Eating in the 50s

[Coldshooter]

Pasta had not been invented. It was macaroni or spaghetti.
Curry was a surname.
A take-away was a mathematical problem.
Pizza? Sounds like a leaning tower somewhere.
Bananas and oranges only appeared at Christmas time.
All chips were plain.
Rice was a milk pudding, and never, ever part of our dinner.
A Big Mac was what we wore when it was raining.
Brown bread was something only poor people ate.
Oil was for lubricating, fat was for cooking.
Tea was made in a teapot using tea leaves and never green.
Cubed sugar was regarded as posh.
Chickens didn't have fingers in those days.
None of us had ever heard of yogurt.
Healthy food consisted of anything edible.
Cooking outside was called camping.
Seaweed was not a recognized food.
'Kebab' was not even a word, never mind a food.
Sugar enjoyed a good press in those days, and was regarded as being white gold.
Prunes were medicinal.
Surprisingly muesli was readily available. It was called cattle feed.
Pineapples came in chunks in a tin; we had only ever seen a picture of a real one.
Water came out of the tap. If someone had suggested bottling it and charging more than gasoline for
it they would have become a laughing stock.
The one thing that we never ever had on/at our table in the fifties...was elbows or hats!

 

[Cyrano]

And when my mother made pie from the blueberries we'd picked the day before, she started by making the crust from flour and water; you couldn't buy pie crusts in the store.

In the winter she made apple pie from the apples we stored in the cellar and had picked the autumn before from old apple trees 'way out in the woods where farms used to be.

 

[Krell1]

And when my mother made pie from the blueberries we'd picked the day before, she started by making the crust from flour and water; you couldn't buy pie crusts in the store.

In the winter she made apple pie from the apples we stored in the cellar and had picked the autumn before from old apple trees 'way out in the woods where farms used to be.

My mother made the best pie crust ever and used lard.

Fresh fruit pies only, never saw canned filling.

 

[shouldazagged]

The early TV dinners were appalling to those of us who grew up on good home cooking.

On the other hand, my mother was a superb but not adventurous or experimental cook. Foods that I love, and prepare, today would have been way too far out for her when I was growing up.

She would never have expected salsa to replace ketchup as the most popular condiment in the country, or sriracha to replace tabasco sauce (which she almost never used) at the top.

Good ethnic restaurants in the Fifties? Few and far between except for kosher delis and thoroughly Americanized Chinese places. Now I can get really good Indian, authentic Mexican, Thai, Ethiopian, and many other kinds of food whenever I can afford to spend the generally quite reasonable prices.

I still love the East Tennessee country cooking on which I was raised--what came to be called "soul food" in the Sixties, but it wasn't exclusively African-American by any means. I still prepare a lot of it, the old way. But it's amazing and pleasing how wide a range of options I have today.

 

[pawngal]

My mother made the best pie crust ever and used lard.

Fresh fruit pies only, never saw canned filling.

I still make my pie crust from scratch except use butter flavor Crisco. Canned pie filling? Never!
Angel food cake from scratch too.

I do remember having rice as a side dish, probably with fish because there wouldn't be gravy for taters.

 

[timn8er]

I remember potato chips coming in a large can, & you had to use that metal key to open the thing.

 

[Old 44 Guy]

My Mother was a very good cook. Dad was a finikey eater while I would eat anything she cooked. Mom's only problem was that she never used a cook book so couldn't ever fix the same thing again. Both are long gone now but the memories remain.

 

[skrazo]

If y'all want some real "original" food, ya should go camping/hunting with me. I do the cookin', others eat it. Do they brag or comment about it? Nope. Lots of grease, salt, and sugar. If someone complains, they become the new cook. It keeps them going and makes them glad to get back home to some "good" food!

 

[rwsmith]

We hardly had....

We hardly had a pot to pee in but my Mom and Dad worked hard to get and prepare us good food and they succeeded.

My Dad was a good cook, but for a time when he came home only on weekends, he knew we weren't eating right and went on a tear every Saturday morning to fix a REAL breakfast. I don't know exactly what he did to those eggs but they were green, greasy lumps with cold goo inside that would squirt down the back of your throat when you bit down on them. Worst eggs I ever had in my life, but every Saturday morning, here came the eggs that we had to eat because we 'didn't know what good eggs were'. They were the stuff of legend and we still laugh about it until we think too much and start getting nauseated.

 

[labworm]

McDonald's sold a little more than 50 million burgers.

