I never had this food this growing up.................what would you add?

[Ottakee]

Tonight as I sat down to my supper I realized that growing up I never had most of what was on my plate.

 

Homemade corn tortillas--nope

black beans---nope

chicken----yes

fresh mexican cheese---nope

sour cream---nope

cilantro---nope

lime juice---nope

 

We always had food to eat and never felt we were missing out but my mother was not adventurous with her cooking. Our veggies were corn, green beans, and peas with a very occ. salad of iceberg lettuce.

 

What types of foods do you enjoy and serve your family now that you never had growing up?

[Carol in Cal.]

Well, we DID have sour cream, but I share all the rest of your 'no's.

My mom hated to cook.

We ate the Standard American Diet (SAD).  When she broke down and bought a mix in an envelope to make ground beef into taco filling, and (gasp) preshaped, stiff taco shells, we thought it was unbelievably exotic.

 

I love to cook and I like a lot of different kinds of food now.  It's a very rare day when I buy white bread or make any recipe that starts, "Brown one pound of ground beef."

[SJ.]

I never had olive oil until I met dh.  His father is Italian.  Sacrilege!

 

As for your list I had chicken, black beans, and sour cream prior to being an adult.  

 

I grew up very poor.  Now my diet is more varied and adventurous.

[Mama Geek]

Crawfish

Spaghetti Squash

Mock Sushi (california rolls made with cooked fish)

Fried green tomatoes

 

 

[myfunnybunch]

Sweet potatoes. They were strictly for Thanksgiving and no one ate them then. Probably because they were too sweet and overcooked.

 

Kale, chard, collards, spinach. My mother tried feeding us spinach once. I still remember it. It tasted like the inside of a can. I had NO idea how yummy fresh greens are until we started getting a CSA box and I was forced to figure out how to cook them.

 

Beans and rice.

 

And some fresh fruits that weren't really available as widely as they are now, or didn't fit into our family's budget because they were pretty expensive, like kiwi and fresh pineapple and mango and avocado.

 

Lots of authentically other-culture food, partly because we host foreign exchange students, and partly because they are more widely available/known. My mother would now prepare a meal similar to the one in the OP, but when we were young she consider tamale pie to be "Mexican" food. In my family, we eat a lot of Japanese, Indian, Mexican (much more authentic, similar to what we ate while in Mexico), Thai, and Korean dishes.  

 

We did grow up eating homemade bread and grew a lot of our food in the garden, however. :) Still do that.

 

 

[myfunnybunch]

Fried green tomatoes

 

Oh, yum. We ate fried green tomatoes often when growing up, especially in the fall when the tomatoes stopped ripening because of cooler weather. My dh doesn't care for them and thinks they're weird, so we don't eat them often now. I should make some next fall. :)

 

Cat

[JenneinCA]

I grew up with a mom that came from the Midwest. Almost everything was ethnic food and she didn't know how to cook it. So we didn't get it.

 

So things I was introduced to after 18 include:

Most Italian food, stuffed shells, manicotti, cannoli, chicken Parmesan, homemade spaghetti sauce, and lots more...

Anything Indian, samosas, curry, dal, lentils...

Almost anything Asian, sushi, tempura, teriyaki, stir fry...

Lamb of any kind

Duck of any kind

 

We did get Mexican food because Dad grew up in San Diego. But even then it was all convince food Mexican or eaten at a restaurant. I don't know if I have had a homemade tortilla yet or homemade refrained beans...

[marbel]

Decent Chinese food.  I thought chow mein in the can was the real deal, till I was out on a workday lunch with colleagues and had my mind blown.

 

Indian food. 

 

Hummus. 

 

My mom was not an adventurous cook but I think it was more about money and availability than not wanting to try new foods.  I have a very fond memory of the last time we took her out to eat before she died.  We went to an Indian buffet and she kept going back for more food. I think she took a little bit of just about everything on offer.  I remember her saying about one of the sauces "I've never eaten anything like this in my life! I can't stop eating it!"  She was 85 years old! 

 

I was in 6th grade when I had my first Mexican food.  We had moved from western NY to California and I went on a school field trip to a Mexican restaurant.  I remember being mocked for asking "what's a taco?"  I love Mexican food now.   I suspect there are Mexican restaurants in Buffalo now but I didn't know about any in 1966. 

