Eating in the 50s

[Cyrano]

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

Fresh fruit pies only, never saw canned filling.

I imagine my mother used something besides flour and water, but that was 70 years ago and I don't remember it too clearly.

 

[the ringo kid]

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!

Wasnt TV Dinners invented in the fifties???

 

[the ringo kid]

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.

Hadnt made it to your post when I mentioned the invention of TV dinners.Also,I remember when they were in foil and NOT cheapo cardboard. They cooked better in foil than they do now. Grrrrr. Same goes for Pot Pies.

 

[the ringo kid]

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

I remember the large two or so gallon size cans of potato chips came in.My favorites were made by Dentler Facs in San Antonio. The empty containers made for a great trash can you could place next toyour desk or bed.

 

[Lee in Quartzsite]

.......it wasn't only the food that was different. Every Sunday after church we had a formal dinner and everyone stayed in their "Sunday Best" all day. After the desert was finished my brother and I would each ask "May I please be excused from the table?" It was only then that we could leave and do something else. Manners are almost non existent today, especially in restaurants. Guess I am old fashioned, but I still open the car door for my wife of 50 years........

 

[Engineer1911]

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

............

Fixed it for you because I remember my Grandmother's recipe. Except of course she was making graham cracker pie crust.

 

[Coldshooter]

Hadnt made it to your post when I mentioned the invention of TV dinners.Also,I remember when they were in foil and NOT cheapo cardboard. They cooked better in foil than they do now. Grrrrr. Same goes for Pot Pies.

Everything is made for the microwave that's why foil went away.

 

[the ringo kid]

Everything is made for the microwave that's why foil went away.

I hate cooking in a micro--doesnt taste the same to me. I just figured they were just saving on materials. I do love toaster ovens though.

 

[Comrad]

And after the meal the ashtray came out and my father lit up a Winston right there at the table.