What did you eat growing up? (s/o Duggar food)

[KungFuPanda]

Both of my parent were good cooks. It wasn't fancy, but it was good, hearty country food . . . meat and potatoes and produce from the garden in the summer/veggie soups in winter. The also did homemade pizza with hand kneaded dough and freshly made sauce. The lasagna was amazing. Every now and then they'd fry doughnuts. We ate out a few times a year.

 

EVERY WEEKEND OF THE WORLD we had gravy and biscuits. For those of you unfamiliar with the process, the gravy was made from bacon or sausage drippings. Mom made eggs to order with it. Good stuff. My husband's family never had breakfast gravy, but I converted them. We also did pinto beans and cornbread. Like I said, country food.

 

Low fat hadn't been invented yet.

 

My brothers did introduce my kids to the delicacy that is canned cheese. The kids LOVED squirting it on crackers, but didn't so much want to eat it. They're really more into port wine cheese and a nice dill havarti.

[butterflymommy]

We had a mix of great food, weird ethnic foods (bull testicles, anyone?), processed foods and canned/ boxed foods. I was a picky eater so it didn't really matter... I only ate 2 or 3 things much to my parents' unrelenting fury. We grew lots of veggies in the summer... how I wish now I'd eaten them, I love fresh veggies, now, as an adult.

[Matryoshka]

My mom was one of the original granola moms. We ate very healthy. I didn't grow up any processed stuff. We were part of a co-op even.

 

Homemade bread, Mom-made trail mix with carob chips (I hated carob chips), HUGE rounds of cheddar cheese wrapped in black wax, grass-fed beef, etc.

 

I'm there with you. My mom had a big organic garden. Lots of fresh veggies, everything from scratch. Whole grain bread (though not home-baked), brown rice, tofu, carob (but I like carob, and even my kids love carob chips :)) Shopped at the health-food store - I remember getting Tiger's Milk bars as a treat. She even tried to get me to drink brewer's yeast in cranberry juice - that I wouldn't do.

 

We did also eat meals with meat and potatoes, but the potatoes were all real spuds that had to be peeled - or we ate them baked, with the peel. Roast beef, pot roast. Also German things like sauerkraut and red cabbage. Ham and kale. Lots of homemade soups - my favorite was her lentil soup. Oh, and kasha - my other favorite (still make it all the time). She used to hide tons of veggies (including a whole eggplant) in her homemade spaghetti sauce by putting it in the blender.

 

The most processed thing we ate was probably the occasional Campbell's soup for lunch, and an extremely occasional hot dog, usually cut up in soup. We never had junk food, chips or soda in the house.

[Joker]

We had a mix of great food, weird ethnic foods (bull testicles, anyone?), processed foods and canned/ boxed foods. I was a picky eater so it didn't really matter... I only ate 2 or 3 things much to my parents' unrelenting fury. We grew lots of veggies in the summer... how I wish now I'd eaten them, I love fresh veggies, now, as an adult.

 

 

 

I loved and ate this many times before I even knew what it was. We actually had big parties on the farm at this time every year and everyone ate it up. It does seem weird to me now and I haven't eaten it since I was a teenager.

[Night Elf]

S*&t on a shinglebasically mom browned ground beef, added a little flour and water. To make a "gravy" and served it ladled over white bread (not toasted)

 

My mom's version of this was meatless. We called it white sauce on toast. It was a gravy made of flour, butter and milk and served over white bread toast. That was one of my favorite meals. My not so favorite was salmon patties from canned salmon. However, the two most common meals we had each week was Campbells soup served on white rice and scrambled eggs with grits and toast. I know we ate fast food too but I don't know how often.

 

I guess our food isn't considered healthy. We ate convenient cheap foods. My divorced mom was a single parent because my dad lived out of state. She typically worked 50 - 55 hours a week just to make ends mostly meet. She was one exhausted mom. And I fared pretty well.

[kiana]

Breakfast was almost always oatmeal, milk, and some kind of fruit.

 

Lunch was extremely often white sauce with leftovers chopped into it served over rice. Very easy to make, it's still one of my staples.

 

Dinner was usually meat, starch, two veg. The meat was variable, we ate everything, the starch was usually potatoes or rice but sometimes bread or pasta, the vegetables were usually steamed.

 

I still eat like this a lot.

[jenncslp]

We didn't eat well at all. I remember eating: Spaghetti O's, Chef Boyrdee ravioli, spam, salmon patties (canned salmon, with broken crackers, pressed into patties), twinkies, peanut butter and honey sandwiches. I remember a few good soups, and roast beef on Sunday's. However, the worst was when my dad went on a kick where he would only eat "McDonalds". We ate there everyday for over a year (my mom was sick of it so she would keep track). Sometimes we would just eat dinner there, sometimes two meals and sometimes all three. So sad-that was my 3rd grade year and I gained over 50 lbs during that year. Sadly, both of my parents died relatively young and I'm still trying to change things.

