Family foods I thought was normal

[HotMelly]

My mom and dad (R.I.P) had some strange food habits which I really didn't realize until I got out into the "REAL" world. Pumkin pie had to have maple syrup poured over it, which I thought was normal, I loved my mom's green tomato pie, which I thought was normal, chili had to be served with peanut butter only, which I thought was normal,we had this yellow circley stuff for breakfast served with maple syrup on it, dad called it MUSH., which I thought was normal.

Anyone have their own weird foods growing up that they thought was "NORMAL" ??

[vtnewbie]

My Mom always let the cooked cornmeal mush cool and gel, then sliced and fried it. Fried grits were equally good. Never had them with syrup though.

She also made something for breakfast she called "Super Dooper Eggs" - which were simply scrambled eggs with cornmeal mixed in. Guess it helped stretch the eggs, and we had bushels of cornmeal. My Mom grew up in the Depression. She's thrifty that way.

[BeefeaterRocks]

We also had fried cornmeal mush, sometimes with sorghum molasses if we had been to visit the MO grandparents recently. Fried grits were added after my father came home from a posting in Virginia.

[alkapal]

love fried grits. really just a carrier for hot bacon fat! ;-0

[Sal Vanilla]

A little "That's Amore" in the background and $20 or more bucks attached to it and you have a craved for polenta dish.

If I had my way, and I don't because I live in a masochistic self-imposed militant state, I would eat cheesy grits with a fried egg on top every day of my life. Comfort foosd at its very finest.

[nyxpooka]

I am in Minnesota, born and raised. Wish I could say I ever tasted grits. Its odd that I never even saw them on our way down to Arkansas, or is that a "gritless" state? Could also be that we never get to stop anywhere...sigh...

[hill food]

oh nyx, nowhere South of the Missouri river is gritless. even my mom who grew up in Iowa and Minnesota knew (something) of grits (hers were more like cream of wheat and missed the point)

[The Professor]

My Hungarian grandmother used to cook the cornmeal mush, then spread it out on a large serving platter. She would put numerous little undents in the surface, then drizzle on some browned butter. Th final touch was little dollops of sour cream here and there.
One of my favorites as a kid.

[decolady]

We grew up with both fried cornmeal mush and fried grits. Sometimes served for breakfast with eggs.

[alkapal]

my mom taught me to fry up leftover grits. better than the first time -- esp. the crispy browned edges with a nice fried egg!

[decolady]

Oh yes! Those crispy brown edges were so good. I haven't eaten fried grits in years, juts because I never have leftovers. Ought to go make some, just for frying.

[alkapal]

mom told me that her mom would put the leftovers in a greased glass, to make a round mold in effect, then the next meal use it to cut off rounds for frying. she grew up in the depression in the florida panhandle.

now today, one could get fancy, spread it in a pan, then use a large biscuit cutter to make a nice pretty round shape just perfectly sized for an egg.

decolady, let's make up a southern eggs benedict....
fried egg, crumbled bacon on a fried grits round, with...which gravy? and should we add a fried green tomato while we're at it? i think we just will make a pan drippings milk gravy. what say you?

[hill food]

I'd eat that, but to keep it sort of Benedict, I feel the egg needs to be poached or shirred. milk or maybe red eye gravy?

and we are talking garlic cheese grits right?

[alkapal]

with garlic cheese grits, we're gonna have to add shrimp or crawfish, and use some tasso shreds and maybe a little tasso millk gravy. then it can be some version of cajun benedict (ha ha). i think red eye gravy might be a little strong; maybe not.

hey, you can poach your egg if you'd like (ahem). however, i must warn you that the egg will not have the great crispy little edge that a bacon grease-basted fried egg will have.
~~
i never grew up with garlic cheese grits. i don't know who came up with them first. that might be a good topic.

[hill food]

I was introduced to garlic-cheese grits by folks from the Arkansas to Missouri bootheel region along the Mississippi. my mother (from upper Midwest) always made them like cream of wheat so I was never interested until exposed to what I think of as the 'real' stuff.

I do like a crispy egg fried in reserved pork fat, but maybe too rich.

I tossed out the red eye idea as coffee goes so well with b'fast, I can see tasso playing a role.

and a quick search finds this VERY sad account

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums...

[alkapal]

and it is sad because of the demise of the garlic cheese product, or that some have never had the one with real cheese? i've seen so many different ideas about cheese grits, but i've always kept them simple, and usually just add jalapeño jack cheese and butter. sometimes cheddar, too. but actually, sometimes the cheddar has a too-sharp edge. uh oh...gettin' into the weeds, now.;-).

[stuck in Hartford County]

While we're talking southern food/carbs why not whip up some biscuits and gravy!

[Isobel_A]

I'm English, but spent some time in Virginia a few years ago. Biscuits are the things I remember most fondly - yum!

[hill food]

alkapal:I found the product and someone's reliance upon it sad. I understand an affinity for a particular method, but with a little imagination it can usu. be approximated.

[alkapal]

hill food, yes, people get stuck in a rut sometimes. i have so many old community cookbooks that have recipes calling for some kraft cheese in a jar (of some particular flavor). i've never seen it at the grocery.

[decolady]

Good idea! I vote for using plain grits. Cheese grits were not something we had growing up. The grits round and fried eggs are great. Either bacon or a slice of ham would do. I also like the fried green tomato. If we use the slice of ham, we can do redeye gravy. Oh, and not everyone uses coffee in redeye gravy. We never did. Otherwise gravy made with pan drippings will work fine. I think I will try it both with and without gravy, because I'm thinking I would like it sans gravy better.

FWIW, I love the Louisiana version of Eggs Benedict which uses crabcakes instead of Canadian bacon.

[stuck in Hartford County]

OMG, John Besh has the most amazing recipe for sausage and shrimp gravy on page 57 of his New Orleans cookbook.He also has a good beignet recipe on the previous page.

Oh boy do I miss living in LA!

[decolady]

I miss living in Louisiana, too. Fortunately I have family that I can go visit. :-)

[TallyEddings]

Here are some of the foods from my neck of the woods, Low Country Carolinas:
http://www.chitterlings.com/. Try the Baked Mac and Cheese recipe; and the Pound Cake is so good because of CAKE FLOUR. I grew up on a farm about 30 miles from Willie. His COOK BOOK is my favorite.

[alkapal]

love besh! see if you can ever watch this episode of "chefs a' field: kids on the farm" with besh and kids on a shrimp boat. http://www.iptv.org/series.cfm/18696/chefs_field_kids_farm/ep:107
charming and .... mouth-watering.

check out the hulu links to some NOLA programs on this thread -- in the post by "edible complex" http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/598045

[stuck in Hartford County]

Wow! Thanks for the links. I still visit N.O. for Tulane events, but it's a long way from CT. Bummer. I try to stay in touch by cooking favorite remembered meals/ingredients, but most of the ingredients are difficult to find here. Also, my kids refuse to believe that there are drive thru daquiri bars- such a crazy city! I adore Besh and thought he should have won Iron Chef,

[decolady]

I, too, thought John Besh should've won Iron Chef.

[Pipenta]

Hell yeah, he should have. I might have actually watch the show if Besh was an Iron Chef. Otherwise, I find it kind of snoozy.

[sacwoodpusher]

I grew up in a Mennonite family. One Wednesday evening, the bishop told us at prayer meeting that his father's favorite dish was mush and milk. My mom made mush and milk for dinner that Thursday evening, and fried mush for breakfast the next morning. When we went to church on Sunday, we discovered that nearly everyone in the church had had both mush and milk and fried mush that week!

A nice form of mush is scrapple, mush made with pork broth and maybe some ground trimming, fried and served with maple syrup. Oh, and don't forget puddin' over pancakes or mashed potatoes. Puddin' is the ground pork trimmings, made by grinding what falls off of boiled pork bones during buthering. The broth and a little puddin' was mixed with cornmeal to make scrapple. The remaining puddin' was heated up and served over pancakes or mashed potatoes.

I haven't had puddin' in 30 years, but I want some before I die! (It make kill me after just a few bites.) I don't think it is heart healthy.

[hill food]

dang now I know what to do with the solid-ish bits of flesh and fat I strained out of the stock (ok beef in this case) I spent the last 2 days simmering!

not heart healthy? ya think?! ehh once a year or so is ok I say.

[Will Owen]

I remember being offered a sandwich at a friend's house one day, and his mom asked me whether I wanted mayonnaise OR mustard. This struck me as pretty eccentric, as our sandwiches at home always came with both, except for the peanut butter ones, and all sandwiches came with butter as well. When I described the Standard Owen Sandwich thus (well, I was in 4th grade and didn't realize this might be impolite), both mother and child looked at me with genuine astonishment. Then the mom proceeded to make a bologna sandwich as I'd described it, and they both continued to stare at me while I ate it.

For the rest of it, I learned early on that many of our family favorites were regarded as weird by the larger community, and that the weirdest thing of all was our willingness to try new and different foods and/or dishes, so I got pretty much used to being an oddball. A well-fed oddball, I might add.

[hungry100]

That's very similar to the time a friend's mom asked if I wanted butter or cream cheese on my bagel -- at home, we always had both I chose cream cheese, but it really opened my eyes. My mom and dad always buttered bread for a sandwich, including hamburger buns (dad has since had quadruple by-pass surgery)....

[JamieK]

yes that reminds me of a friend who a long time ago I observed spreading butter on bread before proceeding to spread peanut butter. I expressed surprise perhaps a mite too derisively, saying something like "the peanut butter is already a butter, you don't need to add real butter".

Angrily, he retorted, well I don't care how they do it in Poland! I was stunned, as my remark had nothing to do with my Polish heritage or Polish cuisine.

I just thought it was weird (and a bit sickening, actually) to put peanut butter on top of dairy butter.

[pikawicca]

No, no, no! The best (rare) snack imaginable is a few Saltine crackers, each with a little chunk of cold butter, topped with a schmear of good peanut butter. It's a texture/temperature thing.

[JamieK]

Hmmm. I'm actually kinda of salivating about the idea of the combination of the salty crunch of cracker combined with good cold fat. But I just am not into peanut butter anymore so that's putting me off a bit. I can see how the texture/temperature thing could work, for sure.

[herbalista]

We've always eaten butter on crackers, and cold is best. Butter AND peanut butter also rocks, although peanut butter on crackers by itself is also great. Also, any of those combinations plus jelly, preferably pomegranate jelly, which we've made at home since I was a little kid.
My earliest memory of feeding myself is making saltines and butter to eat out on the front porch of the house we lived in when I was three.

[gaffk]

Saltines with cold butter and chicken noodle soup--my mom's recipe for whatever ailed you.

[brandywiner]

My mom served the same "remedy", along with ginger ale, poured into a glass and left out long enough to be close to room temp and mostly flat. (It all had something to do with not wanting to rile an upset tummy.)

[gaffk]

My mom went with Coke. (We always also had syrup of coca cola, which she oddly enough got at the local pharmacy as a tummy cure.)

[Tripeler]

I worked part-time at a pharmacy in California in the early 1970s, and one of the old pharmacists still had Coca-Cola syrup for stomach troubles.

[gaffk]

Yep, that's right about the time mom was getting it at the local pharmacy in Philadelphia

[BobbyG]

I've always eaten cracker (usually ritz) with butter and peanut butter. Was the only one I knew that did. I also eat my peanut butter samiches that way.

[betsydiver]

A"normal"snack at grandmom's in Philly was saltines with dark Karo syrup poured on each one individually at the kitchen table. sometimes with a barrier of butter first. w/o the butter,i used to enjoy tipping the cracker back and forth to see which hole would let the syrup flow through first.. We would often arrive late on Friday nights from upstate NY (a 4 hr drive) and someone would immdeiately be sent out for steak sandwiches and inevitably my aunt ruth would arrive with a box of jelly donuts at about the same time. the next morning i would either find cheerios in the cupboard or wait until grandmom would fry up some bologna for breakfast. strangely enough, we only had scrapple back at home and depending on mood, had it with ketchup usually my habit or my mother's favorite, with fake maple syrup i.e. aunt jemimas or log cabin...karo was not in my mother's cupboard...

[Ravac]

My grandmother was off-the-boat Polish, and she served us butter & peanut butter sammiches all the time!

[herbalista]

We always had butter on our sandwiches along with mayo or whatever else was to come. I still love the taste of butter and peanut butter together; I try to save it for a once in a while treat so I can live a few more years.

[fadingdeath]

The best is on a warm (wheat) English muffin. The regular butter goes all melty and into the bread and than the peanut butter adds it's thing on top. I also like butter and jelly, or just butter...
This must have somethign to do with my dairy farmer grandparents

[decolady]

My grandmother always said you needed butter on the bread to keep the peanut butter from sticking in your throat. My best friend's mom used mayo on peanut butter sandwiches for the same reason.

[ccmccall]

To this day I use both butter and P-nut butter on soft white sandwich bread (Wonder) and I can't imagine anything better. Try it before you shudder. You will be amazed.

[Pipenta]

The only person I know who butters peanut butter sandwiches is my mother, and she is of Polish descent. I always assumed her obsession with butterfat was a Polish thing, as her dad was a cowherd on the family farm back in the old country when he was a little boy.

Buttered peanut butter is delicious, if not exactly heart healthy.

[buttertart]

I never knew you could make a sandwich without butter (PB included) until I came to the States from Canada.

[Blush]

I'm Canadian and I'm pretty sure my mom still makes every kind of sandwich with butter. Peanut butter, bologna, BLT, you name it.

[buttertart]

That's the way I still like them. Mayonnaise on sandwiches, no thanks. I also don't like huge gobs of sandwich filling, meat, etc.

[Isobel_A]

Yep, I concur from the UK as well. All sandwiches must be buttered, and then additional things such as pickles, mustards, ketchup, brown sauce, mayonnaise etc goes on top.

[burgeoningfoodie]

I've never heard of buttering bread before putting anything on it as another spread and my parents are of polish/german descent. I think the two weird foods that we had in our house that most people I know gave me strange looks for were Cream cheese and jelly sandwich or fruits (usually bananas, strawberries or blue berries) in sour cream with a little bit of sugar.

As a general rule, I hate mayo if I can taste it.. if it is on a hamburger but is so little then I don't care.

[ZenSojourner]

Butter on a peanut butter sandwich?

But of COURSE!

You put butter on one piece of bread, and the peanut butter on the other. Slap 'em together. The only time it's acceptable to leave the butter off is if you're putting jelly on there instead.

Same thing on crackers - saltines, butter on one, PB on the other, stick 'em together.

YUM!

*Not of Polish descent*

[BobbyG]

I also butter my cold cut sandwiches... Butter, meat, cheese. I guess it's a European thing, tho I was watching an episode of "Leave it to Beaver" a while back and June was making samiches for The Beav, and she was buttering the bread. Guess it was common in the States some years back.

[nyxpooka]

Oh heck ya, add the butter! We scandinavians grew up craving butter, cream and eggs! I put butter on my extra crisp english muffin before I melt extra sharp cheddar cheese on it! Mom always made it like that! My fave!

[Deedine]

My boss in a restaurant where I cooked breakfast...many many years ago. Would put a huge pat of butter on her biscuits, and then put the sausage gravy on them. She gained a TON of weight the year I worked there.

[RetiredChef]

LMAO – that brings back memories.

Similar experience, asked if I wanted mayonnaise on my sandwich and I didn't even know what that was.

I had only ever had sandwiches made with butter.

[nyxpooka]

Gosh, I could actually EAT at your house! People would just slap that stuff on and I would gag when I was a kid! Couldnt even stand the smell of it... Still cant touch mayo or MWhip...blecch! I am careful to inspect all sandwiches very carefully.

[Isobel_A]

I don't like mayo much either - trying to buy a pre-made sandwich from M&S or wherever is nearly impossible.

[Sooeygun]

Pumpkin pie does have syrup (or honey) poured on it, doesn't it ;). My brother would ask for whipped cream on his so as not to miss out on the cream, eat it off the top and then add the Rogers Golden syrup or honey and eat the pie that way.

One of our favourite desserts was really thick Bird's custard with sweetened thickened currant juice on top. I guess a combo of my Dad's British and my Mom's Dutch roots. Never have I seen that dessert anywhere else.

And it's not a 'weird' food, but when I was little I didn't understand where my friends got their vegetables from. We got ours from the garden either at our house or at my grandparents next door, but none of my friends had big backyards.

[lattelover]

One of our typical Sunday night suppers was French Toast topped with fried eggs (lightly salted during cooking) and sprinkled with sugar. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it!

[dolores]

Cocoa Krispies with Reddi Whip for breakfast.

Syrup on meatballs after they were fried and before they went into the gravy.

Bones and gristle were for eating.

Sounds good to me, lattelover. So does mayo and butter and mustard.

[nyxpooka]

Wow,,,I think you won some kind of prize with that post...wow! Original.

[Kate is always hungry]

In our house, and now in my own, it was French toast with sour cream and chocolate milk. Also, Cheerios sauteed in butter. My mom called it "fried Cheerios." I think I feel a craving coming on.

[nyxpooka]

Hmm, were fried cheerios a snack or for breakfast?

[burgeoningfoodie]

I know someone who makes those for a snack.

[kbinsted]

Try them in bacon fat. I made them as a treat for my dog, then found myself snacking on them...

[kittyangel]

I LOVE your post. By the way, is your dog overweight?

[kbinsted]

Nope, but he is a hyperactive rat terrier. I could probably feed him nothing but balls of fat with fat sauce and he'd still run it all off.

Seriously, the tiny cheerios are perfect treats for training. Regular dog treats are way too big for a little guy like him - not to mention that I resent how expensive they are.

[kittyangel]

Do I know expensive!?! We've got 12 cats and 2 dogs - all rescues. When treats/food go on sale and I have coupons I stock up - then use the "gas points".

You've actually managed to train a hyperactive terrier? I made the mistake of adopting a dog from the Humane Society 2 years ago that they guessed was a terrier/shepherd mix (I must have had a major lapse of reason!). He seemed normal at the shelter, but the day after we got him home he turned in to a hyperactive lunatic dog from Hell with the attention span of a gnat! And he's getting worse! The d*mn dog knows when he's doing something "bad" but just keeps on doing it! My vet said to use positive reinforcement but I said how do you do that when he never does anything good???

[Cliocooks]

My brother and I used to eat Special K sauteed in butter! I remember my other saying that when she was a child they did that with Rice Krispies.

[The Professor]

Actually, that doesn't sound too bad.
Kind of like what you do to make Chex mix, really...

[Starka]

Something similar in our house- cottage cheese omelets, and powdered sugar on top. Yum! Still a comfort food.

Open faced sandwiches on dark bread surprised the heck out of my childhood friends. My Polish mom * might * have gotten away with the toppings (liverwurst, sliced radishes, sliced hard boiled eggs, etc. or the less worrisome salami and sliced pickles) if only there was only a second slice of bread on top. Somehow the open face confused my friends most of all, go figure!

[plateofwander]

salted fried egg (runny yolk a must) on top of syrupy pancakes.
amazing. just...wow.

[KristieB]

Eww...I HATE it when the syrup touches my eggs. ***shudder***

[herbalista]

I'm with you on the syrup and egg thing, KristieB. It's just not right.

[nyxpooka]

No sweet eggs on my plate. I can see the idea behind it, sweet and salty plus fatty yolk...but its like the syrup flavor clashes somehow...

[kittyangel]

I can handle a little syrup "touching" my eggs. I think I would much prefer that to ketchup which seems so common, at least here in Central PA. One thing that is yummy is when I have pancakes or french toast with sausage, I like to dip the sausage in the syrup!

[cmztrav]

I don't think I'd care for sunny-side up egss with syrup on them, but syrup on scrambled eggs is extremely delicious.

[The Professor]

Actually, when a bit of the syrup gets into the runny yolk on a sunny-up or over easy, it is a decadently rich taste.

[cmztrav]

You sold me, I'll try it. :D

[mlynnb]

Our french toast was never sweet--we always made it with eggs, a splash of milk, salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder, or smoked paprika, fried in a little butter or bacon drippings, then served with chili sauce or even just Catsup. Still remember first time I ordered it in a restaraunt here in Canada and it arrived with powdered sugar and maple syrup and I could not eat it. Still can't eat it sweet.

[tonina_mdc]

Wow, that actually sounds pretty good, mlynnb! I have a huge sweet tooth, but for some reason, I've never been much on sweet french toast. I'd probably pass on the chili sauce/ketchup, but maybe a light herbed butter/olive oil sauce might go along nicely.... Thanks for the idea!

[kittyangel]

We always had french toast with butter, King's syrup and cinnamon on it growing up in our Central PA home. Needless to say, I was surprised and dismayed the first time I ordered it in a restaurant and it arrived with powdered sugar on it!

[Emme]

your French Toast savory style reminds me of my mom's matzah brei. onions, milk, eggs, salt and lots of black pepper. i didn't much care for it back then, and i think i might like it now, only now allergies prevent me from trying it. oh well.

[ike04]

We always had Apple Pie with a slice of good cheddar cheese and cream poured over it. It's a British thing

[MIss G]

It's old school American too...my granddad eats his apple pie with cheddar as well

[hill food]

or to fancify it - pear pie with camembert is good

[BobbyG]

Apples and cheddar is something I've always done..... originally from Virginia. Not sure if its a regional thing. I tell people about it in other parts of the country and they are horrified.

[buttertart]

"Apple pie without some cheese/Is like a kiss without a squeeze" - one of my father's sayings, Ontario, Canada, mid-20th C, I very much doubt original to him. Very common in Ontario and in England.

[kittyangel]

Growing up In our Central PA home we never ate cheese with apple pie. However, I have since learned that it is common (at least around here) and is supposedly very good. I've never tried it tho. I don't think I've ever seen it in a restaurant - just with vanilla ice cream.

[buttertart]

deleted (repetitive)

[sandylc]

Apples pie and cheese: Common in the midwest. Don't care for it myself.

[The Professor]

Depends on the cheese...good aged cheddar, yes. It's an amazing combination.
But crappy American process cheese or (horrors) the evil Velveeta...I'll pass.

[ItaliAnna]

Ooh, that reminds me of the pork and apple pie topped with sour cream that my mom used to make. yum!

[tatamagouche]

Pork and apple? Served as a main course or as a dessert? What sort of recipe (heritagewise) is that?

[The Professor]

I'm guessing most European ones as well as the British Isles... they all found quite a few ways to combine fruit & various meats . I've always thought it odd that most Americans consider such combinations as 'strange".

Pork and apples are a pretty 'normal' combination, classic really...in pie (with the addition of some onions) it's a really incredible entree dish. Never had it with the sour cream on top, but it sounds like something I need to try

[tatamagouche]

Definitely used to pork and fruit in roasts and such, or fruit as sauces for meat, but I've never heard of them together in pie that I can recall. And yes, it was in part the sour cream that threw me...

[alkapal]

the hungarians use lots of pork and sour cream, no?

[phantomdoc]

I do a pork loin that I brine for 2-3 days in sauerkraut juice and then braise on low with all white ingredients. Lots of sliced onions, granny smith apples and sauerkraut. Sprinkle caraway seeds on the white veggies before braising. Crank the oven up at the end to brown and crisp the outside of the meat.

[buttertart]

My (German-Irish, 100% of each depending on whim) husband would love that. Do you just use the juice with the sauerkraut or do you buy extra? Do they even put that (sauerkraut juice) out any more?

[mjhch1]

Apple pie with cheddar... that's just classic. The cream is good too...

[buttertart]

Cream or milk on desserts was a big thing in my family. Cream on pies, cream or milk on fresh cut-up or canned fruit and Jello. Don't knock it until you've tried it!

[NellyNel]

Oh when I lived in England - Cream was always served with desserts. If you order pie or pudding in a restaurant - you will be asked :"With ice cream or cream?"
In fact my (English) in laws serve ice cream -with cream poured over the top!
Decadent for sure - and delicious!

[buttertart]

Wow! That is something. Sounds divine. Would make a good easy dinner party dessert with some nice cookies, wouldn't it? Cream is also wonderful poured over biscuit strawberry shortcake - the biscuits still a bit hot. Much nicer than whipped cream. (The best cream I ever tasted came from a friend of the family's Jersey cow - raw - the most beautiful shade of pale yellow and so rich. The only dairy product in my experience to sour naturally - we made cream biscuits with it when it got sour.)

[NellyNel]

Oh now that really sounds divine!

[buttertart]

Since I remember it from (gasp) almost 40 years ago, you can imagine it was.

[NellyNel]

I am one of those people who could sit and pour some cream into a cup and spoon into my mouth..mmm I really love the taste , so I imagine I would remember it after all those years too!

I remembered something else I had while in England -
While visiting Cornwall - the local specialty was ice cream served with....
CLOTTED CREAM on top!
OMG
yes! it was outrageous!
It was regular clotted cream on the top but then where it was pressed up against the ice cream - it formed a slightly crunchy shell...like that Magic Shell stuff -(if anyone remembers that)

[nyxpooka]

I remember Magic Shell! I think I saw it at Target when I was there...not sure though! Might have been a generic knock off...but it brought back fun memories of waxy goodness!

[stuck in Hartford County]

I melt good french vanilla ice-cream w/some sort of liquor (brandy/rum/cointreau/midori...) and spoon it on fresh fruit. Or pie. Or whatever. Cheaty creme anglais!

[alkapal]

buttertart, cream actually rescues jello!

hey, look at this! quite appealing (and 'm not a jello fan, typically): http://www.1001recipe.com/recipes/foo...

[buttertart]

It is! After all, what are French fruit charlottes (which this looks a bit like) but jellied mousses with jelloish proclivities if not artificial flavors. Not that I'm against artificial flavors.

[stuck in Hartford County]

Jelloish! Off topic, I know, but I have Jello on my mind (or maybe my mind is jello... anyway... ) The Jello company puts out a jello cookbook and they sell it at our school's Scholastic Book Fair. One of my parents (who clearly has WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON HER HANDS) made the over-the-top awesome pool "cake". It's completely amazing what you can do with jello. Or "jelly" as it's labeled at Club Med (the European food selections, natch!).

[alkapal]

tell us more about the pool cake. photos? this it? http://www.google.com/images?client=s...

[stuck in Hartford County]

OK. It looks a bit like 815 Jello Dive In Cake, except the pool was larger w/more umbrellas and smalll chairs and tables. The water was aqua, shiny, smooth and actually "wet" looking-not lumpy like some of the others shown. So cute!

[stuck in Hartford County]

I'm looking for it now and will post a link if I can find it!

[Pipenta]

Ah, but what better thing to do with your time than something crazy/outrageous that your kids will remember forever?

[danni_1981]

blueberries in a bowl with milk and a sprinkle of sugar....yummmmm!

[jbsiegel]

Right there with you on this. Also, sliced bananas in milk with brown sugar.

[nyxpooka]

cream is actually good IN jello too, BT...I made a wonderful thing called "swedish cream dessert" that was essentially just cream, jello, sugar and vanilla. Served it with lingonberries or cloudberries (wont do the cloudberries again, the seeds are gianormous and really cloying), but if I had carmelized some sugar on the top of that wonderful stuff, it would have been a knock off for creme brulee besides! We scandinavians put cream on all our desserts, to be honest... Anyone for some rommegrot? (mom loved it, but we never actually made it at our house...sigh)

[buttertart]

How do you make that Swedish cream? I'm very jello-friendly (have family in Iowa).

[kittyangel]

What on Earth are lingonberries and cloudberries??? And rommegrot? I like jello, but just stir in some canned fruit and dollop Cool Whip on top.

[betsydiver]

my dad never ate cake without milk poured on top in a bowl...

[jbsiegel]

Kinda like melted a-la-mode? :-)

[Munkipawse]

BD my dad ate his cake the same way. He also liked drinking soda with a package of salted peanuts tossed in. I tried both of these concoctions when i was a bit older but could ever reconcile the sweet/salty and conflicting textures enough to enjoy either of these snacks.

[biglinguist]

Oo, that's so weird, we used to eat that custard/currant thing too, and my mom's British and my dad was Dutch. I haven't thought about that for years. Thanks!

[dlane]

My mom served roasted lamb heads garnished with salt, pepper and garlic. We each got one and all the tortillas we could eat. It was my favorite; I can still remember the horrified looks in elementary school during a conversation about favorite foods. My mom was so mad at me for telling my classmates about my favorite food. Apparently she knew it wasn't normal!

I also loved bologna sandwiches with mayo and potato chips. My grandmother served warm salted bacon fat in small bowls to mop up with pieces of bread. and also served sugared iceberg lettuce.

[dolores]

You too, dlane? We had it, once, and I can still see the poor thing's head in my mother's oven.

And my horror and obvious scarring for life, watching my father eat the brains and eyes, while I HAD to sit there and eat the cheek meat.

Disgusting, barbaric, but times were different, weren't they.

I loved fried baloney sandwiches.

[dragonchowmein]

I loved fried baloney too! And tomato, butter and white bread sandwhiches, but I think our weirdest "normal" food was my dad's Thanksgiving stuffing made with saltine crackers, pineapple and mushrooms.

