in the bathtub and helping his mother with pickle canning. Mech has since spent his lifetime collecting and cooking every vintage family recipe he can find, whether it is from verbal tradition or his great-grandmother’s handwritten recipe book. His mission is to pass them on, along with other vintage cooking techniques, through his Recipe Revival blog, TV shows, videos, live demos, newsletters and any other way to live true to his motto of “preserving memories one recipe at a time.”

“Every family, regardless of ethnicity, has recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation. These special recipes pass on a story just as effectively as old photographs or diaries in that they tell a rich history,” says Mech. He goes on to say, “A recipe has power—the power to give us a real piece of the past that we can taste today.”

Hopefully, by now you have asked your mom, grandpa, grandma or auntie how to recreate your most treasured food memories. And even better, you have shared them with family and friends. Not only does passing down a traditional home-cooked recipe give us a power we can taste, it also has a power we can feel. Pass it on…and on…and on…

Cinnamon Sugar Doughnuts

Coconut Cake