What kind of food did you eat growing up?

Ostfront Wehrmacht Rations.

it was really odd when I thought about it, but it seems like we had the same 5 or 6 dinners and she just rotated them. That’s fine, I guess!

@ragingloli Were you with the Grossdeutschland division?

Ours was standard midwestern fare. In the 50s & 60s fresh fruit and vegetables were strictly seasonal events. We had frozen vegetables and canned fruit in the Winter. The milkman left 2 half gallons every Monday Wednesday & Friday. We got a lot of our ice cream from him as well as butter, cream and half&half. There were 4 of us kids, and we went through an awful lot of cereal and bacon. We were responsible for our own breakfasts on weekdays, and got pretty good at it. Dad was usually on the railroad and mom was out the door for work before we walked the 2 blocks to school. Today they would probably throw my folks in jail for leaving 4 kids under 9 on their own til 6 in the evening. I remember the Saturday excursions to the supermarket. Only one of us (usually me) would accompany my mother, because the entire back seat of the Chevy would be packed with bags of groceries at a cost of around $20. Along with bringing in the milk, we were tasked with removing whatever was listed on a bulletin board note from the freezer to defrost for dinner. Mom came home, threw on an apron, and we all made dinner. When dad was home, he would often be there for days at a time, and he did all the cooking. It was wonderful. That’s when we had pancakes, waffles, french toast for breakfast, and ran off to school leaving him with the dishes.

We ate what we grew and killed.
We have a huge upright freezer on the front porch. Dad would take a cow to the local butcher, and he would let the butcher keep some for himself in return for cutting it for us. That way my dad could have cuts tailor made.
I remember seeing him hold out thumb and forefinger saying, “And I want steaks this thick.”

We had a sizeable garden, and quite a bit would get put away for winter.

I can’t even imagine fried potatoes with pork chops, because those chops just make such very good gravy.

My grandma was a real fisher, so we had her extra catches sometimes.

Helping with dinner often meant doing stuff like cutting away the parts of fruits and veggies that bugs got to, worm, break off a big part of the cob, cut the tip off that strawberry, gouge some funnel shaped whole in that tomato so mommy can slice it up.

What we ate was absolutely seasonal, and not just for availability. Summer involved lots of sandwiches for lunch, because it was too hot to use the kitchen. Also, that was easier to take to the field.

Soups were winter food. You made your own, and it was best if simmered a long time to get that stock nice and hearty in the broth. Steam would warm the kitchen, making it a good place to do homework, and interact with the rest of the family. Families ate together then because they were already together. The kitchen was an inviting place then.

That all sounds so good, y’all!

I remember the milk man coming to our house in the early 60’s. My sister was about 3, and she tried to pick up one of those glass half gallon jugs…and dropped. It broke. She was off balance and she stepped on it. BLOOD!!!!

I don’t think it occurred to my mom to make gravy out of anything except fried chicken leavings. She didn’t particularly enjoy cooking. And what she did cook she cooked ASFASTASSHECOULD!!!!!
Oh, she made awesome baked beans too…I still use her basic recipe only I’ve taken mine to the next level.

Now I have to ask my kids what are the first 5 foods that come to mind when the think back to dinners I cooked when they were growing up. Pretty sure burritos will be number 1!

Choped liver and cow tongue sandwiches on Jewish rye bread.

Oh Jaysus.

Liver is the worst.

Um…liver is the wurst?

@Dutchess_III No, Jewsus.

In the fifties we ate what my mother cooked; mostly potatoes, bread, meat, vegetables (carrots and peas) and fish. There were no supermarkets and not much packaged foods. We bought food from the local butcher, fishmonger and bakers and the Co-op which was further away. As a treat at night we might have chips (French fries) or possible ice cream from a van that came round. Sometimes as a special treat we had lard spread on bread and seasoned with salt. We drank a lot of milk which was delivered early to our doorstep every morning and I remember an exotic new breakfast food called Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.

We sometimes ate tripe which I was never too keen on and my father often ate potted hough due to stomach problems he developed during the war.

Chicken didn’t used to come all parted out for us. Mom had to buy a whole chicken, which she taught me to cut up as soon as she thought I safely could. She was raised on a dairy farm and sight of chickens being killed just sickened her. Cutting them up sickened her. Didn’t bother me, though.

Occasionally we’d go to Shakey’s Pizza.

Pizza , KFC, buffets, Dim sung , Asian food , cereal, whole cooked chicken, very little fruits or vegetables. Mostly meat. Lots of milk and pop , little water. Little to no fiber. Spent long time in bathroom praying for end to constipation. Dad bought an Edmonton entertainment coupon book and we tried to use the whole thing by the yearly expiry date.

Potato cakes, rice cereal,

Lots of fruit and vegetables, salads, chicken was the expensive meat when I was growing up, so saved for special occasions. Lamb was very much cheaper, we always had roast leg of lamb and vegetables on Sundays, leftover meat sliced and eaten cold the next couple of days, sometimes on sandwiches.

Breakfast was cereal, my brother and I liked Weet-Bix with hot milk in winter, sometimes Ricebubbles or Cornflakes, my father always had Puffed Wheat, except for winter when we regularly had porridge and my father liked the cream from the top of the bottle.

My mother quite often made lovely thin pancakes/crêpes (the size of the frypan base), my favourite topping was squeezed lemon juice with sugar sprinkled on top, this was always after dinner. The pancakes were rolled up, and my brother and I ate this with our hands, my parents always used a knife and fork. We had desert most nights, often ice cream and fruit my mother had preserved/bottled during the summer, sometimes in the winter we had steamed pudding with custard. And sometimes my mother made layered deserts in tall glasses, we ate these with specially designed long handled spoons.