[umsami]

I grew up in the 70s and early 80s.  Having more than two cloves of garlic in a dish was living dangerously.  My Mom's specialty was tuna noodle casserole made with canned cream of mushroom soup, added canned mushrooms, canned tuna, and egg noodles.  I hated it.

 

I remember having guacamole at one of her Christmas parties she gave for her dance students, and I was in love.  My Mom had no idea where it came from or how to procure more.  LOL

 

Spices in her cabinet were cleaned out around 2000 when she remodeled and they were from the 70s.  I had no idea that people actually ran out of spices, salt, etc.

 

Let's see quinoa, black beans or beans other than baked or green beans, lentils, kale, cilantro, cumin, anything Middle Eastern (even though Detroit had a large Arab population), good bread until I went to France between Junior and Senior year, dark chocolate, etc.   Just realized I didn't have nutella as a kid either!

[Orthodox6]

We have good quality food from many cuisines. I discovered that food can be delicious when I was living on my own.

 

Growing up, i was served badly prepared "1950s food". Watered down powdered milk. Double-diluted frozen orange juice. Something positively vile called "Swiss steak". (Possibly something prohibited by the Swiss government?) Stone cold chicken legs. You get the idea.

[IfIOnly]

Decent Chinese food.  I thought chow mein in the can was the real deal, till I was out on a workday lunch with colleagues and had my mind blown.

 

Indian food. 

 

Hummus. 

 

My mom was not an adventurous cook but I think it was more about money and availability than not wanting to try new foods.  I have a very fond memory of the last time we took her out to eat before she died.  We went to an Indian buffet and she kept going back for more food. I think she took a little bit of just about everything on offer.  I remember her saying about one of the sauces "I've never eaten anything like this in my life! I can't stop eating it!"  She was 85 years old! 

 

I was in 6th grade when I had my first Mexican food.  We had moved from western NY to California and I went on a school field trip to a Mexican restaurant.  I remember being mocked for asking "what's a taco?"  I love Mexican food now.   I suspect there are Mexican restaurants in Buffalo now but I didn't know about any in 1966. 

 

That's really touching about your mom and the dinner you gave her, Marbel. 

[prairiewindmomma]

I grew up in a tiny town with a tiny grocery store. The only ethnic thing in the store was taco seasoning. I didn't have bagels, kiwi, or Chinese until well into high school.

[HRAAB]

Avocados.  My dad thought they tasted like soap.  I eat them almost daily now.  Except for spaghetti, lasagna, and tacos, we never had ethnic food.

[HRAAB]

We have good quality food from many cuisines. I discovered that food can be delicious when I was living on my own.

 

Growing up, i was served badly prepared "1950s food". Watered down powdered milk. Double-diluted frozen orange juice. Something positively vile called "Swiss steak". (Possibly something prohibited by the Swiss government?) Stone cold chicken legs. You get the idea.

 

My dad used to make Swiss steak.  It was flank steak cooked with bacon, onions, green peppers, tomatoes.  I really liked it.  It's been years since I've thought about it.  Maybe it's time to make it and see how the family feels about it.

[Junie]

 

What types of foods do you enjoy and serve your family now that you never had growing up?

 

salmon

fried rice, white rice, Spanish/Mexican rice

broccoli

fajitas

tacos

pasta casserole

chicken wings

chicken cacciatore

Italian sausage

[Amira]

Almost nothing I eat now is something I ate growing up.  My mother's cooking now is also completely different than what she fed us.

 

Well, I guess that's not entirely fair.  We did eat a lot of Tex-Mex food and the 80s were better than the 70s.  

[Janie Grace]

Hamburger Helper

 

My mom isn't American so she didn't use typical American convenience foods that my friends would talk about eating. One of the first things I bought as a new wife (age 22) was a box of HH so I could be a "real" American homemaker. It was disgusting, of course. Never made it again!

[skimomma]

Just about everything I eat now.  

 

I always thought my mom was a "good" cook growing up.  But I seldom liked the food.  I didn't really think anything of it because I didn't really like food anywhere (school, friend's houses, relatives, camp, etc....).  It was not until I was an adult that I discovered how much great food there is out there!  Looking back, I now realize that most of what we had at home was from a can or box and much of it was microwaved.  I hated veggies.  Almost all veggies except raw salads and sticks.  It wasn't until adulthood that I figured out that asparagus and spinach and well....everything.....tasted much better when it has not been nuked into a sloppy puddle.  We even regularly had microwaved slabs of ham for dinner.  YUCK.