[Lawana]

We didn't eat well at all. I remember eating: Spaghetti O's, Chef Boyrdee ravioli, spam, salmon patties (canned salmon, with broken crackers, pressed into patties), twinkies, peanut butter and honey sandwiches. I remember a few good soups, and roast beef on Sunday's. However, the worst was when my dad went on a kick where he would only eat "McDonalds". We ate there everyday for over a year (my mom was sick of it so she would keep track). Sometimes we would just eat dinner there, sometimes two meals and sometimes all three. So sad-that was my 3rd grade year and I gained over 50 lbs during that year. Sadly, both of my parents died relatively young and I'm still trying to change things.

 

How sad for you.:grouphug::grouphug:

[TracyR]

Porkchops ( yuck , yucky! ) , roast beef, meatloaf, chicken, city chicken (pork shishcabobs), s*&t on a shingle , and other things homemade. My mom loved to cook and she was a good cook. We always had a vegetable with our meals.

For breakfasts , were pancakes, crepes, cream of wheat ,eggs and toast, French toast, mostly hot meals. We really didn't eat much cereal and if we did it was Cheerios, Rice Crispies, Cornflakes. Any sugar cereal was a rarity and a treat.

 

I'm not a morning person most days. My kids either eat cereal, waffles , or oatmeal most days. Granted I do make pancakes a day ahead and freeze them too.

On the weekend I'll make eggs and toast, bacon, pancakes , waffles or french toast.

Meals here are mostly home made. Though I do have a husband who likes to cook and believes that peas, and corn are the two only vegetables that really exist along with frenchfries (yuck). Unless we have a day where its crazy busy and I do pull out a quick dinner like Hamburger Helper. We rarely ever eat out, can't afford it. So that's a treat for us.

Edited January 11, 2012 by TracyR

[kiana]

Adding, having read more replies:

 

Our beverages were juice, milk, and water. If we were hungry, there was always good crusty bread and butter.

[jewellsmommy]

Canned peas, green beans or corn

Spaghetti (prego)

spaghetti rice

lasagna with pounds of cheese! and bacon?

tacos

barbecued chicken and augraten potatoes (box)

hamburger helper

macaroni and cheese

wonder bread

box cereal

chef boy ar dee stuff

meatloaf

hotpockets

tv type dinners

chicken nuggets

cube steak

canned soup

roast

chili

chicken stuff (sort of like pot pie, but without vegetables and biscuit instead of crust) I make a version of this now but with vegetables

sodas and drop dead sweet sugar with a little tea mixed in :tongue_smilie:

 

The funniest thing about my mother's cooking is that she would not use seasonings (except garlic salt for garlic bread). She said that she raised me to appreciate the true taste of foods because she didn't hide them or smother them with seasonings (said as if oregano was from the devil himself :lol:).

 

I am not super organic with everything from scratch. But, I cook different than my mother did. I like unsweet tea. I hate canned veggies. I didn't know veggies could taste good until I was an adult :lol:. I use and love real garlic! I use herbs. I grind my own grain for bread. I use various beans and vegetables that my mother would not touch with a ten foot pole. I did trick her into eating a bite of spaghetti squash once. She wanted to know why my noodles had a funny texture. :D

 

But, some habits die hard. There are still veggies that I have never tried, or did try but was less then successful in my execution. We don't eat seafood or fish. I still crave boxed cereals or the occasional little debbie snack cake. Oh, and I like tater tots.

[Caitilin]

My mom was a serious granola mama. We ate meals like:

Broccoli, brown rice, baked squash, maybe with cheese

Lentil stew

Homemade pizza with homemade sauce and all vegetarian toppings

 

Mum made (makes!) homemade whole grain bread every week, so we ate a lot of that for breakfast. It is great for toast, but too crumbly for sandwiches. However, my sibs and I all begged for "store bread." :D

[Photo Ninja]

Regular meals were bland. Except for salt and pepper, the only spice my mother used was cinnamon when she made french toast.

 

Fried hamburger patties with frozen french fries (baked)

 

Steak (grilled, for adults) and chicken legs (for the kids)

 

Tuna Noodle Casserole: egg noodles, cream of mushroom soup and a can of tuna.

 

Hamburger Helper: Usually the lasagna flavor or beefy noodle flavor

 

Tuna Helper - like Hamburger Helper, but used a can of tuna.

 

Hot dogs with a can of little 'french fries', kind of like chips, but they were french fry shaped and very thin and crispy. I don't remember what they were called.

 

Shake and bake chicken legs

 

Little steak things - they were frozen, oval shaped and came with a pat of butter. You put them butter side down in a frying pan and let them thaw and cook. I don't know what they were called

 

Lima Bean Casserole: frozen lima beans, cooked well, cooked hamburger, and a can of tomato sauce, all mixed together. As disgusting tasting as it sounds.:tongue_smilie:

 

A Frozen TV Dinner was a treat I used to beg for.

 

Soup was only for when we were sick, and it was always an envelope of Lipton Chicken Noodle soup with the tiny noodles. I loved that soup.