[goodhealthgourmet]

dragonchowmein, i'm glad to know i'm not the only Chowhound whose family has a bizarre Thanksgiving stuffing tradition. my mom's recipe [which came from her mom] involves corn flakes, oats, onions, carrots, canned mushrooms and schmaltz [chicken fat].

[ccmccall]

My little brother would hold a slice of bologna (baloney in those days) on a fork over the gas flame of the front burner. When it began to drip and make the flame sizzle, he would place it on a piece of buttered Wonder bread. Fantastic.

[BamiaWruz]

Yes!

[nyxpooka]

Fried baloney reminds me of the movie "Bad Santa"...lol! Regular oscar meyer stuff, right?

[The Professor]

I'd say anything but the Oscar Meyer stuff.
It's much better with a quality bologna, preferably from an independent butcher/specialty shop if there are any near you (they are unfortunately a disappearing breed).

[kittyangel]

I don't want to be nit-picky, but growing up in the 70's the jingle still runs thru my head - "My bologna has a first name, it's O-S-C-A-R, my bologna has a second name, it's M-A-Y-E-R....

PS. Thank God in Central PA we still have many butcher/meat markets!

As for the movie "Bad Santa", I'd make a comment, but better not! :-)

[kittyangel]

Stuffing with pineapple??? Did you live in Hawaii???

[NellyNel]

We used to go to a special restaurant that served "Gabutzelle" I know I'm spelling that wrong - but what it is - is "Goats head"
They came out with a proper head - sawed in half on a platter!
While my sister was absolutely horrified - I was quite facinated...my grandfather would dig into yes the eyes and brain - but wait - it gets worse because he also ate the tounge - and at the end of the meal he would pick out the teeth and suck on them!!

I have to add though, that even though we were very young - we did know that this was NOT normal!

[hill food]

what heritage/region is Gabutzelle?

I would be fascinated too.

[NellyNel]

Hi hill
Italian American

funny though - as I was posting this I tried Google translation of "goats head"
thinking it would give me the proper spelling of "Gabutzelle" - but this is what came up: testa delle capre. so I'm not sure where Gabutzelle comes from but that's what we called it. (I also tried to translate Gabutzelle but came up with nothing!)

[hill food]

maybe it's made up, my SO's mom refers to eggplant as "jojo potatoes" in a ploy to make it more appealing when the kids were at a picky age.

[DarkRose]

Weird, I've only seen thick cut wedge fries called Jo-Jos (though I have no idea why. Never heard of it until I moved to Cleveland)

[Whazoo]

I believe you are looking for capozelle. Check the following link:
http://able2know.org/topic/73418-1

[NellyNel]

Thanks so much whazoo!!
Unfortunately i am at work and my company blocks allot, and the link was blocked!
I need to remember to chack it out over the weekend - I'm curious!

At least now i know the correct spelling!! Thanks again!

[LisaPA]

Another spelling is capuzzelle, which is what came up when I Googled "goat's head Italian". It can mean either goat or lamb's head.
http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s...

[cgarner]

My grandmom would take semi-stale home made bread, cut it thick and toast it in the oven (like a crostini I guess)

Then we’d put it in a bowl, sprinkle w/ cinnamon & sugar and pour warm coffee w/ cream and sugar over it

I thought it was the best thing, EVER for breakfast

I’m a second generation Italian-American and we grew up with all very traditional foods. One that my grandpop abandoned was the lamb’s head or goats head…

My grandfather cured lots of his own meats and one time I got in trouble at lunch because the kid next to me thought I was trying to gross him out by telling him I had gabbagool in my sandwich (cappicola, I used to try to say it like my grandparents)

Christmas eve included Smelts! Pasta w/ anchovies! Calamari cooked in red sauce for a long time, scungili, and at least two others so that we would have seven fishes

Imagine being a little kid and you and your friends are discussing Christmas dinner and your friends are talking about great big turkeys or roast beeves and you’re talking about smelts and anchovies for dinner

What my grandpop called “sofrito” was a stew of various parts of a cow, that people generally didn’t buy at the butcher, and even some that they weren’t supposed to sell, heart, lung, tripe… cooked a very long time in a tomato base with hot peppers from the garden and garlic… oh it was wonderful, the textures that were in those bowls of sofrito I cannot even begin to describe… my husband wonders why I love beef tendon in pho and I think it’s because it comes close

Salad sandwiches – we’d take the bread from the dinner table and make a pocket and stuff the too vinegary salad into it and have a salad sandwich (works best after Sunday Macaroni and meat balls, use the salad sandwich to swipe up any gravy leftover in your bowl)

[Isobel_A]

My Italian housemate ( from Milan) makes a bowl of strong coffee with milk for breakfast and pours her cornflakes in it, and eats with a spoon.

[kittyangel]

Hmmm. Actually sounds good & "kills 2 birds with one stone".

[tonina_mdc]

Wow. I really try to be open to different kinds of foods, but that's far beyond my reach. Gaahhh! I'm surprised it didn't give you nightmares! I'm of Italian descent too, but I'm thankful to say nothing like that ever showed up on my grandparents' table! However, I'm squeamish about eating things like eyes and brains anyway.

[caiatransplant]

OMG!! That's too bad! If there's anything better than a brain simmered in slightly acidulated water with a little salt, drained, sliced and with a pat of butter on it, I can't think of it. It's really good if you're not feeling well - nourishing, light and good. Although, with some of the diseases making the rounds in animals now, I'd have to think twice.

[Alan N]

Go gramps.

[phantomdoc]

Those cheeks are probably $40 at Mario Batalli Babbo.

[ec_washington55]

YUM! Wow, haven't thought of a fried baloney sandwich in years.

I think my mom was trying to make a Midwestern version of the NJ classic Taylor Ham and Cheese with these when I was a kid. Not even close, mom!!

http://kitchendreamer.blogspot.com/

[nyxpooka]

Dolores, you win. Hands down!

[hillsbilly]

dolores, I don't think eating heads is any more barbaric or disgusting than eating other parts of an animal. Poor animals. I think it's because the way we buy our meat now is so removed from the reality of what it actually is that when are reminded, we find it confronting. We kill other animals so we can eat their bodies. Eyes of meat animals look so much like ours, it is very difficult to look at them.

dlane, my 8 year old son loves boney bits of meat and things like fish heads. He hasn't ever had the chance to eat other animal heads yet so I don;t know how he would feel about it, but he does know his love of bones is not "normal". We were at a family function recently and he came up to me and whispered that he wanted to chew on his pork chop bones but didn't want to do it infront of "all the delicate people" so I took him and his plate of bones to another room so he could gnaw on them in private while I guarded the door. I love him : )

[yummfood]

your last 2 sentences made me smile :)

[kittyangel]

I was raised to believe that God gave us animals to use for our purposes to survive - to work for us, to eat for nourishment, and to use the other parts for other purposes. We were taught in school that in the American Pioneer times they used the hides for clothing and the bones for things like needles, etc. Nothing was wasted. ("Waste not, want not"!) I'm OK with it as long as they are treated humanely and killed humanely. (I just try not to think about it too much!) My problem is with people who kill just for "trophies"!

As for gnawing on the bones - I remember doing that as a child as well. My grandparents were farmers so we always froze butchered beef in the spring and ate it at family cookouts on Sundays over the summer. The T-bones were just too good to waste anything. Of course, as an adult, I would never do that in public! Glad to hear you love your son so much!!!

[cimui]

sugared iceberg lettuce? intriguing! a regional specialty or her own concoction? did she just shred the lettuce and put sugar on top?

[dolores]

I missed the sugar on iceberg lettuce!

dlane, I put sugar on everything, but never put it directly on salad. I put it in all my dressings, does that count? I think I would have liked your grandmother. Mine put sugar in her gravy (red sauce), and cemented my sweet tooth forever.

[dlane]

I think it was her own concoction. I inherited my sweet tooth from grannie. it was a small plate with sugar, lettuce on the side. We tore off small pieces of lettuce and dipped them in. It was one of my afterschool snacks along with hot buttered homemade torillas. Boy, I miss grannie!

[cimui]

my grannie also had a massive sweet tooth (still does, actually). she'd serve us ripe, red tomatoes out of our garden with sugar. maybe i should introduce her to the sugared lettuce thing. =)

[betsydiver]

sugar on garden tomatos, every summer... sugar and vinegar on cooked cabbage (as in corned beef and... possibly as a way of havibg us actually eat the cabbage; also at my granmom's we would sit around the kitchen table eating saltines with Karo syrup on them, sometimes with butter to plug up the saltine holes while we waited for my Aunt Ruth to bring home jelly donuts and Uncle John to bring home the philly cheese steak sandwiches... can you see why I've had a life-long weight problem?

[Purrkins]

I have a brother-in-law who eats sugar on tomatoes - lots of sugar. I tried it out of curiosity...NASTY! Must be a taste acquired early in life. <Shudder>

[mickie44]

My German grandmother always put sugar on her tomatoes. I grew out of it at a very early age.

[betsydiver]

it was commonplace at our dinnertable that we would put the dressing inbgredients directly on the salad, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, etc.... sugar s&p, oil and vinegar... also vinegar and sugar on cooked cabbage when we had corned beef and cabbage...

[cycloneillini]

Mustard and potato chips on my bologna sandwiches. Never tried it with mayo, but that would probably be good too. I know a lot of southerners who eat mayo on their fries instead of ketchup - never did get that one.

[alkapal]

i like to dip crispy fries in mayo, but i learned that in belgium.

[ec_washington55]

YUM! Frites in a paper cup with a glob of mayo! One of the best things I ate in Belgium -- and I ate a TON of things there.

[mamma_spice]

mayo on toast--that's it. peanut butter and pickle sandwiches too!

[mamma_spice]

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that too. Before microwave ovens you had to reheat pasta on the stove and it got crispy---yum!

[Isobel_A]

Lots of people in the UK have mayo with chips, especially with curly fries (I don't like mayo much, myself - more of a ketchup or brown sauce person). And cheesy chips, too - just a bowl of chips with grated cheddar melted over them. Yum.

[LJS]

Can't relate to the lambs head, though I have heard wonderful things and would love to try it...not on the menu at Ruth's Chris.

But sugared iceberg lettuce was my family's definition of salad.

[magfitz]

There is (or was) an old restaurant in the restaurant row area (might be a on that block or one or two off) that was a real old school type place on the garden level. My husband and I stopped in for a drink at the bar (after spying it through the window and becoming intrigued) and checked out the menu. They have something like this on the menu. However, you have to order it a couple of days ahead of time.

Sorry, this is in Manhattan. I forgot that I was on the general board.

[Sal Vanilla]

Such a funny story about your mom getting mad! I think I am in love with your grannie.

When my nieces and nephews were young we would do a few pig roasts during the year and the adults would always fight over the head. Slowly but surely we have turned these little urbane, abercrombie-ites into jowl snatching snout coveting freaks just like we were. Hope that joy is passed to their kids.

[firemyars]

WOW, sugared lettuce. My grandmother used to do that. I haven't thought about that in years. I love apples with camembert. I guess the strangest thing I can throw in, is rice"cereal". My Aunt would make plain white rice, and then put it in a bowl with sugar and milk. I've never seen or heard anyone else do that. I ate it once, maybe. Sugar and milk. I was, like 6.

[alkapal]

honey, that's just rice pudding, pre-heat!

[BobB]

And apples with cheese (of various sorts) is quite common. But sugared lettuce - not so much. I wonder if it's a particular ethnic or regional specialty?

[alkapal]

bobB, i wonder, too. i didn't have it growing up in sw florida, and my mom was from n. florida and dad and his parents were from illinois.

when i was in middle and junior high schools, i used to do grocery shopping for my grandparents, and i recall regularly buying canned cling peaches -- and occasionally muscatel wine. ;-)). one food treat they gave me was sweet, milky coffee.

[stuck in Hartford County]

Don't slam the canned peaches! I love those-mom always had them around. Good w/ice cream and, uh, libations (just not at mom's)..I've cut myself on the lid more than once, as a kid. Ouch!

[Passadumkeg]

The canned peach c-rations were such a thirst quenching, sugar bootsing treat out in the field in hot, humid Nam. Fruit "cock tale" too.

[stuck in Hartford County]

Poppin cherries in Nam! Ha ha-canned fruit cocktail is so nasty...

[Passadumkeg]

Not when one is hot, tired, dehydrated and fatigued. Juicy canned fruits were manna from heaven. Screw the cans of lima beans and ham.

[stuck in Hartford County]

'keg, all joking aside, do you avoid foods that you associate w/Vietnam? Or maybe you just avoid the MRE foods? I imagine I might. Just curious, b/c I do know guys who shudder when they see food that triggers those memories. My neighbor has to go home when I have a gin and tonic-the "quinine" reference is repugnant to him.

[Passadumkeg]

Yes, the memories of C-rats and Spam are not pleasant. Funny you should mention quinine, disgusting stuff w/out the gin. I have only recently tried to again eat pho. Yes, foods can be "triggers", as well as music.

[alkapal]

stuck i h c,

how in the heck was i "slamming" canned peaches? to say i bought them for my grandparents?

[decolady]

When I was at college in Louisiana (1970s), one of our suitemates was from OK. The only way her family ever ate rice was cold with milk and sugar for breakfast. That was the first time I ever heard of that. You are the second.

[stuck in Hartford County]

Interesting. I also went to college in LA (1980's) and one of my suitemates was from OK. She also ate that crazy rice. Her father was a farmer, and they didn't eat meat much. She said it reminded her of rice pudding.

[Deedine]

My Great grandma made rice with cold milk and sugar for breakfast. Grandpa sprinkled sugar on lettuce from the garden.

[betsydiver]

my mom did the rice with butter sugar and milk all the time...

[jbsiegel]

That doesn't sound bad at all...

[BobB]

I was talking with my younger sister last night and she reminded me that we also used to eat warm white rice with milk & sugar when we were kids. We just called it "rice with milk." I had completely forgotten.

[BamiaWruz]

It sounds good to be honest. I don't like the creamy milk part of rice pudding and I prefer the pakistani sweet rice desserts so this sounds kind of good to me.

[betsydiver]

that's the only way my mom will eat rice*still, she's 92, although she did'nt necessesarily serve it to us that way exclusively...

[moonmau]

This is the only way I ate rice growing up -- didn't know it was served any other way. My mom would cook the rice until it was a sticky glob, put it in cereal bowls, then butter and sugar (white or brown) would be added, as well as cream, if desired (we lived on a farm). This was so good with salty bacon and toast or hot biscuits, which my mother made from scratch almost every morning.

[ZenSojourner]

Cook it a little bit with some raisins thrown in, and it's basically just kheer.

[tigerpaw]

well not EXACTLY - Rice pudding has eggs and Vanilla and is cooked - BUT, close. Hot rice w/milk and sugar is really good - and hot rice with salt and butter is also delicious! Brings back childhood memories!

[Pipenta]

Not disgusting. Not barbaric. Just not mainstream middle American.

Bologna with mayo, however, that is mainstream middle American and it is horrid!

[laliz]

Navy beans (cooked w/ham or bacon) and served on white bread with ketchup.

[tatamagouche]

What do you mean "chili had to served with peanut butter"? That's awesome! Like satay, but...not.

You mean it was swirled in or dolloped on top or what?

[lynnlato]

I wondered about the peanut butter & chili also. My Dad was a peanut butter freak (me too, but not as freaky) and would spread peanut butter on his pizza. He claimed he had it in Germany when he was in the military. My guess is that was only half the story and the rest was he had it after spending the day drinking beer.

Spaghetti w/ oil and garlic was my favorite meal and Mom made it often (Sicilians call it midnight spaghetti). My friends always thought it was weird.

[dolores]

Oh boy yes. When I started to eat macaroni, carbonara and agli e olio were two of my favorites. With sugar, of course. Oh, and spaghetti pie with a dozen eggs and cheese and pepperoni.

*sigh*

[ambr]

We had spaghetti w/oil and garlic at a friends house that was awesome. I tried to make it at home and it just wasn't the same. It sounds easy enough, but if lynnlato or anyone else could make some suggestions..it would be greatly appreciated. Thanx.

[1sweetpea]

I have a few suggestions for you, ambr. First, salt the pasta cooking water well. You can choose which garlic cooking method you prefer. I like to slice garlic cloves paper thin, then put them in the pan with warm olive oil (not hot). I heat the two together, until the garlic is sizzling. If you like your garlic punchy, you can remove it from the heat at this point. If you prefer a crispy brown fried flavour and texture, just let it go longer, but don't let the garlic burn, or you'll have to start over with a clean pan. Set the pan aside. Add the pasta with a little of the cooking water. Toss together over medium heat for a minute, then serve with black pepper and either chopped flat leaf parsley, freshly toasted breadcrumbs or freshly grated parmigiano reggiano. You could also use cacciocavallo for a gooey cheese experience. Personally, I'd keep it simple with the parsley, but add some freshly cracked black pepper and a drizzle of truffle oil. With something so simple, the key is good garlic (remove those green shoots), careful cooking and the salt from the cooking water, unless you're going to load it up with cheese. Taste your pasta before you serve it. Add some high quality salt if necessary. My dad recently started doing a version with sauteed cherry tomatoes, which are added when the garlic starts to sizzle. It sounds nice too. Be sure not to overcook the garlic or the spaghetti/pasta.

[alkapal]

1sweetpea, that sounds great.

ambr, i'd add that you should undercook your pasta in the big pot, so that it finishes to "al dente" in the pan with oil and garlic.

also, the pasta in the pan can be "loosened" (if it seems a little dry or stiff) by splashing in *little* doses of the pasta pot cooking water. you'll get the timing and splashing techniques down with trial and error -- a/k/a "experience". ;-).

[hill food]

what is the term? alio olio?

[BobB]

Close - it's aglio olio (sometimes aglio e olio).

[Pau De Queijo]

aglio, olio e PEPERONCINO! don't forget the red pepper flakes! gaaahh

[phantomdoc]

Garlic and oil.

[Living4fun]

We had Cap'n Crunch with whipped cream in the mornings. Not every morning but on special occasions. During Lent, my Mom's standard evening meal was pancakes, with tuna salad served along side of the pancakes so the maple syrup would co-mingle with the tuna.

[lisafaz]

I had NO IDEA that everyone didn't use olive oil for every cooking need. I've always loved Fillipo Berio & scrambled eggs. Even in the deep fryer, Mom used olive oil. We also had pasta at least twice a week. Pasta & peas, pasta & cauliflower, pasta & sauce, pastina, pasta & broccoli... you get the idea. No, Mom's not Italian. Dad's parents were from Sicily, and he was the spoiled favorite son. I also NEVER had meatloaf until I was an adult. Dad hated it, so Mom NEVER made it. Grandma used to give us home made sauce on bread if we were hungry before a meal, or really stinky Italian cheese. I love stinky Italian cheese.
If we had steak, it was cooked in a pan, and we fought (still do!) over the pan drippings, which we always called dippy and sopped up with a slice of Wonder bread. Mmmmmmmmmmm........... bloody bread.

On St. Patrick's Day, Mom would wake us up with Green Eggs & Ham (just food coloring). and May 1st, before anything else, we had to go outside and wash our faces in the dew... "Queen of May, Queen of May, Wash my ugliness away!" Has anyone ever heard of that?!

And EVERYTHING was home made. I never had Hamburger Helper or Ramen noodles or Kraft's blue box of cheesefood until college.

[Glencora]

Yes, I've washed my face in dew on May Ist, but I think--as with so much else--I got the idea from a book, (Louisa May Alcott?) and not from my family or friends.

I didn't have green eggs and ham (how'd she dye the ham?), but my dad did make me green pancakes and milk on St Patrick's day. Other mornings, he gave me milk blended with a raw egg and "Quick." Most people think that's pretty horrible and in retrospect I agree.

[jeanmarieok]

We had raw eggs, milk. vanilla and strawberry quik, in the blender with ice cubes as a treat when I was a kid. It was yummy!

[Glencora]

But now we're not supposed to give our kids raw eggs. Not that I ever got sick.

[goodhealthgourmet]

pasteurized egg products are easy to find these days if you want to use them in raw preparations.

[Sal Vanilla]

My dad used to make us raw eggs and chocolate ice cream in the blender - smoothed out with milk. He also fed us raw hamburger.

How ever did we survive? ; )

[Ellen]

We would have raw eggs and ovaltine or raw eggs with packets of Carnation instant breakfast made in a blender. And I was forced to put wheat germ on sugary breakfast cereal or I wasn't allowed to have it. But on Sundays we had scrapple, bacon, or sausage and fried eggs. I guess it all balanced out.

[caiatransplant]

When I was a kid, my mother, thinking I should have extra nourishment, would crack a raw egg, separate the yolk and the white, and make me swallow the raw egg yolk, accompanied by her sung admonition: Down the hatch, America!! She was French. It wasn't bad but I always followed up with a serving spoon of olive oil that had been infused with several cloves of mashed garlic! The egg was tolerable but the oil was heaven:).

[alkapal]

"tummy aioli?" ;-)).

[herbalista]

We always bought several pounds of ground "chuck" to make hamburger patties, along with 1 pound of ground sirloin that got eaten raw. A little salt, maybe some pepper, maybe a saltine cracker. I shouldn't admit it, and I don't do it often, but I still love it.

[stuck in Hartford County]

In the 70's, my parents used to throw some pretty awesome parties. Raw oysters, cheviche, and beef tartare were on the menu, natch. I thought it was normal. Now it's not (so much). I wonder if anyone would eat that tartare now... It's a miracle we all survived!

[hill food]

@stuck: I'd eat that, I'd probably hog the table even.

[Pipenta]

@ Sal, we survived because egg production wasn't so revolting back then. We ate rare and even raw hamburger at times too. We ALWAYS had our hamburger red in the middle, never would have touched a well-done one. And I never heard of anyone getting food poisoning. Now it is quite common. Small farms have all been run into the ground by giant agribiz corporations and those corporations care ONLY about profit and nothing else. Not you, not me, not the communities they are in, not their neighbors, and sure as heck not the animals. And surprise, surprise, they make us all sick. And there has been this media spin, that if we use raw eggs or rare meat, WE ARE DOING IT WRONG! There's a bit of brainwashing for you. I've heard it said that corporations basically act like sociopaths and that sure is an example of sociopathic "reasoning". Yeah, they change food production methods to maximize profit, and in so doing produce an unsafe food product, then blame the consumer. And, as a group, we consumers have fallen for it hook line and sinker.

It's scary is what it is. We have a population that accepts infected feces in our food as normal.

[hill food]

Pipenta, the lesson: always listen to the overload/puppetmaster.

[amethiste]

When my Dad was a kid, the neighbor's chickens used to lay their eggs in his family's outhouse. His grandfather would take said eggs and mix them raw with canned milk, sugar and vanilla to pour over cereal. My Mom says Dad served this to me once and once only. Thankfully I was too young to remember it. Yuck!

[Passadumkeg]

When I was sixteen I drank my first beer w/ a raw egg in it w/ my uncles, dad and grandfather. A right of passage?

[Alan N]

A wrong of passage unless you managed to keep it down. Is that something you have had since?

[Passadumkeg]

Every now and then, I throw an egg in my beer. I have introduced our eldest 2 sons to the nurishing treat too. They are good beer drinkers. In the 70's, after work, we called it the drinking man's supper.

[Alan N]

What type of beer is best for the combo? Any kind of egg?

[nyxpooka]

Have to admit that olive oil does something beautiful for eggs. So does butter though. Hee hee...did the dew washing thing work? Sounds a whole lot nicer than a chemical peel! LOL...
As for pasta, I didnt like italian food at all until I was in college. I just didnt realize that it was actually quite tasty when other people cooked it, but my parents didnt make very good pasta sauce. I never could tell them the truth...learned to choke it down in my later years...

[Passadumkeg]

Herring on rye for breakfast and kapusta (saurkraut) w/ everything. My childhood WASP friends wondered why our "house smelled funny".

[lattelover]

Just remembered another one....Wilted Lettuce. Mom would cook some bacon, add some vinegar and sugar to the grease and pour it over lettuce, stirring until it wilted.

[shallots]

Wilted Black Seeded Simpson lettuce. The one loose leaf lettuce that could survive Virginia Piedmont summer heat.

[KristieB]

I have a huge mess of Black Seeded Simpson in my garden as we speak. when we get back from our trip this weekend I am so getting some bacon, green onion, radishes and making a wilted lettuce salad.

[Vetter]

Oh, yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhh. Yum. I grew up running to the garden for red leaf lettuce just so that we could make this delight. I've never understood why I haven't seen it anywhere else, as it is amazing. I think my mom put a little mayo in the sugar and vinegar mixture. Bitterness and sweetness from the lettuce, tang of the vinegar, sparkle of the sugar, salt of the bacon, oh my.

[turqmut]

We had that too! Lettuce straight out of the garden & the first harvest of the spring. Sooo good.

[cycloneillini]

Same here. Exactly like lattelover's recipe.

[lemons]

Here's another for wilted lettuce, made in such a big batch for the 3 of us that Mom used a dishpan. No sugar at our house, though, but sliced green onions. I can still eat a huge batch of it. I have heard folks saying it's better with iceberg because it stays crisp, but I loved the wilt-iness of it that way.

[Stillwater Girl]

My parents had fairly boring, standard ideas of what food was but there were quite a few things that we were denied. I was in college before I had ramen, mac & cheese, delivery pizza, steak, pork chops, and fish NOT well done, any form of Doritos, Perkins, or Chinese food. My college roommates wondered what planet I grew up on. When I told my mom I had sushi for the first time several years ago I thought she was gonna pass out.

[laliz]

What is/are Perkins?

[rockandroller1]

www.perkinsrestaurants.com

[Emme]

my mom certainly wasn't a cook, but there were a few of the things she did prepare/cook that i didn't realize were out of the ordinary until i had friends over or went to a friend's houses...

tuna salad made with red onion, red apple, celery and curry powder

strawberry shortcake - that yellow cake from the market produce section, soaked with some skim milk, then topped (to my chagrin) with strawberries and reddi-whip... i used to chew and swallow the strawberries asap as i didn't like them, but for some reason thought i couldn't have strawberry shortcake if i didn't eat the strawberries... my mom now asks me why i didn't speak up... i apparently surely could have just had the milky cake and whip, which i would inevitably mash up into a soup of sorts once i'd disposed of the strawberries

when we ate chicken soup (that my grandmother slaved over all day), we always had the soup, lukshen, carrots and celery in one bowl, then the chicken served on a plate to be dipped in mayo. i didn't realize this was odd, until we were in a restaurant one day, and my friend ordered a bowl of chicken soup, and it came all in one bowl without any mayo...

on the other hand, i had a thai friend who had no idea that it was weird (or at least i found it weird) that her parents had no problem with her eating sara lee poundcake for breakfast. or even red vines.

[mr jig]

Slice of homemade white bread thickly slathered with sour cream and generously drizzled with molasses or dark Karo syrup.
To die for. Sweet sour contrast!

I still do this once a year just as a reward to my 72 year old taste buds!
dick

[alliedawn_98]

You'd probably like this. My grandmother would mix cane syrup with sour cream and dip biscuits in it. I still do this when I have cane syrup at home....hard to find in Indiana.

[Sal Vanilla]

That is how my mom and now all the kids in my family make tuna salad. No exceptions, no other way. My sister went rogue with a grannie smith substitution. it was not well received.

That said - we never had any other fish in our house except for starkist tuna and that only when my dad was away for business. My dad was homeless for the majority of his childhood and lived on fish, grits and greens. For some reason the fish got ditched and the other two embraced. As a youngster I never had a piece of fish unless I caught it with my grandpa. Later I caught a tuna (at ten) and my mom forced my dad to let me cook it. We kept my one piece and gave the rest away.

Later in life I fished nearly every day and ate fish almost every day. Funny how that works.

[hill food]

my dad grew up during the Depression and had a similar attitude. to him fish was poor people's food and only acceptable if caught oneself. canned tuna was such a treat for me when he was out of town.

now after cholesterol screenings following years of bacon and beef and the shift in market prices, that perception has changed.

[alkapal]

>>>>My sister went rogue with a grannie smith substitution.<<<<<

too funny. i did that with a jalapeño jack cheese as a substitute for just some of the cheddar cheese chunks in my mom's leseuer pea salad. it got the same response as your sister's granny smith substitution.

[misspastina]

Every morning of 4th grade I had a slice of Sara Lee poundcake, lightly toasted, smeared with raspberry jam. This was my own creation, after my mother left for work.

[Emme]

one of my best friends growing up was Thai... she routinely ate Sara Lee Pound Cake, when her parents were around :-) she also loved red vines and dried pork, both of which she traded at school as if they were gold... half a stick of licorice for a bag of chips... yeah that seems like a fair exchange rate... ;)

[mpjmph]

I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house as a kid, and many of the "strange" foods come from them. My favorite was green beans (or field peas, or collards) cooked with potatoes and cornmeal dumplings, all served in one bowl with a generous amount of pot liquor and topped with ketchup at the table.

