Old School Eating - Page 3

[fireant]

Originally Posted by Pancakes

Hell, we didn't even have a microwave until '82 and probably didn't figure out how to use it for a few years after that.

Yup, I remember using a toaster oven for the longest time. I remember the first microwave we had was giant and I can also remember my first step-mom cooking a chicken in the microwave.

Along those lines, I remember my mom saving up for a VCR and it took many months for her to do.

[spero]

Originally Posted by spero

OMG!!!!! I have this cookbook!!!!!!! That date is way wrong though ... more like 1968!

I was close ... it's copyrighted in 1971.

Gross, there's a recipe for "Tuna Bake"!

Oooh, "Chewy Chocolate Brownies" - I remember making that recipe.

"Candy Cane Frosting"

My mom used the Carnation meatloaf recipe.

I learned to make "radish roses" from this cookbook.

[spero]

Originally Posted by fireant

I remember the first microwave we had was giant and I can also remember my first step-mom cooking a chicken in the microwave.

My mother still has the giant microwave Dad bought her in the early 80s - it has a dial instead of pushbuttons. I remember trying all sorts of experimental cooking in it, and the cake we tried caught on fire.

[iowaorganic]

I was born in 80- but geez- we sure didn't get crap until the 90s. Mom and Dad raised hogs- so we got to eat the ones that they couldn't sell- we never had beef or chicken- it seemed like a total luxury to us. I remember having a fried egg with a piece of toast for breakfast- until they built an Aldis in the big town nearby- then we had to eat 99 cent Aldi cereal- yuck. We had potatoes, corn or beans, and meat for every meal. The veggies and potatoes were all from the garden that mom made us take care of too. I remember having cheese slices- but never cottage cheese- I remember the first time we begged for it and mom gave in and bought the tiny container and it was gone in like 3 seconds. She was mad.

We rarely got to eat out- maybe 2x/year- and only when someone else took our whole family out.

But the 90s changed all that.... granola bars on occasion, a burger king sandwich on grocery day (only the 99 cent ones though), crappy cereal, but never much soda. My dad got it in his lunch- but we never got any.

When we were little we got to eat the best quality and I am sure that mom felt like she was depriving us...

[WaitingForKiddos]

I'm a kid of the 80's but my folks purchased and cooked food like you're describing. I went to really small private schools or was home schooled so my exposure to fancy stuff like FruitWrinkles was very limited. I remember a girl who's lunch was always a grape jelly sand which on Wonder bread, a box Hi-C, a baggie of potato chips and a Twinkie. My god I was so jealous of her! My lunch was always brought from home and it was a peanut butter on wholewheat, a fruit, and a quarter to buy a carton of OJ. Until I was an adult I didn't know that those foil wrapped hoho's were bought that way. I thought that the kid's mom wrapped it herself!

Dinners were generally the same things that we all liked...spaghetti with tomato sauce, mac and cheese (not boxed), breakfast for dinner when dad was working late.

Breakfast was scrambled eggs and a piece of toast. Once I was allowed to get Lucky Charms. I must have been about 7. I couldn't gag it down and ended up picking out the crunchy marshmallows to eat the cereal part.

We didn't do snacks really. If you were hungry there was always a banana or apple but never chips or crackers. I think I remember finding one of those cracker and cheese things with the little red stick to smear the cheese. Total treat!

We didn't have tons of money when I was that young so some of it was due to the prices I'm sure. But I know my mom talks about her food addiction, which was present back then, and how she bought loads of candy bars and bags of chips and ate them in secret in the car. So there WERE sweets around...I just didn't see 'em.

Now, as a grown up, I cook pretty much the same way and keep the same foods out of the house. If there's a Little Debby type thing or more than a single bag of tortilla chips in the pantry then we're going camping or something.

DH grew up in the late '80s but was fed on traditional foods his early years. Until he was a teen he didn't have sweets ad even then it was an occasional snickers bar...not the really crappy stuff. To this day he doesn't like sweets. When he does get the rare sweet tooth he wants a homemade oatmeal cookie or two small scoops of ice cream.

[littleaugustbaby]

I miss pudding pops. The old school pudding pops. The new ones don't taste the same.

[WaitingForKiddos]

Originally Posted by spero

My mother still has the giant microwave Dad bought her in the early 80s - it has a dial instead of pushbuttons. I remember trying all sorts of experimental cooking in it, and the cake we tried caught on fire.

Oh yes! Did you know marshmallows can get big enough to fill the entire microwave?

[Dreaming]

I was born in '77 and remember back pretty early.
We ate a LOT of Hamburger Helper, Tuna Helper, Macaroni and Cheese,Pot Pies and T.v. dinners.
Always frozen or canned veggies. I will only eat fresh now and I HATE frozen broccoli with all of it's nasty bitterness HOW does anyone eat that stuff??

We had a ton of sugar cereals. I lived off of Lucky Charms and Fruity Pebbles et al yet rarely ate breakfast (figure that one out).
Our pantry was full to the top with Little Debbie snacks and Doritios and flavored crackers.


