Childhood foods
- Thread starter L Ross
- Start date
L Ross
Well-Known Member
We have corned a venison yearling hind quarter and roasted it on a spit over hard wood coals for 5 hours at some of our camps. Whether corned or just a plain hind they are delicious. The best part of corned is the left overs for hash.
Pistolero
Well-Known Member
I pretty much liked most of the cafeteria food, but most of the veggies were overcooked, and the
pasta the same. Not too bad to eat, but certainly not ideal. Probably 75% of the time Mom packed
a lunch, so I had a sandwich, some chips and an apple or similar.
After living in Italy for a few years, IMO pretty much all Americans over cook their pasta, unless
they have Italian parents or grandparents and learned to do it properly.
Bill
pasta the same. Not too bad to eat, but certainly not ideal. Probably 75% of the time Mom packed
a lunch, so I had a sandwich, some chips and an apple or similar.
After living in Italy for a few years, IMO pretty much all Americans over cook their pasta, unless
they have Italian parents or grandparents and learned to do it properly.
Bill
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Bret4207
At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Our school used to make something called "Hamburg Gravy over Mashed Potatoes". I absolutely loved it. Only seen it made like that once since school, by a lady my mom knew. Good stuff.
Venison. I never liked venison growing up. Everyone I knew over cooked it by several magnitudes and it needed gravy or ketchup to go down, just like all the other meats they cooked. OTOH, we had trout and cold water bullhead down to a science. Good stuff. Pickerel were caught ice fishing and ground up for fish balls. Eennnh, I wasn't thrilled with them. Another local favorite was smelt, a small fish about the size of a sardine. You netted them, spent what seemed like hours gutting them with scissors and then someone basically deep fried them as I recall. Pretty much a fishy flavored crispy potato stick sort of result. Again, nothing special in my book. Way more work than they were worth.
Venison. I never liked venison growing up. Everyone I knew over cooked it by several magnitudes and it needed gravy or ketchup to go down, just like all the other meats they cooked. OTOH, we had trout and cold water bullhead down to a science. Good stuff. Pickerel were caught ice fishing and ground up for fish balls. Eennnh, I wasn't thrilled with them. Another local favorite was smelt, a small fish about the size of a sardine. You netted them, spent what seemed like hours gutting them with scissors and then someone basically deep fried them as I recall. Pretty much a fishy flavored crispy potato stick sort of result. Again, nothing special in my book. Way more work than they were worth.
L Ross
Well-Known Member
Of course the veggies were over cooked. Heck, they were over ripe when they were canned in the big industrial cans. Peas looked like duck poop, green beans were just short of mush, Bugs Bunny would have laughed at the carrots. My wife still dislikes cooked vegetables to this day. I on the other hand have questionable taste when it comes to food and continue to eat almost anything. I am wonderfully spoiled by my wife who is an excellent cook.
I remember having my first bite of pizza as a high school senior and I thought pepperoni was the hottest thing I'd ever eaten and probably was, as my Dad thought onions were a spice! When I was 18 and starting to date my wife to be, her parents took us out to dinner and I had my first ever store bought steak.
All this talk of school cafeteria lunches,.... once in a while, I'll smell food which snaps me back to the first grade, when I attended a small brick school behind an orphanage in a tiny town. The smell of that cafeteria was always pleasant and the food was good - at least as I remember. That smell is very nostalgic and makes me hungry immediately.
As discussed in another thread, maybe I just remember the good parts?
As discussed in another thread, maybe I just remember the good parts?
fiver
Well-Known Member
I don't remember school lunch as ever being all that great.
I ate it in elementary school cause that's what we did at that time of day.
by JR High it was pick and choose the days I ate it,,, and in H.S.?? let's just say I probably couldn't find my way to the cafeteria in under 1/2hr. if placed on the front steps and was told to meet someone there to pick up a check for 5,000$.
those lunches cost money and I may or may not have had any,, or enough to afford one anyway, even when I was working.
