I'm so old that I remember (food style)...
On reading the 'Boo!' thread, I started to feel a bit creaky at the joints. I realized--hey, I'm so old I remember when little old ladies used to give out apples (gasp) unwrapped (and usually pennies spooned from a bowl)--although these were confiscated for nonexistent razor blades.
And when McDonald's coupons were given out for Halloween, without irony, because they were 'healthier' than candy because 'they didn't contain sugar'
I'm also old enough to remember....
When there were only two flavors of Pop tarts, strawberry and blueberry, and they came 6 rather than 8 to a pack.
The 'old' Chicken McNuggets, all of which came in the same 6 symmetrical shapes
When ice cream treats from school cost a quarter.
Old enough not to be able to identify most cartoon characters on sugary cereal boxes today.
Old enough to remember when cereal had 'good' prizes inside, like Matchbox cars, new candy bars, and whistles and other plastic toys filled with wonderful parts toddlers could choak on.
Old enough to remember that, other than Special K or Raisin Bran, even most adult cereals and granola bars weren't touted for having antioxidants/high fiber/low carb/low calorie properties.
And old enough to have a grandmother who still called the refrigerator an "ice box" and could remember a milk man leaving bottles on her front door.
So, what is your 'food age'?
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
Start Talking!
Need a question answered? Have advice to share? Start a Talk topic now!
Sign up to get your questions answered and share advice.
78 Comments:
I remember when there weren't any McDonalds or Pop Tarts, school ice cream cost a dime, there were no Halloween "confiscations", and my grandmother had an actual ice box,
grampart at 8:15AM on 09/13/08
I remember when "fast food" was delievered to your car by a girl on roller skates. Adventure Car Hop -- Revere Beach Parkway -- 1950's/60's. We'd go there on our way home from a day at the beach.
I also remember the ice man delivering ice for our "icebox", the local farmer coming around with his horse-drawn wagon so we could buy our vegetables for the day, and putting a card in the window on days when we could actually afford to buy dessert from Cushman's Bakery -- which went door-to-door. Bread was 10 cents a loaf, bananas were 3 cents a pound, and we got oranges were considered such a huge treat, we got them in our Christmas stockings instead of candy.
So, I'm actually older than some of the dirt on this planet. LOL!
Brownie at 9:09AM on 09/13/08
omg Heart, now I feel really old! I grew up with a milk man and we had a milk box on the back steps untill I was in my teens. It made a great place to stash an extra key if for some reason no one was home when I got out of school. I can also remember coming in from trick or treating and my mom going through my candy, not to check for anything dangerous, but to pull out one or two pieces that I could keep and then giving the rest out because the 250 "treat bags" she had made up were gone and we were still getting trick or treaters. And when I was in school they didnt sell ice cream or any other treats, you got "hot lunch" no substitutions or you brought your own. I'm going to go get my geritol now:(
huneybumper at 9:14AM on 09/13/08
How about those 12 Cent Hostess Cupcakes or Snowballs, Fizzies, Teen Burgers at A&W and the bakery man making deliveries especially in rural areas? I also remember 10 cent ice cream cones and Coke at the soda fountain actually having a "bite". (Stopping at the drug store on Sundays for a newspaper and either an ice cream cone or a Coke is a very special memory to me.) Ah yes, those were the days!
bubbamom at 9:46AM on 09/13/08
Wow, I thought I was old...
j/k
My mother called it an ice box for the longest time, then in the last 10 or so years of her life, she called it a "refridge." I used to hear people/family call their fridge a "Fridgidaire." I only knew what they were talking about because our fridge until ~1993 WAS an old old Fridgidaire. That thing was awesome but I love-hated picking out the ice. Standing up while the freezer door was open above you while you picked up a shard of ice was rather pee-invoking.
Fruit roll-ups were huge for less than 99 cents. It would go on forever.
Yogurt cups were large, not thimbles.
Spam cans came with keys. I LOVED those, until the tab on the can you twisted to open the can broke off, and you couldn't use a can opener to open the GD cans.
Exchange orange drink. The jingle was great and the cartoon was memorable. I loved that drink.
Cassaendra at 10:33AM on 09/13/08
Old enough to remember...
