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Maybe it's because both I and my parents were raised in an agricultural belt, but fresh and home canned produce was by far more the norm than canned. We did have canned on hand if something was needed that didn't grow locally (pineapple chunks came to mind, as the local grocery didn't at that point carry fresh year round).
That's how my mother made the meatballs (with long-grain rice), but the sauce was cream of mushroom soup. She covered it for a while, them uncovered the pan so that the soup thickened.
Mine def. did the tomato version.
There was a cream-based meatballs and sauce dish she made (Konigsberger Klopse, a Prussian dish), but no rice in that.
I agree......except we did have canned peas......a lot. Our freezer in the 1950's was very small and so we seldom had frozen vegetables. Most of our vegetables were fresh and came from the weekly Farmer's Market (Cincinnati Ohio). In the 40's we lived in the country and we lived out of the garden pretty much, and what Mom put up in jars for winter.
We lived in So Ca (LA} and had access to the Grand Central Market which is still downtown I have heard. We had all fresh veggies because we could get them year around. We still have fresh almost every night. In fact I had a friend when we lived in DC that said, she would always remember as the gal that served fresh veggies year around. Sure, just like here, winter was pretty much route veggies but still fresh. We did have a good size freezer in the 50s, the 40s no. Of course our freezer was a chest type and a pain in the U NO what to find anything, but it did the job. Yes, we too did a lot of canning, still do as a matter of fact, but not like when we were growing up. Hubby spend the first 9 years of his life living in Akron. Still they had very few canned veggies; more than us yes, but not all the time.
don't know where you were raised or when but this just was not the case. It is true we didn't use the variety of spices we now use, but the food in our home and our better restaurants was not bland nor did we eat mostly starches and meat. We had a vegetable every night and if we were not having a green vegetable we had a green salad. I will add always our vegetables were fresh unless we, on rare occasions had a frozen one. The only canned vegetable I can remember as a child was corn or beets.
Same here. We always had meat, potato, and two other vegetables. In the summer the vegetables were fresh from the garden. In winter we did get the horrible canned peas or vegetables that my mother canned from the garden, but then my parents bought a second hand chest freezer.
So we at least had frozen vegetables for most of the fifties. No ice cream at home until we got the freezer and also a newer fridge (did anyone ever buy anything brand new, lol?) with a freezer compartment large enough to hold a half gallon of store bought ice cream. I think maybe the advent of ice cream at home was the beginning of the end as far as home baking and healthy desserts.
Before freezers and--ice cream at home--our desserts were apple crisp, blueberry cobbler, canned peaches, canned pears, rice pudding with raisins, tapioca pudding, cream puffs with custard and home made chocolate sauce, or jello. And angel cake, very often.
don't know where you were raised or when but this just was not the case. It is true we didn't use the variety of spices we now use, but the food in our home and our better restaurants was not bland nor did we eat mostly starches and meat. We had a vegetable every night and if we were not having a green vegetable we had a green salad. I will add always our vegetables were fresh unless we, on rare occasions had a frozen one. The only canned vegetable I can remember as a child was corn or beets.
Having done research into this very thing, I find your defence to your individual experience quite dubious. Older cookbooks didn't even list salt and pepper, and those two things are absolutely required if you cook anything, anything at all. Much older ones (like 1900s-1930s) sometimes did.
Poppy Cannon released "Can-Opener Cookbook" in 1951. It was an instant hit with inexperienced cooks everywhere. Her cookbook claimed you can whip a meal within ten minutes!
Before WWII, food was unchanged for the most part. Family farms were common, suburbs not so much. After WWII, that changed. Family farms started disappearing across the country, suburbs being built at lightning speed.
When did the green bean casserole come into use? The 1950s! 1955, to be exact. Campbell's soup company came up with it. Why did they and how did they? Simple. They wanted to create a quick and easy recipe around two things most Americans always had on hand in the 1950s - canned green beans and Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup.
Look at this thread again. People were talking about this meatball porcupines again and again. Beef and rice. MEAT AND STARCH! All the popular meals are. Here is a short list.