 

Things I now eat regularly that I never had as a child:

 

brown rice

beans

all greens

olive oil

blue, goat, ricotta, etc.... cheese

most whole grains (millet, grits, buckwheat, teff, amaranth, etc....)

avocados

tahini

fennel, leeks, rutabaga, turnips, beets, parsnips, celeriac

fresh mushrooms

garlic, shallots, ginger

vinegars

sweet potato

anything "ethnic"

 

Actually, I have to stop.  This could go on forever.

 

[fraidycat]

Hummus

Sushi

Guacamole/avocados

Cilantro

 

To be fair, these foods were not well known/widely available where I grew up. Our grocery stores were pretty much meat and potatoes with green beans and corn kind of stores. There is more variety now, but still not as much as in bigger cities.

[foxbridgeacademy]

We didn't eat much boxed food (mac and cheese being the exception) but I was also food adverse to many, many things so except for lettuce and broccoli I ate very little fresh veggies (we had them I just didn't eat them).  From your list the only thing I hadn't ate as a child was black beans, I'm sure I thought that like all beans they were gross.  I was of course wrong, in fact black beans are in my top 10 favorite foods.  

 

I keep coming up with things I never ate as a child (the list is LONG) but not because they weren't "served", I just refused them. 

[Annie G]

I eat a LOT of foods I never had as a child. But I can't really fault my mom- she cooked most meals from scratch and many of these foods just weren't common where we lived.   I've been a parent for nearly 32 years and my cooking is VERY different now than it was when our kids were little. 

 

 

[Carol in Cal.]

New foods:

Hummus

Fresh salads not based on iceberg lettuce

Raw veggies ditto

Veggies that are cooked not cooked to death

Japanese food

French food

Italian and Mexican food not made from a mix

 

OTOH, we did have good seafood at restaurants, and excellent Chinese restaurant food--both stir fry and dim sum, thanks to my uncle who served in the Navy in China before WWII and came home and took us out for the best stuff.  We were invariably the only non-ethnic Chinese people in those restaurants.  We also had great Swedish food in restaurants, and German food that supposedly was very good and very authentic, although I never liked it very much.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I did not have anything Mexican or Italian (other than spaghetti or macaroni and cheese) until I was in high school and at boarding school.  I did not have anything Indian or Thai or. . .   until I was in college.  

 

We had standard Midwestern "American" food at home with a sprinkling of Japanese-ish food.  Outside the home I ate lots of Japanese food since I lived in Japan.  

[mamaraby]

Hmmm...My dad did most of the cooking and both he and my mom were fairly adventurous. Mostly it's just a wider world of foods that I draw from. I'm also easily bored so we eat a lot wider variety of meals. There aren't too many repeats here and I know there were some fairly reliable standards when I was a kid. Some of the vegan things we eat (tofu, tempeh, seitan, etc) are definitely different.

 

Dh though?

 

Any vegetable except iceberg lettuce, carrots, and maybe peas

Umm...and everything else. We eat pretty much the polar opposite of how he ate growing up.

[PrairieSong]

Hmm, we never had hummus or much Middle Eastern or Indian food, but my mom was a fantastic cook. She made some standard stuff...spaghetti, tacos, grilled burgers or steaks, but she mostly used fresh ingredients. She also read Gourmet and Bon Appetit and tried all kinds of recipes. I loved cauliflower and broccoli even as a kid. She steamed it just until it was barely tender, not mushy. She made a lot of salads. Her chop suey was delicious. Her vegetable soup was the best I have ever had anywhere. She started with beef bones cooked in a pressure cooker. I which I knew the exact secret to her broth. Once she made some kind of thing where she slow roasted different kinds of meat together...I remember one was Cornish hens..and it was heavenly. The only icky thing she made was liver and onions. I still cannot stomach that, not even the smell.

 

My mom didn't bake much, but my grandma lived with us and she baked homemade rolls, cinnamon rolls, pies, and other desserts.