...Not quite a "first hand" memory - but I was one of those sleeping kids left outside the A&P in my baby carriage - along with a sea of other occupied carriages.
...Visiting one store for bread, a different one for cake, another one for meat and a supermarket for canned goods and soap. Visiting a hardware store for cooking tools and canning jars.
...Meat programs from private butchers. A couple of families would get together and buy a large quantity of beef from a butcher and get it wrapped in freezer packs.
...Separate freezer from fridge. (That's come full circle these days.)
...Fridge on the bottom and freezer on top - and that was the only choice.
...When the fridge was called "Frigidare" no matter what brand it was.
...The vegetable man and the grinder (knife sharpener) would come around on trucks.
...Milk home delivery.
...When my mother's weekly "fried fish dinners" were considered "healthy."
...When margarine was considered better for you than butter.
...When doctors made house calls. (Not a "food" memory per se but it still dates me.)
...When Orange Juice was Tropicana - and that was it.
...When "Sugar" was a (truthful) part of the names of things like "Golden" Crisp and "Honey" Smacks and "Corn" Pops.
...When a cashier at a supermarket would have to know how to punch in prices of items, make change, and use a manual wooden "belt pull" that would bring the items to the cashier instead of the conveyors now in use. It was also possible to easily do a manual override because there was less protection in place against store employees.
therealchiffonade at 10:43AM on 09/13/08
Boy, I'm getting old but some of the comments are beyond my time!
I remember when the Big Mac was introduced across the nation. One of my early accomplishments, around 1969 or 1970, was finally eating a whole one. My parents would dog me out for wanting one and then not being able to finish it (have they gotten smaller over the years?). No biggie -- my brother, aka "The Garbage Can," would take anyone's leftovers.
... when popcorn was made on the stove in a saucepan (because Jiffy Pop was too expensive).
... when access to vegetables and fruits in Europe was seasonal. None of this "imported from Israel" fresh stuff in December. Everyone lardered onions and potatoes, and lots of veggies were pickled (sauerkraut, etc). Tomatoes were nonexistent in the winter and I loved tomatoes. There was a rhythm to the kitchen based on the season.
... unpasteurized milk was not pooh-poohed by neighbors or the government.
... cold cereal was pooh-poohed by my parents as "not really breakfast."
... when going to the supermarket was a huge deal because most people bought from several local stores (meat, veg, dairy). The supermarket was a fascination, but an expensive one.
... checkout scanners? What were those? And self-checkout? Are you kidding? How rude that would have been!
... when plastic replaced paper in checkout lines, because of the save-the-trees movement going on. Whatever happened to that enlightened agenda??
TikiPundit at 11:23AM on 09/13/08
i remember the milkman, too. i used to love to hide things in that shiny metal box on the front stoop.
i remember when i was very little and my mother entrusted me to pick out the tomatoes in the supermarket and put them in a brown paper bag. later that day she told her sister, in a shocked tone of voice, " can you believe, she chose a DOLLAR'S worth of tomatoes!"
cybercita at 12:32PM on 09/13/08
I remember food ration stamps during World War II. My grandmother would use her ration stamps to get white Karo syrup and save it up to be used for icing for birthday cakes.
I once, probably at three, was still confused about which was sugar and which was flour. They came in similar five-pound bags. One day in the grocery store I saw flour but said "Look, Mother. They have sugar." A small stampede arrived to discover I was wrong and glare at my mother as if her child-rearing skills were deficient.
My grandmother adopted a family, maybe it was a Red Cross program, displaced by flooding in Holland after the Nazis bombed the dikes. We used to send that family packages and always used soap flakes or oatmeal for packing.
Blue Iris at 1:50PM on 09/13/08
I remember so many of the same things as others...
LoCo at 1:50PM on 09/13/08
I remember FROZEN VEGETABLES - ugh! It took years to persuade me that frozen peas and corn had their uses.
I remember TV DINNERS. The first one was a treat....
I remember the girl in my class in elementatary school who had a mother who worked outside the home! She used to get a huge allowance, buy 20 CANDY bars (5 cents each) and give them away. The teacher never said a word, and some of them had peanuts.
I remember the bread and pastry TRUCK, the occasional vegetable man or knife sharpener, and for that matter, the guy with the pony who would come through and take our pictures decked out with cowboy hats and six shooters!!!