And I'll bet all the gentlemen got spiffed up before eating here.

 

[1morethan8]

When I got older, I thought something was wrong with the eggs..they were white and not brown.
The meat most of the time was chicken or hog and fish that we caught. Ham didn't come from a store.. It was hung up for months and was wrapped in white flour sacks and very salty. Later the city folk called it "Country Ham".
Most meals came with biscuits, or cornbread called "pone" and cooked in a cast iron skillet, bread was fresh baked and not store bought that came covered in wax paper.
Fall was the best time for pies, pecan from nuts we collected and fried apple pies made from dried apples.
Syrup was called sorghum.
And you learned at an early age... most of the time that wasn't spring water in that Ball-Mason jar!

 

[Mike McLellan]

I remember potato chips coming in a large can, & you had to use that metal key to open the thing.

Just like coffee, spam, hash, & sardines. I hated those keys.

 

[Boxhead]

I grew up in a first gen American Italian house so it was like the "old country" all the way around.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

In February of 1980, 2 women at church were disgusted with the lack of meals prepared by young wives at the time. They had an 8 week class on Saturday mornings. My wife was the only young wife to go all 8 weeks. On those Saturday evenings the lesson of the day was for dinner. Week one was fresh fruit pie. Week two was egg noodles, week three angle food cake, week four bread from scratch. I don't remember what the rest of the lessons were, but it was great. She then got hold of my mom's recipe book and improved on everything except om's spaghetti and meatball, but she with her new noodle skills it was better.

Now, we have been married 37 years this May. Dangerous Diane is famous for her Pies and whole grain breads. Every 3 or 4 winters my kitchen is full of young women from church learning to make their husbands very happy. Thank You, Lela and Sandy, your skill live on! Ivan

PS; our sons and daughter learned to cook all the basics by age 10, The D-I-L's were intimidated at first, but found their family "holiday" dishes, were much of the same things, and can be served any day of the year (if you make time to cook) ITB

 

[wbraswell]

Yeah, some of it wasn't so good. The cans with the keys, can you imagine the liability. After it was opened, the lid was as sharp as a knife. If you eat a fresh pineapple, I don't see how you can ever eat it from a can again. I was raised by a great cook. We had peach and apple trees, so we had great pie. I was a kid, so I was taken in by TV ads, but learned they weren't all they promised, or what the picture on the box looked like. TV dinners, where'd they get chickens that little? The first time I ate a McD burger, ugh! KFC? I sure felt sorry for the people in Kentucky, since they didn't know what good fried chicken was. And, what was that stuff they put on the mashed potatoes, didn't look like any kind of gravy I ever saw. I love a lot of the great ethnic cuisine we have now, and always want to try something new, but I know my roots are in the ArkLaTex, and southern home cooking. It's all good.

 

[zzzippper]

I'll be eating in my '50s for two more years.

 

[arjay]

I grew up in a first gen American Italian house so it was like the "old country" all the way around.

First generation here too.A number of my fathers friends were chefs and mom was very competitive.Americans knew how to open a can and make weird jello and cottage cheese concoctions [emoji1]

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

A friend of mine was married to his only bride in the late sixties. One night she made a surprisingly good looking chocolate cake. He took one bite and spit it into the waste basket. "I'm sorry babe, I know you tried, but the cake is inedible." She had her long Playtex gloves on for the dishes already, so she reaches into the trash can, and pulls out the cake mix box. She sticks it under his nose and says, "It says right here on the box 'DELICIOUS' !" She hasn't made another cake since.

 

[Eagle 477]

My brothers 3rd wife's nick name is mozzarella momma, She worked her way thru college working in Italian restaurants. anytime you visit his house there is always a huge pot on the stove of Gravy (Italian for spaghetti sauce) with meatballs and sausage. I must say she sure can cook... now i'm hungry, may have to take the long way home and visit the brother awhile

 

[Alpo]

I suspect that whoever dreamed up that list was in England.

Curry? Take-away? Food in Tins? Food comes in Cans, and we eat Take-out. And what the heck IS curry?

Maybe they don't eat rice as a side dish.

I was born in the mid-50s, so my memories of growing up is the 60s, but we often had rice. Mostly with fried chicken, and milk gravy.

And Daddy ALWAYS was spiffed up when he went to McDonalds. About once a month, on the way home from church, he'd splurge and we'd stop and get a sack of hamburgers. If we were really puttin' on the dog, he'd buy fries, too.