It’s funny to think about the foods we grew up thinking were totally normal to eat, only to realize how insane they might seem to an outsider.
For instance absolutely nothing went to waste in my Mom’s house growing up, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to sit down to a big plate of sweetbreads, head cheese or jarred pigs feet for dinner. A Czechoslovakian Dad, and Mom who grew up during the Great Depression led to some very interesting meals indeed.
While my Mom was dining on pickled herring, my Dad could be found slurping Jell-O casserole made and served in a refrigerator drawer. Like, not in a bowl that was then placed into a refrigerator drawer, rather, my Grandma used to remove the drawer, mix everything up into it, then put it back in the fridge to firm up. Grab your spoon! 
As for me and my brothers? Well, I wish you could have seen the look on Ben and my sister-in-law’s faces the first time my Mom served up our traditional New Year’s Day Pork and Sauerkraut feast. As the family dug into that tangy, crunchy ‘kraut, both of them confessed they never knew people actually ate sauerkraut, and were more than a little horrified.
Umm, we used to get Sauerkraut Pizza from The Tavern as a reward for good behavior. BAHAHAHA!
It’s funny because although my Mom never served crazy concoctions like rabbit casserole to us kids, and my Dad always made Jell-O salad in a bowl, God love him, our current tastes still reflect the crazy way we all grew up.
It’s probably why I don’t flinch at the fact that my Tomato Cracked Pepper Pasta with Olive Oil and Broccoli Sauce dinner was made sensational by a slightly taboo ingredient…anchovies.
Don’t click the red x! Don’t do it! I swear – they only make this dish AWESOMER. More awesome? More awesome.
Minced anchovy filets are melted into extra virgin olive oil, then enhanced by fresh garlic and parmesan cheese.
The resulting, savory sauce is nearly impossible to describe – but I bet your tastebuds would adore it, no matter what you grew up eating!
I started the dish with zee uber flavorful Tomato Cracked Pepper Pappardelle’s Pasta.
I picked this up at the Farmer’s Market a couple weeks ago and have been so excited to use it. Pappardelle’s flavored pasta is so tasty, and I highly recommend their sweet potato pappardelle, in addition to this one!
I snapped the pappardelle in half, and cooked them up in salted, boiling water.
Meanwhile I heated some olive oil up in a skillet and added in – GASP – the anchovies!!!
You can buy anchovy paste, or anchovy filets.
I like both, but there’s something sort of whimsical about peeling back the lid of the tin to see those little caper berries dotting the top of each filet. 
Don’t leave me, please.
I’m not lying when I say that the anchovies literally melt into the olive oil. There are no chunks, no big bits – they completely disappear.
After a fresh clove of garlic is sautéed in, fresh broccoli spears are added to the mix and sautéed in the flavor-packed oil until tender.
I learned a neat trick on Chopped the other night – to prevent your pasta from sticking together, pull it right out of the boiling pasta water…
and straight into the sauce pan. Worked like a charm!
Tomato Cracked Pepper Pasta with Olive Oil and Broccoli Sauce
Slightly adapted from PappardellesPasta.com
Serves 2
Ingredients:
4oz Tomato Cracked Pepper Pappardelle’s Pasta
2 cups broccoli florets
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 anchovy filet, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
black pepper
2 Tablespoons parmesan cheese
1/4 cup pasta cooking water
Directions:
1. Microwave/steam broccoli until it’s a little under fork tender in doneness. Meanwhile, add pasta to salted boiling water, and cook until al dente.
2. Heat the olive oil in a medium sized skillet over medium heat and sauté the anchovies, mashing it into the olive oil with a spatula, until nearly dissolved. Add in garlic and cook for 30 seconds, then add in the steamed broccoli. Season with pepper, turn the heat down to medium-low, and cook until broccoli is soft.
3. When pasta is done cooking, transfer it directly into the skillet with the broccoli using tongs. Add in parmesan cheese and pasta cooking water, then stir to mix everything together.
Every bite – from the sauce soaked broccoli, to the chewy pasta – was a flavor explosion. I could eat this meatless main every single night of the week. Anchovies included!
Although I won’t flinch at adding anchovies into my pasta dishes, I draw a serious line at adding them onto my pizza – unlike my Mom who requests cheese and sauce with her anchovies. BLERG! 
~~~~~
What crazy foods did you eat as a kid/do you eat now?