I remember BIRLEY'S orange soda. Oh what a treat at our grandmother's house. And the MOM & POP store around the corner that we could walk to by ourselves and charge things to her account. It was dim inside and smelled both dusty and good.
I remember when there were no AVOCADOS, BEAN SPROUTS, LETTUCES (except iceberg), FRESH PINEAPPLE, DIJON MUSTARD, ETC.
I remember my mother working the COLORING into MARGARINE during World War II. ( I was fascinated by the orange powder making the white mass yellow.)
Great to take this trip, but I promise you that almost everything is so much better NOW.
islandexile at 2:23PM on 09/13/08
i remember my dad bitchin coz he had to pay 25 CENTS a gallon for gas....and my mom buyin 8 o'clock coffee beans at A & P an the cashier had the coffee grinder right behind he to grind it for you !!
onepercent99 at 4:52PM on 09/13/08
when there were very few BK's and McDonald's in the city and when one was planned to be put in on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights the entire neighborhood started a campaign to stop it. The campaign did stall for what seemed to be a good amount of time - but did not stop it.
when lunchcounters at Woolworths on Fulton Street had cranky ladies with strange hair who seemed as if they were going to drop dead over your french fries as waitresses.
when the guy on 14th Street actually shaved ice from a solid block set on a rickety painted hand-cart before pouring your choice of colored sugar-syrups over the top of the sno-cone, and how after you got it first you'd almost run into the guy with no legs who used to push himself up and down the street on a skateboard begging then you'd almost trip over the blind guy with that big German Shepard who was also begging - all before gloomy old Luchow's even came into sight.
when there was a guy who used to drive his cart-and-pony around Brooklyn Heights ringing a bell for knives to be sharpened. Granted, he was a bit of an anomaly by that time.
foodvox at 5:13PM on 09/13/08
Oh, my! I remember those Woolworth's lunch counter waitresses, too, foodvox! And sitting at the counter on the chrome and red vinyl stools.
I feel a million years old now.
Tokyorosa at 5:27PM on 09/13/08
A bit simple but: There were no microwaves, at least in my parents wage strata. (btw i'm 38)
monster at 6:18PM on 09/13/08
I don't remember a lot of the things listed above, but our next-door neighbor did own the Rexall Pharmacy (sort of like Woolworth's), where my friends and I would go every day after school for a Coke float.
Then I'd walk down the street to my grandfather's barber shop and get another Coke from his machine. They came in glass bottles and were always ICE COLD. Sometimes he'd let me help him refill the machine. I'd sit in his shoe-shine booth and talk with his 'regulars' until my dad picked me up.
Oh, and I LOVED Tang!!! I'd sprinkle it on my tongue like those candy straw things!!
suthungirl at 6:27PM on 09/13/08
I remember the Dugan's bread and cake truck, the fruit and vegetable truck and the knife sharpening truck (still see him once in a blue moon).
I remember when the first Baskin-Robbins in Queens, NY opened up and the line was out the door for several months after it opened (and my sister love Pink Bubblegum Ice Cream).
I remember the first fast food in Queens- it was Wetson's and the fries were out of this world.
I remember lunch in a luncheonette where I would eat Tuna sandwiches and drink ice cream sodas make with homemade ice cream.
deefine at 6:44PM on 09/13/08
I remember huge mixed drinks. Martinis as big as a fishbowl. Brandy after dinner. Smoking in restaurants and at people's homes. Ashtrays, silver, and crystal ones. Our first microwave 1976 was huge.
Defrosting the fridge with a pot of boiling water and an ice pick.
Penny candy in jars. Tartare of anything and everything raw. Happy hour followed by cocktail hour. Stewart's drive in and the uniforms the girls wore. Eating lunch with my granny at Woolworth's lunch counter. I made and used the word Canapes. (shivers)
I grew up with an ice bucket and have at least 3 in the house.
We shopped at the A&P.
JerzeeTomato at 7:06PM on 09/13/08
The "gypsy" who came around and sharpened our knives and repaired pots.
Getting bread and eggs delivered to the house.
Not wearing seatbelts (but only in other people's cars - my parents drove English cars that had seat belts standard years before and also made us sit in the back seat long before airbags)
I remember Sugar Crisp, Sugar Pops and other cereals which have had their names sanitized.
