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I had another friend whose parents were refugees from Poland. They didn't have a great deal of money and a modest home because their priority was sending their kids to college. But the food was wonderful. One of the grandmothers lived with them and did the cooking since his mother worked. She used to fix sour spinach soup with hard-boiled eggs floating in it . Her food probably cost less than what the physician's wife spent but... I tried to go there whenever I could.
ZUREK! One of the best traditional Polish soups! (And the Poles have a ton of great, traditional soups -- they're big soup eaters.) My wife and I have many friends in Poland, and eating home-made zurek when we visit them is always a sentimental highlight. Even now, it brings tears to my eyes.
Winter in Zakopane:
my wife dozes under the quilt
as Marzena and her sisters
make zurek in the kitchen,
while Matusz and I sip Zubrowka,
watching the snowflakes fall
ZUREK! One of the best traditional Polish soups! (And the Poles have a ton of great, traditional soups -- they're big soup eaters.) My wife and I have many friends in Poland, and eating home-made zurek when we visit them is always a sentimental highlight. Even now, it brings tears to my eyes.
Winter in Zakopane: my wife dozes under the quilt as Marzena and her sisters make zurek in the kitchen, while Matusz and I sip Zubrowka, watching the snowflakes fall
I love Polish pickle soup. Used to buy that when I lived in Greenpoint. Sadly I didn't get to try Zurek.
This probably sounds sarcastic, but it is not. If we had something other than red meat, like CHICKEN, it was a treat. The reason was I grew up in Texas, and back then, beef was far cheaper. It was common for everyone to own a deep freeze, and once a year buy a side of beef. The Butcher shop would deliver it, with each cut wrapped in white paper. The first things to go were the best, TBones and RibEyes. After 8 or 9 months, all that was left was hard frozen ground hamburger meat and soup bones. Which meant that ground beef was used in EVERYTHING. The worst of the worst was cassarole, with greasy meat as the base and lal the leftover veggies in the fridge (or leftover pasta or who knows what)
Chicken cost more than beef, so once a month when we had fried chicken, it wasa treat. Of course, mom would buy a whole chicken and cut up the pieces.
My mom was the Soup Queen. She usually had a big pot of some kind of soup simmering on the stove..and it was good! A great way to use up left-overs, get one more meal from a chicken, or use healthy and inexpensive fillers such as cabbage, barley, lentils, and potatoes.
To this day, I make a lot of soup...it's comfort food for me.
We grew up on rye toast w/butter or white bread w/peanut butter & coffee, sometimes for dinner, too. When we asked for candy, we got a sugar & butter sandwich... 1 slice of bread only. Mayo sandwiches were fairly common, too... to this day if I smell mayo or see anyone else eat it, I wretch.
I recall my 3rd grade teacher (our public school teachers were all very old retired nuns) talking about the benefits of a good breakfast & going around the class to ask kids to recite their breakfasts that morning. Everyone mentioned French toast, bacon & eggs, fried potatoes... all treats we would be lucky to have for dinner occasionally. When she got to me & I said toast & coffee... that terrifying, 88-yr old ex-nun ninja flew out of her seat with a giant stick & hit me, making me wear a giant dunce cap & sit on a big stool in the corner, facing the wall all day long for lying, because, 'No mother would ever feed her child such things'.
I had no idea we were so poor 'til that morning. When she did the same exercise on subsequent days, I stood for 2-min to recite a litany of fake food I was supposed to have eaten to avoid ever getting hit again. So, basically, my ex-nun ninja teacher taught me how to lie in order to avoid physical violence & public humiliation.
But... I still love peanut butter toast or buttered rye toast & coffee, so giant tongue stick to her...
Funny. In a wretched sort of way. I remember one Thanksgiving, I was alone, and had a turkey TV dinner, a new one, in the shiny tray, with peas and mashed potatoes, a small cranberry cobbler. I was eight.
My mom woud go balistic when we kids would stare into the fridge and say..."there is nothing good to eat". She and dad were depression era kids and we got the ...If you were hungry you'ld eat crap. Mom didnt say crap, but you get the idea.
Mom was a fantastic cook. She could take a few simple ingredients and make a feast. Dad had good jobs, but there were lots of us...We usually had a grandparent, or uncle, or cousins staying with us...Durring the summer we had cousins visiting. thats a lot of people to cook for but mom didnt skip a beat. Eveyone pitched in. Some meat, two sides and a salad. The girls always made a desert.
Mom had a great menu...a mix of American favorites, traditional Tex-Mex, and country...Dad cooked Spaghetti and sauce on sunday or Meatloaf or BBQ...mmmm
Fridays it was eat out...our favorites were A&W rootbeer or San Pedro Pier.
Spaghetti, migas, fideo, casseroles, potato and egg tacos were our poor meals growing up.
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. Her food probably cost less than what the physician's wife spent but... I tried to go there whenever I could. 