I don’t think I’ve ever actually had anchovies but I have had and liked sardines so I’m sure I wouldn’t mind them.
i’m torn on anchovies. they totally gross me out at first glance, but i LOVE salty foods, so part of me thinks i would like the taste. might just have to close my eyes and give it a go!
we always ate ketchup with eggs, but that was about as weird as it got in our house!
Obviously I do not know your family, but based on this description alone, they sound fantastic.
I think the craziest thing as a kid was what I didn’t eat. I HATED fruits and avoided them like the plague, and my list of vegetables I would eat consisted of potatoes and green beans. Its so weird because I love fruits and veggies now!
I freaking love anchovies. They make a good caesar dressing even better too
OH and try them with that butter/tomato sauce. Seriously.
I love anchovies in pasta!
your stories of bizarre food cracks me up. I think the Jello IN the drawer is hilarious.
When BF and I first met he told me about this WONDERFUL meal that had chicken, broccoli, and canned peaches in it. Canned peaches? topped with a mayo/cheese mixture? WTH??? Well I caved and he made it and it was A-MAZING! The flavor combos work so well. Bizarre but good! http://iamahoneybee.com/2009/08/03/hahas-chicken/
I grew up in Wisconsin and some people here in Nebraska don’t know what cheese curds are (and think I’m weird when I say the good ones squeak). I love them deep fried too!
People here also thinks it’s odd to put elbow macaroni in chili. Again, totally normal in Wisconsin.
I thought it was super weird the first time my best friend (who is from Wisconsin) told me the best cheese curds squeak! She brought me cheese curds just so I could understand what she was talking about. (I grew up in IA.)
I love cheese curds, and only the best ones squeak!! I always bought mine from a little cheese factory in WI on the way to the Apple Festival every year. If I needed a fix before then, there’s a dairy on the way to Kalona on Hwy 1 that has fresh cheese curds. So yummy! Now I’m craving them…and I live in Texas now
That’s how you know they’re fresh! I had some last weekend after Apple Fest.
I totally LOVE sauerkraut pizza!! Haven’t had it in years! Now I live in China so I eat all kinds of strange things on a regular basis, like fish heads, frog legs, and seaweed. Growing up I loved liver and onions and would actually ask for it for my birthday meal! Love this post and the dish looks yummy!
Rice with watermelon is delicious!!! Just scrape a piece of watermelon into a bowl with a spoon and throw in some cooked rice (jasmine is my fav). add more sugar to sweeten it up. Oh! And a few ice cubes too.
This hits the spot with me! My husband and his family are from Slovakia, and I was totally not into some of the “wierd” foods they eat. However, 14 years later, I love a lot of them ( langose, buchty, knedle w/ cabbage and meat, Segedínsky goulash, linzer cookies) to name a few. There are still some things I really don’t like and kind of gross me out, but to each his own!
I love anchovies! This looks like a great combination.
What? Only 1 anchovy fillet in the sauce? Seriously, I would have used 2 or 3.
My family made sour milk cake as kids and kielbasa and sauerkraut on top of mashed potatoes.
We also had SPAM sandwiches a lot but I didn’t like them.
Weird food taught me to be adventurous and learn that I loved things like octopus, chocolate covered crickets and at one point beer mixed with lemonade.
Beer and lemonade is a common drink here in New Zealand – it’s called a shandy!
My family always had Lutefisk on the table. it’s cod that you steep in lye and store in a ball jar, unrefrigerated.
You could always count on a jar of Lutefisk and some of those orange circus peanuts at grandma’s house.
When I was a kid, a HUGE bottle of ketchup was served literally as a vegetable. We put ketchup on everything. I can still taste ice cold ketchup on a steaming plate of spaghetti and sauce (YUCK! the sweetness of the ketchup…. ugh, how did I enjoy that?). My father still puts ketchup on everything. My favorite is when he makes a huge salad bowl for lunch and piles it with cold Heinz. *shudder*. We also ate a lot of hotdogs and spaghetti-O’s. I can’t eat spaghetti-O’s today because I ate far too many as a child.
Tomato soup cake… family favorite. It taste just like spice cake but has a whole can of soup in it! eww
Fried bolagna sandwiches…. I still love my bolagna.
And popcorn with peanut butter fudge. Not sure why but for movie nights we popped our popcorn in those old school popcorn poppers and my mom made a batch of fudge to go with…. the 2 will forever be paired for me!