I remember smoking in restaurants AND grocery stores - and how disgusted my parents (both non-smoking athletic types) were even then. And people drinking when they were pregnant - my own grandmother (who died before I was born and I am 42 - this would probably be in the 30s) once criticized her cousin for drinking a martini when she was preggers. I guess my parents, for being old sticks in the mud in some ways, were pretty "hip and happening"!
Defrosting the fridge and freezer with a large fan and brute force and ignorance.
Glass bottles for pop. Which we had only at Christmas and when we were sick (flat gingerale - I called it gwinny as a young child)
Maureen at 8:24PM on 09/13/08
We still have a knife sharpening truck come around in my neighbourhood.
What I miss is the ice cream truck.
mmmm, Sugar Crisp
PeanutButter at 8:48PM on 09/13/08
Marathon bars (do they still make those?), Coca-Cola in big glass bottles (family size), avocado green ovens/ fridge/ stove, my parents being 'hip' because we had brick floors in the kitchen, wood floors in the main areas, and shag (!!!) carpeting in the bedrooms and living room. Barbie doll cakes where the doll was sitting on top of a giant bowl shaped hoop skirt/ dress. The advent of gummy worms and being told pop-rocks would explode your stomach. And, best of all... my lunchboxes- Holly Hobbie, Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Bright, & a cool tupperware one that looked like a space ship.
sbelle at 9:01PM on 09/13/08
OMG, I had a Care Bears lunchbox. And I made one of those Barbie doll cakes in a home ec class. We had the avocado green fridge with the freezer on the bottom. And I remember going grocery shopping with my mom at the Loma Linda Market, where there was an old man who used to walk around the store with a basket full of lollipops and hand them out to kids. I loved grocery shopping.
buffy at 10:13PM on 09/13/08
"long time listener, first time caller"...
Speaking of bottles of pop, we used to get them from the corner store in a large upright pop cooler that was filled with water. I remember I'd have to slide the lid open, pulling out a bottle of Coke, Fresca, Tab or Fanta and the owner would towel-dry it before we would use the built-in bottle cap opener on the side of the cooler to pop off the cap.
As for ice cream, I remember buying it in a cylinder shaped wrapper much like the size of a toilet paper tube. Then the clerk would unwrap it and plunk it on to a cone. The double-decker ones were awesome to eat.
And what were these ones called again - it was like a creamsicle swirl on a stick. When you finished eating the ice cream, the plastic stick resembled a children's cartoon character (or something?). We used to try and collect all the different characters.
Ahh the good ole days....
Room for Dessert at 10:26PM on 09/13/08
i love this thread! this is the best thread ever!! When i was a kid, we had a brown refrigerator, avocado green wallpaper with yellow flowers, and our apartment had a built in bottle opener. I remember the Woolworth's lunch counter, and it was my favorite thing, because that was the only time I ate outside the house.
I remember the sunday laws, and how the whole family actually hung out together and had dinner together.
I remember when old grannies would give me candy when i was walking on the street with my mom, and there was no question about its safety.
I remember the only place we bought meat was from a butcher shop.
terabithia at 10:48PM on 09/13/08
i remember my parents used to make their own seltzer water from carbon dioxide cartridges!
cybercita at 11:21PM on 09/13/08
@cybercita - mine did that too! I still remember that brightly coloured soda syphon we had:-). For my brother and me, they would add black or red currant syrup and it made quite a delicious fizzy drink! Especially considering that any store-bought fizzy drinks (glass bottles only), were only available to us on special occasions.
I forgot all about defrosting the freezer! I sure don't miss this one:-) It was one of my chores sometimes when I was little, and did I hate it!
brooke29 at 1:23AM on 09/14/08
In cereal age, I'm old enough to be eating Kaboom! while mom and dad had "horse-sized" Shredded Wheat. They were about the size of a small hay bale. Around the same time, no one was worried about the artificial coloring in Kool-Aid, we didn't question qhat was in a hot dog, and we'd generally never heard of E. Coli.