I ate it in elementary school cause that's what we did at that time of day.
by JR High it was pick and choose the days I ate it,,, and in H.S.?? let's just say I probably couldn't find my way to the cafeteria in under 1/2hr. if placed on the front steps and was told to meet someone there to pick up a check for 5,000$.
those lunches cost money and I may or may not have had any,, or enough to afford one anyway, even when I was working.
I don't remember much about the school cafeteria food, I brown bagged it almost all of the time and only bought a couple of milk cartons at the cafeteria. If I remember correctly they were like 3 cents each. Quite fortunate with food at home too, mom was an incredible cook. Had no idea until my late teens and left home that everybody didn't eat like that.
I remember boot camp quite well also. I distinctly remember thinking I was going starve to death and eating some rather nasty stuff just because it was at least something. I was in pretty fair shape when I went in but they still managed to turn that into muscles I was unaware of. Don't think we went to the same boot camp.
Pistolero
Well-Known Member
Glad I didn't eat at your cafeteria, L Ross. Mine weren't much like that.
I went to 12 different schools before I graduated HS. And since I had
one stint of 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and half of 6th in the same school district,
there were a number of years with two or three different schools.
But, like Ric, I brown bagged it much of the time, at least half.
Bill
I went to 12 different schools before I graduated HS. And since I had
one stint of 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and half of 6th in the same school district,
there were a number of years with two or three different schools.
But, like Ric, I brown bagged it much of the time, at least half.
Bill
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L Ross
Well-Known Member
My folks would have qualified for gov't commodity food, but my Dad would have never even considered it. A friend's family did, and unlike the BS EBT, and food stamps programs we have today, my buddy's Mom used the flour she got to bake home made bread that would fetch 5 bucks a loaf today. My friend brought that bread with commodity butter and cheese in as sandwiches and I'd trade him part of my hot lunch for one.
Lunch tickets were a dollar twenty five per week, yup, a quarter a day, and he came from a big family and they economized by brown bagging it.
358156 hp
At large, whereabouts unknown.
We would have qualified as well, but mom worked her tail off as a waitress, and wouldn't consider it. She was one of those supernatural ones who knew what it took to get the big tips. She turned down much more dignified jobs to continue waitressing because we lived primarily off her tips. That was life in the '60s.
fiver
Well-Known Member
I'm sure we didn't.
I passed the ASVAB test with airc a 98% and had my choice of services.
I turned down a scholarship to wrestle for NAVY, since I had already joined the Air Force, had I known an offer to do that was coming I would have waited.
I was used to way more physical activity and a lot fewer calories by the time I got there, and it was showing at the end of boot camp.
That's funny. Through Basic/Infantry/Airborne training, all in one string, I gained 16# and couldn't wear the civies I'd entered service in when I went home the first time. It was like a resort - they had indoor toilets and showers! All six Drill Sergeants together couldn't hold a candle to my ol' man as far as being up yer butt, so I got a little lazy too.
smokeywolf
Well-Known Member
There was no cafeteria in my grade schools or Jr. high school. Mom stopped packing my lunches when I hit 4th or 5th grade. I usually packed a PB&J, Leo's Chipped Beef or tuna sandwich; plus a bag of potato chips and a banana. Once in a great while, Mom would buy Twinkies or Ding-Dongs and I'd get a few of those.
Bret4207
At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Thinking you're going to starve in boot camp. I never ate such awful food as at Parris Island. To this day the sight the fried baloney just about brings on the heaves. Lord, that was horrible food. Lost a lot of weight in boot camp.
What with my folks having the kitchen open 6 days a week until 1AM and no one ever getting to bed before 2:30AM when the bar closed, or later, school lunches was pretty much it from day one for us. My poor mom would crawl out of bed, hand us the 15 or 20 cents school lunch cost out of the till, make sure we at least were washed, brushed and clothed and then back to bed. In summer, with no school, I never saw my folks until after 9-9:30AM.
What with my folks having the kitchen open 6 days a week until 1AM and no one ever getting to bed before 2:30AM when the bar closed, or later, school lunches was pretty much it from day one for us. My poor mom would crawl out of bed, hand us the 15 or 20 cents school lunch cost out of the till, make sure we at least were washed, brushed and clothed and then back to bed. In summer, with no school, I never saw my folks until after 9-9:30AM.