Did you know that kale was not considered food, let alone a vegetable, in the USA till a few years ago? Who purchased all those kale before that, you ask? Pizza Hut! A pizza chain? You bet. For? Salad bar decoration.
I reiterate once again, if the food was so good in the 1950s, then Julia Child would not have happened.
Having done research into this very thing, I find your defence to your individual experience quite dubious. Older cookbooks didn't even list salt and pepper, and those two things are absolutely required if you cook anything, anything at all. Much older ones (like 1900s-1930s) sometimes did.
Poppy Cannon released "Can-Opener Cookbook" in 1951. It was an instant hit with inexperienced cooks everywhere. Her cookbook claimed you can whip a meal within ten minutes!
Before WWII, food was unchanged for the most part. Family farms were common, suburbs not so much. After WWII, that changed. Family farms started disappearing across the country, suburbs being built at lightning speed.
When did the green bean casserole come into use? The 1950s! 1955, to be exact. Campbell's soup company came up with it. Why did they and how did they? Simple. They wanted to create a quick and easy recipe around two things most Americans always had on hand in the 1950s - canned green beans and Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup.
Look at this thread again. People were talking about this meatball porcupines again and again. Beef and rice. MEAT AND STARCH! All the popular meals are. Here is a short list.
Did you know that kale was not considered food, let alone a vegetable, in the USA till a few years ago? Who purchased all those kale before that, you ask? Pizza Hut! A pizza chain? You bet. For? Salad bar decoration.
I reiterate once again, if the food was so good in the 1950s, then Julia Child would not have happened.
I did work in a restaurant in the 1990's and we did use kale as a decorative garnish on all the plated meals. That was not the edible kale it was the ornamental purple and white leaf variety you see in the fall with the chrysanthemums. That is the kale that decorated salad bars etc.
Growing up my Dad always planted kale ....the curly leaf variety to eat as a winter green. It was a staple on our dinner table. We lived in RI and in the winter he would go out and pull and cut kale out of the garden frozen and covered with snow.....it made it sweeter. Because it could stand up to winter.....it was a principal green for us in winter months.....boiled long and slow and served with apple cider vinegar as the condiment. Yankees certainly knew that kale was a vegetable....just as southerners knew that collards were a vegetable.
I have a cook book that BirdsEye put out in 1941 promoting balanced meals with recipes (featuring their frozen food line) in the index under vegetables they have : asparagus souffle, asparagus with parm cheese; baked lima beans with bacon; brocolli three different ways; broiled tomatoes; lots of corn recipes, spinach, squash recipes....there are lots of fish recipes and seafood; The opening chapter is "A Miracle Comes to the Kitchen" and descriptive sentences such as "Vegetables are served every day of the year in the modern kitchen. This is easy to do if you use Birdseye vegetables, which are always in season!"
Now it is true that lots of the recipes called for white sauces or bacon toppings and often vegetables were cooked for longer than is in vogue now. But we did eat vegetables everyday thru the 40's and 50's.....the dinner plate was usually a meat, a starch and a vegetable.......or a casserole to feed a hungry family in which the vegetable was apt to be a can of peas. lol
Same here. We always had meat, potato, and two other vegetables. In the summer the vegetables were fresh from the garden. In winter we did get the horrible canned peas or vegetables that my mother canned from the garden, but then my parents bought a second hand chest freezer.
So we at least had frozen vegetables for most of the fifties. No ice cream at home until we got the freezer and also a newer fridge (did anyone ever buy anything brand new, lol?) with a freezer compartment large enough to hold a half gallon of store bought ice cream. I think maybe the advent of ice cream at home was the beginning of the end as far as home baking and healthy desserts.
Before freezers and--ice cream at home--our desserts were apple crisp, blueberry cobbler, canned peaches, canned pears, rice pudding with raisins, tapioca pudding, cream puffs with custard and home made chocolate sauce, or jello. And angel cake, very often.
oh do I remember our first fridge after the WW. Of course it wasn't new because there were no new ones yet. We had a used one and the freezer compartment was just the 2 ice trays. We later did get a new full sized freezer and yes, until then we only had ice cream when we went to the ice cream store or the soda fountain.
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