beth1 at 2:10AM on 09/14/08
I'm old enough to remember my great grandmother (Granny!) killing, cleaning 5 chickens on Sat., frying it and feeding at least 30 on Sunday. Along with pie, coconut cake, fresh peaches, greens, cornbread, purplehull peas, fresh tomatoes, green beans, sweet tea. Vegetables were fresh from her garden. The men and children ate while the women 'served' the table, the women ate the remainders during cleanup. Granny wore cotton dresses and hose just over her knees everyday. She dipped snuff and was a devout Christian. Granny died in 1984 at the age of 94. Sigh. The memories give me a lump in my throat.
sw8t at 4:25AM on 09/14/08
This may not have happened had I lived in New York or some other large city, but growing up in Northern Minnesota I can remember .... BEFORE THERE WAS PIZZA!!!!!
srhcb at 11:09AM on 09/14/08
Ha, ha! Minnesota must have been later than Maine to get pizza then . . . for I remember my mother speaking in hushed important tones about when the first pizza place opened in her hometown in central Maine when she was a teenager.
This apparently proven fact of the hick-ness of the place was one of the reasons she always held onto as proof that leaving for the big city of Boston was absolutely the thing to do. :)
foodvox at 11:35AM on 09/14/08
sw8t -- Purplehull peas!! I remember my cousin and I used to 'race' each other to see who could shell the most!
And my great-grandmother dipped snuff, too. (But would never, ever, smoke a cigarette!)
suthungirl at 2:41PM on 09/14/08
@suthungirl--my grandma was the same way. Smoking was a sin. :)
beth1 at 3:40PM on 09/14/08
I am so old, I just wish I could remember what it was like "back in the day"!
;-D
izatryt at 4:08PM on 09/14/08
@ LoCo, I think we must have been neighbors! You hit 'em all in my generation, especially the jammie-clothed trips to the drive-in movies. I can add "skyscraper" rainbow ice cream cones from Isaly's.
My parents would have parties where the kids were in the basement dressing up in mom's old nighgowns and dad's boxers. The adults were upstairs drinking whiskey rocks and smoking packs of Pall-Malls. At the end of the evening, the kids would perform a skit in their "costumes" which the adults found hysterical (after the half-gallon of whiskey they sucked down). Then they loaded us into cars and actually "drove" home. Sign me "Lucky to Be Alive"!
Josdean at 4:56PM on 09/14/08
I remember refrigerated "pop" machines with glass bottles of pepsi, mountain dew, dr. pepper, grapette, strawberry crush and orange crush. You put your money in, opened a narrow glass door and pulled your bottle out. Pop was something that was a rare treat, not something most everybody drank almost everyday.
I've always wished that I'd grown up in a place where you go to different shops to buy different things, but my reality was going to one grocery store for everything. The man who worked in the meat department did it all: seafood, chicken, pork and beef. My reality was that the grocery store butcher was the one-stop source for anything related to an edible animal carcass. He could butterfly a shrimp, do up a crown roast or cut up a chicken. I don't think much has changed in middle America in that respect.
holdthemayo at 4:56PM on 09/14/08
In this area, the milkman still delivers milk to the porch in glass bottles. Well, one dairy does. The other delivers to the porch in plastic bottles.
Oh yeah, and the next town over isn't incorporated, so they don't have local police, but they do have a sheriff's station. The few times I've been there, I've been sooooo tempted to ask for Andy or Barney, but it's probably not funny to them.
Anybody rememer getting S&H Green Stamps at the grocery stores?
dbcurrie at 5:19PM on 09/14/08
how about the date nut and cream cheese sandwiches at chock full of nuts?
a whole pizza was $1.00, malteds were 40 cents, as was the movie (2 movies to boot).... charlotte rouse (did i spell that right?), mellow-rolls,
banana candies.
we used to eat boxes of sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds as snacks.
and soda used to be a treat. and fruit was also used as food. not
as something that rots on your countertops.....
pooch at 5:41PM on 09/14/08
Hey, Brownie from Saturday:
We are not only from the same generation, we're from the same place! Ah, Revere Beach in the day. And my ice man was my uncle...he delivered the ice in summer and the coal in the winter.
I remember my aunt sending me down the street to the little neighborhood
variety store early in the morning to get one banana so she could slice it and put it on top of my uncle's cereal. Dave, the store owner, knew what it was for and he would pick out the perfectly ripe one and send me on my way. Dave had big sour pickles in a barrel and some of the candy was two for a penny.