 

Spaghetti: spaghetti noodles, and sauce was a can of whole tomatoes with an envelope of spaghetti sauce spices mixed in. The noodles tasted ok, but the sauce was really just some glops of runny tomatoes. But my mother thought it was homemade spaghetti sauce because she made it at home. :001_huh:

 

Tacos (corn tortillas fried until crispy, hamburger, shredded cheese) and Spanish rice (Minute rice mixed with a can of tomato sauce)

 

Sides were either boiled vegetables, baked potatoes, Minute rice, or Pillsbury biscuits from a can.

 

Frozen vegetables - the kind in a rectangular box, frozen in ice - put into boiling water and boiled until mushy.

 

Salad: iceberg lettuce, a couple slices of tomato and either Russian or Thousand Island dressing

 

Meatloaf: hamburger with an envelope of meatloaf seasoning.

 

I don't think my mother's cooking was much different from that which my friends ate, though. Maybe it was the era, but none of my friends ate what I would consider healthy meals, either.

[missmoe]

I lived on a farm and we ate organic before organic was much of a word at all. My mother is German and every meal was hearty!

 

Supper was a meat, two cooked veggie (grown in our garden), potatoes, bread (homemade whole wheat), and a fresh salad. Often we would also have a pickle or canned fruit (canned from our fruit trees or neighbor's trees).

 

Breakfast was a cooked cereal, meat, potatoes, eggs, milk, and fruit.

 

Lunch was leftovers, but always included potatoes!

[JennyD]

I'm there with you. My mom had a big organic garden. Lots of fresh veggies, everything from scratch. Whole grain bread (though not home-baked), brown rice, tofu, carob (but I like carob, and even my kids love carob chips :)) Shopped at the health-food store - I remember getting Tiger's Milk bars as a treat. She even tried to get me to drink brewer's yeast in cranberry juice - that I wouldn't do.

 

We never had junk food, chips or soda in the house.

 

Yes! Carob chips! And I also remember getting Tiger's Milk bars as a special treat at the health food store. It must be a touchstone moment for a subset of 1970s kids.

[Beth in SW WA]

Just thinking of these meals brings back a jumble of memories. My mom did her best with what she had to work with. I don't make any of these things now.

 

Iceberg lettuce only for dinner salads.

 

Meatloaf -- ground beef, seasoning packet, tomato sauce or ketchup, chopped onion & green pepper, s & p, served with a baked potato (w/ margarine & IMO)

 

Grilled cheese

 

"Poor-man's" French dip -- broiled ground beef in a long patty, hoagie roll, au jus packet

 

"Poor-man's" Stroganoff -- ground beef, sour cream, cream of mushroom, Worchestire sauce, s & p

 

Spaghetti -- ground beef, seasoning packet, tomato sauce over noodles

 

Tacos -- ground beef, seasoning packet, lettuce, cheese, on hard shells

 

SOS -- ground beef, s & p, over white bread (not toasted)

 

Fried Spam

 

Hamburger Helper

 

Tuna Helper

 

Mac-n-Cheese

 

Rice-a-Roni

 

Top Ramen

 

"Chicken Surprise" for birthday dinners: boiled chicken cut in pieces, rice, cream of mushroom soup, chopped onion in a casserole dish topped with white bread, drizzle with butter then bake.

 

Shake-n-bake pork chops (overcooked/dry)

 

Breakfast for dinner (my favorite)

 

Banquet Fried Chicken, frozen in a box

 

Pizzas, frozen (10 for $1.00)

 

Fried hamburgers, frozen french fries

 

Lipton chicken noodle soup

 

Campbell's Bean & Bacon soup

 

Frozen TV dinners (salisbury steak?)

 

Breakfast: Cheerios, Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes (we added a tsp of sugar), toast, eggs/sausage links on weekends.

 

School lunch: Bologna sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, Tuna sandwiches

 

We ate many apples & bananas -- otherwise fruit cocktail from a can in jello on occasions.

 

Snow Star Ice Cream almost nightly. No soda. Just milk & water.

 

Wow, this is quite a trip down memory lane for me.

[GingerPoppy]

My mom was a little ahead of her time. For breakfast, she would do things like make 1/2 white / 1/2 whole wheat flour pancakes. We often had porridge--usually Red River (a blend of grains made into hot cereal). We only had healthy cold cereal, except once in a while she'd get a box of Fruit Loops for us to use as a topping for the healthy cereals, to sprinkle on top. :tongue_smilie:

 

My parents gardened in those days. I have memories of sitting on the back porch shelling endless peas so we could freeze them. We also had corn, beets, carrots, onions, and lot of potatoes. We even had a cold storage room in the basement, and before supper many nights I'd be asked to go down and pick out six big potatoes for supper. There was no such thing as instant in our house.

 

We did a lot of meat, potato, vegetable, and salad type meals. Our veggies were either fresh or frozen; steamed beet tops from the garden is one I remember. Sometimes we'd get spaghetti or soft tacos--properly spiced and with all the toppings. We had beef, pork chops, chicken, various types of fish as the meat part. I remember my dad bringing home gorgeous, delicious salmon fillets and amazing steaks he'd get as some kind of work bonus. He even brought home live lobster once. Because he traveled for a living, he'd even bring home treats like key limes from Florida, pecans from the southern states, pecan logs (to die for!!), things like that.