If they could get really fresh cream we would have biscuits and cream for dinner - each person would pour about 1/2 cup of cream on their plate and add molasses, preserves, or whatever else they wanted, then sop it up with fresh biscuits. That was it, the whole meal was cream and sweet stuff sopped with biscuits.

The strangest one, even I always thought it was odd, was my grandfather's love of butter. We would frequently have little debbie cakes for dessert, and would smear a 1/4 inch thick layer of butter on his oatmeal cream pie before eating it.

[VTtoMAtoCAfoodie]

I have to say the fresh cream/biscuits/molasses and preserves sounds like heaven to me :)

[L_W]

This is actually my SO's story....
I was about to throw out the leftover pasta and sauce and he says "save it so we can fry it up tomorrow". I had no clue what he meant, but stuck it in the fridge. The next day, he fried it in a pan til it was all crispy and, omigod, so good. He acted like EVERYONE fries their leftover pasta. I had never heard of it and neither had any one else I asked.

[dolores]

I forgot ALL about that, LW! My father did (and still does) savor my mother's macaroni and gravy down to the last morsel, and she would cook it up in her (she still uses it) Creuset frying pan that she got as a bank gift.

I would wait until he got to the bottom of the pan and scape out all the crunchy bits.

How funny.

[dlane]

My kids still fight over the "crispies" left at the bottom of baked macaroni and cheese, lasgne, casseroles, etc.

[Sooeygun]

I have seen that on cooking shows. I can't recall which ones.

[laliz]

I love Love LOVE fried spaghetti. Tried to feed it to my kids once. Notice I said once.

Sigh. Their father is full blooded Italian and I guess it is in their genetic makeup or something to not enjoy one of my childhood favorites.

What's a mother to do? (hint. eat it all herself)

[nyxpooka]

My kid wouldnt ever try anything either. My kid is like the pouncake and red vines kid mentioned further back on the string. Sounds good to me though...with some butter and herbs or just butter. I grew up with that flavor albeit I bet I would like it fried instead of just warm.

[pesto]

Still the best way to heat up leftover pasta. I fry it in a cast iron pan with butter.

[Boccone Dolce]

Oh G-D yeah we had fried macaroni! I do it in butter, usually a scrambled up egg or two, extra grated parm, no sauce/gravy just whatever leftover is clinging to the noodles.

[jessicaxo]

My SO introduced me to fried pasta leftovers...although he tops his with a fried egg and a sliced banana. He says he learned about the banana-on-pasta trick from some Ethiopian friends.

[Isobel_A]

That's how my Swiss step-mother reheats pasta, in a cast iron pan with butter, and always has. Yummy!

[tzurriz]

a frequent breakfast: sliced bananas with a sprinkle of sugar and then a huge dollop or two of sour cream.

Lunch: cottage cheese, herring in cream sauce (homemade), and canned peaches. Oh so good.

Oh, and I didn't have "white bread" until I earned my own babysitting money and my sister and I bought a loaf to try. We were so disappointed! It was spongy and nasty. Why did the other kids tease us about our rye or pumpernickel sandwiches when they had to eat that garbage! lol.

[BobB]

Sliced bananas with sour cream (no sugar) was a staple in our house too. I wonder if it's an Eastern European Jewish thing?

[tatamagouche]

Ditto, and those are half my roots too.

[tzurriz]

did you do strawberries too?

I think the sugar is because my dad has a major sweet tooth. ;)

[tatamagouche]

Yes, strawberries and sour cream with brown sugar, actually (the clumpy type, not the granulated type). But no sugar on the bananas. The latter was for breakfast and the former for dessert.

[goodhealthgourmet]

definitely an Eastern Eur. Jewish thing...we did both in our house. it was a breakfast dish, and strawberries always got brown sugar, bananas sometimes - depended on who was eating it.

[operagirl]

Yet another Ashkenazi whose father introduced her to sour cream and brown sugar on strawberries. I had no idea it was a Jew thing.

[Passadumkeg]

Sorry, just Russian decent: strawberries w/ sour cream and brown sugar. Sour cream on potato pancakes, and blintzes too.

[operagirl]

Heh I was referring to myself! Sorry for the mixup.

[Passadumkeg]

Shalom.

[MrsT]

I remember a girl I went to school, loved banana's and cream. Her mom packed it for lunch one day, but she was embarrassed to eat it in front of the class so she skipped lunch.

BTW: I thought it was normal to put salt on French Toast, no syrup. Until I was at a sleep over. Today when I make it I have one piece with salt and another with syrup.

[elance]

That's how my husband has his French toast - savoury, not sweet. He's Scottish.

[RachelPgh]

With my father being of off the boat Eastern European Jewish heritage and my mom being a New Jersey farm girl, we had quite the mix. But ALWAYS the sour cream.

Sour cream on everything. In everything. Sour cream sandwiches. Sour cream and brown sugar on grapes. Also herring and sour cream on dark bread. We also had stuffed grape leaves with, what else--sour cream--on every Thanksgiving table.

Matzoh with butter and jelly was and still is a favorite snack. Anyone else remember when they would have chocolate covered matzoh around the holidays? That was always a treat.

From my mom we got cream cheese and jelly sandwiches--the kids at school always thought that was weird. Also an awesome dish that I've never seen anywhere else--fried tomato gravy. She would mash about 2 dozen tomatos (fresh from the garden of course), and cook them down with some oil on low heat for a couple of hours until it was a thick concentrated tomato paste. Then add some cream and a bit of sugar and served over mashed potatoes. Still one of my favorites.

[alkapal]

funny enough, tomato gravy is done in the south, but made with bacon drippings and flour to thicken. served over white bread or white rice. mmmm, gooood home cookin'!

[pikawicca]

I like to add a little cream to my tomato gravy, and serve it over biscuits, mashed potatoes, and meatloaf.

[alkapal]

oops, yeah, i forgot to add the milk. and when you're out of milk, water has to do.....

and cream -- ooooh -- that's livin' rich, girl!

[MinkeyMonkey]

We often had cream cheese and jelly sandwiches for grade school lunches! My dad would make them to our demands. One time he made cream cheese, strawberry jelly and....drum roll....liverworst! My mom was horrified when that turned out to be our favourite and most requested sandwich.

My grandmother was a depression era gal so everything had butter. Everything! Crackers, salad, sandwiches, mac 'n' cheese, celery and sometimes she would make us her depression coffee or tea which had butter instead of cream. I actually liked that one!

We hardly used butter or oil and when we did use oil it was olive oil. I found it odd that most people I knew cooked with so much grease, oil or butter!

We were close to vegetarian so my friends did not understand why we didn't have meat at every dinner. Oh, and they had no idea why my parents would let us eat the foods of our choice!

And, the weirdest thing of all is not from my family but from my boyfriends'...his mom regularly ate sandwiches with peanut butter and red onion. But not just any onion, big, thick slices about a half inch thick or more!

And, when we were little, my brother and I would put large amounts of milk on our jello then, for each bite, we'd swish it around in our mouths so it blended well. I think this was the only time my mom let us make awful noises at the table!!!

[alkapal]

>>she would make us her depression coffee or tea which had butter instead of cream<<

now *that* dish you have to describe further, minkeymonkey! like a coffee-flavored buttercream?

[MinkeyMonkey]

She would put tons of sugar, coffee crystals, hot water and about half a tablespoon of butter in it. She said they did that when they ran out of cream or milk. Although, I think they did not often have cream...now I forget!

It was super yummy actually.

[Scrofula]

Sliced bananas with yogurt (and generally sugar) is not unheard of in parts of India. My parents picked up the habit in college, and I inherited it.

[burgeoningfoodie]

I think so we had it too.. but we added sugar sometimes but only a little I think honey now would work really well. Also did blueberries or strawberries.

[Kate is always hungry]

Another bowl of sour cream and sliced bananas, here!
I was also served cottage cheese with cannd peaches. To this,day it is my go-to headache food. My mother would cut up strawberries add sugar to macerate, then into the sour cream they went. I come from a sour cream-obsessed home. As stated previously, we ate French toast with sour cream.
Sour cream herring with pumpernickel bread--azay geshmacht!

[Judith]

Another Ashkenaz here . . . sour cream on everything -- blueberries, bananas, strawberries. Sour cream on toasted kaiser rolls with coarse salt on top, on French toast, on rye bread, on blintzes.

[goodhealthgourmet]

whenever my parents have a family brunch, one of the highlights for me is pickled herring in cream sauce - it's the only time and/or place i ever have it. my father gets it from Zabar's, and i swear the ratio of sour cream to herring must be 4:1!

[RhondaB]

My parents' house was the same - sour cream ruled ... with bananas & berries, on latkes, on knishes. Dad also loved adding sour cream to his ice-cold (thanks to the addition of ice cubes) borscht along with a boiled potatoe. Another Friday shabbat favorite, in addition to the homemade kishke, was helzel that my bubby sewed together & stuffed. Dad used to surgically cut & portion it out so everyone got an equal slice. No cholesteral worries in those days!

[Kate is always hungry]

Thanks for reminding me about the latkes. My father made the best latkes. Fortunately, my brother learned well. Latkes--another reason to eat sour cream!

[TampaAurora]

My family did the sour cream thing on my dad's side. My mom's side is lactose-intolerant and I learned by love of latkes with applesauce, salt and pepper. Oddly, I also learned my love of cheese latkes with pie filling from this side of my family.

[JamieK]

not Jewish but Eastern European descent -- when we grew up, sour cream with french fries (and salt). delicious.

[Passadumkeg]

don't forget sour cream in borscht or a cucumber, onion, dill and sour cream salad.

[kattyeyes]

Adding to the "Jew Crew"--sour cream mixed into Jello, either before it sets or after. Mmmmm! I attribute all my rich/dairy cravings to my Jewish heritage. :) But also, growing up in an Italian family, I didn't realize until I went to college that not all holiday meals begin with LASAGNA. :) And I never got the mayo on fries thing till I got hooked on garlic mayo...I ask for a side of that with my fries when it's available.

[hill food]

given that gelatin has animal matter, is it allowed to mix in dairy? just curious, still trying to understand the ins and outs.

[kattyeyes]

I can't say if it's Kosher, but it's delicious. Apparently, the Eastern European heritage is a pathway to love of many tasty things with sour cream.

[hill food]

I'd take that any day over the vile Jello/whipped cream abomination foisted at picnics.

[tatamagouche]

Amen to that. So to speak.

[Kate is always hungry]

There is pareve gelatin. I have some tucked away in the kitchen. Widely used in kosher foods such as marshmallows.

[herbalista]

I have a good friend who was raised around her Romanian grandmother and thought everyone ate sour cream on everything. She tells about going to an Italian restaurant with her cousins and having one of them ask where the sour cream was when they served her spaghetti.

[Isobel_A]

My (Swiss) step-mother always made strawberries cut up with honey to macerate, and then poured onto white bread that had been lightly fried on both sides in salted butter. We had it for dinner in summer, and the crispy salty bread going soggy with the strawberries and syrup was divine.

[rockandroller1]

One of our favorite breakfasts was sliced pepperoni fried up in a skillet, feta cheese, kalamata olives (yes, we were Greek) and buttered toast. I thought it was perfectly normal til I went away to college.

[tatamagouche]

My mom always made tomato soup with buttered popcorn, which we sprinkled into the soup like croutons.

She also made me cream cheese and green olive sandwiches, which doesn't seem so odd but horrified my grade-school friends in Oklahoma.

[dolores]

I had cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, on Wonder bread of course. Yum.

[kawachi]

Try peanut butter with cream cheese ! Yum

Also, I used to go to deli where they had Italian hard salami w/whipped cream cheese on a kaiser roll. Delish!

[CoryKatherine]

cream cheese and jelly.... forgot about those. love love love

[kattyeyes]

How did I not mention this previously--banana bread sandwiches filled with cream cheese OR butter!

[tonina_mdc]

Oh wow, kattyeyes, that sounds AWESOME! My arteries are screaming at the thought of one, but my brain's cheers are drowning them out. ;-)

[Jasz]

My cousin turned me onto the cream cheese and jam when I was visiting her in Texas. Divine!

[burgeoningfoodie]

it's good stuff

[betsydiver]

sandwiches with cream cheese and olives or jelly were always my favs! my mom always stuffed celery with cream cheese and olives for her parties; i've done it and never had leftovers!

[tzurriz]

Oh, I love cream cheese sandwiches!!!

[dlane]

Tomato soup with buttered popcorn! Sounds yummy - I will definitely try soon.

[cycloneillini]

It's even better with cheesekorn or better yet cheetos

[BobB]

We had cream cheese and olive too. Our ancestors (half of yours, anyway) must have come from the same shtetl, tata!

[goodhealthgourmet]

i'm loving this thread - i haven't thought about some of these foods since i was a kid! i loved cream cheese & olives....actually, i loved cream cheese on pretty much anything ;)

cc & jelly on matzah was a Passover staple, and the rest of the year, it was cc & jelly on Wonder bread.

[Cheflambo]

I had cream cheese and olive sandwiches too.. it was one of my favorites. We also had cream cheese and jelly on raisin bread, a treat I still enjoy from time to time. I love the idea of tomato soup with popcorn .... will definitely be trying that. We also had fried bologa (Oscar Meyer of course) and leftover fried spaghetti. This was pre-microwave, so it was really the only (and best) way to reheat it. Mom also saved the heels of our bread (stashed in the freezer) and buttered and baked them to go with dinner. We called them "gramma specials" because it was something my grandmother had also made for us. And Im sure if I went to my mom's freezer now, there would be some bread heels just waiting for ... who knows??

[Judith]

I vaguely remember that cream cheese and green olive sandwiches were trendy back in the fifties. Cream cheese and jelly was pretty commonplace when I was growing up. Also there was a chain (at least in NY) called Choc Full'o Nuts which had a limited menu that included their coffee and among a few other things, cream cheese sandwiches on date-nut bread. When I was a kid that seemed like the height of sophistication.

[betsydiver]

definitely cream cheese and olives sandwiches, one of my favs...also cream cheese and jelly

[adrienne156]

Fried egg sandwiches made with buttered toast, spread with orange marmalade.
Baked potatoes with butter, s&p, and ketchup.
Grilled cheese sandwiches with ketchup.

[invinotheresverde]

It's weird how food perceptions work. I have no qualms about putting small amounts of catsup on a burger or fries, but for some reason, putting it on a grilled cheese or baked potato really creeps me out (even thoughit's virtually the same thing).

Oh brain. So strange.

[adrienne156]

My parents both went to English (British)-Medium boarding schools as kids, so we eat A LOT of British influenced stuff. Tea is served with milk, ketchup is the condiment of choice, and we always had these corn flake crisps made with golden syrup, butter, and melted chocolate in place of rice crispy treats. :o)

[tonina_mdc]

Come on, most tea is meant to be served with milk or cream! I tried Earl Grey with cream for the first time under my godfather's auspices when I was in college. I have never looked back. A steaming cup of good-quality Earl Grey tea with some cream and just a little sugar can make any day seem lovely!

[adrienne156]

I agree, I just didn't know that people drank it hot without milk until my teens.

[nyxpooka]

Hmm, those treats kinda sound like Special K bars! My SO begs for them once in a while. In fact, I think that will be his Valentines day present instead of a box of chocolate! LOL

[adrienne156]

I did that for my SO a few years back! My gift basket had those mini servings of apple jacks, Kraft man & cheese, BBQ Pringles... He thought it was hilarious.

Those Special K bars taste similar, but the chocolate crisps are buttery, chocolatey amazingness. Definitely not 90 calories a pop.

[Sal Vanilla]

My husband is a grilled cheese and ketchup guy. I close my eyes to it. It skeeves me out. You're right... Oh so strange the brain.

[MinkeyMonkey]

Oh, my, yes! I can't eat a grilled cheese without ketchup and mustard! Which now reminds me off the way we ate french fries...with mustard! And, same for baked potatoes; we put mustard instead of butter on our taters.

A friend of mine in high school dared me to try what she thought was the best and weirdest, an apple pie from McDonald's (back when they were still fried and practically dripping with oil) with ketchup. And, to my horror, it was absolutely delicious!

[akq]

Mom makes an awesome roast chicken by rubbing white vinegar and herbs on the chicken - my favorite. Who knew that some people use butter??? heh.

Chili over rice (that's how everyone eats it in HI) - imagine the blank looks I got on the "mainland" when asking for rice rather than cornbread, crackers or chips.

Mixing mochi crunch (arare) in popcorn at the movies. Asked for it at a theater in Wilmington, DE (spent summers with my grandparents) and was shown to "munch n' crunch" - not the same.

[elance]

Chili over rice is the preferred way in the UK as well, although you sometimes get tortilla chips.

[tonina_mdc]

My husband and I eat chili over brown rice all the time. It's a great way to make chili stretch if your food budget is tight!

[hill food]

plus a grain and a legume create a whole protein (or so I'm told)

[alkapal]

..."so a grain and a legume walk into this bar...."

:-).

[hill food]

looking for a what? and they're told "we don't cater to your trade?"

foodist!

or even better I propose the term foodistinista for our most extreme acquaintances.

[BobB]

and the grain says to the bartender, "Gimme a rye whiskey - straight up!"

The legume looks at the grain and says, "Cannibal!"

At which point the wino two seats over gets shakily to his feet and says, "I'm going to take a pee," and the legume runs for his life.

[Alan N]

soaked and chili, looking for some hot company.

[MoxieBoy]

Ah, kishke, my favorite vegetable.

At least I thought it was a vegetable because it always was a side dish when growing up.

After all, how could you enjoy life without tongue sandwiches, calves brains and schav!!?!

[HotMelly]

This is so cool, I started this post only yesterday and am suprised at all of the weird foods our parents fed us. I thought of another cool thing my mom would fix for us. It was "JELLO" pudding. it didn't matter what flavor, but I really liked the butterscotch the best. She would make it in a cake pan so it would be super thin. There was this crust kinda thing that would be kinda rubbery. I could pick it off of the top of the pudding in one piece . Does anyone know what the heck i am talking about ?? I really can't explain it. It is the topping of the pudding that over cooks I guess. It was soooo good. In the words of Bill Cosby....There is always room for JELLO

[BobB]

Sure, the skin on the pudding we called it, and yes it was the best part. We never made it in a cake pan though - that's WEIRD (he says in the voice of a seven-year-old).
;-)

[dolores]

Of course, only my mother used My-T-Fine and the skins would form on the pudding in the dishes. And the pot, it was always fun to lick the pot.

[BobB]

We were ecumenical - we ate My-T-Fine, Jello brand, tapioca, even Junket rennet custard. If it was a dessert powder in a box, we cooked it up and ate it!

[brandywiner]

We used all of the above, as well. And Junket! I haven't thought of that in years!

And put me down as the one who waited for someone else to pull off the skin before I spooned out the "good stuff" below!

[dolores]

Junket rennet custard. I can't even remember what that tasted like. Do they still make it?

Did anyone ever try the European strawberry mousse in a box mix? Not bad.

There was also a Jello and Cool Whip thing, iirc, where half was jello and half was a faux mousse, always pink in my house.

Good stuff.

[alkapal]

did that pink dish also involve cottage cheese? the green one with nuts used to be called "watergate salad" -- for what reason, i haven't the faintest idea. it was definitely that era, though.

salad. was. seen. at. every. single. potluck.

[BobB]

"Do they still make it?"

They sure do: http://www.junketdesserts.com/custard...
As I recall it had a very mild flavor and a weird slippery consistency.

There was also a product called Whip 'n Chill, which had sort of a gelled-mousse-like texture. Many years later when I first discovered the wonderful world of Bavarian creams I referred to them as Whip 'n Chill for grownups!

[dolores]

Thanks, BobB. In my recreational travels to supermarkets, I will have to put it on my list.

I'll have to make a note of the European mousse thingy, which is no doubt in the international aisle, along with the indescribably good HobNobs, chocolate of course. You can't eat just one.

[macca]

When my granmother made a "boiled dinner", she included the corn beef, and alo corned spare ribs. The bones got nice and soft, and we we were able to eat about halfway up the bone> A market near me sell the corned ribs around St Patricks Day- and I still enjoy it!

[dolores]

macca, were you eating bone or gristle? I left off the gristle on sparerib bones in my list, that's my favorite part. Hubby eats the meat, I eat the gristle, Jack Sprats are we.

[macca]

we ate the meat, the bone and the gristle! Still love it, but the kids think it is gross!

[nyxpooka]

Boiled dinner is the BOMB! Potatoes, carrots, celery, onions and sometimes cabbage but not always. Dad makes it and it is just as good with a nice cheap chuck roast. I am pretty sure the only seasoning my parents use on it is salt and pepper, and a couple of cloves (usually no more than three for a regular sized roaster...too many is gross...made that mistake once!) LOL

[ChrisOC]

I used to love the maple flavored Junket

[goodhealthgourmet]

the pudding skin & the bits that clung to the sides of the pot were the best part! i think My-T-Fine was an East Coast thing, no? my friends from other parts of the country thought i was nuts when i mentioned it during a discussion one day about junk foods from childhood. they only knew from Jell-O.

[lemons]

We had My-T-Fine in rural Missouri....

[tracylee]

I seriously miss My-T-Fine chile!

[tatamagouche]

It is, but see above...I still want to know the details about chili with PB!! Spill!

[HotMelly]

tata.Heck if I know.My dad would always put a spoonful of Jif or Skippy peanut butter on our bowl of chili. It kinda melted and disappeared after much stirring. I don't really know if it made the chili better or not, but it was a family ritual

[HotMelly]

The one that gets me is the Tomato soup with popcorn.... And we all wonder why we are all messed up. By the way, I have Dyslexia, 5 out of 4 people have it.

[tatamagouche]

I think it sounds great, I'm going to try it!

But then I'm the one whose mom made the soup & popcorn...:)

[stuck in Hartford County]

Dyslexics pray to dog! Also, you might remember dyslexics, untie! or 4 out of 3 people can't do fractions. Ha ha- just some teacher jokes.

My family enjoys hominy in tomato soup- sort of like popcorn, but not. Weird, I know. Peanut butter, as you know, belongs in a fluffernutter sandwich (peanut butter/fluff/cheapass white bread). Sometimes we add bananas or chocolate.

Were "minute steaks" normal? Probably not. Nor was fried chicken dredged 1st in sour cream, then in crushed potato chips, and fried in Crisco. *cringe*

[NellyNel]

actually, that chicken sounds damn good to me

[kattyeyes]

What's that expression, "One (wo)man's trash is another (wo)man's treasure!"?

[stuck in Hartford County]

I was at a club cocktail party a few years ago, and I accidentally mentioned that chicken dish. Conversation stopped. Horrified expressions, pitying looks, evil smirks... Social. Suicide.

That chicken was darn good!

[alkapal]

i can see that hominy in tomato soup.

[mpjmph]

I've heard of PB in chili before... I can't remember where I first heard about it, but I started adding a few tablespoons to the mix years ago. It makes the flavor a little deeper, and the texture thicker/creamier.

[alliedawn_98]

My SO makes the best chili I've ever had the pleasure of eating and he always serves it with a peanut butter sandwich.....just peanut butter spread on a piece of white bread, folded in half. It's really good!

[akq]

My grandmother used to make me jello with an extra large layer of rubbery "skin" on it, since that's the part I liked the best (it's the part by the pan, not on the top, though). Over the years we perfected the recipe for it that way, but I don't remember it.

[grouper]

Banana sandwiches on white bread with butter. Sometimes I still like to eat it, but the butter must be Lurpak. My kids are grossed out by it. My mom used to make Tripe soup and I hated telling my friends about it. I know it's not too weird, but in my neighborhood it was.

[alliedawn_98]

Banana sandwiches on white bread with mayonnaise or sliced pineapple instead of banana. My mom would make the pineapple sandwiches like that for family reunions and other potlucks. She'd use the pineapple can to cut the white bread into circles and then after assembling, put a maraschino cherry in the center. Everyone I knew ate that and it wasn't until I moved to Indiana that I knew it wasn't popular everywhere.

[dolores]

Interesting, alliedawn. Pineapple on bread. That's probably where the concept of pineapple on pizza came from.

I never heard of that growing up and still haven't tried it. It's supposed to be good.

[cycloneillini]

I'm not a big fan of it, but one of my family's traditional holiday side dishes is somthing we call Scalloped Pineapple. It's kind of a really moist bread pudding with lots of pineapple chunks in it.

[Ellen]

Mom called that pineapple stuffing and we had it with ham at Easter.

[fadingdeath]

The only sandwich I can stomach on white bread is a creation I call the "dudical pickle sandwich" I created it as a teenager, knew is wasn't normal at the time, and still love it. It is white bread, miracle whip(not mayo) and hamburger sliced dill pickles (The neon green, krinkle cut kind, store brand is best).

[Captainspirou]

I guess the ethnic Vietnamese stuff I ate can be considered unusual. Especially caramelized fish and pork.

Personally I always liked bananas with american cheese. It's the only instance that I will ever eat american cheese.

[otps]

My Norwegian father fed me canned sardines. I brought a sardine sandwich ( white bread lots of butter and sardines ) to school for lunch one day and my lunch table emptied. I kept eating them after that, but only at home. He also made what he called egg nog, which was milk, Nestle's chocolate powder and several raw eggs slightly blended. It had to be drunk without stopping because it kind of stuck together in a glob.

[enbell]

I saw Mr. Rogers eat a banana with a piece of Kraft Singles wrapped around it once. For some reason it stuck, and I can still find an excuse to eat one every now and then!

[Captainspirou]

That's exactly why I do it!!

[Boccone Dolce]

Mom would take frozen waffles, toast them and smash a scoop of ice cream in between 2 of them for an ice cream sandwich. Good stuff, and this was before I was ever introduced to a waffle cone although maybe one or both of my parents knew about them? If Daddy made it he would use the ice cream that came in a square 1/2 gallon waxed paper thing- do they still make those paper boxes? And he would splice the box totally open, and slice a perfect square of ice cream (usually Neapolitan) and he would add whipped cream.
Not one of my friends ever served that as dessert when I was over!

[dolores]

Yup, I can see it now -- and no, they don't have those boxes anymore, they'd have to be Lilliputian -- removing the box from the ice cream and cutting the slices to fit the waffles. And then pouring syrup over all. Yum.

[kawachi]

Of course they make ice cream in those boxes! Every supermarket brand comes in one.

And on Mackinac Island in Michigan they have a fantastic ice cream parlor where they make fresh ice cream waffle (not waffle cones, true waffles) sandwiches w/vanilla ice cream. So yummy!

[Cliocooks]

Here (upstate NY) the ice cream still comes in waxed paper boxes, but they are oval-ish and have a lid. It's been years since I saw the old-style boxes,which had corners and were all in one piece. You could open them up and flatten them when the ice cream was gone. My mother used to do that, and put it on the ground for the dog to lick up the remnants of the ice cream.

[tonina_mdc]

Oh yes, those waxed paper boxes for ice cream are still out there. I don't think my father has ever bought any ice cream that didn't come in that packaging. Until I was about 7 or 8, I didn't know you could buy vanilla ice cream alone! My father always did our shopping and refused to take my sister or me with him. He always bought that neapolitan variety that had vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate in rectangles side by side by side, and I never knew you could buy a box that was just plain vanilla or chocolate!

[buttertart]

We always had that in the freezer when I was a kid - rather nasty, really - each flavor seemed to diminish the other two, somehow. Come to think of it, it may be why I can't stand chocolate and strawberry flavors together.

[tonina_mdc]

The flavors in those ice creams were so far away from real chocolate and real strawberry that I still love the two tastes together. However, the part I hated most was that my dad would never buy a new carton until all of it was gone. No one in the family liked the strawberry section (so heaven only knows why he continued to buy neapolitan ice cream!) so it would sit there for weeks until it got all sticky and goopy. I would usually dish it down the toilet while he was out once it became so old that no one would ever think of eating it. ewwww!

[burgeoningfoodie]

We use to do this too. Sometimes hard to eat if you got brain freeze too easily.

[meatn3]

My family gathered like vampires to sop up the blood from rare roast beef being carved onto slices of white bread...It wasn't until we started bringing "important" dates home for dinner and saw the horrified looks on their faces that we realized this might not be the norm...
Now we just gather for the carving sans SO's and keep mum!

We often had a side dish called "farmers chop suey". This is a mix your own concoction from individual bowls of sour cream, chopped cucumber, tomato and scallions. I seldom have met anyone familiar with it, but everyone I have served it to enjoys it.

[Kate is always hungry]

My mom used to make "farmer's chop suey" with sour cream, cukes, scallions, and radishes. I haven't had it in years. Very refreshing.. We ate it with dairy meals.

[ScubaSteve]

that was Polish Salad in my house but with the addition of iceberg lettuce hearts. we had it with pork chops and with kelbasa.

[lynnlato]

We were vampires too! My grandfather would grill up london broil for sunday dinner. It was always rare-med rare. We'd wait for the juices/blood to accumulate on the platter and then we'd pass it and use Italian bread to soak it up. Sometimes he encouraged us to drink it. Was he just a weirdo or was it his Sicilian roots? I don't know, but anyone outside the family thought it was creepy. :)

[dolores]

Hubby and family, whose father was Sicilian, did that when I first had dinner with them. It horrified me the first time I saw it and I still recoil at the idea, but make it available to him anyway. Blech.