We came home from school for lunch and sometimes my dad would come home from the office to join us. Soup and a sandwich (on white wonder bread, of course) every day.
I remember it as a less hectic time but I'll bet my mother didn't think so! She made every thing fron scratch: pies, beef hash, chowders, stewed tomatoes.
Now I feel old...and hungry.
Beatricia at 5:55PM on 09/14/08
when I was little
The only convenience stores. were 7-11's. The entire front was open in summer. You walked in to buy your penny candy (or your candy cigarettes or bubblegum cigars), and before you left, you could freeze your hand off rummaging around in the big horizontal cooler full of ice water for your favorite flavor of soda water.
The only fast food place was Dairy Queen. But you could get a huge version of what are now Big Macs at Bob's Big Boy diners.
The only ethnic food in average homes was El Chico TV dinners or cans of La Choy or Chung King.
The prevailing grocery bags were brown paper, even the produce bags, and sandwich bags and leftover wrap were waxed paper.
SallyMutant at 7:32PM on 09/14/08
The old Runts flavors! There's some blue one in there now, and the cherry is way less artificial than it used to be. Ew.
I also remember when Fruit Roll-ups and Fruit by the Foot came out, and had 2 flavors each. Kids today don't get the good stuff!
embolini9 at 12:50PM on 09/15/08
As a latch-key kid in the forty’s, when my mom would have to work at Penneys on Friday night, she would leave me a dollar for dinner. I would ride my bike to Safeway and buy a one pound rib eye steak that would fill an iron skillet. I would always add something special to the steak, but Worchester was a staple. And our clothes washer had rollers.
Fred Rickson at 1:58PM on 09/15/08
@islandexile: Now I remember those bags of margarine and taking turns squeezing until all the color was evenly distirbuted!
I also remember an issue of Life magazine, early 50's probably, about all things Italian which were just coming into style. From that issue my mother got up her courage to get a "poodle cut", perfect for her beautiful curls, and learned a recipe for Spaghetti Bolognese which was very similar to the one on a recent Anne Burrell show. I had never had spaghetti before.
Blue Iris at 2:11PM on 09/15/08
dbcurrie! When I married in 1969, my Mother gave me her whole collection of S&H green stamps with which to outfit my kitchen. I chose a double boiler, a set of Corning casseroles, the Corning electric coffee pot and the Corning roaster. My Mother obviously had never gotten anything for herself with the stamps.
In rural Texas the very few and far between service stations ( which actually had SERVICE) also had a big metal box with ice water in which Cokes, Nehigh Orange, Grape or Big Red sodas dwelled. The best was a very cold coke with a package of planters peanuts poured in the top.
ocarol at 3:21PM on 09/15/08
I'm so old I remember when Drake's Ring Dings were good.
Sneakeater at 5:07PM on 09/15/08
Ebinger's. Real bagels.
Barbara Hanson at 5:19PM on 09/15/08
Dugan's. Ebinger's.
The bells of the ice cream man's truck: The Good Humor Man and Bungalow Bar.
Also delivered to the door: cans of Charles Chips. (That's right, no apostrophe.)
baboo at 6:41PM on 09/15/08
@baboo: The can indeed said Charles Chips, but everyone on my block called it Charlie Chips. Taking the can to the truck for refilling was a highlight of the week.
Barbara Hanson at 9:06AM on 09/16/08
I remember when there wasn't Tropicana OJ - it came in cans and the brand was Donald Duck. A nickel fountain coke (for teenagers, the sophisticated things) or root beer (for kids, because you got more in the frosty mug!) and a nickel bag of potato chips at the drugstore in our little town, under the irritable eye of the pharmacist-owner's elderly spinster aunt. Ten cents' weekly allowance equalled a popsicle or fudgesicle plus five, count 'em, five different kinds of penny candy at the corner store. The agony of the decision-making. Ice cream sandwiches and drumsticks were a dime, an extravagance we got only when the grownups were buying. Pizza came when I was in high school, but it was 30 miles away in the next county, and a visit on a date was something bragged about the next day before class started, in between classes and in chorus when the director was rehearsing the tenors.