 

My mom was/is a really great cook, and she's even gotten better over the years. Some of the specific dishes I remember: Apple Dumplings, lasagne, scalloped potatoes, baked chicken, angel food cake with whipped cream and berries, stew with dumplings on top, salisbury steak, creamed white beans, poppyseed cake, homemade muffins. In the summer we would sometimes have burgers or hotdogs and eat them outside at the picnic table with a jug of Kool-aid.

 

Even though we never had excess money, we always ate well. I remember scrounging around the house for spare quarters and dimes so we could go through the drive through and each get an extra-small soft serve cone as a treat. Eating out was a rare treat. If it was fast food, we had to share large fries rather than have our own. But regular, healthy, mostly homemade food was always a priority with my parents, and I've kept up that tradition in my own home (and we still share large fries!).

[ElizabethB]

There was usually a veggie with dinner, but a lot of the processed stuff mentioned. (And, the veggie was usually canned and often corn.)

 

Also, we occasionally had tater tot casserole!

 

...And, more often than tater tot casserole, we had potato chip casserole!! (Like tater tot casserole but even more unhealthy. It did have a satisfying crunch.)

[Laura Corin]

My mother was an early British convert to mediterranean cooking. We spent each summer in southern France, and she cooked mediterranean-influenced food at home. Almost everything was cooked from scratch.

 

Laura

[BeehiveSez]

I grew up in a traditionally Irish town in the late 80's to a VERY traditional mother. She often cooked us Colcannon which is usually made from mashed potatoes and kale (or cabbage), with scallions served with boiled ham or Irish bacon. Another firm favourite of hers was Iirish stew or stobhach Gaelach. It was made form the scraps of lamb and often well over a year old to give a mature taste! We hated it though. She added all the veggetables that were too old for anything else thinking it would hide the taste but it didnt. :(

[lailasmum]

We mostly ate meat and potatoes plus a couple of veg. Once in a while we had a stirfry. My dad had two allotments and a veg garden at home so we always had tons of veg. My mum is quite a bad cook and never used spices so every thing was very bland, it also tended to be overcooked. It was pretty healthy most of the time though.

[Lily_Grace]

We were poor, so we ate a lot of cheap meals - home grown/canned veggies and fruits, cheap cuts of meat, LOTS of beans! Mexican and pasta were two of the staples in our house - tacos, frijoles, rice, spaghetti..the rest were creative, but usually decent tasting meals. My husband grew up on the other end of poor and ate more "American" staples - lots of ground beef, canned veggies, potatoes, and casseroles.

 

I'm glad my kids eat more of a varied diet than I ever did, which is surprising given our two backgrounds. Dh wouldn't even try something that wasn't in a Betty Crocker cookbook for a good portion of his adulthood and I wouldn't touch all the heavy fatty foods he wanted. We eventually learned to cook (him much more than me!) and now our kids get anything from couscous to spinach and feta stuffed chicken and everything in between.

[Heather in Neverland]

We had some box meals like hamburger helper but also a lot of home made meals like stuffed cabbage, pot roast, etc.

[Jumping In Puddles]

My Italian Grandmother taught my mother how to make tomato sauce that was so incredibly, unbelievably, remarkably delicious that I never found any other sauce to come close it until I went to Italy! :biggrinjester:

 

I have been served Prego by people who have told me I'd never know it wasn't homemade and I've tasted homemade sauce made by Italian American mothers that was homemade and tasted like Prego... but in both cases those sauces are way to sweet for my taste and overly spiced (or maybe differently spiced?) but I was always polite and told the host that I loved their sauce. :tongue_smilie:

 

I keep a jarred marinara sauce (Victoria) in my pantry that is not too sweet because unlike my mom and grandma, I don't make a huge pot of sauce every Sunday and sometimes I need something quick and easy. Because it's Marinara, it doesn't compete in any way with my memory of my slow cooked sauce.

 

Other than pasta, which we ate every Sunday, my mom usually made beef/chicken/lamb/fish, rice/potato/noodles and a vegetable.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Jumping In Puddles

[Hadassah]

We ate fairly healthily. At age 7 I decided to become a vegetarian, and I still am one, but my family wasn't, so there were some nights where I had to "fend for myself".

Every Sunday my mom would make a big salad for the week, with veggies from our garden. Everyone was required to have some salad at every dinner. I ate a lot of lettuce during my formative years :D.

We had a sort of schedule:

 

Monday - Casserole

Tuesday - Meat Night. I usually just had leftover casserole.

Wednesday - Pasta

Thursday - Soup during the winter, Wraps/sandwiches in summer.

Friday - Shabbos meal

Saturday - Crock Pot-type meal or just a big bowl of salad (if we still had a lot of salad left).

Sunday - Leftovers, plus tater tots. I lived for Sunday Night tater tots.

 

Family favorites: lasagna, vegetable stew, barley soup, tortilla wraps with feta, hummus,

carrots, and tofu or chicken, and, of course, tater tots.