 

I do make things my mother never did...like hummus and curry dishes...but she gave me a love for cooking. I still can't make vegetable soup as good as hers though.

[gardenmom5]

there are many things I didn't eat growing up.

I was a picky eater - but then we didn't have much variety.  My mother did take cooking classes, so we probably had more variety than many.

 

there are things I ate growing up - that I can't go near now. (and the thought of turns my stomach.)  fruit cocktail, ding dongs, (any hostess product), canned soup, etc.

 

now we make soups from scratch, make bread, make our own rolls, make my own biscuts (mom did bang biscuts or bisquick drop biscuts  - bisquick has NEVER entered my pantry.)

 

I adore greek food - but hardly ever was exposed to any growing up. 

 

I remember mom making naan once (for my aunt who lived in india).  but it's only the last few years I've taken an actual liking to indian food.  and thai food.  and sushi - I've had a few occasions of eating too much sushi.  rice expands and it can be painful.  (but it was so yummy. . . . . )

 

dh got me eating Mexican - until I decided I really didn't like it that much.  I'll eat it on occasion - but it doesn't excite me.  same with cherry pie.  I might eat it, but it's never going to be a favorite.  (his is much better than anything I had growing up.)

 

I finally found a GOOD Italian restaurant that makes me want Italian food.  right now - I need the garlic/spice olive oil dip for bread. . . . . (and if they happen to have lobster stuffed ravioli for a special . . well, I could eat that too.  :-) )

 

Cajun

 

shell fish - we had fish - my mother only ate crab.  I eat many types of shellfish.

 

never had brie growing up.  which is funny because my kids have loved it since their childhoods.

 

 

otoh: I had *real* frangos.  what macy's is passing off as frangos, even locally, aren't the same.  (and what they're calling frangos in other markets is like saying a hershey bar is high quality chocolate, it's that bad.)

[Cinder]

I grew up in HI eating a wide variety of foods but the few things we eat regularly now that I never had then are flour tortillas, zucchini and fresh asparagus. Flour tortillas weren't widely available and I think the vegetables were just too expensive for our budget. I think there are more things on the list of what I ate growing up that I don't eat now, mostly due to lack of availability.

 

For dh, he grew up without onions and bellpeppers. His mom never cooked with them because they bothered his dad's ulcer. He was so amazed to find that I cook nearly everything with onions--because that's how my mom cooked. And he eats both quite regularly now.

[Farrar]

Anything ethnic. We ate lots of different American regional food, but my mother didn't cook anything foreign and I was sort of picky so even though I had friends who loved Indian,Chinese, Mexican, Middle Eastern, etc. I never tried any of it until adulthood.

 

I did get exposed to most fruits and vegetables. It was living in China that cured my pickiness. I highly recommend that all picky eaters have to go live abroad in their early 20's so they can get over themselves or starve.

[MyThreeSons]

My Mom was a good cook, but not very adventurous. We were on a tight budget, but we always had a meat, a fresh or cooked-from-frozen vegetable, a rice or potato or pasta side, a green salad, and some sort of bread. Later in the evening, we always had dessert. It was often just ice cream or pudding, but sometimes cake or pie. I feel a little guilty that I don't always serve such a complete meal.

 

The only Asian food we had was Chinese take-out a couple of times a year. Fried rice is one of the meals I make most frequently.

 

I have recently discovered butternut squash. We had other squashes growing up, but not this. I love it, but my one son who still lives at home doesn't care much for any squash, so I don't fix it much. 

 

Grits and biscuits and gravy are two breakfast foods we enjoy that I never had growing up. However, livermush is not allowed in this house.

 

 

 

 

[Grover]

My mother was a terrible cook.  Meat and vegetables only, no seasoning, over cooked.  Almost all evening meals served with boiled potatoes and peas.  Gag. 

 

There are so many thing I thought I didn't like that it turns out I do when they're cooked properly. 

 

The list of things that we eat now on a regular basis that I didn't have until I was an adult is HUGE, but includes:

rice

pasta

any kind of sauce except tomato

any kind of curry or stir fry

pizza

vegetables apart from boiled cabbage, iceburg lettuce, boiled carrot, boiled silverbeet, boiled peas, green beans, potato and pumpkin

herbs apart from parsley (and that rarely)

 

[flyingaway]

My diet now has little resemblance to that of my childhood, which was dominated by hamburger and potatoes, and I rarely eat those these days.

