Family meals back in the "old days!" (freeze, tuna, cupcakes)
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I grew up in the 60's with a mother would could only cook breakfast with success. She was great at eggs, sausage, gravy and biscuits. Other foods were a disaster, so we had alot of frozen foods, TV dinners, main entrees and such. My husband, who grew up on a farm with a mother and grandmother who cooked full meals with meat, potatoes, vegetables and bread three timese a day, never had a frozen pot pie until we started dating. He thought it was wonderful, I thought it was disgusting.
Because of the meal situation I grew up in, when we married and started a family, I made it a priority to learn how to cook and cook well. We had dinner at the table every night with real dishes, flatware, glasses and serving bowls. Our children knew how to use a cloth napkin early in their lives and we never, ever had anything from the Swanson or Banquet section of the frozen foods at the market.
We always ate together as a family and everything was home made. I'm always looking for one dish meals. Back then it was always multiple dishes, usually meat, vegetable, salad, bread, and dessert for every meal. Lots of time there was more than one vegetable too, one common combo was potatoes and green beans. We had potatoes at every meal. We were forever peeling potatoes.
Ugh, fried potatoes. To my Dad, it wasn't a real meal if there wasn't a fried potato on the table. The rest of us were sick of them. Dad looked askance at any meal that didn't include a fried potato. We didn't have meals like spaghetti very often because of the potato factor.
Desserts during the week were usually fruit, jello, or pudding. On the weekends, Mom would bake bread, biscuits, pies, or a cake. Snacks were usually veggies or fruit.
I lived in Indiana as a child and all summer long, we would go to the farmer down the road who sold all manner of fresh fruits and vegetables. We had tons of fresh corn. In the fall we would go to the orchard for apples and cider. Sometimes we had a garden, mostly tomatoes, but produce was inexpensive from the local farmers so we usually bought.
My job was always cleaning up, setting the table, and making salad. Mom would wash the dishes and I would dry and put away. We spent a lot more time on food preparation then than we do today. But we had the time because most women did not work outside the home. We probably ate better then too!
If you go back further to when my Mom was a child, they had huge families and huge gardens. They also canned everything that could be put in a jar. It was a real production and a lot of work. Mom remembered it well and she always said as long as she could afford a loaf of bread, jelly, and a can of green beans, she would never can or preserve again. It was a hot nasty job. Canning/preserving was essential. It was the only way they could afford to feed the family.
I was lucky to have my Grandma to teach me all these things. I don't can, bake bread, and make jam all the time, but I know how. Thanks Grandma!
I have the sob story of this thread. When I was a boy, mom had to work and my great aunt who lived with us took over the cooking chores. Unfortunately for me, Auntie, was born and 1889 and also grew up in a home with money troubles and learned her budget oriented cooking BEFORE beans and franks, before boxed mac and cheese, before chef boyardee.
Result? organ meats, veins, greens, feet, tongue, brains, root vegetable most people have never seen,, etc.
I grew up on a Midwestern farm in the 1980s-1990s. We ate together, predominantly hearty meat and potatoes and red gingham covered Better Homes and Gardens cookbook fare, typically with garden- fresh produce. Nothing too exotic or ethnic, my dad liked his food plain and simple, and my mom accommodated that. Lots of pork chops, pot roast, soups, stews, burgers, casseroles, and plenty of our own fruits and vegetables from our garden. My dad was of the opinion that the addition of either pork sausage or fried potatoes, if not both, would greatly enhance any meal. Farm-style cooking, through and through.