[Occasionally]

this is what we ate when I was a kid:

Oatmeal for breakfast

a homecooked, from scratch, meal for lunch (potatoes and veggies daily, meat twice a week, spaghetti and tomato sauce on Saturdays)

whole grain rye bread and cheese for dinner

 

We never had packaged or canned food, except maybe canned peaches once in a while

I grew up in East Germany.

 

This sounds good to me.

 

I grew up with a mom who used lots and lots of packaged and processed foods. She still does.

[Rhonda in TX]

I was a very picky eater, so I often didn't eat what my mom made. They would let me make myself a peanut butter sandwich. I ate a LOT of peanut butter sandwiches. :)

[nukeswife]

My mom's version of this was meatless. We called it white sauce on toast. It was a gravy made of flour, butter and milk and served over white bread toast. That was one of my favorite meals.

 

My mom made that sauce too, but added a can of swanson canned chicken to it. We never got it on toast though, just plain white bread. I liked the chicken one. But the ground beef one just used the grease with flour and water for the gravy it was pretty tasteless and gross.

[nukeswife]

Hot dogs with a can of little 'french fries', kind of like chips, but they were french fry shaped and very thin and crispy. I don't remember what they were called.

 

We ate those too, they are called Potato Sticks. They came in a can.

[amy g.]

We did not eat boxed meals or sugared cereal. We had a green salad every night with dinner, fresh fruits for snacks, smoothies fora treat, whole wheat bread, natural peanut butter.....

 

I thought it was funny when my son came home from Boy Scout camp once, and and told me how he had fun, but part of the program was to feed them really bad food. The kid really believed that the adults thought it would be character building to feed them the worst food they could find.

 

Dh explained that they were not doing it on purpose, but some people actually eat frozen, and instant food. Some people actually like it.

 

Dh added that camp food was a lot less of an adjustment for him considering what an awful cook his mom was, but it was quite a shock for my son.

[silliness7]

Elbow macaroni and can of stewed tomatoes (just those together)

 

Egg noodles and stew beef (just those together) - I just ate the beef because egg noodles make me gag

 

Sardine sandwiches

 

Vienna sausage sandwiches

 

Favorites were:

Spaghetti

Tacos

Fried spam and mac and cheese

 

We didn't have the favorites often but compared to the usual they were gourmet.

 

My parents needed to save money for the case of beer that they drank every night.

 

Love me a Vienna sausage sandwich. Having one for lunch. I find this thread very disturbing. Ya'll are dissing my favorite foods. Food snobs. :D:tongue_smilie::rolleyes::auto:

[Susan in TN]

I do remember the LaChoy and minute rice. We ate casseroles, but I'd never heard of tatertot casserole until a few years ago. :)

 

Some of my favorite meals were:

 

Cornflake crusted baked chicken

BBQ baked pork chops (pork chop topped w/a lemon slice, brown sugar, ketchup)

Ham and Swiss baked sandwiches (mayo and finely chopped ham or spam baked on open faced English muffins, topped with swiss cheese. I think there were poppy seeds and maybe mustard involved.)

[Wabi Sabi]

Tacos- Just plain ground beef in a shell with cheese, lettuce and tomatoes.

Goulash- Our version was cooked spaghetti with about half of the cooking water drained off, a can of tomatoes and some ground beef added. It was fairly soupy.

Hash- We'd peel and dice a couple of potatoes and add it to the electric skillet with a couple cans of corned beef hash, fry it all up.

Smoked sausage- A package of Hillshire Farms sausage, a can of sauerkraut and potatoes fried in the electric skillet.

Vegetable soup- A little bit of beef (leftover roast sometimes, other times stew meat), V8 juice, frozen veggies and cabbage in the crockpot.

Grilled cheese and canned tomato soup

Kraft mac and cheese

Spaghetti- A pound of ground beef, jar of Prego or Ragu and noodles.

Hamburger Helper

 

At all meals, drinks were generally a 2-liter of soda or a big can of Hawaiian punch divided amongst everyone.

 

One of the most special meals though was leg of lamb. It was something that we typically only had once or twice a year on special occasions, usually served with mashed potatoes and an iceberg salad. The leftover lamb was cubed up and made into shepherd's pie with frozen peas and mashed potatoes. It was always so good.

 

As a very, very young child (before I started school) I also recall eating lots of frozen dinners. I loved the beanie weenies that came with cornbread and fried apples. My mom was a divorced single mother at the time and I don't ever recall eating them again once she remarried when I was about 5-6 years old.

[Hunter's Moon]

Excuse any errors, on iPod. I'm only 18, by that is when most move out to attend college, get their own place, etc. so I thought I'd answer.

 

From before I could remember to about 10 yrs old or so, we ate a lot of pre-packaged food. Ravioli and the like. My mother rarely cooked, but when she did it was usually spaghetti. She cooked it well though, not gummy or mushy. Breakfast was cold cereal, hot cereal, pop tarts, frozen waffles, or toast. On weekends, it was usually something my father made like cinnamon buns from the pressurized can, pancakes or waffles from pancake mix, eggs, bacon, home fries, etc.

 

Packaged cheese slices were what we considered great, but when we started buying real cheese, the slices tasted horrible. I also loved spam and canned Vienna sausages. Those were treats, though.

