There is a strong possibility that when you dine out Sunday, you will eat food prepared by chefs who learned to cook from their mothers.
The formally trained may have culinary school to thank up to a point, but those lessons can’t compare with the lessons learned in Mom’s kitchen.
Almost two-thirds of us will give Mom a break from the stove to celebrate Mother’s Day by going out to eat, according to the National Restaurant Association.
But preparing that meal will fall to the men and women who grew up cooking with Mom. Some childhood dishes have ended up on menus around town.
Yanni Stavropoulos has food memories rooted in helping his mother and grandmother slice and dice onions and garlic for the Easter meal. In Greek society Easter is the most important holiday feast, and preparing it was a family affair. Stavropoulos owns Yanni’s Greek Taverna on South Monaco Parkway.
“We would have 40, 50, 60 people for our Easter feast, which began after the midnight service,” he says. “It was always a big production. We’d roast a whole lamb. It was my job to put in the salt and pepper, garlic, oregano, lemon juice and olive oil.”
As the oldest of five children, it was also his job to dye the red eggs that are a traditional part of the Greek Easter.
“My mother learned from her mother, and I learned to make moussaka, pastitsio and spanikopita (spinach pies). My grandmother made perfect kouloudakia, special-occasion cookies.”
Almost all of the menu items at the taverna come from his mother, Georgia Stavropoulos, and his 95-year-old grandmother, Coula Zaliares.
George Poston, an executive chef at Maggiano’s Little Italy in downtown Denver, is from Ohio, where his mother, Madeleine, still lives. He cooked with his father, mother and aunt. To this day, one of his favorite dishes is his mother’s fried rice.
“My mom is from Shanghai, and she met my father when he was in the service in the South Pacific,” Poston says. “My aunt had lived in Europe and Asia, and they were all great cooks. But my favorite was my mom’s fried rice. It had vegetables, bacon, peanuts and raisins. When I moved out to go to college, I used to call her and ask her how to make it.”
Before Poston came to Denver, he worked in Portland, Ore., where he adapted one of his mother’s chicken dishes for his menu there.
“I’ve been cooking Italian so long, it’s nice to think about these foods again. It brings back such memories.”
Madeleine Poston, who spent three years in an internment camp, is now in her 80s and still cooking. She has written a book, “My Upside- Down World,” based on diary notes from her experiences during her confinement, including reminiscences of meals. The book, published in 2002, is available on amazon.com.
Chaz Robinson, an executive chef at Dixon’s restaurant in Lower Downtown, blames his mother, Katherine Julian, for his love of food. He hails from Richmond, Va.
“It my mother’s fault I’m in this business,” he says. “We had a local farmer who grew fresh okra, and a creek that separated his property from a neighbor’s land.
“My mom and I would pick okra together and my brothers would go down to the creek and in a couple of hours could fill a trash bag with crawfish. We’d take it back and make gumbo.”
Robinson’s mother grew up in Georgia and her mother was Italian-Irish. They would make a simple gumbo with tasso, highly seasoned smoked pork.
“My grandfather used to make tasso. To this day when we go home my brothers or I make my mother’s gumbo.”
Richard Sandoval, who created Tamayo and Zengo restaurants, treasures the tortilla soup he learned from “Myuca,” as he called his grandmother, Maruca Sandoval.
“She had two or three housekeepers who helped her cook,” says Sandoval, who grew up in Mexico City. “They let me help. I would clean tomatillos and peel onions. I think they just wanted to keep me out of the way.”
Like so many life lessons learned at an early age, the colors and scents stayed with Sandoval. Food was always a big part of what went on in the Sandoval home. Family gathered for meals and discussed the events of the day.
At one point Sandoval thought he wanted to be a professional tennis player, but he kept being drawn to the kitchen. He eventually went to work for his father’s restaurant in Acapulco.
“Little did I realize that my palate was being formed at such a young age,” says Sandoval. “Watching soups and sauces and desserts being made told me what I would do with my life. But I still make my grandmother’s tortilla soup.”
Many stories are layered, textured and shaped by early experiences. One such story belongs to the Palm restaurant chain’s first female executive chef, Jean Stone.
Stone, a native of Buffalo, N.Y., still has her grandmother’s old roasting pan – in which she makes roast beef to go with her mashed potatoes and gravy, much the way her grandmother, Barbara Stone. did. Her grandmother died two years ago, so she treasures the pan.
Jean Stone describes her mother, Linda, as an excellent cook.
“My mother made this lasagne that was a staple,” she says. “I would pull my chair up to the stove and stir the sauce in the pot. Then my mom and I would have tea parties with cakes I made in my little Easy-Bake oven. For the most part, though, we were a roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy family.”
What stands out are her mother’s “Hello Dolly” cookie bars and “Lazy Lasagna.”
For those heading to New Mexico for Mother’s Day, if you end up eating at the Inn of the Anasazi, you’ll eat food prepared by Martin Rios. His grandmother had a restaurant in an open market in Guadalajara. When she couldn’t take care of it anymore, she gave it to Rios’ mother.
“So my brothers and sisters and I grew up going to the market every morning to pick up what was needed,” he says. “It was all very traditional – posole, menudo, tostadas – very homey, rustic cooking. My older brother was a cook when I was a dishwasher. I’d watch him and think, ‘Yeah, this might be something I want to do.”‘
After nine years of working in various kitchens, Rios decided to get a formal education. But he still uses some of the chiles he used growing up, and his lunch menu at the inn features the tacos and tostados he enjoyed at his mother’s house.
Thanks Mom.
Staff writer Ellen Sweets can be reached at 303-820-1284 or esweets@denverpost.com