 

My mom thinks I'm strange in liking kale, hummus, sushi, miso, mango, curry and the list goes on.

[Mabelen]

I grew up in Spain to Spanish parents. My mom cooked from scratch pretty much every day and our diet was varied: soups, legumes, meats, fish, seafood, fresh fruit and vegetables. What I was not exposed to was international foods or cooking other than some Italian inspired dishes like spaghetti or other pasta. I was High School age when I started trying out other things like Chinese, pizza, burgers and hot dogs. The real jump happened in England after college. That is where I was introduced to Indian, Thai, and many others.

 

Now I am married to a Sri Lankan living in Southern California, I serve my family many of the things I had as a kid but some are not very available locally. I also serve them many I never had including Sri Lankan and Indian dishes, real Mexican (not to be confused with real Spanish food), etc. In terms of grains, fruits and vegetables I never had as a kid, mango, papaya, avocado, kale, green asparagus (although we used to eat really good white asparagus in Spain), nopales, quinoa, couscous, oatmeal, brown rice, wholewheat breads.

[Mama Geek]

While reading back through this thread this morning, it has me thinking about just how much has changed.  My dh is a meat and potatoes guy who we now know has major problems with gluten, but also has an ulcer and shell fish allergies.  I am much more limited on the foods that I grew up on like homemade spaghetti noodles and sauce, wedding soup, Easter Bread, Bagels, lasagna, oatmeal, all the Italian cookies my grandmother would make, Pepperoni rolls, oh how I miss some of the foods of my childhood too.

[creekland]

It would take a long time for my list to end if I tried to make one.

 

I grew up on white bread and basic American foods (except Hamburger Helper which no one liked).  We had garden veggies, but only the basic types - no kale, spinach, lima beans, or sweet potatoes, etc.  Ours were corn, peas, beans, white/red potatoes, onions, squash, etc.

 

Meats were beef, pork/ham, and chicken - turkey for Thanksgiving.  The only ethnic we has was when we'd travel to Canada and eat in a Chinese restaurant. No tacos or anything else.  Due to a grandmother on my dad's side who has a Russian/Polish background we also had kielbasa fairly often and some terrific Christmas cookies, but not much else from "the old country."

 

We did have swiss steak though and it was delicious!  I still make it occasionally for my family and they all love it.  I might have to make it again soon due to this thread...

 

Now, we love lamb & salmon.  We often eat assorted veggies like broccoli, kale, lima beans & sweet potatoes.  Fresh fruit is pretty much always in our house - dined on daily.  There's never any white bread in the house.  When dining out we love Greek, Mexican, Chinese, Indian, & more.

 

My mom tries to be adventurous when we travel together, but generally we end up with food that fits both of our palates.  She tries (and likes some things), but nowhere near the gamut we go for.

[Carrie12345]

My mom was a fair cook with just a tiny sense of adventure.  Her skills and repertoire have improved as she's gotten older and hasn't worried as much about catering to small children.  

 

Still, I can't think of much I wasn't introduced to.  Reading other posts, I guess hummus stands out.

While we don't have a drop of Italian blood, we lived in NJ. You can't live in NJ and not be exposed to Italian food.  You just can't!  Even if you only have bad Italian food, it's going to find its way into your body somehow.

[Pawz4me]

We ate very well when I was a kid.  Simple but healthy stuff -- tons of veggies, including lots of collards and turnip greens (kale was frowned upon as a lesser choice to those two).  Many of the veggies were home grown in our own garden, or gardens of those we knew.  We ate lots of different kinds of beans simmered for hours on the stove with thick "soup" and always served with made-from-scratch cornbread.  Meats were simple but usually very good with the exception of any kind of roast, which she always overcooked.  Almost everything was made from scratch.

 

I don't think it's that we eat better or more adventurously now as it is that there are many more choices readily available than there were back then.  Not to mention the Internet to figure out how to prepare new foods and dishes.  Keep in mind I'm older than a lot of people on here. ;)

[mom2att]

Well I was and remain a picky eater, and my mom was no cook who passed her skills and dislike for cooking on to me, so I can't say I now fix or even eat exotic and interesting foods. If my family eats something, anything, I'm happy. My kids are less picky than me, but mainly because we have friends who cook that invite us to dinner periodically so my children have at least been exposed to good cooking. Plus we eat out a bit (yay, no cooking!)