 

At one time, both parents worked full-time so my sister and I would either go to my mother's job (Chuck E. Cheese) and eat all the pizza, chicken wings, etc. we could want or go to my aunts house where we ate frozen dinners or canned spaghetti, soup, or whatever was quick and easy.

 

My dad usually cooked dinners which were anything from chicken to burgers and fries. Canned veggies were he norm. When I was about 10, my father got into more healthful eating and branching out at meal time. Stir fry, different styles of chicken dinner, etc. We still did canned veggies until I was about 14. Now we only so fresh or frozen.

 

We always had ice cream, brownies, chips, cookies in the house, but now that is rare. Whatever sweets we have I bake from scratch and are vegan. I also make biscuits that my father always begs me to make.

 

Overall, they did the best they could with what they knew. I didn't know until recently that my father's mother was a great book. He teaches me what she taught him. My mother's mom however overcooked everything and canned veggies were the norm. I'm proud of my parents for changing our eating habits when they realized that convenience wasn't everythig.

 

I can't stomach canned veggies now (except I LOVE artichoke hearts) so everything is fresh or frozen. We're blessed to live in a low COL area, so we can get 3 days worth of fruits and veggies for about $10 or less.

Edited January 11, 2012 by BeatleMania

[Dustybug]

 

We drank a lot of kool-aide and may the gods help the person who took moms last mountain dew (when they came in an 8 pack of bottles).

 

This was us too. We never had juice, it was always kool-aid. My mom was a pepsi drinker though.

 

My family was poor when I was growing up. Not modest income, not "things were tight and we never took a vacation" poor but government cheese and not being able to afford shoes when yours had holes in them already poor. My mother was also NOT a cook and basically never cooked us anything except for scrambled eggs, tortillas, burritos with hamburger meat, grits, toast, spagetti, crockpot chili, fry bread, rice, PB cookies and baked chicken. My father on the other hand was a fantastic cook and when we had a little money he would cook up amazing meals. He did well on the cheap too but often had little to work with. I recall searching the house for change for food with my mom and dad more than once. Like a lot of poor families, we would eat better when there was a paycheck or food stamps and then it would get more meager just before payday and food stamp day. My mother was not the best housekeeper or planner so the shopping would happen all at once with the $$ rather than setting aside a little for each week. My dad did most of the cooking, but not all. In addition to the food they bought, we received food from the government for a number of years (I don't know that they still do this) which was flour, butter, cheese, PB and a few othert things. This came in white bags with black lettering "USDA Commodities- Not for Resale." That cheese is legendary among the people I know who ate it- it was the worst kind of cheese, like kraft singles cheese food but in 10 pound solid bricks. It did not grate properly and was basically good for one thing- grilled cheese sandwiches so oily and greasy you have to pretend it is something else to swallow it. We also were eligible for food stamps most of my childhood and we frequently went to food banks. So we never went hungry but we ate very differently from my peers.

 

For breakfast, we ate a lot of hot cereal, grits, eggs and pancakes. Oh and biscuits, made from scratch. One of the other things my mom could make. My dad made amazing whole wheat pancakes and we would make syrup from blackberries or other berries we picked or we would have that fake syrup. Rarely had cold cereal and never ever the sugar cereals which were dubbed too expensive. Which is just as well. Breakfast meat was rare, like a Christmas thing.

 

For lunch, we usually ate leftovers from dinner or sandwiches. When we were in school, we got free school lunch.

 

For dinner, we ate a lot of crockpot food- homemade spagetti sauce, chili, soup. There were weeks that would pass with us eating from the same basic pot, adding a bit more every so often etc. However, my parents usually broke it up with something different on the weekends, especially Sunday which was a big deal. We ate a lot of turkey because it was cheap and we would get so many for free from the food bank. It was a special day if there was meat that was not hamburger or turkey. We never ate meat on Fridays and ate fish or veggie meals those days. Fish was sometimes caught or it would come from the fish market cheap or my mom would buy fish sticks, one of the processed foods I remember most clearly. My mom would make us burritos. My dad would take the last of the spagetti sauce and make pizza, crust from scratch.

 

We moved a lot so we did not have a garden. My dad did make bread and with the exception of what we got from the food bank we never really ate canned food. I have a very low tolerance for salt in my food because my parents never added it and we ate very little from cans.

 

My dad could make fantastic stuff so I recall a lot of Sunday dinners with curries or roasts or ribs or something special, especially when I was older and $$ was a bit better. My parents could stretch a dollar like no one else can and I recall them getting friendly with the meat men at the stores so they would set markdowns aside for us. They were big on sales.

 

My dad can also can make amazing desserts- something like chocolate pies, lemon pies, fruit pies, cakes, tarts would be made for any holiday or birthday and all from his head, never saw him use a recipe for most things and that is how he taught me to cook. Still to this day that is why I have to stop and think if someone asks me how to make something I learned to as a child because I am just like, um, you mix up the stuff till it looks right and then cook till it smells right. :001_smile:

 

It was not an easy way to grow up but I hope I can impart of fraction of the penny pinching frugality and willingness to eat up and make do to my kids. Also, I will teach them to cook like my dad and have already started with our older son.

