Wednesday, March 16, 2022

I remember...

The vintage recipes I posted last week got me thinking about what I used to eat as a child. My grandmother did all the cooking, and it was pretty plain. The only seasoning was salt. No pepper, onions, herbs or spices. Ketchup was only for hamburgers, and relish was for hot dogs -- never mustard!

Breakfast was toast or cereal -- Puffed Rice, Rice Krispies, Sugar Crisp or Sugar Pops, and in the winter oatmeal with brown sugar and milk, or cream of wheat with butter.

Lunch was mac and cheese or rice and milk. Dessert was canned fruit, bread pudding, tapioca or rice pudding.The only time I stayed at school for lunch (cause I lived close by and went home for lunch) I was given a cold hamburg sandwich with ketchup. It was delicious!

Dinner was mashed potatoes, canned peas, corn or beans, and overcooked chops. Sometimes Gran would make a boiled dinner of beef and vegetables in the pressure cooker. Other times she would make one of her traditional dishes: cabbage rolls (yummy), pierogies filled with mashed potato and cheese (I only ate the filling) or head cheese (nobody ate that but Gran). Then there was what we called "Grandpa's Hamburg", which I suppose was actually known as mince and tatties. Simmered ground beef over mashed potato, but no onions or other seasonings as I recall.

Now for some more recipes from the time machine.












A valiant attempt to recreate a "Frankaroni Loaf"

Glory to Ukraine
From Hermione's Heart

5 comments:

Roz said...

Hi Hermione,

Ooh, these look gross lol. Frankaroni loaf lol. Fortunately both my parents were good cooks and we grew up on a wide variety of good and yummy food.

Hugs
Roz

Baxter said...

My mom was an interesting cook. Hamburgers were usually fried or grilled, I forget which, until they were the consistency of hockey pucks. Pecan pies were always delicious as were rhubarb pies in season. The best cookies she ever made she call experimental cookies. Basically the normal ingredients spread about an inch thick in a pan and she would put chunks of hershey bars on top and they would melt and oh what a great cookie that was. I probably haven't had that since the early 70s , but I can remember them oh so well.

Baxter

ronnie said...

My Nan used to do most of the cooking and it was plain hot an filling, not fancy at all. I had to look up head cheese, yuck.

Love,
Ronnie
xx

Dan - A Disciplined Hubby said...

Your descriptions of what your Gran cooked when you were a kid makes me wonder if you're my long lost Canadian sister. I had a Gran, and my childhood diet was eerily similar to yours.

WendelJones said...

Thanks for sharing Hermoine. Brought back some good memories of dinners when I was a kid. My Grandfather’s favorite snack was limburger cheese with sauerkraut on bread.