My dad's mom was polish and she would make alot of homemade dishes like Galumpkis, Chruschiki, Kilebasa and eggs. My grandfather was Italian so we had both polish and Italian food at their house. She would make sunday gravy with meatballs, sometimes she put raisins in the meatballs which I dislike and I can remember asking her to make some without the raisins. Pignoli cookies she made too. They also made their own sausage and sometimes they would hang it to dry in the basement. My mom's parents were Irish and German, my grandmother was not the best cook but she did have a couple of signature dishes. Frikadellan, butterhorn cookies. My grandfather was a butcher and they also had a charcoal BBQ with a rotisserie on it. He did most of the cooking in the house. He would make a leg of lamb on the BBQ. He'd trim off the fat, make a rub using whole grain mustard and other sesonings and rub it all over the meat. He would place the fat back on the leg and tie it. Then he'd cook the leg of lamb on the rotisseire and baste it. My mom said it was the best. There was always meat, potatoes, salad and lots of fresh rye and pumpernickle bread at every meal with breakstones whipped sweet butter MMMM! Very few veggies were served at dinner except for salad, green beans and maybe carrots. My mom said when she was a kid on Sundays they would go to church, go to the local bakery to get fresh bread, come home and my grandfather would cook 2 lbs of bacon, dozen eggs, they'd have bread and butter and sometimes fried bologna. Then at around 2pm my mom would go with her dad to see his mom and she'd have a pot roasted chicken, potatoes, homemade bread, and a homemade dessert while her mom, my uncle and Aunt would be visiting my grandmothers parents and there they served cold cut platters and salads. later on my granfather would meet up with everyone at his in laws house and my mom would eat again. They would eat 3 big meals on Sunday! My mom said she would come home and have to take Bromo seltzer for heartburn LOL. I am glad we don't eat like that today.
In the 50's and 60's, Sunday night Dad would grill t-bone steaks, with baked potatoes. Other nights we would order from Chicken Delight (don't cook tonight, call chicken delight) and get a chicken dinner delivered. I remember how good the blueberry muffins were, or go to Bob's Big Boy and get a combo meal. I remember the lettuce wedge salad with thousand island dressing. I don't remember much other meals other than tuna casserole, or a pot of beans and hamhocks. Sometimes we would have these new tv dinners which were pretty tasty.
I remember the very first Bob's (now you can guess about how old I am) but Reagan and Lincoln were older!!! When i was in Jr College (they called it that back when) we used to eat at Bob's, right acroos the street, at least a couple times a week and yes, the lettuce wedges with thousand Island dressing were so good. I still make 1000 island dressing once in awhile and now the lettuce wedge is served in many med priced and upscale restaurants.
I grew up in the 60's with a mother would could only cook breakfast with success. She was great at eggs, sausage, gravy and biscuits. Other foods were a disaster, so we had alot of frozen foods, TV dinners, main entrees and such. My husband, who grew up on a farm with a mother and grandmother who cooked full meals with meat, potatoes, vegetables and bread three timese a day, never had a frozen pot pie until we started dating. He thought it was wonderful, I thought it was disgusting.
Because of the meal situation I grew up in, when we married and started a family, I made it a priority to learn how to cook and cook well. We had dinner at the table every night with real dishes, flatware, glasses and serving bowls. Our children knew how to use a cloth napkin early in their lives and we never, ever had anything from the Swanson or Banquet section of the frozen foods at the market.
This is me exactly!
Mom has never been a good cook. She saw herself as a modern housewife of the 60's and felt totally liberated by all the "wonderful" time saving products available to her. If it didn't come out of a box, can, jar or freezer section, we didn't get it. Why bother peeling, boiling and mashing potatoes when you can just rehydrate some instant ones! Why bake biscuits from scratch when you can just have whack biscuits! However, the few times I remember her attempting to do something from scratch, she always messed it up anyway, so why bother, really.
Sometimes we all sat down together, however Dad never waited for everyone to be at the table. As soon as he heard Mom putting bowls on the table he came in and started serving himself. He was usually finished and gone before she ever made it to the table. Other times, he would just come in the kitchen, fix his plate, then take it to the living room so he could watch TV.
