What Was Your Favorite Childhood Recipe?

Recently, we chatted about our childhood food memories here at Kitchen Stories HQ. The list of dishes included an unsurprising number of traditional German recipes, but also some timeless global classics and lots of international recipes (thanks to our colleagues from further afield).

We hope that the meals our grandparents made for us when we were young and careless will inspire you to try out something new—or even make you feel a bit nostalgic.

By far the most popular dish was rice pudding, or “milk rice,” as we call it in Germany. Our colleagues Lenja and Stefan always enjoyed it with homemade apple sauce, while Kirsten ate it with cherries, cinnamon, and sugar. Stefan’s grandad loved the dish even more than him, but would only get it served when the grandkids were visiting!

The preparation might be a bit tedious, but it’s all worth it when the whole family comes together around a table filled with Chinese dumplings. In Mengting’s family, all members would help prepare the dumplings, stuffing them with a range of delicious fillings.

Trung from team tech fondly remembered his school days when the smell of pho soup filled the classrooms. In Vietnam, pho is sold as street food and can be found on most street corners.

Patrick, one of our video editors, always indulged in classic cheese spätzle on Saturdays when he was little. His dad would cook it for him, improving on the dish every week. He’s never eaten anything that tastes as delicious.

Our Danish colleague from team content, Kathrine, got a warm, nostalgic feeling when she told us about her mom’s meatballs. Half the world would agree that nothing beats Danish meatballs.

Our co-founder Verena loved to harvest fresh vegetables from her family’s garden when she was a child. Her favorite casserole included zucchini, tomatoes, and feta.

Clarissa from our content team loved making cookies as a kid—not for the end result, but for the love of raw cookie dough.

We’d love to hear more about your early memories of food. What did you love to eat when you were a child? Do you have a recipe to share with us? Tell us more in the comments or upload your recipe to our app to share it with the community!

Rice pudding with baked plums

Chinese dumplings with pork and shrimp

Vietnamese-inspired noodle soup

Cheese spätzle with fried onions

Danish meatballs

Oven ratatouille with feta

Chewy chocolate chip cookies

More delicious ideas for you