A family favourite

This weekend we have twice entertained our sons and their families - one on one day and one on the other. The request was meatballs - so once again I rolled up my sleeves and got cooking. It is one of the major family favourite dishes - and a bit like the marmalade I wrote about earlier something I have mildly regretted since I first made it. Because it's marginally tedious to make.

So how did it all begin? The picture is a scan from my original Robert Carrier Cook Book that dates back to January 1969 - well that's when i was given it. It is one of my most heavily used books and as you can see it has split down the middle. The book is falling apart. And, interestingly, now that I look at the photo, it doesn't match the recipe. Because in the recipe the meatballs are cooked in the tomato sauce, not arranged separately around the outside. I am not taking a photo of my effort - it would be a bit like those comparisons they make on The Checkout of the picture on the packet and what it actually looks like. The ones I made this time look particularly brown, rather than appealingly red. They taste good though.

I must have first made it before we had children but it must have been popular and I must have continued to make it from time to time. And then, decades later, when my sons were in their teens and at their most difficult to please in terms of food, spaghetti and meatballs was one of the few dishes they would eat. And even though they are now much more eclectic in their food tastes, it still remains a family favourite and is often requested when they come to dinner. Fortunately this time I made enough for two meals.

As I toiled away, rolling meatballs yesterday, my husband commented on the labour intensive nature of it all and said that it was really the same as spaghetti bolognaise. Well not really. It may use the same ingredients - almost exactly - but the result is really not the same. Indeed it is an illustration of how different a dish can be although made from the same ingredients. And did you know it's not an Italian dish either? It's actually an American invention I believe. Well Robert Carrier was an American.

So a family favourite. We all have them and they vary from household to household. I think as a child my favourite might have been rabbit stew - something I never cook these days. What was cheap and easily bought in those days is now gourmet, expensive and you have to look around for it. Not generally found in your local supermarket - odd isn't it when they are such a pest in Australia? Ask around - what are your friends' family favourites. I'm willing to bet that most of the answers would be dishes now described as comfort food. Another aspect of nostalgia and the good old days.

Fortunately I like spaghetti and meatballs too.