 

 

This was us too. We were on food stamps up until I was in high school. My mom was a single mother and there were times when we had so little money we would eat Ramen Noodles for every.single. meal.

 

I don't fault her for the way we ate though, she was doing the best she knew how and with the resources she had available. Like a pp said, at least we had some food to eat. Better than none.

[LizzyBee]

Most of what we ate was grown on our farm. We froze and canned vegetables all summer. Potatoes and apples will stay good for months in a cool basement. We butchered in the winter and froze and canned meat. We drank raw milk and made our own butter. We ate a heavy meat and potatoes diet with low-fat nothing, and we were all skinny as rails.

 

We thought it was a huge treat to eat a TV dinner or Kentucky Fried Chicken!

[VeteranMom]

Some of our dinners:

Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Hillshire Farm Sausage, and Beans

Canned Ravioli

Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes

Canned Chow Mein meal with white rice

Spaghetti with Ragu Sauce

A mixture of elbow mac, hamburger, onions, and campbells tomato soup.

Tacos

Hamburgers

 

We never ate salads and the only vegetable served was corn or peas.

[Jennifer3141]

My Mom had boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese around. And oh! Canned ravioli or Spaghetti-Os was our usual lunch in the summer. That or sandwiches on Butternut bread. Jif peanut butter and Smuckers grape jam.

 

My parents ate a salad with almost every dinner. It was iceberg lettuce with a couple of tomatoes cut up in it.

 

And we did eat out a lot. Both my parents worked outside the home - they owned their own business.

[missmoe]

We did not eat boxed meals or sugared cereal. We had a green salad every night with dinner, fresh fruits for snacks, smoothies fora treat, whole wheat bread, natural peanut butter.....

 

I thought it was funny when my son came home from Boy Scout camp once, and and told me how he had fun, but part of the program was to feed them really bad food. The kid really believed that the adults thought it would be character building to feed them the worst food they could find.

 

Dh explained that they were not doing it on purpose, but some people actually eat frozen, and instant food. Some people actually like it.

 

Dh added that camp food was a lot less of an adjustment for him considering what an awful cook his mom was, but it was quite a shock for my son.

 

My ds had the same reaction to Scout camp food. I think the food served at his camp was provided through the federal free lunch program. So it was school food. My ds was in shock and he still dreads eating that camp food.

 

The first time I encountered mac and cheese in a box and spam was at camp. I found it quite interesting! My husband is from PI where spam is a treat--he ate it with fried rice several mornings a week. :tongue_smilie: So now we have spam a few times a year!

[Tap]

We had a variety. When I was very young, we ate completely from scratch aside from the occasional treat. We had a garden and my mom canned veggies and fruit. She was raised in the south, so we ate a lot of fried foods. Gravy and bread were served with most meals.

 

Over the years, my mom started working and more boxes showed up in our cupboard. By the time I was a teen, about 1/2 of a meal would have came from a box or can. Rice a Roni, Stove Top, boxed fish sticks were common items.

 

 

 

I use a mixture of items. We have our beef raised for us and I buy organic/local when feasible. I do use a few boxes and cans here and there, but I try to make good choices in those areas and watch ingredients. I work outside the home, but as my schedule varies, the more I am home, the better I cook.

[SweetMissMagnolia]

oh yeah I can relate to some of that....fried spam,fried bologna sandwiches,pasta in can,red hots,those red hotdogs too-and our tacos were pretty much the same as yours---things got better when I started cooking LOL for the family and as we learned certain things weren't as healthy as before.....

[PeacefulChaos]

Breakfast: cereal or pop tarts. Granola bars sometimes.

Lunch: a Schwan's hot pocket (pepperoni pizza or ham & cheese flavored. I still like them :D ) or a sandwich. Turkey and cheese, usually. That's if I was at home. At school, I stopped eating lunch in middle school, or just bought ice cream. In high school I ate a variety of snacks and soda for lunch. Super healthy - and I wonder why I have such a hard time figuring out what to eat for breakfast and lunch now! ;)

Dinner: tuna & noodles (tuna, noodles, cheese. I still like it :lol: ), beef stroganoff (favorite), potato soup (favorite), and various foods from Schwan's. In high school, Gpa began traveling more for work, so with just Gma and I at home during the week, we went out probably 2x a week as well as every Sunday. It was not unusual for us to eat out 3-4x a week.

[G5052]

Lots of boxed macaroni-and-chesse, fried hamburger patties, tator tots, frozen fish sticks, canned ravioli, sloppy joes, and what was called "Spanish Rice" basically white rice cooked with a can of stewed tomatoes and hamburger thrown in. Whatever we had, we've often have for three nights in a row or more. Oh yes, ice berg lettuce salads too.

 

I had a local relative who embraced Julia Child when she came on the scene, and her meals were (and are) entirely different of course. I'm thankful for that because it gave me a taste for better things.

