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Oh and another thing we were introduced to by neighbors was Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries! OMG!!!!!
Our mom relented and let us buy a box sometimes. I remember that my brother and I used to get up early on Saturday mornings, watch Looney Toons, and eat dry Cap'n Crunch out of the box till the tops of our mouths bled. Fo real.
This is so great! Got to love those delicious sugar crusted fruity crunchberries especially; at almost 60, I will snack on them today because my mother wouldn't let us have those cereals when we were kids!
Loved the Saturday morning cartoons by the way, The Archies, Scooby Doo, the animated Jackson 5 and Osmonds LOL
My next door neighbors were Spanish, when I was growing up.
The mother made home made flour tortillas every night, along w/beans and rice for her husband...and family.
Flour tortillas, beans and rice sounds more like Mexican, not Spanish. In Spain, a tortilla is an egg dish (like an omelette) with potatoes. I can't get enough of home made frijoles refritos, they are so much better than the stuff sold in cans. I'm still looking for the secret to perfect Mexican rice - mine never turns out like the kind served in authentic Mexican restaurants.
My parents had business connections with a Mexican family in our area back in the day, and they would often invite us over for meals, but the woman of the house cooked so bland. Nothing had flavor. It wasn't until I was much older and someone forced me to taste their tamal that I finally realized that Mexican food was anything but bland!
By the way, I love your profile name - Fresno chilies are my favorite! 🌶
Age 8, northern California. My friend down the block asked if I could go with her to her grandmother's house for a little while. My mother said Yes. The grandmother prepared us a snack. I watched her put two round, white dough patties into a skillet. In a few minutes she dropped the pancakes (I thought they were) onto a gas burner. Black char marks appeared. Then she put a tablespoon of cold cottage cheese into the middle of each warm cake and handed them to us. I bit into mine. Wonderful. I'd never tasted anything like it before. My friend's grandmother was from Mexico, the granddad from the Phillipines. I still make tortillas with cheese today.
DontH8Me, they referred to themselves as Spanish because they were so light skinned. Their whole family, sisters, cousins, grandma, were also light skinned. I never questioned it...being a kid, it didn't matter.
But boy, their mother could cook!
And they were very welcoming to me.
Back a few pages ago I said I didn't have anything except one time somebody gave me a baloney sandwich with mustard.
But something delicious just popped into my mind! So I can play too! In my town we had a lot of Jewish people and I did have good food at their houses but the most delicious thing I ever had in my life was something a Jewish kid handed out to us on the school playground. We all must have gotten addicted because he had to bring more every day and he would stand there smiling as he broke off little chunks of it and handed them out.
It was halvah. https://www.thespruceeats.com/sesame...halvah-2254846 It says it's HEALTHY! Oh, the texture was heavenly too. I looked for it all my life and finally found it in the grocery store a few years ago. I hope I don't find it again because I can't stop eating it!
The thread about the glass jars of shrimp cocktail got me thinking about this - share your memories of whatever unusual or different foods you were exposed to when visiting a friend's home during your childhood.
Some of my earliest memories, when my immigrant parents bought their first home in suburban L.A.:
Vickie, a Mexican-American neighbor invited me over to her home to play, and she took pitted black olives and placed them on the tips of her five fingers, and then popped them off into her mouth one by one. This fascinated me, as I had never seen anyone 'play' with their foods and hadn't ever seen anyone eat whole olives. I had only ever seen them sliced on Straw Hat Pizzas, and I didn't like them as a kid.
Marnie, a Polish-American neighbor - she invited me to stay for lunch. We went into the kitchen to see what her mom was preparing. She had a single package of top ramen open on the counter and a small saucepan of water heating on the stove. Marnie began picking dry noodle chunks from the dried cake, and her mom slapped her hand for taking some. Did I mention her dad was home too? I had never seen anyone make soup from a little plastic bag, but I knew that there wouldn't be enough for a fourth mouth, so I politely backed out of the invitation and had lunch at home.
Eileen, an American (biracial) girl raised by a single parent who came to L.A. from New Orleans. Omg, beignets! I loved my sleepovers at this friend's place. She had an Atari console and tons of cartridges, and we always baked something yummy. Most often, we would make some lemon bars with sweetened condensed milk and maraschino cherries. Wish I had the recipe for those.
I've got plenty more but instead look forward to reading others' memories - thanks in advance for sharing yours!
That was always de rigueur for us kids at any gathering with olives. Like, mandatory.
Though my parents had money, I never had a steak until at a friend's house. Nor did I now what "medium-rare" was, as my mom overcooked everything, and all the meat was tough.
My Mexican friend always had a pot of pinto beans simmering on the stove, and corn tortillas wrapped in foil, that we'd assemble and run outside to play.
One friend's parents had abalone for dinner which was really amazing.
I'm half Mexican, on my dad's side, but my mom did all of the cooking, so...
We grew up with a Mexican family who lived near us. We would get homemade tamales at Christmas (omg). Later on, one of the sons was my boyfriend, so I'd be at their house a lot. Not a day went by when they didn't have homemade refried beans available. I've eaten at tons of Mexican restaurants here in Southern California, but none compare with their mom's cooking. I miss her.
That was always de rigueur for us kids at any gathering with olives. Like, mandatory.
I taught it to all my nieces and nephews. The tradition continues, and my siblings appreciate me.
The only strange thing I remember eating at a friend's house was spaghetti with mixed veggies in it. Y'know, frozen peas, corn, carrots. It was so weird, my nonna wouldn't approve.
I spent a lot of Saturday nights at my grandma's, and she anyways had cereal for breakfast, and I could pick from her selection. She had some sweetened cereal like Frosted Flakes or Rice Krispies, but I would always choose Grape Nuts, because we didn't have them at home. My parents deemed them too expensive.
When we were kids, my sister and I would sometimes stay at my grandmother's house when our parents went away for a few days. And one of the first mornings we had cereal she asked us if we wanted our milk warmed up for it---we were like, "What???" It sounded crazy to us.
When I went to my other grandmother's house, she introduced me to making a waffle ice cream sandwich and just pouring some good old sugar on top of those plain cheerios.
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