>>>>>warning: don't try with American so-called "bread". No warranty applied/implied/replied/replayed, actually I invoke a Microsoft-strength disclaimer in that case.
>>>>
>>>>Take it in turns tro cycle round the block with the bread.
>>>>
>>>>Try these some time.
>>>>
>>>>http://thefoody.com/vegetable/potatocakes.html
>>>>
>>>>served dripping with melted butter of course.
>>>>
>>>>Best eaten hot off the stove as they are cooked.
>>>
>>>We do this often - though without the British passion for triangular food :). And nothing particularly Irish about that, or at least none that my grandmother knew about when she made them. We either call them puree patties (no I will not try to write the Serbian name until we get UTF-8 back; for the same reason I won't even try e-acute either) or invent a Mexican-like name (equally unprintable here).
>>>
>>>Sometimes we just make more mashed potatos than needed, so if they aren't eaten by dinner, they become "[unprintable]" - the "carne de yesterday" which then gets a new life this way. And, ahem, replicate("mmmm....", 20).
>>
>>
>>basic food is a universal language dragan.
>>
>>Yorkshire pudding ?
>
>
>I agree. My grandmothers never ate store bought bread unless they were visiting relatives and then there was always a 'tsk tsk' and a back-handed complement when eating it. It was a major faux pas for any of their daughters to serve store bought vegetables or bread to them. One of my aunts didn't have her own garden so she went to the local farmers and bought veggies and then canned those. I'll never forget her embarrassment when my grandmother found out she didn't grow them herself.

My dad's mother was like that, at least until the end (more on that later). She was a natural cook who never used a recipe and could whip up something tasty with whatever happened to be on hand, which is my definition of a real cook. One of my memories of childhood was of being at her house -- first a farm, then a small house, then a trailer -- and there seemed always to be the smell of baked goods. She baked in serious volume, giving quite a bit of it to the one store in town to resell. If you got a thick slice of her bread, or better yet one of her legendary biscuits, warm from the oven, it was an okay day no matter what else happened. Even when I went off to college she sent me a lot of letters, a paragraph of which always seemed to be a report of what she had cooked or was still cooking that day. "I made two dozen donuts, four loaves of bread, two pans of biscuits, and an apple pie in case Corrine and the kids come over."

My dad and his brothers were terrible kidders with her, to the merriment of all but the recipient. As many times as they had done it they still reeled her in every time. She would ask how they liked the whatever she had just cooked and served them and they would say yes with just enough hesitation to make her think they didn't like it. Their classic routine, probably performed more times than "Who's On First?", was to wait until she was in the next room and then talk as though in undertones but just loud enough that she could hear it. "A little sweet, don't you think?" "I think she forgot to put something in but I'm not quite sure what." Her voice would come from the next room -- generally the kitchen, in fact. "Well! You don't have to eat it if you don't want to, you know." Harrumph! They would all bust out laughing and finally she would, too, grudgingly. Then she would go into her Fred Sanford routine -- just wait until I'm gone.

She never lost her wits but in her late 80s her body was quitting on her enough that she had to go into a nursing home. She only lasted a few months there, as is often the case. She was not a complainer but she did complain about the institutional food. Of course they wouldn't let her cook (fools). It was worse in her case because she had high blood pressure (imagine that <g>) and her doctor had her on a restricted diet. When you went to visit her, part of the protocol was to "sneak" in the disgustingly unhealthy foods she craved -- things like fried clams, pepperoni pizza, or an Italian sandwich drenched in olive oil (New England thing). Of course the nurses knew exactly what was going on and would make comical pantomimes of looking the other way or at the ceiling when you brought the stuff in. Nana dug in with a look of pure gratitude on her face, even though she never ate much of it.

Great lady. I guess most of us have at least one of those in our family trees.