We ate at McDonald's once a week. My mom was single and worked a LOT.
She did bake cookies once a month but everything else I made and it came from a box.

I was left to make my own lunch by first grade so I'd put a few slices of processed meat on white bread and maybe mayo if I had time. Threw in a Swiss Cake Roll and maybe some chips.
We usually only had apples as the only fresh fruit or veggie at our house but I rarely ate them.

[spero]

Originally Posted by littleaugustbaby

I miss pudding pops. The old school pudding pops. The new ones don't taste the same.

: AND I miss the Jell-O gelatin frozen pops! They were SOOOOOO good.

The pudding pops are way smaller than they used to be ... and WTH happened to Bomb Pops??????? They renamed them, they're 1/2 the size, and they taste different.

Originally Posted by WaitingForKiddos

Oh yes! Did you know marshmallows can get big enough to fill the entire microwave?

Hell, yeahuh! My kids just made microwave s'mores the other night!

[jempd]

I'm older than most of you, I suspect, so I grew up when there weren't even many fast food restaurants and way less packed convenient foods. Still there were Twinkies, Hostess treats etc. My parents were way crunchy for the time (help start the food coop where we lived, soda and most candy and junky food was forbidden to cross the threshhold) and in fact my father was a bit extreme about it and still is--I think it's funny that all those years ago he used to rant about over processed foods and here we are today with the slow food movement etc. He regarded drinking Coke as being close to an evil act, which is why my sisters and I regarded such foods as forbidden fruit and went out of our way to try them. My mother happens to be an excellent cook of the Julia Child/James Beard variety so I also grew up knowing how good a lot of food can taste and that definitely shaped what is my approach to food today--which is to say I adore food and am quite serious about it, feel that several ethnic cuisines, Indian, Chinese, etc, are true arts. I'm grateful that my parents had us eat a variety of fresh, good, well-prepared stuff; we ate seafood, homemade bread, all fruits and vegetables without exception, and so on. On the other hand I can see now that my parents were just snobs in a lot of ways in terms of food and I don't let it stop me from enjoying the occasional coke and fried food, potato chips, etc. My attitude today toward things they come up with--cereal straws?!--is disbelief. It's like a neverending avalanche of foods that aren't quite foods that they continue to market to kids and it's a little scary. I try to walk the line with ds of not being over-zealous and at the same time refusing to cave into the relentless marketing and availability of the most extreme examples (cereal straws being one of them imo).

[fireant]

Originally Posted by iowaorganic

I was born in 80- but geez- we sure didn't get crap until the 90s. Mom and Dad raised hogs

Sorry to derail but I read that as "Mom and Dad raised hot dogs"

I got to picture:

1. a hot dog tree
2. a field of hot dogs growing not unlike a cabbage patch

I then came to my senses and pictured:

1. animals being raised solely for hot dog ingredients
2. small children stuffing hot dog casings with random meat


If only veggie dogs grew from trees.

[Dreaming]

Originally Posted by fireant

Sorry to derail but I read that as "Mom and Dad raised hot dogs"

I got to picture:

1. a hot dog tree
2. a field of hot dogs growing not unlike a cabbage patch

I then came to my senses and pictured:

1. animals being raised solely for hot dog ingredients
2. small children stuffing hot dog casings with random meat


If only veggie dogs grew from trees.

OMG!! Hot dogs!
I totally forgot about that meat staple!
Hot dogs cut up into mac and cheese.
Nothing there from a tree.

[Marcee]

I was born in 75. The first half of the 80's my mom was a single working mom so we ate lots of conv. foods like pot pies and premade chicken cor don bleu. Junk food was not bought often. We ate school lunches. Then she remarried in the mid 80's and we started raising our own meat. So then we had Meat, Potato/rice, and veggies (except for on Friday, which we always had spaghetti or goulash) for every dinner. Lunch at home was always a sandwich on wheat bread. Snacks were always cheese or fruit. Oh and we ALWAYS ate liver and onions once a week.... yuck.

My mom always made us eat hot ceral in the winter and never allowed cold unless it was late spring and summer. Hot cereal was served with milk butter and no more than a tsp of sugar. Yuck. Junk cereal was not allowed unless you bought it yourself. I saved up my allowance so I could buy Cookie Crisp.

[aniT]

Originally Posted by DaughterOfKali

I grew up in the late 60's-70's.
We had casseroles all time (and not good ones). To this day, I want to gag when I smell tuna.
She made mac & cheese casseroles but the top was always hard and the inside was all dry. Gross.

OMG, how could I forget the creamed tuna on toast. Or tuna in mac and cheese called tuna casserole. Or hot dogs or spam in mac and cheese. (boxed mac and cheese mind you.) Ewww..

[Pancakes]

Originally Posted by WaitingForKiddos

Oh yes! Did you know marshmallows can get big enough to fill the entire microwave?

I had no idea, and had I not just cleaned out the microwave I probably would have to test that out.