[macca]

My grandmother used to make a roasts beef dinner evey sunday, and all of us kids wuld line up to get a spoonful of the :blood"- we used to call it "gravy on a spoon." Still do it when I make a roast, and before I thicken the juices into a gravy sauce.

[lynnlato]

Glad to know we weren't the only freaks doing this - and that others lived to talk about it! :-)

Dolores, I understand. Really I do... if I wasn't raised doing it I'd turn my nose up at it to. Kind of you to feed your hubby's need.

[macca]

The tradition is passed on!! My 7yo nephew gets a big smile when he has the juice from his steak spread all over his garlic bread ( and sometimes all over his face by the end of the meal)- and like a true young chowhound, he is one who helps make the garlic bread, and the one who seasons the steaks before grilling.

[Kinnexa]

My mom had a dish she called "bloody beef" - really just a sort of medium rare roast, but now I realize it was the only meat she did NOT serve baked to a dry, gray lump. I'm sure I got funny looks when I told my friends what we had for dinner!

[hill food]

my sympathies. that is why I prefer my meat and fish raw when feasible.

[caiatransplant]

I think people of European roots believed the juice was nourishing and very good for you. My mom was French and she said in her town, the meat juice was served to sick people. as it was easily digested, tasty and nourishing.

[alkapal]

it's the basis for "jus" -- so why does anyone think it odd?

[alkapal]

meatn3, i had to laugh at the somewhat ominous mood invoked by your comment "Now we just gather for the carving...." -- picturing some circled-buzzard-like attention focused on the meat juices! LOL!

[meatn3]

The level of focus was pretty close when we were kids! The bloody bread and picking off bits of crust from just fried chicken drew us like moths to a flame...

Now we try to be somewhat nonchalant!

[betsydiver]

the bloody bread was also enjoyed in our house, although i did not enjoy rarely cooked beef as a child, not rational but certainly child-like...

[Ellen]

There was never enought "blood" to go around in our house. Did that recently with a friend over for a steak dinner and she was truly horrified. who knew?

[tracylee]

I found out that our traditional peanut butter on pancakes isn't as normal as I'd expect it. I like to spread it on so it gets all melty, then mix syrup into it.

And my grandmother always put raisins in her meatloaf. Apparently that was normal to her. I always thought it was weird.

[lynnlato]

I put currants in my meatballs, along with pine nuts. The peanut butter on pancakes sounds strangely good, even with the syrup. I like to put butter and syrup on a pancake and then top it w/ a fried egg. Break the yolk and let it run all over the pancake and mix with the syrup... mmmmmm. So good. Not bad on waffles either.

I've learned that an egg or a piece of bacon can make just about anything taste better. Peanut butter can do a lot for foods too, but isn't quite as versatile as eggs and bacon!

p.s. Now it's got me thinking about a fried egg, bacon and peanut butter sandwich.

[TampaAurora]

I grew up with peanut butter and bacon sandwiches. Even better on an everything bagel!

[mtngirlnv]

I always was astounded that more people didn't eat peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. Any kind of pickle, but dill is the best.

[Kinnexa]

I loved PB and kosher dills! My father introduced me to peanut butter & pickle sandwiches, but he usually preferred the sweet chips. I think only dills or shredded carrot (maybe a tart apple) can make peanut butter taste good.

[lynnlato]

You did not - quit lying! ;-) (JK)

I'm having one tomorrow. I don't have an everything bagel, but I've got rye bread, which I love toasted w/ peanut butter!

[mmg]

For me it was peanut butter and bologna sandwiches. Don't knock it until you've tried it!

[BaltoPhilFood]

MMM, PB and Bacon, PB and Bananas, PB and Butter, PB and Potato Chips! I didn't like jelly as a kid but I'd take just about anything else on my PB sammies.
My mom also made me "square eggs" which was just a softboiled egg mixed in with buttered toast that was cut into lil squares all in the same bowl. I didn't know 'square eggs' wasn't the official name for it!

[FriedClamFanatic]

I remember a woman from Sanibel who went shell collecting every day with her PB and onion sandwich! I still haven't tried it 40 years later

[dolores]

PB and onion? Hmmm. I tried PB and sweet pickle, based on a fictional female detective doing it, and enjoyed it. Then again, I could probably eat PB and spackling.

PB and onion. Have to try it. Raw or sauteed, I wonder?

Oh, and then there was the raw onion in wine vinegar (there was no balsamic in my house as a kid) for sore throats.

[FriedClamFanatic]

I think it was raw..and this was in the days before Vidallia onions were popular, but it may have been a Bermuda onion

[betsydiver]

my mom loved raw onion sandwiches with vinegar, s& P on wonder bread

[herbalista]

I was raised on peanut butter and onion sandwiches and my mom still loves 'em. I got sick once after eating one for lunch (probably had nothing to do with it) and I haven't been able to eat one since.

[cycloneillini]

PB and bacon on toast was one of the few things my mother could get me to eat for breakfast and I still love it. It's even better on English muffins, but I never had those until I met my ex-in-laws who were from the east coast.

[Vetter]

I grew up with mom putting raisins in our taco meat. (Taco meat with packaged seasoning, no less.) I loved it and still make it once in a blue moon.

[marbiegreen]

How come no one has mentioned "Grevin" (SP??) Little pieces of chicken skin and fat that are slowly fried in a pan while pouring off the "schmaltz" that was rendered. Sprinkle some salt on those crunchy pieces and you have pure heaven!!! Every Friday night, all three of us kids would be put into the bathtub for our bath and my mom would bring a huge plate of that to snack on.

Leftover rice fried with an egg.

Sardine salad, any lettuce based salad with no dressing but a whole can of sardines crushed in the oil and mixed in...yummm

[BobB]

Also known as grivnets or gribnets (I think griven may be the singular). Pretty standard Ashkenaz food. That and schmaltz on rye helped put my bubbie and zaydie (grandparents) into an early grave.

[Judith]

Gribenes? Aka a heart attack on a plate.

[scubadoo97]

as a youngster around 5 yr old, I was skinny as a rail. My mother would make us butter and sugar sandwiches to fatten us up. Sound normal to you?

When visiting my cousins they would often eat cottage cheese with EVOO and lot of black pepper. I still like this today.

[marbiegreen]

I remember our version of Mac and Cheese was hot broad egg noodles with dry cottage cheese crumbled on top and tons of black pepper. I can't even look at that orange stuff!!!

[rccola]

That's a dairy-meal kugel, just not baked. Beaten egg in it to hold it together and bake in the oven.

[marbiegreen]

She used to make kugel also, served as a side dish. This was the whole meal.

I also remember Onion Cookies. Real thin rolled out dough with diced onion and poppy seeds mixed in and salt sprinkled on top. Baked real crisp. She used to use card shaped (heart, diamond, club, spade) cookie cutters and now that is a family tradition!

[tatamagouche]

Onion cookies sound wonderful. What kind of dough?

[marbiegreen]

Here is the recipe, 3 cups flour, 3 eggs, 3/4 cup oil, 1 tsp baking powder, 2 tsp salt, poppy seeds. Dough will be slightly oily. Roll really thin, cut and bake on an ungreased tray at 350 until nice and brown and crisp. Great with beer!!

[meatn3]

How much onion do you use?

[marbiegreen]

Oops! Forgot the most important ingredient!! Sorry. 1-2 Spanish (strong white ones) diced fine. I just made a batch and they are great!!

[marbiegreen]

Oops, forgot the most important ingredient! Sorry. 1-2 white spanish onions (the strong ones) diced fine. Mix all the ingredients together.

I just made a batch and they are great!

[rednails]

My (late) grandmother used to make these onion cookies, and I thought the recipe went with her to the grave. they were always better when extra thin and crispy, sometimes she didn't have the strength to keep rolling them so they were thicker. Thanks for posting this--I'll have to make them, but somehow I know they'll never be as good as hers.

[lvanleer]

My Dad was Jewish and for Yom Kippur his traditional break the fast meal that my Mom would prepare was a mixture of cooked egg noodles and cottage cheese....Evidently that's what his family had while he was growing up and I still make it even though I'm not Jewish(I grew up in a mixed house).

[kawachi]

We made something similar but instead of cottage cheese we used something called "farmer's cheese" which is like a dry cottage cheese. It used to be easy to find but not so much anymore. When I can find it, I usually find the "Friendship" brand....

[alkapal]

the "dry curd" cottage cheese used to be around more. i think breakstone's had one that was good. i can't tell from this information whether it in fact is still produced: http://www.planetfeedback.com/kraft+f...

[cgj]

If you live in the the Boston area, you can find a dry curd brand of farmer's cheese called "Andrulis" farmer's cheese, particualrly at Christmas and Easter. I have to hunt it down for my mom every year.

[Purrkins]

I have a recipe for tuna casserole (and it's REALLY good!) that I got from the dry curd cottage cheese I used to get from Safeway when they were still in the area. I can't find it any longer, so I just get a large container of regular, and rinse it in a sieve under running water and let it drain. Works great.

[hill food]

I'd bet ricotta would do a similar job.

[Moedelestrie]

We lived on the stuff but fortunately it is now again available here in Quebec. Liberty old fashioned cottage cheese (a l'ancienne) a good substitute is quark. Ricotta just is not the same.

[Cameraman]

We did the same, maybe a bissel sour cream. We'd also do it with cinammon and sugar.

[cycloneillini]

Sounds normal to me, only mine was "butter" aka oleo ("olee") with brown sugar and always on store bought white bread from the Wonder Bread thrift store.

[umbushi plum]

we were all skinny as rails too (i'm still am but i'm very young), except my mum would make us eat french baguette with jam and pouring cream which my friends thought was wierd

[betsydiver]

butter and sugar on white bread was another of my mom's favs could it be depression era? she used to call it poor man's cake

[moonmau]

Butter and sugar on white bread was given to me as a kid when there was nothing else sweet to be had in the house. We lived on a remote farm and one couldn't just run around the corner to pick up some candy or a snack cake.

[ZenSojourner]

It was butter and sugar on saltines in my house

[Meann]

Sweetened condensed milk on saltines ... oh, yes. My mother taught me that one.

[ZenSojourner]

We used to eat saltines crumbled up in milk. In fact my dad still insisted on eating it pretty much to the day he died. Actually he preferred Ritz crumbled up in milk.

[MinkeyMonkey]

My brother and I put canned whipped cream on saltines when there was nothing for dessert. So delicious!

[rccola]

I never really thought this was normal but my father used to eat sunnyside up eggs with grape jelly. Stained the whites blue and when the yolk broke the whole thing turned green. Nauseating.

But I like kimchee on matzo for breakfast.

[luvsseattle]

Tomato Aspic - served with mayo on the side. Now that I'm grown, I just can't stomach this "salad". But we always had it, and yes, I thought it was normal. :) Flan for dessert - which I still love to this day and don't find it abnormal, just not a mainstream dessert for families. Also would have to add baked squash with butter and a bit of brown sugar. I can remember, and still occassionally come across, people who are amazed at the thought of baked squash. MY FAVORITE veggie! :)
I also thought it was normal (well, I kind of still do today!) NOT to rely on things like boxed mac n cheese, stove top stuffing, rice a roni, etc, etc... most everything was homemade.

[rccola]

I loved Rice-a-roni.

[tracylee]

I've always loved stove top stuffing! When I was single I'd buy the canister where you can make up a single serving. Yeah, I'm bad.

[umbushi plum]

that is wierd who dosn't love roasted squash!

[tonina_mdc]

I like most types of squash now that I'm an adult, but my mother used to make baked acorn squash with huge amount of butter and brown sugar when I was a child. I tried it a couple of times, but the taste and the gross image of all that butter undulating in the hollow of the half-squash made me feel sick. I have a major sweet tooth, but that was one thing I just couldn't stand. It actually turned me off of all types of squash when I was younger, but now I know better!

[alkapal]

tonina, let me give you a tip for a superb squash puree that's a zip to "make": bird's eye's frozen box of "cooked winter squash;" hands down it's the best squash i've ever had (fresh, or frozen). no butter needed! https://www.birdseyefoods.com/inspira...

i think it has also been marketed under these store brands, but i cannot vouch for their flavor or texture:

Stop & Shop
Shaw
Price Chopper
Lafe
Shurfine
Hannaford
Flavorite
Market Basket
Wegman's
Giant
Tops
Safeway
IGA
Roundy's
Remarkable
Dominick's

[tonina_mdc]

Thanks! I spotted Birds-Eye when my son was a young toddler. He loved squash as an infant, so that was (and is!) a wonderful way to make squash for him in a hurry at dinner time. He is an avid lover of nearly all types of squash - so much so that he used to turn a bit yellow when he was a baby from the carrots and squash he wolfed down! We were petrified at first, until his pediatrician told us it's just the "mark of a boy who loves his yellow and orange veggies!" Perhaps it's just the mark of a young Chowhound! ;-)

[alkapal]

just don't put your pumpkin-child on the front stoop for halloween! LOL!!!

[buttertart]

The baked squash with butter and brow sugar is one of my mother-in-law's specialties - she made it happily for many years until my father-in-law's very memorable coup de grace to end an argument over something else entirely (the long-married will understand) was: "And anyway, I never liked squash!".

[alkapal]

now she doesn't make it "happily"? or not at all? if i liked it, i'd still make it for myself, if nobody else. (i wish i could've seen her expression when hubby said that. i feel her pain. ;-)).

[buttertart]

Me too. She stil made it (and still does to this day) and he ate it, sheepishly. Revenge is sweet.

[alkapal]

ha!

[ErnieD]

The brown sugar doesn't work for me, but the undulating butter in the squash hollow is one of my favorite childhood memories. We had it with pressed garlic and coarse sale (or, honestly, Lawry's garlic salt depending on how long the day had been). I still cook acorn squash that way once a year or so, even though I know eating a pool of butter is not the greatest.

[alkapal]

"butter in the squash,
butter in the squash"*

* sung to the tune of "turkey in the straw."

love butter in the squash!

[phantomdoc]

I microwave butternut squash with butter and honey.

[decolady]

We used to have roasted squash with butter and brown sugar. It was a regular during the fall.

[betsydiver]

ots of different kinds of squash!... butternut or acorn are delicious baked w/butter and brown sugar; zucchini not so much!

[tapas]

Around Halloween, my dad would mix candy corn with salty, roasted peanuts. Until a Halloween party this year, I'd never seen it anywhere else.

Did anyone else listen to the episode of This American Life this summer in which a girl's family ate chicken every single night? She was amazed by the masterful chefs at her college's dining hall. It's in the first act of the show (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio...) and so worth listening to.

[TampaAurora]

Another teacher at school had the peanut-candy corn combo hidden in her office and I'm hooked. I went out that day and bought candy corn and nuts - it was a great pick me up!

[al b. darned]

Just out of high school (many moons ago) I worked as a dishwasher at a diner. We had a customer who had eggs over easy every morning with mustard on them. He then would smoke a couple of Pall Mall cigarettes and put the buts out in the same plate. The dirty dishes would always be waiting for me when I came in an hour later. Since the egg had dried on by then, they had to be scrubbed by hand before going thru the dishwasher. That smell of egg, butts, and mustard was enough to make one gag, especially first thing in the a,m.

I also had a g.f. At the time who put ketchup on fried eggs, which I thought was gross (and still do.)

[lynnlato]

Your post made me laugh. I, too, worked at a diner-type place just out of HS. We had a counter that was always packed with creepy old, white dudes chain smoking and drinking black coffee. They'd sit there for hours arguing and occasionally they'd eat. They drove the staff absolutely nuts and we dreaded having to "work the counter" because of them.

On the flip side (pardon the pun), that same place is where I had my first pan-sand: two pancakes with a runny egg in the middle, lots of butter & syrup and a side of bacon. Mmmmmm. :-)

[tatamagouche]

I love eggs with mustard, personally. But the after-odor you describe indeed sounds revolting.

Although ashes themselves, in the right context, make perfect sense to me as a food enhancer. An old acquaintance used to speak of his grandmother making red-eye gravy while smoking. She'd deliberately ash into the pot for extra smoky flavor, or so she said. He swears it was great. I'd eat it.

That's not even OT, since it's someone's family tradition, but this part is slightly: I remember a similar story from an old boyfriend's mom. She was visiting a farmhouse dairy in Ireland, and the cheesemaker smoked while making cheese and let the ash make its way into the product. Again, not a smoker myself, but all for it.

[dolores]

You don't like ketchup on fried eggs?

Wow. It ain't a fried egg if it doesn't have ketchup and jelly.

I love the picture you paint of the diner. Wish they were still like that.

[alkapal]

"He then would smoke a couple of Pall Mall cigarettes and put the buts out in the same plate." i think i've seen that man!

why do people do that to their plates? it is so foul! (i'm sure there were ashtrays around...).

[al b. darned]

Yes, there was an ashtray there, but he used it ...for his horse. You heard right. He had a small model horse that always ate with him. The first thing he always did when he sat down (in the end booth on the right side) was take out the horse, open a packet of sugar, dump it in the ash tray, and place the horse in front of it.

Also - woe to any waitress that brought him ketchup!

[nyxpooka]

Sounds like that customer was crazypants. LOL. I dont like mustard enough to try it anyway, but adding that extra tidbit of info about his horse really kinda drives it home for me. LOL

[hillsbilly]

al b d,

:D !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love you!
So funny!

[MinkeyMonkey]

We had a diner like that where I grew up. We would go there to religiously eat greasy food, mainly breakfast. They moved across the street years later, my brother worked there (in the pharmacy), I worked there (also in the pharmacy) and me and my dad would eat breakfast there. I was picky and hated eggs so I'd get hashed browns with cheese and grilled onions on top and then I'd ask them to smother them with green salsa. Sooo goood!

I can't forget all the old, familiar faces from the diner.

[icey]

When I was young, my grandma would always make stuffed veggies. She would take eggplant, pepper or zucchini halves and stuff them with a ground meat mixture. She would do the same with artichokes. So when I went to my friend's house for dinner one night when I was about 7, her mom came by with a plate of large steamed artichokes. She asked "Which one would you like?" I said "I'd like the one with meat in it, thank you" She was sooooo confused, and so was I, thinking "How could she not know which one had meat in it!?!?" Anyways, when we finally sorted out the issue, I was pretty surprised that not all artichokes came with meat.

[Justpaula]

Mine is really just a misnomer, vs. an "abnormal" food. For as way back as I can remember my father made pasta with meat sauce every single Monday night. It was simply pasta with chopped meat or sausage, maybe some mushrooms and jarred sauce. He still does this for just he and my mother. Also, for as long as I can remember, he referred to it as "his goulash". I was well into my adolescence before I found out what goulash actually is.

And upon visiting them, when I open the fridge and see a giant bowl of leftover pasta with meat sauce in the fridge, I smile and think, "Mmmm, Daddy's goulash".

[bermudagourmetgoddess]

Thanks, it was great to recall all the great food moments in my life!

We lived on a farm and all veggies and meat come from the farm.. I remember walking out to the garden grabbing a big juicy tomato and eating it like an apple the way to the bus stop...and Sundays were great...nice fresh eggs, fried scrapple, red eye gravy and ham. Oh for lunch loved peanut butter and mayo sandwiches...on wonder bread, had to be on wonder bread. Loved my mom's venison stew and her baked rabbit...this was normal for us!

Hint for grape jelly: next time anyone makes BBQ meatballs, mix one jar of grape jelly in the BBQ sauce...it works!

[Babyducks]

I thought my husband was the only one, he has peanut butter and mayo sandwiches with lettuce.

[jbsiegel]

How about peanut butter, Miracle Whip and American cheese? I ate that all the time growing up - on Wonder which my mom sliced in half using her "slice-a-slicer"

[kattyeyes]

Oh, wow, was that a 70s thing or what?!!! And, no, no offense, not the PB, Miracle Whip and Am. cheese, but the Slice-A-Slice!!!
http://www.ovenall.com/moblog/archive...

Actually, looking at the package, it must have been a 50s or 60s thing, but my mom used to make me liverwurst sandwiches in the 70s with French's mustard on Slice-a-Slice bread. I have to ask where it is! :) What a fun blast from the past!

[jbsiegel]

For the longest time, I thought that's how thick slices of bread were!!! I also never knew there was anything other than Wonder and Miracle Whip until I went to a friend's house and her mom made me mayo and American cheese on Pepperidge Farm white bread!

[fallingup]

My mom always used to pick the marrow out of chicken bones and feed it to us.

[bitsubeats]

wow, I used to do this when I was little (probably learned it from my mom). I used to crack them in half, chew on the bones, or pick out the marrow with those super skinny korean metal chopsticks.

[dolores]

Same here, bitsubeats. She, and then I, used to eat the wing bones up to the joint, the gristle from the breast bone, the gristle from the small round ham bone, and anything else that was fun and made noise and made the relatives recoil. I think the last part is the best.

[bitsubeats]

oh yeah I forgot all about the gristle. I loved the cartilage from the bones (still do) and sometimes I'll eat the cartilage off of spareribs bones

[jessicaxo]

For dessert: take a piece of white bread and put it in a bowl. Cover the top with brown sugar. Slice a banana over it. Pour heavy cream over top until the bread is covered. Eat. A variation of this is the Brown Sugar Sandwich where you would just take two pieces of bread, butter them, spread them with brown sugar and make a sandwich.

We would also have normal sandwiches "french toasted" - we would assemble a grilled cheese sandwich but before grilling would dip it into french toast batter, then cook it as normal. We also did the same with a tuna sandwich. Amazing!!

[goodhealthgourmet]