We did something similar with popcorn paring… We would always have it with Red Hot Candies or Hot Tamales sprinkled in and sliced green apples on the side. I still love popcorn and green apples together!
The jello in the fridge drawer is too much, omg, lol.
Hmm, this doesn’t seem odd to me now, but my dad went through a major wheat germ phase when I was like 5 or 6. So, he used to feed me applesauce, vanilla yogurt, and wheat germ all the time as an after dinner snack. As I got a bit older and other kids talked about Twinkies after dinner and I threw out wheat germ, you can imagine the response, “eww, you eat germs!” hahahaha – still love it!
Confession: I have a half-eaten jar of pickled herring in my fridge *right now.*
I grew up eating weird stuff. We had to eat liver and onions before trick-or-treating on Halloween, sweetbreads were ground up into our Thanksgiving dressing, and we feasted on Rocky Mountain oysters for Christmas. My boyfriend thinks I’m soooo weird!
yum. great idea! i have never tried PUTTING my anchovies into zee olive oil. i’m trying it for sure. thanks kristin!
Awesome! The jell-o in the fridge drawer is fantastic!
Like you – mom NEVER wasted food at our farm house. We ate many “Linda (my mom) Concoctions” growing up. Now – as a mom of two girls, (and knowing how expensive food can be!!) I appreciate all of those recipes – “concoctions” or not. 
I was JUST talking with a co-worker about this today.
My weird favorite snacks:
- Peanut butter & cheese sandwiches
- Cold hot dogs wrapped in bologna & cheese
- Braunschweiger liver sausage
(I still love the braunschweiger)
HAMBALLS! In brown sugar sauce of course. I grew up on an Iowa farm but now live in Chicago, and anyone from Illinois just thinks hamballs / Ham loaf is a crazy gross thing to eat. But YUM!
I remember watching Pretty Woman and not getting the escargot joke, when I found out it was snails I freaked out. Now I love them! Escargot is my favorite uber decadent specialty, but you have to have lots of garlic and baguette!
Rachel Ray was making sauce w/anchovies the other day. she said the same thing, that they vanish and add richness & depth to the dish. my parents grew up in the Depression too. i grew up eating homemade saurkraut cooked w/a glop of bacon grease & sugar. DELISH!! mom would make elbow macaroni & home canned tomatoes….wonderful! miracle whip sandwichs. fried hot dogs & bologna. seems like we ate pretty normal. meat, taters & gravy meals. i personally love cottage cheese w/a little dab of mustard stirred in. OH…i remember dad making us kids Lick-Dob…which was toast torn into bits, sprinkled w/sugar, and milk poured on, kinda like ceral but not quite! gosh…i haven’t thought about that for years!
My favorite was peanut butter and bologna sandwiches….yumm! And Doritos crunched into cottage cheese! mmmm
My husband is from Mexico and I’ve been coerced into eating a few strange things. Huitlacoche (fungus that grows on corn) is pretty good in quesadillas and I’ve eaten plenty of goat tacos and tried cow stomach in pozole once. I draw the line at tongue and brain tacos. EW.
My dad always ate popcorn with milk on it like cereal. It’s pretty good actually.
Wow… Jello salad in a fridge door! That’s NUTS!
Well, I always grew up with chili soup that included chopped potatoes in it. It’t actually really good, but different. And my dad’s specialty was called “Macaroni & Red Stuff”. For real. It was actually macaroni with tomato juice, salt & pepper. But as kids we never would have ate it if you told us it had tomato juice in it!
Haha.
Sorry… *drawer* not door.
Oh I just thought of another one – Doritos dipped in cream cheese. is that wierd? I’m the only person I know who does that.
Anchovies are the BACON of the sea! That’s how have have described them to get other to try them and make them believers in the deliciousness of anchovies!
when i studied abroad in cameroon, my host mom would make anchovies with eggs. it was actually kind of good, the salty/buttery combination.
aughhhhhhh scared of anchovies? how has everyone been eating caesar salad all this time? it’s such a key ingredient!
I didn’t grow up with too many weird things, but my mom couldn’t cook to save her life. Meatloaf had huge mushy chunks of bread in it, we ate (well I refused) canned corned beef hash–which by the way is a step below dog food, I actually think it is dog food labeled “corned beef hash”. (((Shudder))). My dad likes to put white gravy on top of a cinnamon roll, weird I think. My dad is actually a great cook, but since he worked long days, that was sadly left to my mother
Bright side, I learned from my dad and am a pretty good cook myself, so I think I learned out of necessity 
I think braunschweiger (liver sausage…sort of a poor man’s pate) is the “weirdest” think I eat. Most people don’t even know what it is when I tell them. I feed it to my kids now and they love it too!