 

I will also say that I hated salad growing up, because salad was roughly chopped iceberg lettuce with a couple of chunks of tomato, maybe a cucumber, and thousand island or french dressing. Who wants that???

 

I had no idea that "salad" also meant yummy things like butter and leaf lettuces with pecans and goat cheese and dried cherries, with a light coating of a nice vinegarette. Yum--now that's a salad! Why it didn't exist in my 70's and 80's midwestern world I have now idea, but I'm glad I've found it now.

[Alice]

My Mom is a good cook but doesn't like to cook that much. When I was very little she went through various phases of being uber-healthy. There was the "make your own yogurt" phase and the "carob instead of chocolate phase". I had my first soda when I was about 8 and was offered one while my parents were shopping at a furniture store. I remember throwing the entire thing up because I drank it so fast. Somewhere in middle school she stopped caring so much and food changed to more basic dishes or convenience food. 

 

To be fair, I was also a really picky eater as a child. Having a picky eater of my own I now realize how frustrating it is to try and figure out what they heck they will eat. I was an only child so I can imagine that a certain amount of my Mom's cooking was "Well, she'll only eat chicken and plain rice so that's what I'm making." 

 

I eat very differently now and I think it's a combination of the culture, not being as picky and being married to a Chinese-American man who is a really good cook. Dh has really changed my eating habits and expanded what I will eat. The list of what I eat now instead of what I ate as a child is a mile long but I'm not sure it's all due to my Mom's cooking. 

[Lisbeth]

Not what you asked but I went the other way. My husband and kids have so much ARFID and allergies that my food life has shrunk to pitiful levels. It is depressing!

[Chris in VA]

Like many here have mentioned, we didn't eat hardly anything spicy or ethnic. So no tacos or anything with a tortilla, no food from the Middle East, no Chinese or Japanese or Korean food, no curry, no cheese beyond cheddar and American, etc.

 

I didn't learn to cook very well, either. Standard plate was some sort of meat (chicken, fish, hamburger, steak, pork), a potato or rice (white), and a can of veggies. Lesuer peas were gourmet, and frozen peas and carrots were, too. We had non-adventurous salads on occasion--just iceberg lettuce with tomato and cukes and maybe carrot/gr pepper/onion, always with Italian dressing (we'd have Good Seasons if we were getting fancy).  My mom made "homemade spagetti sauce," which was just Hunt's tomato sauce with Hunt's tomato paste and some jarred spices. She made "homemade vegetable soup," which was canned veggies, canned tomatoes, and stew beef. Oh, and potatoes and parsnips and carrots, to be fair.  She's still quite proud of that overcooked death brew. (Sorry, it was my childhood nemesis.)

 

Now, that lady can cook a pie, that's for sure.

 

I now serve a lot of things that I didn't grow up with, and when M & D come to my house, it's hard to serve things M will eat. She can't do spicy, so chili, tacos, curry, etc. are out. She won't eat Israeli/Greek/that type of food. Even California roll is way out there for her.  I'm not a great cook, but my

repetoire is far more broad than hers. Roasted vegetables push her limits. She does fish well, though.

[Zinnia]

My mom was (and is) a good cook that doesn't enjoy cooking.  Also the typical 70s/80s cuisine.

 

Ethnic foods weren't a big thing growing up.  We did Old El Paso style tacos, but not very often.  When I got married, dh was used to eating tacos once a week.  That bored me to tears, so I dug into Rick Bayless cookbooks, and we've never looked back.  Now, we eat tons of Mexican-ish foods, Tex-Mex foods, and lots of other ethnicities, as well.  We also live in a very international part of Atlanta, and that helps fuel my fire for new cuisines and recipes and ways to cook. 

Avocadoes were a huge treat growing up because of the cost.  We have them regularly now, but go figure....my 4 kids hate them. 

[Guest]

I hate to even say this, but I was in my early twenties before I realized one could make a stir-fry using all fresh ingredients, rather than opening a can of LaChoy and cooking up some Minute Rice. My MIL enlightened me, when she made some type of chicekn with stir-fried vegetables - fresh onions, peppers, celery and whatever else I don't now recall.