[dragons in the flower bed]

My mom was very much opposed to fat and salt. She always used margarine and this kind of non-salt stuff. She baked instead of fried if she could, but I remember her (breaded and fried) chicken cutlets being soooo good. Her formula was: starch, veggie, meat. I stopped eating meat when I was nine and don't remember much besides the chicken cutlets, which always threatened my ethical stance. Pork chops, I think. Meat loaf. Starches were either potatoes or rice. She rotated corn, peas, green beans and spinach, too. Then there would be spaghetti and (authentic) arroz con pollo each once a week.

 

We always lived with relatives, so I remember what they cooked too, and it was always actual from-scratch food. Mom's was healthier because it was prepared with an eye to keeping it low fat, but there was nothing wrong with the lasagna, ravioli, eggplant parmesan, stuffed artichokes, meatballs (from veal) and pasta sauce that my aunt made every week. She was born in Puerto Rico but married an Italian man and cooked what he wanted.

 

We did have Kraft macaroni and cheese at Mom's house once in a while if a babysitter was preparing lunch or something like that, but she hardly ever did that for dinner. When she did we knew it was a special occasion.

 

She did buy us a LOT of take out and junk food.

 

Nowadays Mom buys prepared foods and doesn't cook any of her ethnic recipes from scratch anymore. I told her I was making tamales for the holidays and she said, "Honey. Tamales are expensive and difficult. Do you really like them that much?"

[Virg]

I grew up in the late 80's - early 90's and I was the only child at my private school who had 100% juice boxes, fruit leather made from real fruit, little boxes of raisins, a fresh fruit and a sandwich on nut/grain/chunky bread with natural peanut butter. I hated it lol.

 

My dad cooked from scratch when we ate at home. We had seafood linguine, stir-fries, beef burgandy, oyster stew, etc. When we ate out (probably 3x a week!) We ate at real restaurants. I use to beg people to get me a Happy Meal when I was with them. I didn't realize until I was an adult that my parents must have had money because all of those meals at places like that was expensive! We got candy on Halloween and treats at places like the fair but for the most part we didn't even have desserts. I wasn't allowed Taffy or soda or anything else "bad for teeth".

 

To this day I hate natural peanut butter and chunky bread. I will eat whole grain sprouted bread but no chunks!

[Canadianmumof5]

My Dad, bless his heart, got sole custody of my sister and I in 1975.....I was 3 and my sister was 2. (one of the first cases where Dad got custody way back then)

 

Cooking was not exactly one of his "things" so we had lots of fish cakes & fish sticks w/ fries, hamburger helper, spam with salad (usually only in the summer), lots of BBQ stuff and pretty much anything else that could be thrown in the oven or microwave back then. Lots of canned fruit - canned apricots, canned bing cherries, and canned fruit salad (we always fought over the 1 or 2 cherries in the can :)).

 

And fast food every Friday night before grocery shopping. Usually Burger King.

 

Not exactly the healthiest of meals - but we survived.

[LuvingLife]

I eat pretty healthy meals, nothing that is bad for me and now that I am more in charge of the meals, I make more things that are grown from our garden or are all natural foods. I hate boxed food and fried food, it tastes disgusting to me now and I cannot be around friends or family who eat it, I will get sick.:tongue_smilie:

[TravelingChris]

My father was the better cook in my family but my mom was actually pretty good, We ate what I consider regular meals- meat, starch like potato, rice, or noodles, vegetable, salad, and dessert. Dessert was almost always a fruit. Only very occasionally did we have a sweet dessert like ice cream. I also didn't have candy or cake or cookies for snacks. I usually had a piece of bread with butter and honey or butter and strawberry jam. We drank milk with meals and had orange juice also in the morning. We had no nonsense cold cereals- corn flakes, wheaties or Total, or RIce Crispies or we had oatmeal. No children's cereals at all. I think they let me have one once and I didn't like it at all. May have been at a restaurant where they give you the little boxes.

 

THe main thing I didn't like about the food I had was the fruit selection in the winter was boring. I grew up in the sixties and seventies and there wasn't the fruit selection there is now. For apples, we had a choice of Red Delicious or Golden Delicious. I didn't like to eat either so I thought I didn't like apples.

 

In terms of how I cook compared with my mom, I cook more diversely than she did but we have less fish. That will be the case until youngest is out of the house. Both of my girls aren't fond of most fish.

[In2why]

I am so sorry, but I can't imagine eating any of that. My DH ate some of it.

Both of my parents loved to cook and my mother is Italian/Polish and made fabulous dinners she learned from her mother, and my father grew up close to the border in TX so we enjoyed lots of Texmex as well. We grew or raised some of our food whenever we lived in a place we could (military brat)

[keptwoman]

Breakfast would have been weetbix or porridge (oatmeal to you) or occasionally Dad would do a big cook up of liver and bacon or kidneys on toast *slurp!*

 

Lunch was sandwiches, fruit and some of Mum's home baking

 

Dinner was meat, potatoes and salad or vegetables often followed by a home made dessert.

 

NZ in the 70s did not have the plethora of processed food that America had, either that or my Mum did not cook it. Either way I know our diet got even more healthy when Dad was diagnosed with Cancer.

 

The food I cook these days is not much different to what we ate, except that our main meals often include food originating in other cultures.