[GooeyRN]

Originally Posted by littleaugustbaby

I miss pudding pops. The old school pudding pops. The new ones don't taste the same.

Yes! They were a huge treat at our house. Our old dog went purely nuts for them.

My mom sent me to school with a metal lunch can and thermos.

[IntuitiveJamie]

Originally Posted by ikesmom

I vaguely remember my dad eating crackers called "Chicken n a Biscuit"

Cheese in a can blech!

We liked ravioli in a can..which I can't stand the smell of now lol

Those little cracker and cheese boxes that you spread on with a red stick...my kids like em now

I never ate Malto Meal but the commercials were on T.V a lot. This is later than the one I remember which had a little boy looking at his belly button and a voice over of "Walter this is your tummy speaking"


www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWtiritKccM .

Be prepared to fall out here...
I currently have Chicken in a biscuit crackers in my cupboard right now!! Dh loves them and quite frankly I think they are tasty too. They are considered a treat though.

[velochic]

Originally Posted by DaughterOfKali

I couldn't stand the stuff my mother made/bought.

I grew up in the late 60's-70's.
We had casseroles all time (and not good ones). To this day, I want to gag when I smell tuna.
She made mac & cheese casseroles but the top was always hard and the inside was all dry. Gross.

I remember a lot of hamburger stuff (sloppy joes; hamburgers; pasta with meat sauce). I never liked meat so I wasn't happy.

I think we at a lot of meat (I hardly ever ate mine and battles were horrible). Potatoes were almost a daily staple.

I liked veggies (except brussel sprouts) so that doesn't stand out in my mind.

We didn't have snacks very often. My mother used to make desserts but they were highly disappointing.

I was scrawny when I was very young but once I was able to go to school (where they had junk food for sale), I gained too much weight. Overcompensating for not having the occasional junk food at home.

I could have written this post almost word for word, except I still had "my baby fat" into the early 70's when convenience food became *really* popular for the harried housewife.

My mother simply doesn't know good food. She smoked for 55 years (quit last year) and has no taste at all. I don't think she even knew that the food she made for us tasted disgusting.

We ate a lot of sauerkraut and weenies, sloppy joes, hamburger helper, steak (charred beyond recognition... I now eat my steak medium rare), CHEF BOYARDEE SPAGHETTI IN A BOX!!! (us kids would fight over the little can of parmesan cheese that was in it). A lot of what others have said ring bells, too, but I'm still so traumatized by my early culinary exposure that I'd rather not dig too deep.

ETA: One thing I REALLY miss is Coca-cola in the 16 oz. returnable bottles and getting a real, mixed before your eyes, soda pop from the soda jerk at the drug store counter

[captain crunchy]

I was born in '77 and my mom was a single mom of 4 with no financial support from dad -- we ate junk -- my mom is an okay cook but she doesn't enjoy it at all so it was usually things like tuna casserole and the like. A lot of tv dinners, hamburger helper and whatnot. They were touted as healthy back then so I think my mom thought she was doing something good. We got free hot lunch at school in styrofoam containers and I can *still* remember the smell. Sometimes dh and I are out somewhere and I will randomly say, "it smells like free hot lunch right...... ... now"

I remember the random packed lunch (when I would go to gifted class 2 days a week) which would consist of something like a cheese and mayo sandwich on white bread with a little debbie nutty bar and one of those little plastic drink things that are shaped like a barrel with a foil top (pure sugar!)

We went to my grandmom's a lot who, (bless her soul) was our only source of healthy, non-processed food. Don't get me wrong, at home we had fresh fruit and (sometimes fresh) vegetables and whatnot but mostly it was prepared in the worst way healthwise! You know, canned or frozen vegetables boiled until mushy

My grandmom on the other hand, made homemade soap with giblet/bone broth and fresh veggies, homemade meatloaf with lots of veggies etc, homemade apple pies with apples from her apple trees and a homemade crust, holiday dinners with lots of fresh and wonderfully prepared foods --

-- although we had our share of junk at grandmom's too -- kool aid where you had to add the sugar in a big huge white *whoosh* into the plastic container, frosted flakes in front of the tv for breakfast, and boxed cakes made in rectangular pans with canned frosting.

When we moved to FL (I was about 11) we moved up in "class" status so everyone at school had the insulated lunch bags with the individual sized chips/little debbie/junk in its *own* wrapper (no big bags that mom ziplocked into smaller portions!). We had soda machines and snack machines in the lunchroom (unheard of before that!!).

[spero]

Originally Posted by GooeyRN

My mom sent me to school with a metal lunch can and thermos.

I still have my first (industrial green) metal lunchbox, my metal HeeHaw lunchbox (which has been the "crayon box" for about 34 years at my mom's house), and my metal Peanuts lunchbox (with plastic Thermos).

Not my Apple's Way lunchbox, though. I don't know whatever happened to that gem.

Remember the little metal arm that kept the Thermos in place?

Our high school has a self-serve Slushie machine and lattes - along with vending machines for candy/snacks, soda, and ice cream. ARGH.