We also ate organ meats, kidney, liver, brains, and tongue, layers of which my mother suspended in a gelatin mix. I loved that. She did the same with brawn made from a pig’s head. Sometimes my mother baked bread, my brother and I would always help and made our own buns and plaits. If there was ever leftover pastry we made little jam pastries.

In the summer we often went on picnics as a family, there was always a bacon and egg pie, along with sandwiches, often Chesdale cheese in individually wrapped triangles, maybe slices of watermelon, sliced cucumber in a vinegar and sugar solution, yum.

My mother also did lots of baking, so the biscuit tin was always full. We always had one of these biscuits included in our school lunch boxes, along with sandwiches, perhaps a raw carrot, hard-boiled egg maybe, plenty for morning interval and lunch.

There is just so much stuff I can’t possibly remember everything, let alone write it down so I shall leave it at this.

Addendum: Always on Friday nights (up until I was 11 and we shifted house) had fish and chips (with a sausage or dim sum, may be a battered mussel or oyster or a spring roll) with our next door neighbours, mothers’ night off, I loved it, I cherish that memory.

Whatever Mummy & Daddy had chef prepare for us, caviar & quail’s eggs mostly.

Fresh vegetables, meat, fruits, and wonderful homemade breads and desserts including ice cream. No one was fat because we just ate wholesome foods and played hard. American society is really a disappointment here. The young people think they must pay someone to exercise, pay someone to lose weight, eat according to whatever nutrition book they are reading, or even worse the first lady. ***Shaking head and laughing*** Not really funny though. If they could be brainwashed about these things, the rest should be no real surprise.

Breakfast was cereal a lot of the time, my mom also made us French toast. My grandpa used to make me Wheatina when I stayed with my grandparents. Once I was old enough to cook I made a lot of omelets for myself also.

Lunch at school was tacos, burgers, grilled cheese, and pizza. That’s what I remember, I’m sure there were other things I don’t remember right now. At home lunch was anything from leftover lasagna to chicken and potatoes. I also ate hamburgers and hotdogs. I didn’t eat a lot of sandwiches growing up, I didn’t like them very much.

Dinner we ate quite a bit of Southern Italian food (homemade). Things like lasagna and stuffed shells. We had steak twice a week, and when we had any sort of meat, whether it be steak, chicken, or pork, the plate also had a vegetable and a starch.

We almost never had dessert after dinner. If I had any sweets or even fruit, it was midday. It was more like a snack.

Grandma’s home cooking. My parents were busy working most of the time and me and my siblings were left in Grandma’s house for most of the day in a week. We are Asians so we tend to eat various stir-vegetables, meat in sweet soy sauce, Wanton noodles, fried rice, porridge, and many more. Generally and traditionally, our family provide side dishes to be eaten with rice. Rice is a staple here. Do you want to know the secret how an Asian family can feed 5 children economically? It’s rice. Instead of serving each of the kid steak you could cut one steak in small pieces and make it in to side dish so they all can eat lots of rice with just a little bit of meat and still be full.

I have to mention that during certain traditional festive days we eat different, more special food. Food like Dimsum, Bak Chang, Moon Cakes, Peking Duck, and others that we don’t usually consume in normal days. My personal favorite is Swallow Nest Soup but it’s so darn expensive. Haven’t had if for years.

The only school lunch I remember was the hamburger gravy. That stuff was SO YUMMY. I have tried and tried to recreate it, but have been unsuccessful.
The crap they serve today…I went to a grandparents lunch with the kids at my grand child’s school. It was all crap, except the bread stick. I stared at this pile of leaves they had dished out, leaned over to another grandparent and whispered, “Did they serve us leaves we we were kids?”
He whispered back, “They didn’t serve us ANY of this crap, what ever it is!”
I tried to swap my leaves for my grand daughter’s bread stick and I thought she was going to have a heart attack.
We aren’t allowed to swap food!!” she hissed.
Oh dear.
BUT some of the kids were actually eating the leaves so I guess it’s all good.

@Unofficial_Member…what is the deal with bird’s nest soup? I’ve seen documentaries on on it, but how on earth does one cook a nest and what does it taste like? Bird spit?

What is wrong with leaves?

I never ate leaves growing up so it was WEIRD!!!

@Dutchess When you refer to leaves, do you mean salad? If so, Yum!

@Dutchess_III In my family we cook the nest by using slow cooker pot. Simply put in the nest, add water, winter watermelon sugar, and let it cook all by itself. My grandma, however, prefer to cook the nest all by herself by using pot and adding several traditional Chinese herbs.

The nest itself doesn’t taste sweet but has a very unique flavor (I call it healthy and addictive flavor). That is why it is necessary to add other ingredients. The texture is like very thin and smooth vermicelli. Gosh! It’s really is special. It’s pricy because swallow naturally nest in caves right beside a cliff so it’s harder for the gatherer to get, not to mention that by taking the nest you’re destroying the eggs and lives of the next generation of birds. Having said that, in the town I live there’s a tall building used as the artificial breeding place for swallow. Hopefully someday the price will go down that people can enjoy it without worrying about their wallet. We call it gold saliva.

Adiago…no, not exactly. I appreciate a good salad, mixed with veggies I’m familiar with, and salad dressing. This was simply leaves, about 5 or 6 leaves, and that was all. I later found out it was spinach. I was not familiar with spinach in it’s raw form, so it could have been maple tree leaves for all I knew. I only saw one child in the whole cafeteria eating them, and good on her! No one at my table touched theirs.

I’ve seen a documentary on that @Unofficial_Member. Those people literally risk their lives to get those nests! I can’t help but wonder who got the bright idea to cook up a bird’s nest in the first place.