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When I was quite young, my mother took my sister and me to stay at her mother's house for two weeks. I have no idea why. Her mother wasn't there and the only food in the house was a couple of cases of canned vegetable soup. Literally, nothing else in the house.
We ate canned vegetable soup two times a day for two weeks and nothing else. One can split among three people.
Just the smell of canned vegetable soup still makes me ill and brings back bad memories of going hungry..
In the early 50's I remember it was fried potato sandwiches one night and dried lima beans the next. Ketchup was a sometimes luxury. The great depression was still not over for some of us.
Back when hubby and I were poor college students living on our own, we bought at least twenty or more thirty-nine cent cheeseburgers from McDonald's on the one day of the week they had them for that price, and then we would eat them breakfast, lunch, and dinner until they were gone. The next week we'd do it again. Eventually they stopped that daily special.
Only one thing I can recall and it wasn't because we were poor. My dad was on some crazy diet at the time, and one of recipes my mom had to make was a no noodle zucchini lasagna with ground turkey and tomato sauce. I love zucchini now but loath ground turkey meat. We ate this lasagna every week for 2 nights a week. I hated this lasagna. When ever my dad went on a diet we were forced to eat the same food he ate until my mom got fed up and made separate melas for my brother and I.
When I was a kid, I could only eat applesauce and drink Vernors ginger ale for a month under a doctor's direction. I do not remember what was wrong with me, but I do remember Vernors and applesauce three times a day for a month.
Have you ever been in a situation where you had to eat the same thing almost every day?
In Romania, in the 1960s, due to currency exchange regulations, I had to eat on the cheap for two months. There were very few groceries on the shelves in Romania in those days, so my daily diet consisted of a can of tinned eels imported from China, pull-tab cans of apricot nectar, and several ice cream sandwiches sold by a lovely lady from a pushcart in the park. And sometimes a restaurant splurge on a mamaliguta (corn meal mush) topped with sour cream. Aside from the monotony of it, it was actually quite enjoyable..
In 1958 I got parked on top of a mountain in Korea and ate "C" rations for 26 days.
Nothing extreme and done under duress like many of the above things.
But growing up with farming and gardens, and stuff you grew being the predominant source of ingredients, we definitely got into patterns of what was available when. It does lead to a "Oh...green beans...again..." situation. And, raising chickens, eggs factor prominently in the breakfast rotation, because they're on hand and need to be used, and breakfast for all is a good way to use a bunch.
Ah the memories. Planting, picking and canning. It wasn't just green beans again when they were fresh, but all winter long. Corn, peas, tomatoes, okra. Oh God, boiled okra. 50 quarts of boiled okra. Took me years to ever eat that again. July & August were kind of miserable months. Hotter than blazes, picking vegetables then prepping them in the kitchen where mama had continuous pots of boiling water going, the house full of steam in July, with no AC. It actually made you want to go back out in the field where it was cooler to pick some more.
In the early 50's I remember it was fried potato sandwiches one night and dried lima beans the next. Ketchup was a sometimes luxury. The great depression was still not over for some of us.
My father's family (mom and two younger sisters) started to eat reasonably well when he and his brother were Hoovered up by the US Army in the 1940s. They both sent most of their money home. Upon their return, they were met at the train station by three women who were wearing decent clothing who were no longer skinny. When they got home, they were given their savings account booklet. She hadn't spent spent half of it.
Burnt toast as a kid. My mother, when she actually got up to help get the kids ready for school, always, always, burned the toast...the only thing there was for "breakfast".
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50 quarts of boiled okra.
Took me years to ever eat that again. July & August were kind of miserable months. Hotter than blazes, picking vegetables then prepping them in the kitchen where mama had continuous pots of boiling water going, the house full of steam in July, with no AC. It actually made you want to go back out in the field where it was cooler to pick some more.