"A variation of this is the Brown Sugar Sandwich where you would just take two pieces of bread, butter them, spread them with brown sugar and make a sandwich."
~~~~~~~~
i was JUST talking about this at a recent family gathering! when i was away at summer camp we used to make "sugar bread" - take a slice of white bread, spread with butter, pour a packet of granulated sugar all over one half [no fancy brown sugar at camp], fold over the other half to close, press together to mush the sugar into the bread, and eat.

i told my parents that we used to do it all the time in the camp dining hall...they were horrified :)

every time i see the scene in The Breakfast Club where Ally Sheedy's character pours the pixy sticks onto her bread [before piling on the Cap'n Crunch], i think of that.

[BeefeaterRocks]

We had a milk cow when I was growing up. Greatest treat in the world, a slice of fresh hot homemade bread, butter and thick, thick cream sprinkled with brown sugar.

[goodhealthgourmet]

well now, yours sounds MUCH better than our cold, packaged, generic white bread with cheap food-service butter and stale domino sugar packets.

[jeanmarieok]

Yet both are strangely good and satisfying. I still occasionally sneak a sugar and butter sandwich when I am stressed out.

[hillsbilly]

OH! We used to have banana and white sugar sandwiches and I only recently remembered. My son kept asking for hot dogs but we didn;t have any so I offered him a banana dog; banana diagonal on a slice of bread, caster sugar sprinkled on top. Then they all wanted one. They love it.

We also used to have peanut butter with sweetened condensed milk on white bread.

Mmmm, crappy white bread, so many delicious ways...

[NellyNel]

Oh, another good one is crappy white bread with tons of mozzerella cheese on top and toasted in the oven.
The bread gets really soggy with the buttery-ness of the cheese in the middle, and toasty crip on the edges....mmmm
It's gotta be crappy white bread!

[cannedmilkandfruitypebbles]

Fluf and jelly sandwiches and peanut butter and fluff sandwiches were the best.

as for strange, we had cream on toast. (literaly flour and water made to look like cream), creamed (same preparation as above) dried chipped beef on toast. blah.

We would had a dinner of fried bolongna, called mexican hats for the way it puffed up in the middle like a sombrero.

Then there was the Snufalufagus stew my, mostly alcoholic, grandfather would make. This consisted of anything and everything at his disposal. Leftover beef, chinese mustard still around from take out the day before, a spash of beer, a potato, perhaps an onion, ect ect. all boiled down to a stew. yikes. oddly, it was always pretty good.

[macca]

Yoour Boston roots are showing with PB and fluff. A favorite of my brothers and I when we were kids. We vacation with relatives from Ohio every year, and they thought we were out of our minds the first time we made the sandwiches for our kids. Had never heard of such a combination!

[dolores]

Fluffernutters were regional? I didn't realize that. They were good, especially to someone with a serious sweet tooth.

[BobB]

Yup. Marshmallow Fluff was invented in Boston (more specifically, Somerville, MA) in the early 1900s, is still produced in MA, and has always been more popular in the Northeast than elsewhere.

[brandywiner]

Never care for Fluff (or marshmallow in general). But I still have the jingle stuck in my head:

Oh you need Fluff Fluff Fluff / To make a Fluffernutter
Marshmallow Fluff / And lots of peanut butter!

[macca]

I didn't realize it either, until we vacationed with our Ohio relatives- We ran out of fluff while on vacation ( we were at the Outer Banks in North Carolina), and finding the marshmallow at the supermarket was a chore! At home, it is carried with the PB and Jelly- in NC, it was on the bottom shelf in the baking isle! Live and learn!

[firni]

Totally with you on the fried Cheerios! My mom makes this snack mix with them, with spices. It's addictive...also, french toast w/out cream or milk or butter. and beet croquettes,,,

[Kate is always hungry]

As my mother did before me, I saute my Cheerios in butter. When they are golden brown, I sprinkle them with salt. They are delicious with chocolate milk.

[jeanmarieok]

I grew up in Buffalo, and ate a lot of fluffernutters as a kid. Moved to Richmond VA after college, and was happy to find fluff on the bottom shelf inthe baking aisle. Both my kids are huge fluff fans, still, and they are 15 & 17.

[cycloneillini]

I love fried bologna sandwiches on white bread!

[Babyducks]

Haven't had this in years, but I used to love balogna fried in butter on rye bread.

[bermudagourmetgoddess]

Oh hello! I love fried bologna, husband thinks I an nuts! Thanks for the support...I am not nuts afterall ;)

[kubasd]

i loved fried bologna sandwiches with ketchup on white bread as a kid!! Funny thing is, i hated unfried bologna.

[ChrisOC]

Fried bologna! haven't had that in years. I'll have to go to the store and get some nice thick sliced bologna!

[capicksnw]

you made me remember: fried bologna with a chunk of cheddar cheese melted in the center (edges of the bologna making a nice little "bowl" for the cheese).

[wrldsworstcook]

Oh - the creamed chipped beef on toast dinner! YUCK! My father (RIP) was a life-long Marine and this version of the tradtional "SOS" service ration was apparently one of his all time favorite meals. Mom would have to make this for dinner for all of probably once a week or so. I remember as a teenager, I eventually suggested that she save herself all that prep time and just throw us a salt-block to graze on ('cause that's all I remember of that meal....was like eating pure salt)!

[betsydiver]

just had this (stouffer's version) over toast for lunch today; my mom would often serve it for lunch on sundays after church... i remember the beef came in juice glasses containers...i don't know the manufacturer...

[MoxieLouise]

I think it was Armour (the same people who still make canned chili). It was good stuff; I miss it.

[Xacinta]

When i was growing up our housekeeper from Veracruz used to wake us up and leave over the night stand a plate with a fork and a sliced banana with some sugar sprinkled on top. If when i finally decided to get ready the sugar had dissolved into a thick syrup....that meant it had taken me too long to wake up. It was nice to start every day with this smell.

[NDHebert]

Turkey Sandwiches with Ketchup. ANYTHING with ketchup!

[RGC1982]

I have to admit, your family may win the prize... but I will nominate my family's brocolli rabe sandwiches, usually for a meatless Friday, as one of those things that did seem a little weird to find in your lunchbox. With a thermos full of milk, no less.

[dolores]

Broccoli rabe sandwiches! Wow, a trip down memory lane. We used to do dandelion (picked on the side of the road of course, yikes) sandwiches too.

No milk, though, and plenty of Tabasco. Yum.

[tatamagouche]

Hmm, what sort of bread is appropriate for broccoli rabe and dandelion?

[RGC1982]

A hunk of crusty Italian bread was best -- maybe about six inches from a long loaf. You needed a good consistency, because the contents can make a sandwich of broccoli rabe soggy if the bread is not great.

BTW - dolores -- I remember picking dandelion greens from a hill at a park with my Grandmother, but she put it in a salad with sliced plum tomatoes, sweet red onion and small cubes of cold potato dressed in a red wine and olive oil dressing that had a memorable amount of oregano in it. Yum. Embarrassing now, but it was delicious.

[dolores]

Sadly, tatamagouche, the 'builds champions in twelve ways' Wonder white bread.

True, RGC, it was very soggy, so we ate it quickly. Then again, my brother used to mix all the contents of his Swanson frozen dinner together, so you can't go by us.

The only Italian bread I would eat as a kid was my mother's or the fresh from the oven commercial bread from the bakery on my street. Hot Italian bread with lots of butter. Yum.

[dream75517]

SPAM! Maybe not so ABnormal, but maybe a bit more disgusting?

In a Korean household, or at least MY Korean household, we bought spam by the boatloads and put it into EVERYthing. We had it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We had it in stews (Kimchi Jigae) and omelets and prosaically with white rice.

I actually didn't think it wasn't normal until my (korean) friend came back from college and told us that his non-korean friends laughed at him for eating spam.

When I went to Hawaii this past summer, I felt completely at home eating spam loco...minus the gravy they served it with!

[pikawicca]

Nothing disgusting about Spam. I love it! Just read where Hormel is having trouble satisfying demand: With the economy tanking, lots of folks are turning to Spam for a cheap meal.

[cimui]

I third the sentiment. SPAM is one of those things I'd never even tried before all the gushy posts I read about it on Chowhound. I'm now quite a fan of it grilled or pan fried with rice.

[alliedawn_98]

Several years ago when I was still working outside the home, I created a stir fry dish using Spam. I didn't feel like going grocery shopping so just raided the fridge and pantry. I put in carrots, celery, water chesnuts, onions, garlic, Spam, and a "sauce" made from soy sauce, French dressing, brown sugar, and vinegar. I served it over rice. Hard to believe that my refuse dinner is still a family request to this day. The problem is, I can never replicate it exactly! lol

[cimui]

funny how potpourri dinners are so often the most satisfying! i save all the little sauce containers we get from takeout dinners and every once in a while, they'll all make their way into a soup or stew, sometimes to rave reviews. I can never quite replicate my successes, either -- but at least I also usually don't replicate the complete bombs. ;)

[nyxpooka]

My ex boyfriends family would use a spoon to eat the Spam slime from the can after you took out the meat. God, I am SO glad I didnt hang out with them very much!

[dream75517]

ah, spam is feelin the love =)
I think spam just confuses a lot of people. The shape, the color, the packaging, the fact that it could probably survive Armageddon...

[cycloneillini]

Me too. I remember lots of meals of fried Spam and boxed mac and cheese when I was growing up. Both things I still have a weakness for.

[merg01]

I grew up eating Spam. Fried Spam and cheese on hamburger bun was the Thursday lunch at the elementary school I attended in PA. I believe it was in the days of government commodities. Still eat it now and then at home. We particularly like the hickory flavored Spam slow fried topped with cheddar on Martin's Potato Rolls. If I'm going to eat a soft white bun, I want Martin's. Mary Ellen

[meatnveg]

oh so many...
- Savory french toast made with paprika, salt, black pepper. I still have not tried the sweet sugar coated variety.
- plain yogurt and banana slices
- eggs in 'white sauce' over bread for breakfast
- hot red/green chili pickles with every meal
- green pasta i.e. pasta infused with purred spinach served with ground chicken\
- BRAIN CURRY!!!! YUMMMMYYYYY...on its own i should add

[cycloneillini]

We called them goldenrod eggs because we put the crumbled yolks (the color of the goldenrod that grew all over the ditches in Iowa) on top and served it on toast. YUM!

[FoodChic]

My grandmother made a dish she called Kuppacapra. It was made with day old mashed potoatoes that she threw flour and eggs mixed it up and formed patties, and stuffed the center with ground up bacon and onions that had been lighly sauteed. These patties would then be boiled and served with drawn butter. It was true comfort food as a kid, but I've never seen anyone else make these.

[FriedClamFanatic]

WOW boiled rather than fried? Sort of like dumplings?

I've done a fried type thing like that, but the boiled might even be better (at least with a sauce)

[FoodChic]

As I got older, I thought it was a bit odd myself but I think it explains my love of gnocchi.

[dolores]

Oh yes, fried potato croquettes were always good. Usually with apple sauce, if memory serves. Not so fancy as yours, FoodChic, I like the idea of stuffing them.

Corn fritters too. Good stuff.

[nyxpooka]

There is a scandinavian dish just like that but I cant remember the name anymore. I do know that the recipe called for salt pork...so its an oldie! I have the recipe over at Dads house, they looked pretty interesting...

[Ellen]

Scrapple!.

[pikawicca]

I think that there should be a scrapple convention once a year. I'm in exile here in Indiana, and my family does not want to hear about it. I am bereft.

[Passadumkeg]

I think the Scrapple Festival should begin with a parade starting in the epicenter of Pensylvania Dutch country, Intercourse, Pa. and ending next door in Paradise, Pa. Count me in.

[cycloneillini]

I had never heard of scrapple until I met an ex who was from Virginia. You can actually buy it in the freezer case here in the Houston area. I'll have to admit it's pretty tasty.

[merg01]

We take a supply of Rappa Scrapple to our son in Tulsa whenever we visit. Sliced, frozen then packaged it lasts a long time. Much easier to cook thawed overnight rather than trying to slice from a thawed pound package...not as crumbly. Allows for portion control. We love the new spicy version. Mary Ellen

[G Goo]

I ALWAYS put maple syrup on my scrapple and ketchup on my scrambled eggs.

[Passadumkeg]

That is normal. (In our family.) Apple butter too.

[jeni1002]

Awesome thread - in addition to open-faced sandwiches, sour cream on anything from pancakes to blintzes:
* Butter lettuce with apple cider vinegar and sugar
* Pasta (typically orecchiette) boiled with milk and vanilla - similar to a rice pudding
* Butter and radish sandwiches
* Butter and sugar sandwiches
* Ham and apricot preserves sandwiches

[EmoryJ]

My mom made fried cornmeal mush for us too; either with Karo syrup or with eggs on top. We also ate cornbread in a glass with milk the second day - or well after dinner as a snack.
As far as sweet tooths go....My "little" aunt got me completely covering oranges sections in sugar....My teeth used to hurt afterwards haha

[dolores]

Polenta was one of the staples as a kid, and was made soupy (in my house) with gravy and sausage and meatballs, or solid, and sliced with the same topping, by my grandmother. I hated both versions.

Boy have I learned.

All this talk of sour cream, the dishes sound wonderful. I can't remember having much, if any, sour cream. Maybe the Lipton onion dip, that was it. How sad.

[tarot480]

our snack to make us got to sleep was sour cream on wheat bread with a mug full of cup o soup cream of chicken soup. mmm comforting...... my Mom would have a banana
sandwich on white bread with sour cream and walnuts. oh and liverwurst on white bread with mayo.

[JamieK]

As the child of immigrant Polish parents, I thought we were different because we had 'kartofle' so often. I didn't realize that my little WASP friends were eating potatoes as often and maybe even more than I was.

I used to love it when my mum gave us fried-up blood sausage. It was so tasty. I didn't realize other people didn't have this. And, since she called it by another name, I didn't think anything of it (the Polish name I can't think of right now, and wouldn't be able to spell anyway). Later, much older, I went to visit friends in England and was surprised to find people there liked fried blood sausage as well.

[polish_girl]

Jamie, that blood sausage is called "kaszanka". I love it too!

[JamieK]

Tak, that's it! Haven't had it in years but I think I'm going to pick some up next time I'm in a good butcher shop. Funny that it's known as "black pudding" in England, when you think about what it's made of.

[Passadumkeg]

Camping, it was a ritual to take a piece of salt pork, put it on a forked stick, roast the fat over the fire and hold the drippings over a piece of bread until satisfied and eat. Yuuum. We had a European name for it , that slips my mind.

[JamieK]

We used to toast chunks of kielbasa over our campfire. Us kids insisted on marshmallows like everyone else (ie, normal kids), but the kielbasa was good. And now we do the same as adults, but slathered with really tasty gourmet mustards!

My mum used to throw foil-wrapped potatoes into the hot embers of our fire and I used to think this was weird but now I realize it's sort of normal in campfire cooking.

[catrn]

On the nights my Dad cooked for us, he would always make pancakes and instead of syrup he would use pork gravy. YUMMMMMM!

[EmoryJ]

Now THAT'S Dadfood!

[irishdancer]

My friends always thought my monday afternoon snack was weird.

My mum always does a baked dinner for monday nights and so every monday afternoon, my older brother and I always have a sandwich that consists of lightly toased bread, butter, tomato sauce (ketchup), cheddar cheese, baked lamb, baked pumpkin and ranch dressing.

We've been having that on a monday ever since I can remember and we still do it now, even though we've both left school (I think 18 is still young enough to have your mum make you a sandwich lol)

[Glencora]

Your friends were right.

[bitsubeats]

I've posted this elsewhere, but my grandmother used to make "coffee" soup for my younger sister and I when we were little.

weak coffee mixed with milk and sugar, and poured over plain white bread. Eat soggy bread and coffee with a spoon. This was such a treat for my sister and I because our grandmother let us drink coffee when we were young, while our parents never let us ):.

I bet coffee soup was depression era food passed down to my sister and I.

[tzurriz]

I used to get Coffee Milk from my dad on Sunday mornings. It was a mug with warm milk, sugar, and a splash of coffee for color. I felt so grown up as I sat and read the comics while he read the paper and we drank our "coffee" together.

[reboehme]

When I was a kid my parents did the same thing and I would call it Foshee because I couldn't pronounce coffee.

[macca]

My grandmother used to make coffee jello. She added cofee to unflavored gelatin, and served it to us with milk and sugar. We loved it.

[jeni1002]

My grandma made coffee jello, too (but she added the milk and sugar in the jello). Also red wine jello (sort of mulled wine meets gelatin). No dairy in the latter of course.

[macca]

REd wine jello- who would have thought!!

[alkapal]

now THAT could start a retro-trend. but edgy..... e.g., gerwurztraminer jello cubes for an appetizer/apertif. or an eau de vie jello for dessert -- poire version --encasing perfect pear slices.

[landrew]

Sugar on mac and cheese - the boxed kind, and generally the store brand, not the blue box. Also sugar on grilled cheese sandwiches - 2 slices of white bread, a slice of american cheese, a liberal sprinkling of sugar, grilled in margarine. It took me a long time to ween myself from the sugary cheese.

[dolores]

landrew! Up until now, I was alone in my obsession with sugar on everything.

It's true, a spoonful of sugar DOES make everything taste better. Unless, of course, one is diabetic.

[Janet from Richmond]

I'm late to the party, but here are my memories of odd combos.

Leftover cornbread was crumbled in milk the next day as some kind of cereal-like concoction.
My friend Barbara's Mom always served fish sticks and Spaghetti O's for dinner when I came over because my Mom wouldn't serve either fish sticks or spaghetti O's much to my dismay.
My first father in law would lay strips of raw bacon in the waffle iron and top with batter so they would end up inside the waffle and before eating he'd top it with peanut butter and syrup.

[akq]

Your post made me remember a childhood friend who would come to my house for dinner and just want to eat white rice with a little shoyu. Her family only ate the Uncle Bens stuff where none of the rice sticks together and she loved real asian rice so that's all she'd want at my house.

[HotMelly]

Someone mentioned spaghetti o's which reminded me of when I was very young and the beginning of my war with OCD. It was the Cambell's Alphabet soup. I could not sit down and eat it normally. I had to take out the letters and spell my name, or spell just something. And to this day if I had aplhabet soup I am sure I would still do the same thing. Ok, gotta go to work now, and I have to make sure the iron is turned off (8 times) and check the lock on the house (8 times)

[lindsley]

Grew up with a tiny, athletic mother who thought eating was just a necessary evil... I never knew there was any lettuce except iceberg, ate thin pork chops covered w/ Worcestershire and cooked at 400 for 45 minutes (jerky?), canned peas, instant tea, white bread, off-brand EVERYTHING (not being thrifty, she just grabbed whatever she saw first!), pineapple ring dumped on cottage cheese with a dollop of mayo was "salad". Didn't have a clue that biscuits didn't always come from a can you cracked open on the side of the countertop.

[hill food]

lindsley - we share a Mother.

except when she was here we had to ask for the Worcestershire.

and she wasn't athletic by that point.

[AngelSanctuary]

Apparently durians are "gross" I have alwas ate them since I was really young ^_^! I even love the smell!

[njchowgal]

my favorite was normal peanut butter and jelly, except is was made with chunks of butter on the bread under the jelly, mmm.... reminds me of a bagel with cream cheese and jelly

[LordOfTheGrill]

I've run across quite a few people who think putting ketchup on eggs is weird. I don't remember how I first started putting mustard on bananas, but it was my wife who turned me on to black pepper on cottage cheese. All good!

[tatamagouche]

What type of mustard? I'm guessing yellow? Bet that'd be good.

[saacnmama]

glencora, Sounds like your dad liked the Rocky movies. (or was that oj that Stallone mixed with his raw egg?)
I also had a sheltered foodlife as a child--had never heard of mac and cheeze in a box til a roommate lived on it our first year of college. Now my kid has never heard of it any other way. I was ashamed of myself when I realized that, so I made it the -real- way in an oven for him. He hated it!
A couple of his favorites are pad see ewe and palak paneer. They were hard to find in our tiny Texas town, and we brought prepackaged palak paneer back from trips. His friends at preschool found it very odd. He started out really liking the foods, but I think he grew to like their reactions just as much.
Diana, I'm guessing the lambies are a tradition--good for your Mom for keeping it up, and how cool that you liked them! My mother would never have had the guts to try anything anyone could call weird or even unusual. We had dinner in the formal dining room after church on Sundays, and pizza for supper (with the tv on) Sun evenings.

[cresyd]

This was probably an accident that my mom slapped together when my brother were really young - but we kept asking for it. Took a while to realize we were the only kids on our block eating macaroni, refried beans, and plain yogurt.

I rehashed the meal a while ago...still tasty, but it looks absolutely vile.

[schrutefarms]

Tuna-macaroni salad (not that weird) with buttered Saltines (also not that weird.) But never one without the other, and never with anything else.

[jcattles]

My dad loved saltines crumbled in a glass and filled with milk. Also had a friend who ate saltines with mustard, while in my family we like them with peanut butter or butter.

[mtngirlnv]

Peanut butter on saltines was a standard after school snack. And if Mom made a cake, the leftover frosting made graham cracker sandwiches.

[Glencora]

My dad made graham cracker sandwiches with leftover frosting. Usually, it would be a crazy mix of white, pink, blue or green, and chocolate if I was lucky. Seems yucky now, but I liked them then.

[wrldsworstcook]

Growing up - I had a next door neighbor who was also my best friend. I always envied her because her grandmother lived with them and was the one who did most of their family's cooking and baking. Grandma made lots of great food - but my very favorite snack were those graham cracker sandwiches with homemade chocolate frosting in between. Unfortunately, my attempts at recreating this delicacy as an 8 yr. old should have been a glaring red flag of my eventual adult cooking ability....but, alas - that took me a while longer to recognize. Anyway - back then, I promised my little sister (then age 5), that I was going to make her a wonderful snack and proceeded to do the best I could to re-create the graham cookies - using the ingredients available at our house. First substitution....canned, liquid Hershey's chocolate syrup (normally poured over ice cream, etc) replaced the homemade chocolate frosting. Second (and most unfortunate) substitution.....we had no graham crackers - so I assumed that Saltines would work just as well. The good news was that my sister (who wasn't very picky) ended up thinking that these really WERE good treats and helped herself to 2 sandwich 'cookies'. The bad news was that I can still see her toddling out of the kitchen into the carpeted lving room leaving a trail of liquid chocolate syrup dripping out of every single hole in the Saltine crackers!!

[alex4lmw]

We always ate fried salted herring, grits and eggs.
froed collard greens and chitterlings...memories

[umbushi plum]

everyone knows most people avoid red meat and only eat free range chicken and fish right, oh and never eat the skin or batter on anything or visible fat, and never butter anything only use olive oil or nuttelex. no body regularly has dessert apart from stewed apples and grilled bannanas and never add sugar to anything tea cereal etc... oh and tuna and cottage cheese is a traditional veriation cottage cheese is only savoury and so is french toast of course, and everyone knows you don't eat white bread because its not good for you and sugary cereals are never eaten regularly because they are just sugar.

[jayaymeye]

I always thought that french toast was only served with melted butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar until, when in high school, I saw someone eat it with maple syrup. I still think I prefer cinnamon sugar. :)

[cycloneillini]

Butter and sugar has always been the way to go for me. Never even liked it until I figured out you didn't have to put syrup on it.

[ptrichmondmike]

My Irish American mom loved to serve up canned peaches in sweet syrup topped with lots of sour cream. Her Irish relatives were revolted, but our Jewish neighbors approved.

Mom also had a Depression-era fave -- sliced onion sandwiches with plenty of mayo on white bread. This is still one of my personal comfort foods.

[kattyeyes]

Speaking of sour cream, ever try it in Jell-O? That is a total childhood fave. You can mix it in when the Jell-O is already formed OR kinda blend it in before it gels. I prefer it the previous way. So tasty.

[BobB]

Sounds like kind of a quick & dirty version of Bavarian cream.

[merg01]

Reminds me of my Mom's best friend. We kids loved to be invited to Friday night supper of fried thick sliced fried potato sandwiches with raw onion and mayo on white. Mary Ellen

[pellegrino31]

I think my mom made up a few dishes - like this chicken and rice dish she claimed was Filipino (where she is from) and I have no idea how to spell it but it sounds like "lougow" and basically it's just boiled chicken and rice with no discernable taste. To this day, I've never seen anything like it at any of her family's houses or at a Filipino restaurant. I always hated how it looked and tasted - like mush.

But the one food that we had growing up that I do have fondness for are hard boiled egg yolks mashed up with maple syrup until it made a paste. I have lots of memories of my brother, sister and I working hard to get that perfect paste-like texture. I have no idea who in the family started it, I just know we loved it.

[schrutefarms]

What did you do with the paste?

[pellegrino31]

LOL. We ate it eagerly. Just scraped it up with a spoon or fork.

[hijobay]

I have to defend your ma a bit here. Lugaw is truly Filipino food. Lugaw is the Filipino term for what is commonly known as congee, rice porridge, or jook in other Asian cultures. If made with chicken it's called arrozcaldo and if made with beef/tripe it's called goto.

Interesting that your mom's version had no discernable taste. It's usually spiked with ginger and green onion. My family always added lots of fresh cracked black pepper, kalamansi (or lemon), fried shallots, and fish sauce.

I still make this for myself when I'm sick or just want something really warm and comforting. I throw in whatever I have in the kitchen - salted egg, regular egg, fish balls, tofu, etc.

It's not usually served in Filipino restaurants (esp stateside) but I see it sometimes in the cafeteria-style turo turo joints esp during breakfast time.

[focioncroci]

I think you're talking about lugao, and it's wonderful! It's the Filipino version of congee...maybe your mom just didn't know how to make it properly?

[juliewong]

saltines with mike and nuked with sugar on top, pasta with sour cream and peas , sweet white onion in vinegar and the best was a sandwich with cheeze wiz liverwurst dill pickle and sliced onion - doesn't everyone eat that? Now I am hungry.

[momofthreems]

I always thought that french toast had salt and pepper on it. To this day I don't like it any other way. My mom always liked to eat cornbread in a glass of buttermilk or cold milk. I never did get that...just seemed yucky. When I got married my hubby introduced me to mixing canned tomatoes with mayonaise (Dukes of course) into this gloppy, pink paste and spreading on biscuits. It is pretty good and we eat this quite a bit. My grandmother liked to fix eggs with scrambled pigs brains...and from what I understand, I used to love them. I don't eat those anymore. I am sure there are others, it is just late and I can't think real well.

[umbushi plum]

i know me too! the realization sweet french toast?who knew? ;-)

[Kate is always hungry]

Our French toast always had sour cream, never syrup!??!?! Mine still does--always will.

[Kinnexa]

My mother was a little strange. In the summer we'd have corn on the cob for dinner - just corn on the cob, a big plate stacked high in the middle of the table. Nothing else. I had to do the dishes and remember seeing 6 or 8 cobs stacked up on my father's plate. If there was "mush" or pancakes for dinner, same deal: nothing else. We also got bologna fried in butter - excuse me, 'oleo' - with Worcestershire sauce, which was the only way I'd eat bologna. She liked (but I never tried) raw onion sandwiches on white bread with 'oleo'. Then there was the "Black Cow": half milk, half Pepsi. Funny, but I don't get nostalgic for this stuff!

[KristieB]

Corn for supper isn't strange at all. In the summer when both corn-on-the-cob and tomatoes are at their peak of flavorfull goodness that is what we have. Usually it's too hot for anything else and those just picked veggies are so good no one wants for anything else.

[kattyeyes]

I had native corn on the cob for breakfast this morning with fresh sliced cukes (also native). I'm with you Kristie, I don't think there's anything strange about it! ;)

[why_itsme]

I've got 2.

First was Friday night dinner at Gram's. It was always bacon and french fries. NO idea how it started but it lasted for more than 20 years.

The second is what we called "Hamburger mish-mash with rice in the mish-mash juice". In the days before microwaves, to take a pound of ground beef out of the freezer meant you had to wait for it to thaw naturally or cook it while frozen. This meal, we cooked it frozen. You just kind of scrap off the cooked part and keep turning the frozen blob around until it's all cooked and scrambled. Then Mum added good 'ol canned beef gravy. Also, cook up some instant rice and add canned beef gravy to that. Dinner!

[mcsheridan]

Doesn't Everyone eat sardines mashed onto white bread with ketchup?

Did I Really Eat That growing up? Wow. Wouldn't think of it now.

And surely fish sticks served alongside spaghetti in tomato sauce is normal...sure it is. So's fried bologna as a breakfast meat.

[Sean]

Peanut butter and bologna sandwhiches...

[jmckee]

My grandmother, rest her soul, loved that sort of sandwich, except made with Smucker's PB and grape jelly product, Goober Grape. I can hear her voice in my ear now. "I think I'm goin' t' have me a Goober Grape and baloney sandwich, 'at's the best sandwich I ever had......>"

[MinkeyMonkey]

We ate, and I still do, sardines on saltines topped with butter and gobs of mustard. My grannie started me on that and even though we hardly had butter at my house, I'd ask for it just to have my sardines.

[MattInNJ]

Herrings in cream sauce :-)

[Kate is always hungry]

I'm drooling. Give me a piece of pumpernickel and some butter. YUM

[phantomdoc]

I remember my mother pouring sugar into the herring and onions in cream sauce.

[dvsndvs]

I really wouldl ove to eat at your house. WOW!

[polish_girl]

As a child, growing in Poland, I used to love an open face rye sandwich with just butter and mustard.....And we ate tons of scrumbled eggs for supper, never for breakfast. And potato pancakes were served with sour cream for dinner. Yes, it is and Eastern European thing to serve sour cream with just about anything :-)))
My father used to make for us, kids, what he called a "kogel-mogel"- he would put several raw egg yolks in a cup, with a few teaspoons of sugar (sometimes a bit of dark cocoa if we wanted the chocolate version) and would vigorously stir for about 5 minutes. It was the best dessert I can remember!

[MinkeyMonkey]

That is what my grannie grew up on during the depression, in Canada though. She ate either butter and mustard sandwiches or just mustard sandwiches. Also, they ate a lot of beans...beans, beans, beans!

[KaimukiMan]

For breakfast we often had hot rice, my dad with milk and a little bit of sugar and maybe some cinnamon, my brother and I with lots of butter sugar and cinnamon. On a hot summer morning, Kellog's frosted flakes with strawberry ice... so refreshing. I had no idea that everyone's mom didn't serve cold leftover pizza for breakfast (that was once i finally learned that pizza wasn't poisonous - I had a deep distrust of melted cheese till I was almost in high school.)

Lunchtime oddities included Bologna sandwiches with butter on one side, mayo on the other, chopped olive sandwiches with mayo, and (only at home) raw ground round with butter and salt on pumpernickel or rye bread (open faced or not.) I don't know how old I was before i realized that you could eat something other than a sandwich for lunch.

