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I thought it would be interesting to start a thread about family meals back in the "old days."...I grew-up during the 50's and 60's. My parents cooked a lot of meals in their (faithful and beloved) pressure-cooker...We always used cloth napkins (or individual dish towels) to keep our hands clean at meals (during the early 50's) because paper napkins weren't available yet or cost too much during the early years..Please share some of your memories too! Thanks! What were meals like in your home "way back when?"
In my household growing up, there were alot of mouths to feed, on little income,so we had alot of beans, and taters.
Every time I peel potatoes, I think about Mom doing it.
Growing up my mom made alot of homemade breads and biscuits, all meals were made from scratch. Sundays was either a hot roast beef dinner with mashed potatoes, gravy ect...or sunday Gravy with meatballs, sausage and short ribs. Friday's during lent was a fish fry, fried scallops, fried flounder and potato pancakes. She did all the holidays and made big delicious meals. She was a stay at home mom until she went back to work at age 50. Now she's 66, still makes homemade breads but only at Christmas and Thanksgiving, she's widowed so she only cooks Big meals on Thanksgiving and Christmas eve and on a sunday if we come for dinner. She has passed this tradition on to me. Also she would make once a week 2 roasted chickens, salad, veggies and baked potatoes. after the chicken was cooked she'd remove them from the pan, turn the oven up to 500, throw in 2 cans of drained peas and let them cook and get crisp in the chicken drippings. MMMM! that was good. My Dad's mom was the one who taught her how to cook and the roast chicken and peas is her recipe. My mom is a great cook.
Everything was made from scratch in my house.....biscuits, spaghetti sauce, cookies, pies, etc...we did a lot of canning in the summer....jellies, jams, tomatoes, all kinds of vegetables....... We were excited when Hamburger Helper was invented....a lb. of hamburger went a long way in our house with that sort of thing and it was easy to prepare)
When we had hamburgers, my mom laid out wax paper and pounded the patties out to be pretty thin.....we had a big pot of something on Sunday, such as pot roast with fresh vegetables....
Lots of chicken.......fried when I was little, and as my mom became educated in health, baked, broiled or bbq'd....
We always had food on the table. It was usually macaroni and cheese casserole, liver and onions, ground beef patties, or SOS. On Fridays we had fish, which I could not eat no matter how hungry I was, so I would try to sneak a peanut butter sandwich later in the evening.
I grew up in So Ca in the 40s and 50s pretty much. We did use paper napkins except on Sundays or when we had company. Here are just a few memories I have:
1-we always ate together, not like many families today. Dad got home about 5 pm and we ate around 6pm. My job, as soon as I was about 11 or 12 was to make the salad and of course, clean the kitchen (before dish washers) Mom and dad would sit around the table enjoying a cigarette and having their last cup of coffee as I started the dishes.
2-we ate about everything you could think of. Dad, being raised on a ranch knew it was important to eat a variety of foods. We had almost every kind of veggie, all parts of the meat including neck bones (which I loved) and always something green, something raw and a carb. I still cook this way.
3-Sunday we had just 2 meals, with dinner being late afternoon. If we didn't go out we ate at the dining room table and we had to be pretty dressed up. I don't mean church clothes, but no shorts, bare feet etc.
4-dad loved to cook (I got my love for cooking from him) so usually did all the cooking on weekends.
5-Every other Thurs afternoon mom and I would go to the "Grand Central Market" in downtown L.A. I think it is still there. We would buy all the produce for 2 weeks, then pick daddy up and head to the Chinese run meat market, near Chinatown. Dad would have called the order in so we just had to pick it up. Then we headed home. I loved those trips so much.
Things were so different in those days. Not always better, not worse, just different.
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.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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Our meals were mostly very basic, made from scratch. During the week it was run of the mill meat, potato, salad, and small dessert kind of meals. A TV dinner was a rare "treat", and going out to eat was even rarer - maybe 3-4 times a year. Beef was king in the early days when Dad had a good job. Later, when Mom had to go to work, she started cooking a lot of casseroles to save time.
Sundays in the earlier period we would have something nicer, sometimes roast pork, sometimes a chicken or capon roasted on a bed of sliced potatoes and carrots, often a split pea soup with Canadian bacon was simmering as we went out for a long ride before dinner (my parents had lived a few years in Quebec and picked up the habit of pea soup on Sundays).
All of the family actually sat down together to eat most times. We ate mostly everything homeade, including desserts and the food was good food, not frozen entrees or fast food. We always drank water with meals. And, not a lot of frozen foods except for vegies. Fish most Fridays. Friends down the street had chicken every Sunday and the other one had roast beef every Sunday. Well, her jacket would smell like roast beef when she came over so we knew what she was eating that day!
Last edited by Nanny Goat; 03-18-2012 at 01:10 PM..
In my household growing up, there were alot of mouths to feed, on little income,so we had alot of beans, and taters.
Every time I peel potatoes, I think about Mom doing it.
I peeled 10 pounds of potatoes this morning for canning. My MIL gave me here old peeler after I complained long enough, lol. The new ones are not made the same
Family meals when I was growing up. How old is "old" days, lol? I grew up in the 70's. My mother was a great cook....but not a baker.
I remember her red sauce and meatballs. Hamburgers and brown gravy with onions and boiled potatoes. Pot roast...yum. My grandmothers mock clam chowder(no clams) with rye bread.
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