I decided that I would learn to cook properly and feed my family well. I learned to cook more like my grandmothers, but a bit healthier. I always set the table and made sure everyone was there for dinner. Our first rule was, the TV had to be turned off during mealtime. We made it a habit to have dinner conversation, and even when we were through eating, most nights everyone stayed at the table for conversation time after the meal. Even while my kids were in high school, I tried to make sure that we were all together for dinner. While all the other families were having take out every night and eating in shifts, my kids were getting a home cooked meal. I realize that this is not always possible for everyone, and plenty of times it was very difficult for us, and I didn't always pull it off, but I tried. Just this past weekend, while visiting our oldest son at college, he commented on what a "Leave it to Beaver" life he had growing up, and how much it meant to him. He said most of his friends are shocked when he tells them how he grew up.
I feel strongly about attempting to make the evening meal one in which the whole family sits down together. We always did. But then, I only allowed my children one extra-curricular activity while they were in school. Between homework, chores, and whatever activity they had, we managed to squeeze in "family time" and "just be a kid" time.
My eldest now has two teen daughters and they are delightful company at the dinner table. One of the evening's requirements is that each of them will have two current events of their choice to discuss during the meal. It makes for some interesting conversation. Oh, and there's not a "like, you know" anywhere!
BTW: My son is the Mr. Mom in that household and is a wonderful cook. He has a meal on the table every night, most of it cooked from scratch. Guess he remembers how he grew up.
I was born in 1967 so my childhood was the 70s and 80s really and I probably did not have an "average/normal" childhood as my Father was a Diplomat and we moved around a lot. So from Babyhood I was presented with a lot of very different foods and my Father would have never tolerated me being fussy.
I think I was actually weaned on Steak Tartare ! We ate out at restaurants a lot, attended lots of official dinners and at "home", usually we had a cook too. My Dad always used to take me to local street food vendors when he had time off though, he always said I should widen my palate as much as possible ( this from a man who would eat steak literally every single day if his wife let him !)and have an appreciation for more than simply "posh" foods
My Dad made the best steaks in the world, with the best green salad and vinaigrette to go with it. His Fillet Steak with Blue Cheese sauce and green salad was fabulous... I can still taste it ! I have tried to re-create it but to no avail. I got used to eating pretty much anything anyone put in front of me which has served me well in later life.
I spent a lot of my vacation at my Grand-Parents and the food was always home made, a lot of fresh seafood and fish ( my Grand-Father had a boat and hunted too), game etc... We used to Barbecue in summer a lot .
We tended to have desserts ( apart from yoghurt or fruits) only on Sundays , usually cakes from the Patisserie unless my Grand-Father decided to make his favourite Apple Tart or maybe a Kouign Amann ( A flaky Breton sugar butter cake). We ate a lot of vegetables and fruits and went out to eat quite a lot too. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ko...w=1093&bih=490
I went to boarding school for most of my school life and I must admit I thought the food on the whole was pretty darn good.
Apart from one particularily disgusting dish of cooked Spinach with baked Eggs in a white sauce I remember almost everything with great fondness. We always had three course meals ( even abroad it followed the French System) and we always had a green salad with each meal as well as lots of fruits and veggies. There was no choice of dishes, you just had whatever was on offer that day. A teacher used to be "canteen monitor" every day and would pretty much ensure that you were eating what was on your plate.
Everyone in my Family loves food and apart from me cooking.My Step-Mother was a fabulous cook , my Great-Aunt is a genius with leftovers and family dinners lasted for hours , the conversation being anything from politics, sports and religion to mostly.. you guessed it : FOOD. There we were eating some wonderful Roast with Wild Mushrooms and we would be talking about some other food which we had loved on another occasion.
Also everyone in my Family always has a cheeseboard with at least 5 or 6 different cheeses to chose from and it is almost impossible for me to recall any occasion when we did not have cheese at lunch or dinner.
Sadly I loathe cooking but eating is still my favourite thing with travelling !
I grew up in the 80s and 90s and I don't remember my mother cooking a whole lot especially when my parents separated. We ate a lot of McDonalds and Little Ceasers. Family dinners didn't really happen even when my parents were married. Lately I've been trying to make nice family dinners for us and bring all the food to the table. The kids and husband love it. I've even started making dessert once a week. I've never gotten us in the habit to eat dessert. I didn't eat it a lot growing up. I make sure we all sit down and put Pandora on for dinner music.
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