It isn’t too weird but we had potato pancakes all the time, served with cinnamon and sugar – so good! I still make them now every once in awhile
Chipped beef on toast comes to mind and my Dad of course had another inappropriate name for it. I still enjoy it when Mom makes it when I go home. It was a very cheap meal- butter, milk, chipped beef and toast. Also my husband and I were at the grocery store the other day and I saw cheese whiz spread. I mentioned to him growing up we use to put it on bread for a sandwich, now-a-days I don’t think I could do that.
Sh*t on a shingle?? Haha that’s what my dad calls it!
Yes
I don’t think I’ve ever had anchovies before… they sound yummy,though.
I grew up in Ohio and we had sausage and sauerkraut EVERY YEAR for New Year’s Day, too. So I’m right there with ya! Oh and that jell-o in the refrig drawer story is one of the funniest things I’ve heard!!!
I just don’t think I can do it… Uuggghhh! Fish in a can!? Eeeekk!
Well I’m a southerner… I remember my parents having me help make collard and mustard greens for thanksgiving… Now I feast on them with pepper sauce whenever they are around.
That pasta looks awesome.
I’m just grateful that we were exposed to lots of fruits and veggies growing up. We had pickled beets and brussels sprouts all the time as a kid and I still love them today.
One of my family’s weirdest food quirks is eating lima beans and mayonaise. My grandpa, mom, and I all eat our limas with mayo:)
Growing up my absolute favorite snack were saltine crackers with a piece a quarter of a kraft single and a marshmallow, then broiled to toast the marshmallow. Perfect combination of salty and sweet, my babysitter made them for me and now I call them “Pammys”.
I also love wheat thins and cream cheese, and my family always eats lettuce sandwiches with chili. Just buttered bread and iceberg lettuce. Fresh crunch with savory soup!
When I was little my favorite weekend breakfast treat was scrambled eggs with sliced hot dogs cooked in. It may sound odd, but it is soooo delicious! I’m home visiting this weekend…maybe I can get my mom to make me some! It’s always better when mom makes it, right?
I’m cracking up that you call this a meatless main…given that some food with a face went into it.
I’m just now learning to embrace anchovies. I bought a tin to add to some pizza sauce I’m making this weekend. It’s remarkable how they disappear and what an amazing umami flavor they add. But warn your vegetarian friends before you feed them!
I don’t think I have ever had anchovies. But I have seen them in a lot of pasta dishes, and have heard how they just seem to melt in the olive oil. Thanks for sharing this recipe!
I’ve never had anchovies before. I don’t know if I could bring myself to prepare them myself. I might eat them if I’m not aware they are in a dish. I’m just not a big fish fan.
My dad used to make, and I still do at my house today the following weirdness: fried bologna sandwiches with TONS of sauteed onions (on only the finest, squishy Wonder bread), scrambled wieners, and cream of cabbage and pickle soup. I only make this stuff when my hubby travels because he gets nauseated thinking about what is cookin’! I find it all delish.
Haha your jello story! Too funny.
Oddly, I have always loved anchovies in pasta. But not in pizza either!
I guess an odd habit for my family was dipping pizza into mayo haha. Not ranch, but good ol’ hellmans!
I ate–and still eat and still completely love—fried chicken livers. People are so mean about them, haha! But I don’t care, I think they’re delicious.
When I was young My dad and I used to eat canned oyster stew with ketchup…I thought he was the coolest. Don’t get me wrong, my dad’s still pretty awesome, I’ve just acquired my own tastebuds over the years!
Love the jello in the drawer story – I wonder what the hubby would say if he came home to find the fridge drawer cleaned out and jello in its place??? haha
I used to eat anchovies like it was nothing! And raw hot dogs (omg, i know!) and Spam…never batted an eyelash! Please don’t leave ME!
HA! Jell-O in the fridge drawer! I wonder why?!
The craziest we really got growing up was ketchup on cottage cheese (I still eat it this way), white rice served ‘cereal style’ in a bowl with lots of milk and cinnamon sugar, slices of cheddar cheese on a plate then microwaved until crispy, and Doritos in our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (Now my snack of choice after a late night of cocktails).
I looove dorito and PB&J sandwiches!