For dinner we were pretty normal, although I did discover later that there were a lot of people in the world who had no idea how to eat an artichoke (and didn't everyone's grandfather put his dentures in his water glass at the end of dinner?)

[Sal Vanilla]

"and didn't everyone's grandfather put his dentures in his water glass at the end of dinner?)"

- And didn't every grandchild yank them out of the water and shove them in her own mouth in order to amuse herself in front of the mirror???

[merg01]

Not here....though one of our most entertaining events was when my grandmother would lift her lower plate half way out of her mouth (using her tongue?) just to here the granddaughters giggle. Mary Ellen

[hill food]

my Grandpa did that and to a 5 YO there was nothing funnier...

[pinkprimp]

I love the sound of the hot rice with milk and sugar/cinnamon- it sounds like a hasty rice pudding :-)

[merg01]

Sat on the counter over night leftover pizza for breakfast...still one of my favorites. When our son once worked at a pizza place he would bring home any unsold pizza's. Since he was a late riser, he finally started to take the box to his room so there would be some left for him. Sadly, his bedroom door squeaked. Mary Ellen

[extrasalty]

I’m actually getting some intriguing ideas here, what with the fried pasta and the tuna fish pancakes. My own mother would make these health drinks of raw egg, OJ, milk and honey. They were supposed to be smoothies but since she made them without a blender, or even a beater, they were more like gloppies. Also, ravioli always had to be served in multiples of 3. And on Christmas, when other kids got candy, I was unwrapping anchovies and pistachios.

[hill food]

mmm anchovies "Just what I wanted!"

actually I would like some really good ones now. as a kid? hmm.

[LJS]

My Nana's go-to meal for all the kids, was mince (we would call it ground round) boiled with some ground cloves and served with peas and homemade apple sauce. And when I say 'with' I mean all mixed up together in a bowl.

Then it would be mashed bananas with Carnation evaporated milk (called 'funny cream') for dessert.

I must try all this again...

[Avalondaughter]

It was pretty common in my family to drink milk mixed with root beer or cola. I remember when I was old enough to watch Laverne and Shirley and Milk and Pepsi was Laverne's gross drink, her weird quirk. I thought it was awesome.

Well, you put ice cream in your Coke or root beer, right? The ice cream starts to melt and gives you a very similar effect.

[cimui]

I thought pork sung and mayonnaise sandwiches were normal from between the ages of 1-5; at 6 years old, I realized they were abnormal (and indeed horrifying to some of my friends). But now that I'm here in China, I'm suddenly seeing them everywhere. Normal? Abnormal? I guess it depends very much on whom you ask.

Another one: "pizza sandwiches" made out of a slice of bread, a slice of American cheese and pepperoni. I thought these were real pizzas for the longest time -- which could explain why I hate pizza!

[lilmomma]

I always thought that French toast was served with ketchup. We never ate it with syrup. I still like it that way!

[elance]

I love pepperoni sandwiches! I have them with mayo, lettuce, and cheddar cheese.

[cimui]

you can have mine anytime you like! ... tho actually, the way you prep 'em sounds possibly delicious!

[pinkprimp]

Mom also made these pork sung and mayonnaise sandwiches, except she added thinly sliced cucumbers as well. Actually quite good, with the dry saltiness of the sung and the crispy, refreshing flavour of the cukes. I could go for one of those right now.

[cimui]

Oooh, very nice. I'm going to pass on the cucumber idea to my mom. I wonder if she still eats these!

[browniebaker]

Only when I went to college and ate breakfast in a dining hall did I learn that it's not normal to sprinkle granulated sugar on French toast, as my mother always served it.

Also, my mother's potato salad had me thinking it was normal to have either shrimp or diced ham in it, never just potatoes, and never any hard-boiled eggs.

I also thought Manischewitz kosher wine was normal to have at dinner. And we weren't even Jewish!!!

[salsailsa]

That's funny because I know lots of Jews that won't touch the stuff.

[hill food]

hey I once met a member of that family and am pretty darn sure she didn't imbibe either!

[Jacey]

i think it's pretty normal to sprinkle sugar on french toast. restaurants do it all the time.

[alkapal]

restos sprinkle powdered sugar, not granulated sugar, on french toast -- mostly for the "garnish" appeal, i think.

[Stephanie Wong]

Lots of powdered sugar layered in the puddles of of melted butter = frosting!

Loved that as a kid.

[nyxpooka]

Butter and sugar on cold regular starchy type pancakes. I prefer that to the syrup, as did my great grandmother...I was told. But we usually had the pancakes my friends called "kirstens moms flat pancakes" ...they had a whole dozen eggs in them to about a cup and a half of flour, melted butter, and scalded milk. Mom would fry them in sauce pans..which was kinda odd... Some of my friends who didnt like pancakes actually loved those. I still make them once in a while when eggs are on special. I dont know why I worry because they are very rich and go a long way. Most people can only eat a couple or three.

[amethiste]

My Mom used to give me hot Jello in a mug on cold winter days. We were talking about this recently and it struck me that hot Jello might be an odd thing to give a kid. Did anyone else have this?

[kattyeyes]

My mom used to make hot Jell-O as a drink, too, when I was a kid. If I was feeling under the weather, there'd be that, "tea milk" or bouillon (or some combo thereof as the day wore on)!

[amethiste]

I will tell Mom she was not alone in serving hot jello. She will be relieved

[schrutefarms]

I think I remember hearing something about hot Jello-when kids are sick and can't/won't eat anything, it was believed that hot jello would go down easily, but stick to their bones.

[tracylee]

I vaguely remember it as an aid to strong fingernails.

[vttp926]

my supervisor still drinks this when she is super cold in the winter.

[Glencora]

My fifth grade teacher gave the kids hot jello on our class camping trip. Since it rained the entire week we were glad to have it. One girl got a nasty burn from it, though.

[KristieB]

The only time I remember Mom making jello as a drink was when my sister fell and cut her tongue. Three stitches later she could only drink, so Mom made diluted Jello-water for her. This was in the days before Pedia Sure and all those other products.

[MinkeyMonkey]

My brother and I would fight over who got to make the jello because we would always sneak drinks of it before it would set and while it was still hot! The best way to have jello!

[merg01]

Jello water instead of Kool Aid every summer. Don't know why and never gave it a thought. This was before the sugar free days so perhaps it was less expensive to make the already sweetened Jello. Mary Ellen

[tracylee]

It was also supposed to be good for fingernail strength.

[salsailsa]

In our house, you put out beer for Santa. Boy did I ever get looks when I said that in elementary school.

[hill food]

I wanted to post a smart reply, but I have more of a problem with the funny looks than your family's tradition. In fact I'd think it was cute if I were the parent and y'all skedaddled off to bed before it got warm.

so what if the kickstand gets assembled backwards...

[salsailsa]

I tried converting Santa to beer and cookies but just the beer went and he was "too full" for the cookies.

[nyxpooka]

LOL! Love it. Leave santa a 6 pack and I bet you would really rake in the gifts! Perhaps santa was full from biting all the heads off of the gingerbread men and rolled cookies at my house. No wonder I am so messed up...LOL

[Blush]

At our house Santa liked scotch (neat) and shortbread cookies.

[phantomdoc]

The late great Richard Pryor in one of his fabulous routines tells of his two grandmothers. One would give him milk and cookies, the other would give him reefer and beer. Guess which one he preferred.

[PaperMoon]

This is a great thread. In my family, we never used salt for cooking. It was strictly for pickling. Fish sauce was the primary seasoner. My first job was as a waitress at a Vietnamese restaurant for non-Vietnamese people. I was absolutely shocked when my guests were put off by fish sauce because of the name and its smell.

My boyfriend is Native American. When he was 10 he had to stay out in the woods for a few days by himself, kill a deer, and drink its blood as a ritual of manhood. I think he was well into high school before he realized that none of his classmates went through this. I freaked out once when he ate some raw meat that I was preparing. Apparently, his mother used to throw him pieces of raw meat as a special treat when he was a child.

[alkapal]

>>>>his mother used to throw him pieces of raw meat as a special treat when he was a child.<<<<

did he have to "beg"? ;-).

[amethiste]

My Mom used to give me pieces of raw hamburger as a treat when I was a child.

[kpaumer]

As a child I remember sneaking my mother's raw meatloaf mixture and putting it on crackers, good stuff! Didn't know I was eating steak tartare, sorta.

[misspastina]

Not sure I really remember this, or have created a memory out of what I was told - I was found on a Saturday morning when I was around 3 1/2 or 4 watching cartoons and eating raw hamburger with sugar. I'm pretty sure the sugar was a mistake, but didn't know the difference yet between the sugar bowl and salt shaker.

My other favorite Saturday morning breakfast - and this I do remember! - was a carton of TempTee cream cheese. I'm afraid I would still do this, given the opportunity!

[cimui]

One of my best buddies still gets raw meat from his mom as a special treat. His mom is Lebanese American and makes great kibbeh, apparently. I think a lot of cultures eat meat raw.

The raw blood drinking would be harder for me, I think. It tastes so metallic... but I guess if you're hungry enough, it would be delicious. Do you know which tribe your SO belongs to?

Interesting stories, PaperMoon!

[mess]

tuna casserole, made with lays wavy potato chips.
bologna and ketchup on rye.
pnut butter and sweet pickles sandwich. (still love)

[kattyeyes]

Well, I checked your profile and we're not related. ;) My two younger cousins used to do the bologna and ketchup (not on rye, though) all the time when we were kids. Our grandparents owned a deli and we could eat whatever we wanted, yet they were all about bologna and ketchup. I always found this strange. Then again, my childhood fave was ham and onions with a glass of milk, so who am I?! I'm glad I've outgrown this particular combo, too! Nanny and Poppy made THE BEST grinders--the kind with so much meat it can be challenging to get your mouth around 'em. There are so few places that make sandwiches this way anymore.

[brandywiner]

How about: tuna casserole with Russian dressing on top. Specifically, Wish-Bone ruby red Russian (which we never used on salads; then again, green salads weren't exactly a regular menu item in our Boston Irish household!).

To this day, I keep a bottle of Wish-Bone Russian around for those rare occasions when I get a tuan casserole jones....

[Jasz]

When I was little my mom would make me raw egg yolks beaten with sugar. It was the only way I would eat the yolk. The sugar not only make it sweet but gave it a great texture. I think it was common Greek fare (tipito avyo); my aunts both here and back in Greece would make it also for the little kids.

[KristieB]

Radish sandwiches: white bread, butter, sliced radishes and salt.

Baked Bean sandwiches: Homemade doctored or real baked beans, sort of baked stiff spread cold between sliced of bread.

Fresh yellow and green string beans cooked then drained and dowsed in milk, butter salt and pepper. To be eaten with a slice of bread in the summer months.

Macaroni and milk: cooked macaroni, drained, milk added with butter and salt and pepper. The ultimate comfort food side dish.

[KristieB]

In the green/yellow bean dish above I forgot to add the new potatoes. They all seem to come into season at the same time. So it's potatoes, the beans, milk broth with butter and salt and pepper.

[alkapal]

baked beans on white bread with mayo -- been there, done that. try adding a slice of vidalia onion!

[merg01]

My parents enjoyed dried navy pea beans soaked, cooked and served over white bread...with fried potatoes and onions on the side. I don't recall any meat or seasoning cooked with them...just pepper added at the table. My dad always liked the leftovers cold with chopped raw onion and vinegar. There were always plenty of leftovers. None of the children ate any more of then than we were forced to eat. Mary Ellen

[KristieB]

Anyone who went to the Bruce, Wisconsin school system ALWAYS eats half a peanut butter sandwich with their chili. And they dunk it!

[hill food]

I can kinda see that. never would have occurred to me, but...

[KristieB]

It never would have occured to me either. I did try it once and it was ok, but I'll stick to my crackers for chili.

[CoryKatherine]

i love this thread so much!

I remember when I was sleeping over a friends house as a teenager and they looked at me like i was crazy when I asked for butter to put on my poptarts. I still prefer them this way and so does my sister.

[jchamberlain]

I am so glad to hear someone else does this. My wife thinks I'm nuts for liking the unfrosted ones with butter.

[alkapal]

gotta have butter on the hot out of the toaster pop tarts (esp. strawberry, mmmmmm).! corykatherine, what, were your friends who didn't do this like heathens or something? ;-).

(loved the way it dripped on your fingers, and you'd have to lick your fingers....).

[KristieB]

I remember doing that! I hadn't thought of that in years.

[kimeats]

Some of my weird family dishes have been passed on to my friends.
They include:
Dipping regular potato chips (prefer Utz) in French's yellow mustard

Mayo "sandwich" made with just mayo (hellmans!) on white toasted bread, must be cut in triangles.

Lettuce sandwich, basically the mayo sandwich with the addition of lettuce and some salt and pepper. My dad loved these and passed on that love to me.

Here's the one i get the most crap about: I mix in French dressing (must be Wishbone) to my mashed potatoes. It turns them a lovely shade of orange and tastes wonderful. Don't knock it until you try it. I get a lot of funny looks from this one.

Onion bagel slathered in butter and sprinkled with garlic salt.

My grandma likes to have pea soup for breakfast. My mom always fried things in mayo so I do that too. Most of the things in this thread are normal to me to be honest, not sure how weird that makes me!

[alkapal]

kimeats, you have to see this sub-thread involving french dressing (which i defend, btw): http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6175...

(the checkout lady at safeway also told me that ranch and french dressings mixed (half and half ) is a delicious dressing...).

[kimeats]

hah! thanks for the link. i don't care for the kraft french though, the wishbone is much better. who knows why? i think the french has more vinegar?
i will try the ranch and french, sounds like a modified russian?

[KristieB]

If I am dressing a salad with blue cheese dressing, I nearly always drizzle just a little french dressing over it. That combo is dynomite.

[meatn3]

I have spent a bit of time in Wisconsin. It is very common to see people combine blue cheese dressing and another, ISTR, thousand Island. So common that restaurants frequently brought them out together so people could mix their own.

[alliciac]

French dressing is my condiment of choice for my potato dishes, especially fries and baked potatoes.

[hill food]

my first reaction was eww, but then I interchange ketchup and mayo on fries, and well what's French dressing except that with the addition of a vinaigrette?

[tracylee]

Ecuadorean street food - Salchipapas: French Fries; sliced, fried hot dogs; ketchup and mayo.

I normally don't eat fries or hot dogs, but this combo works really well.

[db1618]

Yogurt on pizza. In particular, blueberry yogurt on cheese or pepperoni pizza. I can't remember when (or how) I first tried it, and I haven't been able to have it for a long time. I thought it was awesome, though, and I sometimes wonder if I'd still like it...

[tatamagouche]

Whoa. How in the world did you come up with that...and why?

[keef]

mustard, mayonaisse and peanut butter on white bread sandwiches. do not hate, just try it.

my house was also a liverwurst house. school lunches could be the source of my abuse.

[hill food]

ding ding ding we have a winner lock this thread down (I can see mayo and PB, but mustard?) serve it and I'll eat it. but not a combo I would consider (sober)

[kimeats]

PB and mustard go very well together. I make a spicy pb mustard for dipping soft pretzels in. Don't knock it until you try it :)

[hill food]

oh I'd try it, just prob. not make it. cut me a corner of yours.

[tatamagouche]

My SO eats PB and mustard sandwiches too.

http://denveater.typepad.com/denveate...

As much as I love both things, though, I honestly haven't found the combo I like much. Maybe honey mustard and creamy PB?

[adventuresinbaking]

I used to eat ketchup, relish and mayo sandwiches, on white bread. I should have just gotten the thousand island dressing out.

[xxuviolkd]

My SO grew up with slices of green bell pepper, butter and white bread sandwiches. I've tried it, but don't get it.

[tonina_mdc]

That actually sounds pretty good! In summer I sometimes get small crusty rolls, slice up a green pepper from the garden, and spread a lot of coarse-grained mustard on the roll halves to make a sandwich. They're good on days when it's so hot that you just aren't that hungry and can't stand the thought of eating meat and they're economical too.

[yse]

Hmm. a) we always had our eggs sunny side up. I thought this was the 'standard' way to cook eggs and would always be dissapointed when a plate of scrambled eggs appeared in front of me at diners.
b) LEMONS! I grew up in an Israeli/Sephardic household so there were tons of foods that we ate that I knew weren't 'normal' but I do remember going to a friends' house as a kid and being very confused that they only had salad dressing. We always just mixed fresh lemon juice/olive oil/salt and used that as dressing, so the fact that she had no lemons in her house was quite shocking to me. I just figured that was something everyone had at their house as a pantry staple [it's still a pantry staple in my place to this day! No scurvy for me!].

[hill food]

lemons - can eat 'em like an orange.

[kpaumer]

Collard green or just greens sandwich. Greens with sliced raw onion on white bread. I liked that the bread got all green and moist.

[mha1]

Some of these have already been mentioned:
Peanut Butter and Pickle Sandwiches
Butter and Sugar Sandwiches (I think this is a dutch thing)
Pizza Casserole, which I later found out contained all of the ingredients needed to make lasagna, just assembled in a sloppy fashion, and cooked stove-top
Peanut Butter and Pancakes (not spread out over the cake, just on the side, so you can get a little bit with each bite)
Ketchup on Eggs, and Steak, and Baked Potatoes, and everything else
Mayo on Fries (again, I think this is Dutch)
Apples and Cheese (a slice of cheddar and an apple slice)
Pickles and Cheese
My family put oatmeal in everything because my dad worked at a grain mill and we got it for free, so I was used to hamburgers, meatloaf and meatballs all made with oatmeal instead of breadcrumbs. My first roommates in college were really weirded out when I did this to hamburgers.
My dad always made ranch dressing out of sour cream and powdered ranch seasoning, instead of buying ranch dressing.
I didn't know that ice cream could be served in a cone until middle school.
I didn't have a corn dog for the first time until two years ago (I'm 22 now).
I thought flavored rice cakes were cookies until I was about 10!

[ChrisOC]

Ah, yes butter on white bread sprinkled with sugar!

[tonina_mdc]

I'm way late to the party, but I love this thread!

My mother always served circle-sliced cucumbers and circle-sliced white or yellow onions swimming in a bowl of white vinegar. Don't ask me where she got the idea, but every summer this dish would appear, often with produce from our own garden. I'd get a bowl, lade some of the contents into it, and add salt and pepper. It was so cool and zingy that I loved it on hot days.

I've posted elsewhere about our "green junk" tradition at holiday dinners; it took until I was ten and brought leftovers to school one year after Thanksgiving for it to dawn on me that this was not a common dessert in other central Ohio households! It consisted of pistachio pudding, drained pineapple chunks, chopped drained mandarin orange segments, and chopped walnuts, with a bit of whipped cream. I still beg for it to be on the menu for our holiday dinners every year!

[Val55]

I never realized that the rest of the country was leaving Santa milk and cookies while I was leaving him a shot of whiskey and a mince meat tart.

[alkapal]

cukes in diluted white vinegar was a dish on our summer supper and lunch tables, too!

[ekammin]

Alkapal's cucumbers in vinegar is, with just a dash of sugar and salt, a normal Hungarian cucumber salad.

Since my grandparents came from Transylvania, we often had "mamaliga" cornmeal mush usually with Brindza or some other hard white cheese.

But, I think the prize went to a lady friend of mine in Paris. Her mother (from Poland)would set out cups of milk on the windowsill to coagulate. The result wasn;t yoghurt, but just stinky, coagulated milk. They both loved it, and couldn't understand why i often seemed hesitant.

[alkapal]

ekammin, how was the cornmeal mush seasoned? some fat? salt, pepper? yellow or white cornmeal? coarse or fine meal?

[ntmyslftdy28]

In our house we always had the pistachio pudding dish at holidays too! The only difference is we added marshmallows...we called it "green death"

[ski_gpsy]

Yes! Cucumber and onion slices in a mason jar with vinegar.... YUHUUUUMMM!

Butter and sugar on white bread!

Fries with mayo (lunch today!)

And the best of all; Peanut butter banana sandwich on white bread with mayo, buttered on the outside and crisped in the skillet like grilled cheese, then slathered with Kraft marshmallow creme from the jar! OMG! Elvis was right...

[nyxpooka]

Those are refrigerator pickles! My mom made these in a similar way, but she would also add green peppers and you would cook the vinegar with sugar til dissolved, with pickling salt, celery seed, mustard seed, and some hot red peppers. Dump the syrup over it all. All from the garden and just so yummy, like fresh bread and butter pickles kinda

[merrymc]

My grandparents are Irish. They had a difficult time conceptualizing salad, so they would just put together a few leaves of Iceberg lettuce, some tomato slices, and a big slathering heap of mayonnaise (or, worse Miracle Whip) on top. I thought a heap of mayo was a normal salad dressing for quite awhile.

They also cooked everything -- EVERYTHING -- in beef or pork grease/drippings (except on Fridays). Meat. Potatoes. Carrots. String beans. Eggs. Pancakes. They would save the drippings from the roasts to use for later meals. Everything tasted like roast beef, which was just how everyone liked it.

My husband is from Oklahoma. He made something called Watergate Salad for our family Thanksgiving (my family is from Philadelphia). None of us had heard of it. He claims every Midwest family has a recipe (it involves pistachio pudding, cool whip, pineapple...and after that I just didn't want to know). I was dubious, but I figured at least one person on here might be able to back him up.

[buttertart]

The dripping part sounds familiar, but just for meat - my mother would keep the fat in her electric frying pan for several days and just keep frying whatever in it (she was 3rd-generation Irish Canadian). And the Watergate Salad: I'm sure I'll only be the first of many posters to have experienced it in the midwest (my husband's great aunt was the queen of jello salads, some more successful than others). The concept of jello as salad is a testament to the power of advertising in shaping food preferences.

[dogthis]

we had 'watergate pudding' every easter, but it was called something like 'ew, that gross green crap that looks like puke.'

[tonina_mdc]

Oh yes, see my above post! The pistachio pudding concoction is actually delicious, at least the way my mom makes it: the pudding, slightly drained chopped pineapple, chopped mandarin orange slices, chopped walnuts, and some real whipped cream. It may sound weird to the uninitiated, but trust me - don't knock it till you've tried it! However, I don't know how much the cool whip in place of the real whipped cream would affect the taste.

[buttertart]

Some jello salads (made with good ingeredients) would make nice light desserts.

[tonina_mdc]

I have made myself try a couple of jello salads at potlucks. Every time I have tried one, I have regretted it! However, I suppose it's possible a jello salad made with only decent ingredients could prove to be reasonably edible. I just have a low opinion of jello salads in general from past unpalatable experiences.

[buttertart]

I find them edible IF there are no savory ingredients in them (mayonnaise, vinegar, onions, celery etc) or Cool Whip, marshmallows and so forth. The fruit ones can be OK. My mother-in-law makes a nice one with blackberry jello, blackberries, and bananas, and a frozen fruit salad (also uses gelatin) that has a unique texture and is nice with poultry and pork.

[ski_gpsy]

Wait! Lime jello with cottage cheese in it...yum!

Speaking of cottage cheese, pineapple slice on a lettuce leaf, scoop of cottage cheese and a dollop of mayo on top.

[merrymc]

Cool Whip was added at his insistence...it probably would have been much better with real whipped cream (which we actually had, for the pies).

Though that reminds me that my family makes something called "Cheesy Glow" for the holidays...some sort of whipped-up Velveeta concoction with pieces of stuff floating in it. I don't know what stuff (ham, maybe?), as I never tried it. Also, I never heard of it elsewhere, thank goodness!

[alkapal]

oh, i just saw a queso yesterday that might fit the bill. but it looked quite delicious, in a trashy, quickie queso kind of way! http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/chile_con_queso/

and a variation: http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitc...

[mickie44]

My mom would buy one candy bar (I remember Milky Ways specifically) and cut it into thin slices to share among the four of us. I don't know if she was being frugal or didn't want us to have too much sugar. Probably the former since we had white bread, butter and sugar sandwiches at other times for our sweet treat. I was in my teens before I realized The Others considered a candy bar a treat for one.

[smkit]

I was raised in northern North Dakota in Scandinavian country (read: cold), but I thought lefse (Norwegian potato flat bread) and melk suppa (rice pudding/mush) was standard American holiday fare for an embarrassingly long time.

[caerphilly]

My mom would give us orange juice with brewer's yeast mixed in - I guess for the vitamins? To this day, when I drink OJ I taste the yeast too. It's not a bad flavor, just...distinct. And not orangey.

[caerphilly]

This is a wonderful thread! I just thought of another one. An ex-boyfriend's family put grape jelly on their mac and cheese. That still blows me away when I think about it- it actually tasted okay, but still seems deeply wrong.

[hill food]

that's something my cousin might have tried - she also did catsup soup (which was really good after nearly drowning one March afternoon - here's to you Nance )

[DallasChic]

Normal foods: Bierocks, Case-Noodle, spare ribs & sour kraut, Kraut soup. My fathers parents were from Russia, but were of German decent.

[hill food]

DC: that would have been good too

[mookie4177]

My mom would make us drink orange juice with a spoonful of bran stirred into it.

[alkapal]

so now all you have to drink is citrucel! ;-).

[stuck in Hartford County]

funny! i was going to post the same thing!

[alkapal]

actually, citrucel reminds me of tang -- until that last gulp.

[stuck in Hartford County]

The drink for astronauts!

[alkapal]

..with diapers.... ;-)).

[capicksnw]

I don't really have "weird" foods sinceI was fortunate to be raised by a foodie dietician mom, ahead of her time. But because of that, I thought homemade salad dressing was normal: I didn't knowingly eat the bottled stuff until I was in college. We had a fresh salad for every meal except when we had tacos, because you basically put a salad in the shell along with the meat and beans (lettuce and tomatoes), I really thought this was the way everyone ate.

[mtm7654]

Someone else mentioned this one: bacon baked into the waffle-oh boy, good! A friend of mine got me to eat my liverwurst sandwiches with both mayonaise AND mustard and a slice of tomato. I'm getting hungry for the weirdest things now...........

[sharmilad]

In honor of my grandmother who passed away in the early nineties, these are some of mine:

Sardine curry (dry w/tomato)
spam curry or spam with pineapple curry (even though we did eat canned polish ham)
Corned beef from can, sauteed wtih onions and chillies
Fried eggs with soy sauce and sambal belacan over rice
and my favorite,
Calf brain cutlets (brain, dipped in Ammachi's particular batter, pan fried)

In honor of my mum:
Cheese Macaroni (yes, in that order) made with Kraft cheese that came in a Blue CAN I think from Australia
Banana and honey sandwiched in whole wheat bread

I'm Tamil (South Indian), but 4th generation Malaysian, (Penang). In general, my family ate really well and variously -- but I think those above dishes are holdovers from the WW2 of my grandparents and my mum's childhood.

Every time,my mum, now in her seventies, passes a can of sardines, she thinks of that curry. Me, I get cravings for spam and corned beef, but have never been able to get it to taste just right. I did share my spam curry recipe with an (italian American) boyfriend in college, and surprisingly, he really liked and "owned" the spam curry. I think he was also raised by parents with a keen appreciation for wartime food. My present husband, Israeli via Soviet Odessa, thinks spam and corned beef are gross. More for me.

[alkapal]

sharmilad, welcome to chowhound. mr. alka is tamil (sri lanka) and we love indian, sri lankan, thai, chinese, etc. i'm looking forward to your posts on the home cooking board!

[sharmilad]

Thank you for the welcome, Mr Alkapal. I'll have to check out the home cooking board. I'm very homesick for Cini Appam and Idiappom right now. Can't find anything like it anywhere in NYC unfortunately.

[tatamagouche]

What else is in the sardine curry?

[watch me boogie]

Such a great and funny thread, lots of nostalgia...

We put ketchup on anything and everything: fish, steak, hot dogs, whatever. Except for pork chops, which were served with applesauce.

My Nana buttered all sandwiches, too. She'd also always butter pasta before adding red sauce (at home, though, we never added butter if there was red sauce).

The best was when we'd get tuna fish sandwiches with potato chips on white bread. You'd add the chips and then squish the sandwich down with your palm to break the chips. Mmmm.

[bathtubninja]

jelly-filled omelettes.
S.O.S. (Shit On Shingles).
chicken gravy on pancakes, plus maple syrup.
cabbage pancakes with soy sauce.
coffee-Cokes with plenty of half&half.
frosting toast!
curried fruit every thanksgiving.

[kattyeyes]

We could be half-related with the jelly omelets and SOS. ;) And more so because I've never had coffee-Cokes or frosting toast, but both sound right up my family tree as to something we would like.

[ntmyslftdy28]

we didnt really eat it but...in my house and my grandmothers we gave all the babies chicken bones(cleaned off) to gnaw on when they were teething ...the first time I did this with one of my children I thought my mother in law would pass out!

[JerryMe]

Oh no - you've 'outed' me - we did that in our family to! Of course I don't remember gnawing on the cold bones, but yeah. I remember a sister globbing some chicken gravy on the gnawed on bone and repeating the process. Too funny.

[ntmyslftdy28]

I thought everyone put salt on their watermelon and canteloupe

[alkapal]

we did in s.w. florida! i add pepper on the cantaloupe, too.

[italgal]

How about taking pickled eggplant sandwiches to school? I was teased and asked if it was dolphin, but I didn't care because they didn't know what they were missing. I also took Nutella sandwiches to school before anyone knew what it was (mid-70s in Michigan!)

[tatamagouche]

More about the pickled eggplant sandwiches please!

[kubasd]

i agree, those sound awesome...

[CaitK]

Homemade popcorn covered in Brewer's yeast. No butter necessary. This is so popular where I'm from (Northern California) that they even have it at the movie theater!
My famiy ate lamb on all special occasions, and everyone would fight over it. All my friends thought that this was absolutely disgusting. We also ate blue cheese all the time. Never, ever had ranch dressing, american cheese, or white bread. Our grilled cheese sandwiches were always made on either whole wheat or sourdough bread with either cheddar or swiss cheese. Needless to say, the first time I ate grilled cheese at a friends house I was shocked.

[elle7573]

Mmm -- we did the yeast popcorn thing too! We also poured milk over buttered popcorn and ate it as breakfast cereal.

[RetiredChef]

Veal – my mother loved veal and we ate veal scaloppini with different sauces 3-5 times a week, I just thought it was normal food.

Campbell’s Soup and Jell-o when you were sick, it didn’t matter what you had or what you wanted to eat you were served this, ironically we never ate Campbell’s soup or Jell-o any other time in my house. My mother would make wonderful home-made soups but not if you were sick.

There were only two salad dressing in the world – Green goddess and Russian

My mom made almost everything from scratch (unless we were sick), even bread and pasta, however I was convinced that all cakes must come from a boxed mix.

NOT my house but friends houses when growing up.

Miracle whip was the only salad dressing and it was only to be topped with Bac-O’s (imitation bacon bits)