[Chris in VA]

LOL--Quill, we just stopped using Minute Rice two years ago when we couldn't get it in Israel.

My hubby and I ate cheap food like HH and LaChoy 25 years ago when he was in school--and continued eating it occasionally when ds was small.

 

As much as I complain about my mom's cooking, I am still learning how to make meals out of "ingredients" instead of boxes and envelopes!

[JFSinIL]

My future in-laws, being Italian and Polish,introduced me to spaghetti squash, kielbasa, espresso, tiramisu,.

 

As adults hubby and I first ate lettuce that was not iceberg,  Indian and Thai foods, heirloom veggies from our own garden.

[Zinnia]

My mom has this big, huge garden that is her pride and joy.  She is always willing to plant new stuff.  When I was in about the 8th grade or so, she planted basil one year.  It was wonderful and prolific, but she said it took her 2 years to work up the courage to eat it.  Once she dove in, she never looked back, and she loves basil now.  It was just such a foreign flavor to her when she first grew it.

[The Girls' Mom]

There is pretty much nothing I make now that I ate growing up.  Our foods consisted of boiled vegetables, overcooked meat, breakfast foods for dinner (including pancakes you could sink a ship with), and various hamburger helper dishes.  We did have spaghetti (but my mom always put breakfast sausage in it  :mellow: ) and we ate out at Pizza Hut and Captain D's.  And lots of soda and kool-aid.

 

Until I was an adult I had never eaten:

 

Sour cream

anything Asian

Most mexican (except for bland tacos at school)

lasagna

seafood, except for fried clams.  I did have freshwater fish though.

Any sort of "exotic" fruit or vegetable.  I was 30+ before I ever had an avocado or a papaya.

Brats, quinoa, brown rice, coconut milk, I think my actual list would be very, very long.

I eat anything now, and I cook things on a regular basis that I child me wouldn't even recognize.  

 

 

 

[PrincessMommy]

My dad used to make Swiss steak.  It was flank steak cooked with bacon, onions, green peppers, tomatoes.  I really liked it.  It's been years since I've thought about it.  Maybe it's time to make it and see how the family feels about it.

 

That's not the swiss steak I grew up with.  It was some kind of hamburger in gravy concoction. 

 

Add me to the list of those who grew up on the Standard American Diet. We were pretty poor growing up, so mom had to be creative with her canned tuna and macaroni  :lol:  We did eat tacos (made from those packets) and Chinese from LaChoy occasionally too.

 

I'm trying to think of what I didn't have growing up.

 

Salmon

Tuna steak (don't really like it but at least I've tried it once).

Avocado

Quinoa

Spelt

real cranberry juice

with the exception of corn-on-the-cob, white potatoes, and salad, probably any other fresh vegetable.  I remember it was mostly canned or frozen veggies growing up.

Almond Milk

Soy Milk

Pirogis

collard Greens

Kale

 

 

And of course.... Nutella!!  Whoever created that is a genius!!

[Wabi Sabi]

Sushi, Indian food, Chinese food, or anything ethnic. The most exotic we ever got were once in a blue moon trips to Chi Chi's for Mexican or Olive Garden. 

 

Avocados, kiwi, non-iceberg lettuce, or any other "exotic" produce. 

Whole wheat bread 

Water (Seriously, we drank Kool-Aid or Coke or Hawaiian punch. Being given only water to drink was seen as a punishment.)

Fresh spinach (I thought it only came from a can of Popeye's and was to be cooked to death on the stove with lots of vinegar.)

 

Sweet potatoes

 

Any kind of squash or zucchini 

Any spices or seasonings other than salt, pepper, and an occasional tiny bit of garlic and oregano in spaghetti sauce. 



 

 

[Carol in Cal.]

Spin off question:  How did you end up cooking differently from your FOO?

[PrairieSong]

Oh, I remember one thing I never drank as a kid...iced tea made from tea bags. My mom was a wonderful cook as I stated above, but for some reason we always had Nestea. Yuck. On our first date, dh was going to make me hot chocolate but realized he was out of milk. He offered me hot tea, but then discovered he had no tea bags. "I have Nestea though..." Yes. He made me hot Nestea. Still makes me laugh.