Food was just substance when I was growing up. Everybody always says there greatest influences in there culinary career were their mothers and grandmothers. Not me. My my mom was a terrible cook. We had round steak cooked to shoe leather consistency at least two nights a week. Shake and bake pork chops, hamburgers cooked in a cast iron skillet until they were black on the out side and grey in the middle. I grew up in Alabama, so I was a bit shelter in that regard until I got out on my own. We did however eat together every night. The since of a family dinner was instilled in me very early. I would say this was the biggest childhood influence as far as food goes.