Vanilla ice cream with BBQ sauce on it.

Powdered Mashed potatoes with Chocolate chip cookies served as an accompaniment to our main course of waffles – dessert was celery stalks with honey dribbled on them - she was a strange lady, nice but very strange.

[stuck in Hartford County]

For strange, I think the ice cream/BBQ sauce combo MUST take 1st prize here.

When we were sick, mom always made us 1)drink watery jello mix (you know, before it sets) I used to have nightmares about the jello congealing inside while I was sleeping., 2)homemade Tupperware popsicles (OJ, grape juice, apple juice), and 3)cream of wheat.

I haven't eaten any of those things since, although I might kill to get my hands on those old Tupperware pop molds!

[BobB]

Ooh, we had those plastic popsicle molds too, and made juice pops all summer. Boy, does that bring me back!

And if you really want some - I just checked ebay and there are tons of them out there, cheap.

[buttertart]

Cream of wheat is my personal nightmare food - was forced to eat it by a truly evil nurse after having an operation on my eye as a four-year-old still nauseated by the anesthetic, and awoke to find it on my breakfast tray the morning after being admitted to hospital for tests for suspected rheumatic fever as a teenager. Cannot bear even to look at the package in the store!

[JerryMe]

I haven't read the entire thread but yeah - SIHC - Retired Chef wins the 1st Blue Ribbon.

[alkapal]

ditto on the tupperware pop molds. i can picture the pops from them as if they were in front of me -- dripping from the summer heat.

these aren't tupperware, but they are cute molds: http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=popsicle+molds+tupperware&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=3093275295&ref=pd_sl_94bc40tuyn_b

mmm, look at some of these frozen popsicle recipes: http://www.mormonchic.com/recipe/recipebox/pages/summer_treats.asp

here's what the new tupperware molds look like: http://wahmshelly.blogspot.com/2008/0...
(fudgesicle recipe looks good, too)

[decolady]

We didn't have the Tupperware pop molds when I was a kid, but I bought those when my girls were little. In the summer I made them popsicles from organic apple juice. Also had a recipe for an apple frozen yogurt that was made with homemade applesauce that they used to like in the pop molds, too. The only time we ever had popsicles was at my grandmother's as my Mom never bought them.

[arp29]

The mention of homemade tupperware popsicles just made me smile:-) We had those made with OJ every summer!

[capicksnw]

re: boxed cake mix . . . i remember being horrified that my mom made angel food cake from a box throughout my childhood. i actually felt like a piece of me died that day . . .

[mickie44]

That reminds me of the time I made an angel food cake from scratch for someone's birthday. When I tried to impress my friend who is known for her baking, she said "You're kidding, right? That's the one thing that's better from a box!"

[boagman]

"Salmon loaf". To this day, I've never seen it anywhere else, nor in anyone else's home. Think "meatloaf", only pretty lousy. Edible, yes, but certainly enough to get this guy believing that salmon, in all of its forms, was just bad. Mom used canned salmon for this "dish", and I've come to the conclusion that there's a very specific/important reason that the canned salmon manufacturers use a close-up of a salmon head prominently on the front of the can: they do that because that's probably the only part of the actual fish that they use.

Thankfully, I've learned that salmon is *far* better than this early exposure but still, some things just shouldn't be done. After all: what's that poor salmon ever done to *you* to deserve such treatment?

[stuck in Hartford County]

Hurl! My mom used to make salmon "burgers" with this gross canned salmon that had these small, firm, white, bony things shaped like tiny boat winches, in them- and they crunched! She "breaded them w/grits and fried in Crisco. Once I caught her grinding the whole foul mess up in the blender to "get rid of" the bony things. Did she think I was a moron?! God awful stuff. I refuse to eat salmon to this day.

Bologna, for us, came in a red, plastic cylinder- about 3 inches in diameter. You cut off the amount you "needed". She also bought bologna "loaf" that had olives and peppers in it. That wasn't bad on cheap white bread w/mayo. Maybe I WAS a moron.

[BobB]

We had a variation on those canned salmon "burgers," but my mom called them salmon croquettes. There were pretty much at the bottom of the list in our food rotation, favorites-wise. And yeah, those bones were nasty. Fortunately, being Jewish, I was also raised on smoked salmon so I knew salmon could be good. Just not the canned stuff. Maybe something edible can be made from canned salmon, I don't know, I just can't stand the sight of those cans and have never let one cross my threshold since I moved out of my parents' house.

[brandywiner]

In our house, canned salmon was heated in milk and served over mashed potatoes. Truly awful. Like Boagman, I grew up thinking this WAS salmon, and wouldn't touch the stuff in any form until well into my 20s. (Yet another of my "Is THAT what this is supposed to taste like?" moments.)

[stuck in Hartford County]

No way is canned salmon over mashed potatoes "normal" food! Sometimes I wonder why parents served this stuff- were they like "Why don't I serve something really gross (but "good" for you) w/something the kids love (like milk and mashed potatoes)- maybe they won't notice, since it all goes to the same place, anyway!"

Another food mom mangled was scallops. She boiled them until they were like marbles. "That way, all the parasites are killed". I had my "Is THAT what scallops are supposed to taste like" moment on the Cape one winter, when I was in my 30's.

[BobB]

Now that is truly disgusting. Almost inspiringly so - I'm tempted to start a "worst thing your family did with canned salmon" thread. But if I did I don't know whether I would put it on General Chowhounding or Not About Food. ;-)

[buttertart]

Hold the phone! I as well as I am sure a lot of other people of Canadian origin were raised on canned salmon sandwiches (red sockeye please) (was more common than tuna where I grew up) and like it very much indeed. Canned pink salmon heated in anything IS revolting.

[boagman]

Heh. You, as well as you? You sure about that? You want to check with yourself, first? ;)

Just kidding. I recently tried some canned salmon from a local Costco here, and while it was better than I expected it to be, it was hardly anything I'd call "good". That being said, I have no idea whether it was red sockeye or not.

[buttertart]

I as well as (I am sure) a lot of other people of Canadian origin...it's a childhood thing, one of the few ways fish was served in my house. Maybe tuna was more expensive (and canned tuna is one of the very few things I never got a taste for).

[alkapal]

you all might want to know there are fans of canned salmon "patties" on these boards. they were delicious to me when i was growing up, and my mom insisted on crushing the bones so they disintegrated (good calcium, she'd say). she mixed in a little flour, egg to bind, salt and pepper, and shaped it like a thinner, smaller burger. then she fried it in a cast iron skillet in, most likely, crisco or some vegetable oil. when they came out of the skillet, she put them on a paper towel on a plate to cool and drain. i'd sneak them off that paper towel, i loved them so much.

i think the canned salmon was a food common in the depression, when my mom grew up. i actually looked forward to those salmon patties.

[buttertart]

Same here, child of people who went through the depression. My mom always took out the bigger bones and the skin, and mashed the rest up for sandwiches. Calcium was adduced as the reason for leaving in the smaller ones as well. My mother-in-law makes a very good salmon loaf with red salmon. Have not had salmon cakes, but I bet they would be tasty too. I'm just not keen on creamed pink salmon on anything (grade 8 home ec trauma).

[stuck in Hartford County]

I thought we must be related, due to the fact that seem to agree with about 99.9% of your posted opinions. But then again, you say there are "fans" of these patties out there?! AND YOU ARE ONE OF THEM???!!! I feel so cheated!

[alkapal]

LOL! i love my mama's salmon patties, yessirree!

they make a good sandwich on white bread the next day. (i'll bet that one got ya, too!). ;-)).

[buttertart]

Try my mom's special sandwich: drained and picked-over canned red salmon mashed with a good bit of black pepper, on buttered whole wheat, with a layer of peeled thinly-sliced cucumbers that have been salted, drained, and marinated in cider vinegar. Or the salmon on buttered toasted white bread, no cukes.

[moonmau]

I agree. Always loved Mom's salmon patties, usually served with mac & cheese.

[lewinters]

yes, we called them salmon croquettes.

[JamieK]

Child of people who went through the depression and refugees from WWII as well as a Canadian here and I remember loving canned salmon so much that, as kids, my brother and I ate it straight from the can, bones and all. Had no qualms about crunching down on those bones. Also ate sardines straight from the cans,

My daughter, on the other hand, would not even consider eating salmon bones or sardines in any form, probably more averse than a flu shot to her and she's needle-phobic.

[stuck in Hartford County]

Canned salmon? "I'd rather stick needles in my eye!".
(Jack Nicholson and I)

[JamieK]

That's hilarious. Good call!

[nyxpooka]

She left the bones in? yuck. My mom made salmon loaf with creamed peas...I wouldnt touch it, bones or not...

[Cliocooks]

I had no idea canned salmon was so hated! I wonder why, when tuna is a staple?

My mother used to take the bones out before making salmon cakes--and my brother and I would eat the bones separately as a treat.

Canned salmon with crackers is a very standard lunch for me. Perhaps it's no accident that I married a Canadian.

[FreshMango]

The only one I can think of is "Catalina Chicken" basically my mom cut up a whole chicken, glugged a bottle of Catalina dressing on it and baked it. It's actually really good, but none of my friends had ever heard of it, and one of them actually wouldn't eat it. I was really embarrassed.

[alkapal]

i think we had a discussion about something like that, and i believe the one we discussed also had mayo. it was a "famous" dish from somewhere. (maybe it's hidden over there in the "strange combinations" thread). if you deconstruct the dressing (and the mayo) it would be normal, but it is the thought of using the prepared dressing (i guess) that drove some hounds off the cliff.

does anyone recall the thread?

~~
edit: now i recall, it was *french* dressing, like the kraft version. that's pretty close to catalina dressing, more or less. i guess catalina has more tomato?

[buttertart]

Is it more tomato or more paprika? Not sure. More tangy/garlic-y as I recall.

[alkapal]

you're right -- catalina is *tangier.* it's been a long time....;-).

[buttertart]

For me, too. It was my favorite dressing when I was in my teens. The chicken dish sounds...intriguing?

[alkapal]

that's apt! i'm almost tempted to try it. LOL.

[buttertart]

Intriguing being one step away from scary in this case!

[stuck in Hartford County]

My mom used to make something called Catalina Chicken, but I can't remember what it was like- odd, since I remember almost every meal I've eaten. We always had a bottle of that dressing around-sticky, unnaturally red, sweet/tart, totally processed. It tended to glob-up at the mouth of the bottle-repulsive goo. Did she dump it on chicken and call it Catalina Chicken? I'm going to ask. The recipe, undoubtedly, includes margarine in some way or another...

[buttertart]

Well, if you're going to go there, you might as well go all the way!

[rednails]

My mother made that too, I think it was a very common dish from the 50s-60s. One night when I was very short of time I made it and my son pretty much told me not to bother making it again.

[FreshMango]

Catalina dressing does not have any mayo in it, so it isn't creamy, it's kind of "clear" . The ingredients are mostly tomato, vinegar, garlic, and HFCS, with some paprika for color. It's still my favorite basic bottled dressing besides Lighthouse creamy chunky blue cheese.
As for "additions" there were none.
The only steps were :
Cut up chicken (or take cut up fryer out of package)
Place in glass baking dish
Open bottle of Catalina dressing
Pour dressing on chicken
Bake.

[stuck in Hartford County]

Yup, my mom confirmed this when I asked her for the "recipe". Was all cooking that easy back then? I can't bear to think about all the chemicals we (unknowingly) ingested as kids. At least my mom drew the line at King Vitamin. I had to have go across the street to my friend's house for that.

[pantsless]

Canned tuna mixed with mayonnaise. I don't know why, but everyone I talk to about it tells me it's good mixed with shoyu and thinks that tuna + mayo is gross. It's a natural sandwich filling combo, following eggs + mayo and chicken + mayo!

We also grew up eating chicken with ketchup because that's how my grandma ate it.

I also love tomato sandwiches with just a little salt and pepper.

[BobB]

Where did you grow up? In the US tuna with mayo is the most standard of all standard forms of tuna salad. There are hundreds of variations and optional additions, but a base of tuna and mayo is darn near universal!

[brandywiner]

Ditto. At least in North America, just about every tuna salad I've ever seen starts with tuna & mayo.

[kittyangel]

I agree. I'm from central PA and can't imagine tuna any other way, same with egg salad, chicken salad and ham salad. What else would you use? It's found on many salad/deli bars and menus and is a staple in our house. I make it with real mayo or Miracle Whip and like to have it on toast with a bowl of Campbell's Tomato Soup. (I actually get cravings for this!)

Some of the most common additions I've seen are celery, hard-boiled egg, onion, relish and (rarely) carrot. It's also good paired with slices of American cheese. If I have time, I like to chop up celery, carrot and green pepper into tiny bits and mix them in. Good way to get some extra vegi's.

[bobbybologna]

My mom used Campbell's condensed cream of tomato soup as a spaghetti sauce, right out of the can. Just plopped it on or heated it up, no water or milk. She called it Jewish Spaghetti. Sweet. I still make it for myself. No one else seems to eat this.

[tiffeecanoe]

my mom made something similar! Clearly we didn't call it Jewish spaghetti as it had bacon in it. It was onions sauteed in the bacon fat, bacon pieces and condensed tomato soup poured over the macaroni noodles. I still make this too, total comfort dish!

[nyxpooka]

I still add tomato soup to my spaghetti sauce concoction...its got about a dozen preprepared foods in it but everyone loves my sauce the best. The tomato soup adds a sweetness you just cant imitate with anything else...I know its weird...

[guilty]

Cheerios with cream cheese as the perfect finger food for toddlers. Or kids older than toddlers. I was a little chagrined when I mentioned this to a pregnant friend and she made a face. I guess it isn't that common after all . . .

[monavano]

The only salad dressing I knew growing up was French/Russian dressing, which consisted of mayo and ketchup. Maybe a little relish if Mom was getting fancy.
I still make it from time to time and serve over iceburg.

[foodmongrel]

Jello with milk....

[buttertart]

Hey! We used to eat that too. Red jello pls.

[michelleTO]

My mom regularly made french toast with cheese - two pieces of white bread coated in french toast batter with a slice of processed cheese in the middle. Almost exactly the same as grilled cheese but served with pancake syrup. I'm vegan now but when I think of comfort/mom food I think of things like this.

Other not so normal foods my mom would cook - fried bologna sandwiches, mashed potatoes mixed with ground beef and leftover gravy (gross! she called it slop and it was mostly to use leftovers), etc. My grandmother also ate ketchup on toast frequently.

I think if we ever have kids they will grow up and post many of my parters favourite foods on a board like this. He lived in Newfoundland, what more do I need to say...

[Passadumkeg]

Easting pickled herring w/ onions and sour cream on rye bread for breakfast. All my WASP buddies were horrified, and come to think of it, I still eat it and my Yankee friends are still horrified. I think I'll go have some.

[The Professor]

Sounds good to me. Love the fish things for breakfast...another favorite of mine is a side of kippers with my soft scrambled eggs. Yum.

[hill food]

Passadumkeg: that's entirely WASP (well maybe more Saxon than Angle) and some even Yankee - they've just forgotten their heritage.

[Passadumkeg]

When I worked in Norway, we'd go to an all you can eat smorgosbord breakfast every Friday. I'd eat about 10 different kinds of herring on great breads. All of my Iowan "Sons of Norway" colleagues would say, Eeeewww, Dumkeg, how can you eat raw fish for breakfast?" To which I'd reply, "How can you come 5000 mi. to another culture and eat Corn Flakes?"

[hill food]

losers. more for you.

[nyxpooka]

Ugh, I hate travelling with people like that! Drives me crazy!

[decolady]

My grandfather used to get my grandmother to make him two slices of cheese toast. Thick slices of cheddar on homemade bread. When it was toasted, he sprinkled a good layer of sugar over the top and ate it with a knife and fork. I've never known anyone else to do that.

[The Professor]

Never heard of this, but it sounds kind of interesting...the salty nature of the cheddar with the sweetness of the sugar. Come to think of it, it's probably in the same ballpark as cheddar on sweet apple pie...something I never heard of until college in the midwest in the early '70's

[Diamond]

I'm talking about Greek food all day today - I'm starting to sound like a broken record! But really, I grew up eating baklava and spanikopita, and I'm always amused at how people react. "What the heck is phyllo dough?" "Walnuts and honey?" "Spinach pie?" They usually get it once they taste it though. ;D

[ItaliAnna]

Let's see here...some childhood meals and snacks were mac and cheese with hot dogs, butter and jelly sandwiches, tuna sandwiches with potato chips, grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (like grilled cheese, only not), hamburger patties and corn in tomato soup over rice, american cheese melted over popcorn, breakfast for dinner, iceberg lettuce spread with mustard and rolled up, tortilla with cream cheese rolled up and warmed in the microwave; and my favorite: homemade chocolate frosting between Saltine crackers.

At a friend's house once, I was offered spaghetti and a toasted bagel. This absolutely blew my mind! How could they eat a heavy bagel with heavy pasta? Then I remembered that we always had garlic bread, and a bagel is just another type of bread... Silly me.

One thing I like to do now is spread a brown rice cake with guacamole, then top it with Tapatio and agave or maple syrup. I kid you not, the spicy-sweet is so good. I also make spicy fried rice and top it with a fried egg. That's not the weird part. The rice contains a spoonful of jam. Again, spicy-sweet. hmm.

HotMelly, you mentioned "yellow circley stuff"--Would that be quinoa? Or more like circular cornmeal patties?

[ecarrera]

i totally get the guac, tapatio and syrup rice cake! I can't wait to go home and try it.

[ecarrera]

ItaliAnna, I would like to report that the rice cake, guacamole snack is one of the best food combos i have ever tasted. Thanks for the recipe!

[kittyangel]

Mac & cheese - Heaven on Earth!!!

We sometimes had breakfast for dinner on Sunday nights - usually pancakes or French Toast. Sometimes I make my boyfriend creamed chipped beef on toast for dinner - but maybe that's pretty common??? It's great because it's so easy to make!

[merg01]

Creamed chipped beef on toast with fried potatoes and onions and canned peas. Always a dinner item. I'd never heard of it being served for breakfast until I was grown and eating at diners. Mary Ellen

[ilovefood80]

My Mum used to cook corned beef (from a can) with spinach and serve it with rice. I though it tasted good at the time but if someone served it to me now I think I'd vomit! :-D

[BobB]

That sounds kind of Hawaiian.

[Passadumkeg]

I'm surprised I forgot ryebreadbutterandsugar, it was pronounced as one word. Corn rye from Seitz's Bakery, butter and topped w/ a sprinkling of sugar. My regular school day break fast as a child. Seitz's is gone, but I bring back corn rye from Royal Bakery when we visit.

[woodleyparkhound]

A layer of crumbled up saltine crackers on top of macaroni and cheese before it went into the oven. When I discovered other families put crumbled up potato chips on top, I was jealous!

[Alan N]

Kraft style or homemade? I'm jealous of you, we never used an oven for our Mac (not homemade). Much less a topping.

[woodleyparkhound]

Sorry for the late response; I only just now noticed a huge brain fart in my post. I didn't mean macaroni and cheese (though my mom made homemade mac and cheese - we never had Kraft), I meant homemade tuna and noodle casserole, one of my ultimate favorite meals as a child.

She topped homemade mac and cheese with more grated cheese before it went into the oven.

[joyjunkie]

My Mom used potato chips in her tuna casserole, but not like you would think. She used them instead of noodles! We called it bomb shelter casserole. Here's why:

can of tuna
can of milk
can of mushroom soup
can of peas
big bag of potato chips

crunch up chips, stir it all up together and plop it into a shallow casserole for maximum crunch on top! Still a guilty pleasure! Still wierd as hell!

[stuck in Hartford County]

I used to put plain potato chips on my tuna sandwiches. It sounds gross, but it was pretty good. At least back then!

[NellyNel]

Potato chips are good on ANY sandwich - IMO!

[jmckee]

Years ago on "A Prairie Home Companion," Garrison Keillor and Jean Redpath did a duet called "Tuna Casserole" sung to the tune of "Whispering Hope."

"Tuna casserole / Oh how sweet to my lips. / Tuna and noodles and mushroom and chips."

[jAmbre]

I always thought that oxtail or curried goat with rice were "normal" foods. I didn't understand why my non-islander friends would freak out if I mentioned it...

[kittyangel]

OK, I give up. Did you really eat the tail of an ox? Seriously, what is oxtail? I've been wondering this all my adult life. Just last week while at the meat market I heard someone request it, and I was thinking "Geez, that sounds gross." (Like tripe and pickeled pig's feet - altho I guess I shouldn't knock it til I try it.)

[Isobel_A]

It really is the tail of the ox - the fleshy bit at the top where it meets the spine. Oxtail soup is a big thing in the UK - my Granddad used to love it.

[brandywiner]

I've had it twice in South Africa. It really is oxtail, and, more importantly, it's delicious!

[BobB]

I've had it (and made it myself) plenty of times here in the US. Nothing exotic about oxtail - though for the record, here (and I'm pretty sure in the UK as well) it's actually beef tail, not ox, despite the name.

Think osso buco, but with smaller pieces - tough meat, slow cooked to tenderness on the bone. A basic preparation would be a simple stew, more elaborate might involve braising, then shredding the cooked meat and using it in a ragu or to stuff ravioli. Really delicious stuff!

I've only rarely had goat but that's because it's hard to find in most markets here. Oxtail should be available in pretty much any good supermarket.

[buttertart]

And every one catering to Asian or Latin American/Caribbean clientele.

[hill food]

and it's excellent for the base stock of a French onion soup

[boyzoma]

My mom made 2 things for breakfast that I thought was normal.

First was Milk Toast - buttered toast, cut into cubes, sprinkled with sugar then hot milk pored over the top.

Second was hot rice, a pat of butter on it, sprinkled with brown sugar and again, warm milk over the top.

I always thought both were delicious, but didn't know almost no one else ate it!

[Ramesh1314]

All families do this, this is how recipes come about in the first place. There really isn't anything more normal about whipped cream vs maple syrup on pumpkin pie, or a pumpkin pie over a green tomato pie, or oatmeal for breakfast vs what your dad called "mush". In the end the human body breaks it all down to protein, fats or sugars, the various configurations of the various foods are more cultural and social than anything having to do with the normal operation of the human body.

[guygirl94]

Gefilte fish. 'Nuf said.

[nyxpooka]

Lutefisk at my house. Just mom and dad though.,,wish I could like it but it just isnt happening...

[DomesticDizziness]

Jello with milk, with a light sprinkle of sugar on top
We ate that for desert. I still eat it on occasion. My husband can't even be in the room.
My mom told me her grandmother from Italy served it to her. I'm not sure if it's because my great grandmother was weird or if this similar to an Italian sweet dish.

[joyjunkie]

Fried corn meal mush? It's called scrapple. My mom would put cooked chopped bacon in it!

[jmckee]

Not exactly. Scrapple has meat products in it, as does the Cincinnati equivalent, Goetta.

[merg01]

Rappa scrapple in MD. I especially like the new spicy version. I'm a thin and crispy girl; husband is more a thicker and soft center kind of guy. Mary Ellen

[UnderemployedInNYC]

My mom always snacked on steamed green beans salted and dipped in ketchup. I do too- its actually the only thing I regularly use ketchup for. Other favorite family treats? My beautifully svelt grandma makes grilled cheese sandwiches on rye in the toaster oven, and serves them with individual dipping bowls of mayo.

http://underemployedinnyc.blogspot.com/

[Emme]

i used to put ketchup on EVERYTHING. oh how i envy you and your mom. i sorely miss it. damn allergies.

[UnderemployedInNYC]

Woah, a ketchup allergy! Is it the tomato? Or is it whatever fake sugar product makes it nice and goopy?

http://underemployedinnyc.blogspot.com/

[Emme]

yeast and anything fermented... as well as gluten... can't have the vinegar in it. *tear* and *giant sobs in my bedroom*

[The Professor]

What a bummer. How and when were you diagnosed? Was this a late onset sort of thing?

Allergies are strange. Never suffered from hay fever until I hit my 40's, but my M.D, told me allergies can arise spontaneously. I'm always terrified that I'll wake up one day allergic to tea.
I don't know what I'd do!

[Emme]

diagnosed as an adult. i had gluten a couple of years ago. then i lost dairy and casein about a year and a half ago. then the yeast/fermented foods (and coconut - no loss there for me, as i don't like it) about a year ago. i get what i call "african refugee bloating" where my stomach looks like a beach ball pregnancy - it's really unreal.... but i finally saw an allergist... and got the sad, but life-changing/saving news... i eat well. and in fact, it keeps me eating really nutrient dense foods.

[UnderemployedInNYC]

That's rough. My own food allergies are more like annoyances- awful stomach aches, or itchy tongue and palette kind of stuff. Ginger, lavender, pistachio (this one is new and never used to be a problem), brazil nuts... But I don't have any life-changing food allergies- lactose intolerance is super manageable. My doc said I'm lactose intolerant because when I was little I was allergic to milk and milk products, so from not eating it I stopped producing the enzymes to digest it.

http://underemployedinnyc.blogspot.com/

[kittyangel]

Does that mean no beer, wine or tomatoes? I don't know if I could go on living! My heart bleeds for you!

P.S. I ran into a guy in the ER at the Hospital where I work who couldn't eat things like tomato and cantaloupe & a lot of other stuff but I can't remember what his condition was called. It wasn't allergies tho.

[amylovescupcakes]

I grew up in Southern California, and had Indian and Korean neighbors, whose children were my best friends. Consequently, I have tried many things that my Southern friends now think I am crazy for :) I loved just putting hot cooked rice in salted seaweed wraps with soy sauce sprinkled on it.

[Emmysue]

Some time try baked beans topped with sour cream.

Or Bohemian potato soup made with bacon, onions, diced potatoes, dried mushrooms and barley. It is all cooked together until the potatoes begin to disintegrate Then salt and pepper to taste. The bacon is diced and the bacon fat is not drained away. Just saute the diced onions in it and proceed from there.

[Sherio88]

my grandma made ostakaka all the time, which is like warm cottage chees made out of milk straight from a cow... I liked it, and thought it was normal. Oyster stew is another one that Ithought was pretty standard.

[decolady]

Oyster stew was pretty standard fare when I was growing up in Louisiana.

[leishakae]

We always had pan-toasted cheerios as a snack for in church when we were little. Delicious.

[burgeoningfoodie]

SOemone else I know loved this as a snack but I think thye sprinkled a little sugar on it.

[Passadumkeg]

A huge pot of freshly picked Jersey sweet corn, cooked for 2 min. Nothing else, just corn, butter & salt. Summer time and the livin' was eeeasy.

[buttertart]

My mom and dad used to throw big "corn roasts"at the cottage that were actually "corn boils" in midsummer - parties featuring many many beers and other libations and huge pots of corn, burgers and dogs as a side dish, corn was the main thing, sliced field tomatoes and my mom's cookies and squares for dessert. A swell way to spend a warm night near the river under the stars. I could never figure out why my dad could have all the beers he wanted but I could only have one pop. Unfairness to small children.

[stuck in Hartford County]

Sounds like fun! My brother and I used to roll our eyes when mom forced dad to pull over at every darn farm market we passed on the way to the beach or lake, but now we both do the same thing!

[chef chicklet]

My dad was always in the kitchen making something and then he'd name it something goofy, like kasabi. That dish was actually mashed potatoes, white navy beans and sourkraut. I loved it and would eat bowls of it. He also loved to make oyster stew, which consisted of evaporated milk, jarred oysters, lots of butter,salt and pepper. I loved that, I think my brother and sister would hide when he was cooking this, I know they never ate it.

We had fish every Friday night. Mostly fish my dad caught. Mostly fresh water fish like perch and bluegill. The bluegill bigger than your hand. We'd either have homemade fries or hushpuppies, and always a salad and dessert. Yum.

[decolady]

We also had lots of freshwater fish, mostly caught by my grandparents or greatgrandparents. And of course sometimes we kids got to fish, too. Besides perch and bluegill, we also had a lot of bass. Hush puppies, hot green tomato pickles, and some delicious dessert. No fries.

[nyxpooka]

Love love love bluegill! Just about as good as crappies, if you ask me. I miss fresh fish so much, no one will fish or help clean them so I gave up....sigh

[grlwhoeats]

I spent nearly every day with my grandmother as a kid. Generally, until I went to elementary school, I never ever had a "cold" lunch. Lunch was always a cooked meal- no sandwiches. My grandmother made me pastina with butter and when it got hot she cracked an egg into it, added some parmesan cheese and served it with a side of cooked spinach with oil and red wine vinegar sprinkled on it. And speaking of....we never had salad dressing, just oil and vinegar. Oh, and salad always came at the end of the meal, right before dessert.

[cgarner]

...grlwhoeats are we related?
If I was home sick from school, my mom or dad woudl drop me off at my grandparents house. My grandmom would give me the pastina with an egg and grated locatelli (sometimes it was in broth, like a stracchiatelli) whenever I was sick

[Purrkins]

Kidney stew. My grandmother would make it for me, well-cleaned young beef kidney, floured, pan-fried, with cut-up potato and a few other spices (I'll have to look at my recipes when I get home), started on top of the stove, and finished with lemon slices on top in the oven in a cast-iron skillet.

Yeah, I know, it's KIDNEY! Ewwww. There are some things that I've read on this topic that make me ewww. Each to his own.

[The Professor]

Most people that go "ewwwww' at those sorts of things have never even bothered to taste them. The same people have no problem eating deli lunch meats not knowing that beef anuses and hearts are commonly used (both muscle meats, after all). Ignorance is bliss, I guess.
To put it into perspective, I knew someone that would go "ewwwww" at the mere mention of chicken.
Each to his own, indeed.

[nyxpooka]

I guess its what passes through the kidney that bothers me :P

[kittyangel]

I get the "ewwwwww" whenever I tell people pig stomach (hog maw) is my favorite meal. But it's just loose sausage and potatoes (some people add carrot) stuffed into the stomach of a pig and baked. The actual stomach gets browned on the outside and while I don't eat it, my dad and brother do.

[elle7573]

Dad always put sugar on the mac and cheese

[ZenSojourner]

"Spanish Noodles", made from egg noodles, hamburger, chopped onions, and campbell's condensed tomato soup

"Sloppy joes", made from hamburger, chopped onions, chili sauce, and ketchup.

Salt on fresh watermelon.

"bologna salad", which was chub bologna put through the meat grinder with whole gherkins and I forget what else, but involving lots and lots of mayonnaise eventually.

and milk toast, which was toast shredded into a bowl and then drenched in scalded milk with butter, salt and pepper.

Milk toast is the only thing that has followed me into adulthood.

[decolady]

Salt on watermelon was done by some of the people in my family, but not all of them. We also had milk toast and milk noodles.

[jmckee]

My mom salted canteloupe.

[elle7573]

My dad put salt AND pepper on canteloupe

[alkapal]

i do, too.

[kittyangel]

I thought everyone but me put salt on watermelon, cantaloupe and garden tomatoes. (I probably don't because when I was little my mom had high sodium and practically eliminated salt from our diets.)

[BobbyG]

This is an older post, but the bologna salad cought my eye. That is basically what "Fleischsalat" is in Germany, though there the bologna is sliced or cubed. I get it regularly at my local German deli and it's great on German bread for lunch. Oh, and growing up, salt on watermelon was common where I grew up...though I don't do that anymore.

[gentlyferal]

Once or twice a year, our family would have bacon feeds. Really - mom would fry up a couple pounds of bacon, dish up a little apple sauce, and the four of us would eat it all.

[micahg]

Matzo meal with milk as a bed time snack- we called it mishmash. I still eat it

[burgeoningfoodie]

I can't even fathom that..

[NicoleFriedman]

Pasta with ketchup. My parents still love it but I shudder now:}

Matzo brie with maple syrup- still yummy!

[BamiaWruz]

I love adding a drop of ketchup to my tomato sauce for pasta. I don't know but the flavour reminds me of my mum's friends sending over dishes of pasta from time to time and I always wondered what made it so sweet but tasty. Recently I figured out it's ketchup and lots of "spices" .. I just love it, reminds me of my childhood so I make it from time to time.

[L987]

I always have ketchup with pasta.. (even if it has its own sauce) i thought that was normal (it is where i live) but when I was in the US and ate spagetti and meatsauce with some ameican friends they kinda looked at me like i had lost my mind when i put ketchup on my food..

Here (sweden, europe) we even have a tv commercial that says "you should always eat ketchup to everything, everyday."

[just_M]

I had friends that added mayo to their spaghetti - I thought yuck! but I of course tried it and its not bad, just not my thing.

[fryerlover]

Hash, yes we ate hash. Hash was basically all leftover thrown into a frying pan and fried in some butter. It could be carrots, cabbage, meat, potatoes.....anything left from last nights dinner. I thought it was horrible and come to find out later we had it due to budget. Also, my dad ate molasses with white bread which I tried a few times but did not like it and could never touch it now.

[L987]

hmm i think most food we ate in my family was normal, I have some weird sandwiches ive learned from friends, some r really good.

butter, marmelade and cheese
butter, chocolate (drinkmix) powder
creamcheese, applesauce, ham
meatballs, beetsalad (pickled beets, apple, mayo)
butter, icingsugar

[The Professor]

The creamcheese/applesauce/ham combination sounds very tasty.

[firstlady]

Eating crackers with spaghetti and meat sauce. Also, sprinking salt on watermelon before eating it. Oh, and putting chopped, hard-boiled eggs in tuna salad.

[gaffk]

Do you mean there are families that don't put hard boiled eggs in tuna salad?

[cleobeach]

Love hard boiled egg in tuna salad! Actually I don't remeber the yolk in the salad but just the white in tiny cubes.

I just read through much of this thread. Too funny! My best friend's mom put oleo on all sandwiches and I thought that was odd.

I grew up in a rural, agricultural area and everyone's family stretched their food dollars so I don't know that my family's "weird" was any stranger than anyone else's "weird" No one would have remarked on oddities.

Prior to meeting him, my cousin's wife thought oleo/margarine was the same thing as butter. She grew up hearing margarine called butter. When they moved in together, my cousin was horrified to see a tube of margarine in the fridge. They had sort of a "who is on first" conversation about butter/maragine until he ran to the store, bought butter and had her do a blind taste test.

As she put it - "he changed my life with that butter. How could I have lived to 30+ years old not knowing about butter?"

[gaffk]

I am so happy to hear that poor woman finally met your cousin. Her cooking and baking skills probably increased 100% just from that one discovery.

[kittyangel]

I never even heard the word "oleo" until I was in my 20's or 30's. We always had butter and margarine. What exactly is oleo?

[buttertart]

The full word is "oleomargarine". Oleo is a US usage I believe (we called it margarine in SW Ontario).

[hill food]

yes, the name is a derivation of oil, during the rationing in WWII the makers were legally denied from adding coloring so as not to be a real butter competitor by looking like it, stuff looks like lard in the real world (which I would prefer in fact).

[BobB]

Later it was allowed to be sold with packets of coloring that you could mix in at home to make it look more buttery. Later still pre-dyed margarine became available and remains so to this day.

[hill food]

wow I forgot that detail. thanks!

[firstlady]

I made tuna salad w/egg (the way my father still makes it) and my co-workers were aghast. Even my boss was turned off by it. Outside of my father's tuna salad, I've never had it with hard-boiled eggs.

[hill food]

re tuna and egg: it makes sense to me, I like a Nicoise, so why the hell not?

[kittyangel]

It's not officially tuna "salad" unless there's HB egg in it!!!

[just_M]

I have never tried or even seen tuna salad w/egg. But thinking I like both egg and tuna salad I think I'll give it a go. What goes into it? Just mayo?

[decolady]

My Mom always fixed tuna salad with hard cooked eggs and so do I. Ingredients: tuna, chopped hardcooked egg, sweet pickle relish, sometimes some chopped celery, mayo, a little mustard, and a touch of vinegar or dill pickle juice. My daughters don't like sweet pickles, so I just use dill relish.

[The Professor]

I like it with just mayo, salt, pepper, maybe a dash of celery seed powder, and a hint of lemon. Chopped onion is ok, as is finely chopped celery (but both are very optional), but I save the pickle relish for the ham salad. Tried it in the tuna, don't like it.

[just_M]

Thanks - my usual tuna salad profile is similar to The Professor so I think I'll do a side by side w/ decolady's more deviled version. Mmmm sandwich time :-)

[1sweetpea]

When I was in Tunisia I had a delicious breakfast sandwich that included all of the following: tuna, hard boiled egg, potatoes, olives, capers, preserved lemon, peppers, tomatoes, onions, cucumber, parsley, olive oil and harissa. I'm pretty sure butter was available as well. The potatoes seemed like needless filler to me, but the rest of the ingredients were like magic together. I now do endless riffs on this combination in salads and sandwiches. I've also substituted the potatoes and eggs for navy or great northern beans, using an oil and vinegar dressing instead of the harissa, for something more Italian.

I grew up eating my mother's tuna salad, which consisted of solid white tuna mashed with mayo, sweet pickle juice, onion powder and not much else. Though the pickle juice did something interesting to it, it was otherwise pretty dull. I haven't used onion or garlic powder since the day I moved out, save for in chili powder blends, which I rarely use. To be honest, since I discovered dark tuna in olive oil in jars, I've had a hard time even considering buying the super dry stuff in cans. Yes, yes, I know I'm a tuna snob.

[hill food]

oh I like that Tunisian dish mention, sort of a variant on Nicoise.

[jbsiegel]

My mom always made "Tuna Surprise." This was tuna, Miracle Whip, sweet pickle relish, chopped onions, chopped green peppers, Velveeta cheese, and hard-boiled eggs run through a mouli grater. Stuff all that in a hot dog bun, wrap it in foil and cook at 350 for 30 minutes - yum!

[guilty]

My grandfather would eat Saltines with everything, including pasta. He was famous (within the family) for bringing a box of Saltines to Chinese restaurants. I didn't realize it was odd until it was 10 or so and noticed we were the only ones with crackers . . .

[Pzz]

While growing up in Baltimore, my family absolutely insisted on having sauerkraut with their Thanksgiving turkey dinner. I was well into adulthood before I was made aware that this was considered unseemly most other places. Unfortunately, my current girlfriend despises sauerkraut and howls endlessly if she even thinks she can smell it.

[jbsiegel]

We ALWAYS have sauerkraut with Thanksgiving and Christmas turkey dinners - it MUST be there! (Of course, both my parents grew up in Baltimore, so that explains it.) My husband now insists that it be there too - he's a convert. We also always have succotash.

[Pzz]

After inviting down family members from Pennsylvania over the holidays, they embraced the turkey with sauerkraut concept and have now made it part of their mandatory side dishes. I think the sauerkraut thing is spreading...

[merg01]

After 45 years living in Baltimore, my PA born father STILL complains every Thanksgiving about people eating sauerkraut with turkey. Sauerkraut belongs with the New Year's Day roast pork, mashed potatoes and applesauce. (kraut goes ON the potatoes). Mary Ellen

[jbsiegel]

Sauerkraut goes with most anything in my world!! The thing I think is awful is applesauce on pork. Somehow that fruit / meat thing DOESN'T do it for me!

For Thanksgiving - nothing better than a bite of sauerkraut, succotash, stuffing and turkey - all at once.

[pine time]

We had 2 odd breakfast items: either peanut butter mushed with some pancake syrup or butter with the syrup. Both were eaten with little little bits of white bread. Didn't know that it was "odd" until I mentioned it to a friend!

[pie22]

it wasn't till college that i learned milk and cookies were not a common breakfast combo.
the rule was one cookie per glass of milk when we were younger - the glasses were maybe 8 oz and pretty much the only way i would drink milk so good looking out fam!

[emu48]

When I was a kid, I had a friend whose mom always served us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with a slice of Swiss cheese in it. They said that in their family, they never ate PB&J any other way. I remember it as pretty good, though I've never been tempted to make one myself. I prefer peanut butter and hot Indian pickle sandwiches, myself.

[guilty]

Yes; nut butter and achaar make for a great sandwich.

[kittyangel]

Chili with PB? Hmmm..... We always had it with cornbread or butter bread. The only weird thing I can remember growing up (I'm guessing since we didn't have a lot of money), was a thick cheese sauce - probably Velveeta - over garden peas on toast. I actually think of it every now and then and would like to try it again. (I'd also like to try your mom's green tomato pie...recipe)???

One thing most people that I know think is strange is Pig Stomach (Hog Maw), but this is one of my favorite meals!

As for saltine crackers, we spread PB on them, but my boyfriend keeps saying his mom spread mayo on them and that they were good. Haven't tried it yet....

And tuna with hard boiled eggs. Where I come from, you either have a tuna sandwich (sans eggs) or a tuna salad sandwich (with eggs), so I was surprised to hear so many have not heard of it! (In fact we just had these today with Tomato soup. Yum!)

[loveballet101]

My dad's side of the family (including me) all love raw potatoes...Whenever someone's slicing some potatoes to mash, we take a 1/3 inch thick slice, shake on some salt and snack away!

[BobB]

You are not alone: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/304121

[Isobel_A]

My Dad used to make marmite and gherkin sandwiches. I really loved them, but the idea makes most people make the oddest gagging and retching sounds. . .

[kittyangel]

What is marmite???

[Isobel_A]

It's a sandwich spread popular in the UK (and there is also a version of Marmite and something called Vegemite in New Zealand and Australia).

It's called a yeast extract, and it's salty and savoury and extremely delicious. It's best eaten on hot buttered toast.

It's also an acquired taste and the whole ' you either love it or you hate it' is a running joke and part of the advertising strategy. Personally, I always say 'never trust a man who doesn't like marmite' ;)

[kittyangel]

I personally don't consider this strange, but I've never heard of anyone else making it. My mom took a big can of baked beans and mixed in ketchup, mustard and brown sugar. Then she took a pack of hotdogs, sliced a couple and mixed them in, then wrapped the rest in Swiss cheese, placed them on top, and baked it in the oven. You can also use Provolone cheese. We ate it with butter bread. I love this meal and sometimes make it myself.

[honorelle]

Chocolate semolina. Ever try explaining semolina to people as a dessert? "It's kind of like rice pudding, but a bit gritty like couscous, it's basically a bit like pasta, and it's cooked in milk and sugar."
You turn them off of eating (oh well more for me) and they look at you weirdly. People I know are split into three camps:
- those that tried semolina and hated it, (usually school dinners)
- those that refuse on principle to try it, (either because they've *heard* of semolina, or we tried to describe it)
- those that like semolina but think the way my family makes it is too weird to try.
That is, most people eat it vanilla with raisins and almost an equal amount of dried semolina and sugar. We eat it chocolatey, and with *maybe* a quarter as much sugar as semolina. We like to let it go cold and thicken and get a skin on top.

Also, my mum's way of making instant coffee - the water and the milk are poured in at the same time in near-equal amounts creating a latte texture - she's been doing this since the 80's, and I was taught that was how you made instant coffee.

[bac0n]

My Chinese family... we really wanted to assimilate well. Boxed Mac & Cheese with hot dogs and canned chili with hot dogs are strictly breakfast items. I never knew that's not the American way... Just last year, as I was heating up a can of chili for dinner, my mom tells me, "You're so weird! Isn't that suppose to be for breakfast???"

[hill food]

HA! but chili dogs for b'fast are cool in my book.

[merg01]

My family has always eaten Apple Banana Salad. The dressing is an equal mix of mayo and peanut butter (though I prefer a bit more PB). Then it's just diced apple and chunked banana. Mom sometimes added mandarin orange slices and Dad preferred chopped nuts in his (but only ever got a small bowl of nuts to had to his serving since the kids didn't like nuts). My 92-year-old father remembers his Mother making it when he was a kid. Not the most appetizing to look at but we always serve it with roast chicken or baked ham. My nephew likes the leftovers for breakfast.

Peanut butter on toast with sliced banana is still on my breakfast rotation. When we were kids Mom would squish the banana on but sliced is much more appetizing. Mary Ellen

[inaplasticcup]

rice + kimchi + <insert odd protein here including bacon, hot dogs, spam, baloney, scrambled eggs>...

What didn't we eat rice and kimchi with?

[achtungpv]

A misnamed "Denver Sandwich".

Saute ground beef with onion and bell pepper. Scramble in some eggs. Mix in a bit of mayo and mustard. Serve on white bread.

[al b. darned]

In or house "fried chicken" was leg quarters dipped in milk and put in a bag of corn flake, potato chip, or cracker crumbs, and shaken to coat. They were put on a baking sheet and baked until GB&D. When they came out with Shake 'n' Bake we thought, "What's the big deal? Mom's been doing this for years."

"French fries" were frozen from a bag baked in the oven.

When I went to work for a diner after flunking out of college, I was surprised to see the tiny pieces of chicken passed off as a "large portion."

And what was deep frying? Not something that was ever done in our house. I was surprised to see what went into the Fryolator...and this was in Vermont.

Growing up, hot dogs were done on the grille, inside or outside. With grilled or toasted buns...New England style, only, thank you. At the diner hot dogs were put in the Fryolator and finished on the grill.

In contrast, DW always had boiled hot dogs, and never had them grilled until she met me. Buns were never warm.

[hill food]

al: that was my (upstate NY) grandmother's technique - "boiled weenies" on plain white bread. god love her.

[PeteSeattle]

Those are all standard dishes from the Southern United States from the 1930's. And yes, they're all "Normal" for that time and place. You may also remember buttermilk with cornbread broken up in it. (I do)

[S_K]

I like balut (kai louk). I like red cooked pork...with a family twist of some cleaned, boiled, sliced intestines added. Grosses out my friends...mmm...more for me.

Not a family food but a strange habit: when I get the individual packet of ketchup, I tear off a corner of the packet and squeeze the ketchup on each fry to control the ketchup:fry ratio for each fry.

[richburgfoodie]

This thread has been running for a good while and I know I'm a little late getting in but I feel compelled to share. My first grilled steak of any kind was at the age of 16 on my first date. Until then "steak" was cubed steak, fried and served with rice and gravy.

We had pork brains and eggs about once a week for breakfast. I was probably 13 or 14 before I realized what I was eating. It was breakfast!

We had fried livermush a lot for breakfast. This is a concoction, similar to scrapple, of pork liver and cornmeal highly seasoned. It's a southern thing

Growing up my grandfather ran a dairy and I was probably somewhere around 12 or 13 before I had store bought milk. At the time I thought it was so nasty and tasteless. All of our dairy, poultry, pork, beef and most of our vegetables were home grown. We only bought flour, salt and sugar from the store.

[buttertart]

Nice memories, especially the dairy. This has been running for ages, should somebody start a part 2?

[heathercheryl]

I grew up in Montreal where everyone used real maple syrup. I put it on Aunt Jemima Buckwheat pancakes, on cornbread, on hot cereal like Cream of Wheat and on oatmeal. Since moving to Toronto I cannot find it on grocery store shelves. People here seem to prefer artificially flavoured syrups. So, I bring some back from Montreal each time I visit.

[hill food]

hc: seriously? in a city the size of Toronto? sheesh even in poky stores in the States you can find it.

[buttertart]

I grew up in London, Ontario (110 miles southwest of Toronto) and we always, always had it (as did my parents long after I left). I bought it at a grocery on Bloor St when I was at UofT. t has to be in the grocery stores in Toronto now.

[pmelvoin]

My Russian immigrant mother who grew up during the Great Depression combined peasant flavors with frugal wisdom.
Everything which could make a stock was saved and duly turned into a sauce, gravy, soup, whether jelled, cold, tepid or hot.
With grains and beans all things were possible.
One person mentioned brains: my mother duly cooked them both sauteed as well as cold, cubes in a salad.
Never found it odd to eat something that soft and delicate.

She would offer us raw eggs on the way back from the country-side where purchasing eggs without a coupon, during WWII rationing, was possible.
A hat pin, always a feature of her coiffure, would be used to poke a small hole in each end of the egg and we were abjured to suck the white and yolk out .

I have not had a chance to talk about this for many, many years.

Her favorite afternoon snack: a hand carved slice of Schvartzebrod smeared with sweet cream butter, topped with a slab of cured herring, and a cold boiled potato on the side with a blob of sour creme.

[cmztrav]

That's an amazing experience to share! Thank you!

[cmztrav]

Jelly and butter sandwiches, "butter breads" with every dinner, butter and tomato sandwiches, milk always on top of chocolate pudding, butter in any oatmeal/shredded wheat breakfast. Generally, milk and butter with sides of other, less important items.

As an adult, I realize that is the only possible way to live correctly. ;)

[buttertart]

Where did you grow up, if I may ask? That's rather like my SW Ontario upbringing, except for the butter in shredded wheat (pour boiling water over it before eating, right?). My great-grandpa ate butter and salt in his oatmeal porridge. I never saw anything but butter on sandwiches until I was grown up.

[cmztrav]

Hi buttertart! I'm Pennsylvania Deutsch. No water on any cereal that would be alien to my family hehe. Only milk, and then the butter. My mom likes mayo on sandwiches and doesn't like oatmeal of any kind but she isn't the german half either! I always grew up with butter, so that's what I mostly prefer. I have taught myself to enjoy olive oil, or a half-n-half mix for cooking.

Is SW Ontario big on farming? Maybe that's a common thread. My area in PA is very rich farmland.

[tracylee]

cmztrav, my heritage is Pennsylvania Dutch, and a number of relatives migrated to Ontario, where they still are today. We haven't discussed similar foods, however, since my Dad left PA as a kid, and I've only visited once for a conference.

[cmztrav]

That's cool. My immediate family comes from Reading/Berks/Lancaster. I dream of shoo-fly pies and cho-cho's. What I would give for some cho-cho's now is probably obscene. And Crystal Palace hotdogs. Oh my!

[buttertart]

SW Ontario is very big on farming (a lot of the processed tomatoes available in the States come from there for example), and there are a good number of Mennonite (and other similar denominations) folks there. So it's quite similar in that way.
The boiling water over the shredded wheat was to soften and warm it, you just pour it over and pour it off, then add the milk and whatever else. It seems to me the package used to have instructions on how to eat it hot this way.

[cmztrav]

That's interesting to know about Ontario :). For the shredded wheat, I never knew about that trick. I think we always just used scalded milk.

[buttertart]

Probably it was just a Canadian thing, because people always had their electric teakettles on the go for tea in the morning anyway!

[Blush]

Also from SW Ontario, and yes, the Nabisco package does still give the hot water instructions. Brown sugar is a must on mine.

[Cynamar]

We were pretty poor and my mom was raising four kids alone (three teenagers) so we never had just mac & cheese. It always had tuna and Veg-All mixed in--a cheap one-dish meal. My brothers still make that sometimes as comfort food. Their kids love it. Ick.

[Rodzilla]

scrambled eggs and maple syrup (the equivalent has been mentioned) waffles with cream cheese - then maple syrup (my sister)

[crowmuncher]

I thought it was okay to overcook pasta and add some "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" to it. I know now that THAT's just not right...

[PeteSeattle]

Attempt to use "I can't believe it's not butter" or "Shed's Spread" as a frying medium and see what happens. (It won't melt, it bounces around the hot pan)
Do that once and you'll never use that fake stuff again for anything. Will it even quiet a squeaky hinge? Or just rust it away?

[crowmuncher]

I Can Believe That Happened To Your Not Butter

[alkapal]

liquid country crock is useful to smear on the outside of a reuben before you griddle it under a press. just sayin'!

[PeteSeattle]

Try putting some of your country crock in a frypan by itself and melting it and see what you're doing to yourself! You damn the technique with faint praise, saying it's "useful" and I ask "useful for what? Making roofing shingles?"

[alkapal]

yes, i made roofing shingles! how did you know?

[The Professor]

nahhh...too watery.
Use clarified butter. Or better still, some bacon fat.

[pmelvoin]

Bacon fat was not in my home as I grew up.

But my mother would use all of the others.
Being of peasant stock and frugal, pretty much dictated this.

*Every* other sort of freshly (and some ancient) rendered fat was present in a jar, or cup, sometimes uncovered in the back of the refrigerator.

Most particularly, that which was rendered from a chicken.

Chicken fat, mislabeled, "schmalz," was a standard in Jewish households as both as an oil for light saute's and as a butter substitute on bread.
It is also an essential ingredient in matzoh meal dumplings.

Strange portions of veal fat, beef fat, left-overs from roasts long gone, all camped until being used straight-up on bread, for panbraising, etc.

Only as a secular adult did it dawn on me that most families did not render or reuse fat.

It's hard to describe the transition to using pork fat in its variety.
Bacon fat, as the Professor said, is wonderful for all sorts of flavorings, and yes, straight up on crackers, bread and toast.

Rubbed on items which should crisp up in an oven is another use.

All fats are now a part of my diet, along with butterfat in all of its many incarnations.

[hill food]

pmel: slightly edited that could be a manifesto I'd sign.

[ansluasi]

Sounds like an odd combo, but as a kid, we always cut those little powdered sugar donut rings in halfbagel fashion and put grape jelly on them. Mmmmmm, it was yummy:) That and my mom would make "chip dip" by mixing peanut butter and raspberry jam together. I would dip potato or corn chips in it. Also very odd but surprisingly tasty.

[guilty]

The doughnut thing sounds like an improv jelly doughnut to me--not odd at all.

[KevinKS]

For special breakfasts, we'd have soft boiled eggs over dry rice crispies with salt and pepper. As an adult I sometimes substitute over easy or sunny side up eggs for softe boiled, but it's never as good.
It's best if you mix it all up to coat all the crispies in yolk.

[crowmuncher]

never heard of such a thing, but it makes sense... I really enjoy eating sunny side up eggs over rice and love it when the yolk coats the rice

[KevinKS]

With the rice crispies, it's kind of like eating them over minced toast.

[crowmuncher]

yeah, i see how that would be like minced toast...

[hill food]

I had to stop and think (and that makes my head hurt) but soft eggs on krispies makes a kinda sense.

[gingershelley]

When I was growing up, we had a big - I mean a REALLY BIG bowl of salad served AFTER dinner every night. a nice salad, with lots of veggies, and homemade viniagrette, etc. My dad just loved salad, and we weren't allowed to leave the table until Dad was done eating salad. Sometimes he would eat two whole plates full. I didn't think much about it until I had friends come over for dinner, and they were just amazed at the huge pile that had to be put a way before we could be excused! I now cherish that memory, as it really kept us in tune and caught up on what everyone was up to, as the dinner talk had to go on until the salad was gone! :)

[crowmuncher]

nice memory; i was surprised to find out that Italians eat their salad after their dinner. I was invited back in college to a home cooked Italian meal and when they brought out the salad last I thought it was so odd. I totally got over it when they brought out expresso and tiramisu after that though :)

[hill food]

that is nice.

[pmelvoin]

A French fellow who I knew in the states invited me for a visit to his family's places on the outskirts of Paris and in a small town in the Loire Valley.
He usually prepared a simple salad, generally a butter lettuce or similar, lightly tossed with a mixture of just olive oil, vinegar, wine, Dijon mustard mustard, sugar, salt and pepper.
I was told that salad should come last.
I have followed that of late, and find that having a large salad on top of a modest meal otherwise works well for me

[TeriPie]

Well, I too did NOT know as a young child that salads consisted of anything BUT leafy green lettuce and thinly sliced red onion or could be dressed in ANYTHING BUT olive oil and red wine vinegar!?....wondered when at a friend's house: what WAS that CREAMY WHITE STUFF and ...CROUTONS?....what the heck? LOL...

Growing up in a spanish/Basque household it was also "normal" to watch my Mom (American, all the way) prepare for the oven: an ENTIRE lamb's head, split down the center with the BRAIN EXPOSED then poked FULL of fresh garlic cloves in all the "meaty spots" (like the cheeks, tongue, brain) then roasted and served to my Dad (Spanish/Basque, ALL the way!) in its ENTIRITY, both halves on a platter as we looked on in awe, watching him, knawing on that SKULL to get every last bit of "meat" possible, sucking every last bit of brain out of the sockets AND enjoying EVERY minute of that LAMB HEAD like it was a GOURMET TREAT!!......ahh...never knew it was "STRANGE" until we saw the looks on the faces of our MORTIFIED friends when they'd come over on one of those "Lamb-Head Dinner Nights"!! ....yeah on those nights Mom would make us scrambled eggs for dinner....hooray..Dad wasn't about to share "HIS" dinner with us "UNAPPRECIATIVE" kids! LOL..........true story btw!! :-)

[buttertart]

I can well imagine, we were in the central market in Athens one New Year's and they had trays and trays and TRAYS of lamb heads for sale - somebody had to be eating them!

[pmelvoin]

Recipes galore on this one.
Google: recipe: sheep"s (or goat's) head.

[dijohn]

My grandmother made chicken soup with all parts of the chicken and my father enjoyed the feet. The butcher always included a few extra chicken feet with our order since no one wanted them. Not surprising. I thought they were good too and didn't know how weird it was until I was a teen.

[grammywheels]

All these wonderful things are not in the least "weird" just cultural diversity. I grew up in northern New England in traditional Italian family, My mother adopted and adapted many traditional recipes of the region and also served us many traditional Italian dishes. We had lambs head and polenta and lobster stew and boiled dinners. The one thing I now find fascinating is that so many of my mothers italian dishes, especially the frugal meals, pasta carbonara for example, are now considered "gourmet specialties" and demand quite a price at restaurants. But for most of the "weird" foods served in families, there are quite logical reasons of how they evolved from the many cultures which have mixed and melded over the generations. Buttering bread for sandwiches served the purpose of sealing the bread so it did not absorb juices from meat or tomatoes, etc. and become a gooey mess before being eaten. Try it, it works...Food and cultural anthropology are fascinating studies and worth doing some reading on the topic.

[wintersweet]

I think most people posting are aware of this, and are using "weird" as shorthand for "not shared by most people in the culture around me," which would quickly grow repetitive and annoying. ;) Your post is a good reminder, though.

[fruti]

Ashkenazi/Peruvian background

-oxtails with lots of onions
-tripe stew
-hot sauerkraut soup with bacon, onions, garlic sausages
-savory French toast
-cottage cheese with chopped tomato/cuke, sometimes sour cream
-sour cream and banana with brown sugar
-grilled cheese with pickle relish
-sardine or liverwurst open face sandwiches with mustard
-limberger cheese
Buttered rye/pumpernickel
-canned plums with evaporated milk poured on top
-jello with same
-ceviche
-leftover chili with a fried egg on top for breakfast
- pancakes for dinner

[burgeoningfoodie]

I have had Sauerkraut soup but not with bacon. Do like bananas with sour cream and sugar. Blueberries and strawberries work too.

[MoxieLouise]

I haven't seen mine on here yet...every Thanksgiving my mom would make scalloped corn...with oysters. I thought it was perfectly normal until I started having people over for Thanksgiving when I grew up. I saw the horrified looks as they noticed the black blobs in the corn. My weird family (German descent) still likes it so nowadays I make one scalloped corn with oysters and one without. It's good, really!!!

[Munkipawse]

Oysters go black after cooking?

[MoxieLouise]

They stay the same color as when they come out of the can, dark grayish blackish greenish, but very easy to spot in the yellow corn. Not a big favorite of most kids...wish I knew where this recipe originally came from. I've never heard of anyone else doing it.

[grammywheels]

This might be the weirdest thing of all..as a New Englander I have never seen nor eaten an oyster out of a can although my mother would sometimes add fresh oysters to an herbed bread stuffing for a turkey.

[MoxieLouise]

You're lucky...being raised in the Midwest I've never seen anything BUT canned oysters. Not the same, I'm sure. And yes, we did the oyster dressing too...It's making my mouth water thinking of all the fresh seafood you must get. YUM! Clam chowder! And lobster! And shrimp!

[meems_PDX]

Chocolate gravy with biscuits
Savory french toast, never sweet (my mom used eggs, salt, water or milk and a ton of artificial vanilla flavoring with white bread)
My dad always ate tomatoes with his biscuits and white gravy, I thought it was weird as a kid but like it now!
Never any fresh veggies with dinner, only canned or bagged frozen (my mom hated and still hates things like steamed broccoli! It's a wonder I like anything green or healthy).
LOTS of TV dinners, canned foods, boxed mixes, etc.
I don't think I had a non-boxed cake or dessert of any kind until I was a teenager and made them myself.
My grandpa put cornbread in a glass with buttermilk in it up until the day he died!
TONS of bread/carbs every day (EX: bagel for bfast, sandwich for lunch, garlic bread with spaghetti for dinner!!!)
Poptarts as a food group, same with soda!
Lasagna made with TONS AND TONS of cheese and eaten with a side of white rice (LOL, this was a thing my mom got from her 2nd gen Japanese-American friend. We lived in the deep south, so ppl though they were nuts!).
My grandma made this atrocious mixture of strawberry gel (the kind that goes with strawberry shortcakes), peanut butter. cool whip and something else that I am forgetting...maybe table sugar?

[quirkles]

I just read through the entire thread hoping to find my "weird" combo. As long as I can remember I've eaten scrambled eggs with applesauce. Everyone has always told me it was strange, and I can't figure out where I got it from. Anyone else do this?

[Boychucker]

We ate that sometimes when I was little. I haven't had it since then, though. But sometimes it sounds good.

[quirkles]

Did you grow up in New England? Or are you from an eastern-European background? I've got to figure out where I got this from!

[The Professor]

Strange? No, strange is in the eye (or palate) of the beholder. I haven't heard of the applesauce/eggs combo but have heard reports of omelets made with jelly, jam, or preserves.

There are those that think my peanut butter and raisin sandwich (on seeded rye bread) is an odd combo too.
No matter. They don't know what they're missing! ;-)

[sandylc]

I love cream cheese and cherry jam on pumpernickel!!!

[tardigrade]

Rice soup: rice cooked in hot milk - no sugar or other flavoring except for salt. We used to have this on Fridays, especially in Lent.