lemons at 9:57AM on 09/16/08
Ugh, can't believe I'm 30...but, here's what I remember:
~Lunchboxes that were metal
~Woolworth's pretzels and fountain soda were the best
~Candy cigarettes sold from the ice cream man (I was not allowed to have them-I was jealous of others that had them)
~Candy that was made of a wax bottle with a liquid center (had it only once-didn't like that at all)
~Big League Chew (Gum)
~Bubble Tape
~Closest grocery store was 20-25 minutes away
~Only convenience stores were gas stations and 7-11
~McD's was only fast food around (and not many at that), Maybe one Burger King
~No such thing as "Super Sized"
~Food portions being under control
~Using "real" ingredients was ok
~Cooking from Scratch was the norm
~Everything was made on the Stovetop or in Oven
Butrflygirly at 11:06AM on 09/16/08
I must say I'm a lot closer to Butrflygirl's 'remember whens' than I am to anyone else's!! I was a kid in the 80's, albeit a small one, so there isn't a whole lot since then that has changed.
I do remember though that any good cereal had a cartoon front man. Captain Crunch, Count Chocula, Frosted Flakes, etc...
DCraver at 12:09PM on 09/16/08
dbcurrie and ocarrol
I still have a small multi-color stripped rug by the kitchen sink that I got with S&H Green Stamps!
Although we lived in the city with average conveniences, I spent all of my summers in 'the country', visiting various relatives in Mississippi. Those memories are treasures to me now.
*Had a blind aunt who could feel the water and pitch a fit if someone had dropped the bucket and stirred up the sediment in the well.
*Used a pump to fill a bucket with water to bring into the house.
*Sat under a big oak tree with 6 cousins peeling and slicing peaches when we were between 5 & 8 years old. I now know people who won't let their 12 year old go near a knife!
*Helped my aunt make my uncle's favorite custard pie by milking the cow, churning the butter and gathering the eggs for a pie made totally with ingredients that never heard of a fridge. Yum!
*Churned peach ice cream in a wooden crank ice cream bucket.
*Older male cousin would go down the rows of peanuts pulling the plants out of the ground while we younger girls followed with bushel baskets picking the peanuts off of the uprooted plants.
*My mom's oldest brother had a wicked sense of humor. When my silly city self asked for chocolate milk he said, "you see ouch yonder, well I don't remember which one, but one of them bull's horns has chocolate milk, you'll have to go out and pull on them to see which one", thanks unk!
*...same uncle, woke up because I was coughing in my sleep, brought me a glass of his homemade wine in the middle of the night, I quit coughing and slept through breakfast....
He also loved to show off his 'pickled peter peppers', yes the shape was perfectly named....
"When does a chicken have the most feathers? When a rooster's on top." ba da bum.......sorry.
His wife laid out an impressive spread every midday, on one occasion my mom said, "Mildred, this is some mighty fine fried chicken." She replied, "yeah, we weren't going to have chicken today, but this one got it's head caught in the feed trough". Mom turned green and left the table. She was kinda soft hearted.
*Had a truly mean aunt that could put a serious welt on you with a damp dish towel. My cousin and I would sneak into her kitchen garden and steal cucumbers, peel them with our teeth, and sneak into the shed where the preserves and flour sacks were stored and pour cider vinegar on them from huge jugs. I don't peel them anymore, but cucs and cider vinegar are still a treat.
*On my 9th b-day the sow had 13 piglets, very exciting! mmm bacon....
*Someone previously said something about purple hulls, yummy. We shelled every kind of pea and bean while sitting in old wooden rockers under the trees. They are still some of my favorite eats.
*During school months, in the city, I'd sit in the car and drink either orange or grape Barq's, while my mom and Geatsie, who I guess would now be referred to as my nanny would have a couple of beers that had to be purchased from the "coloreds only" walk up window, because a black woman and a white woman could not go inside anyplace to be served together.
Really ya'll, I'm not particularly old, just came up in an interesting time and region. Would not trade it for anything.
Also got to cook in a macro biotic restaurant outside of Amsterdam in the '70's. It's all about varied exposure. Get out there and enjoy!
nola2chi at 2:53PM on 09/16/08
@Barbara Hanson: You're absolutely right. The Charles Chips truck stopped "at the corner," and we took the can to the truck for refills. Thanks for the memory.
@nola2chi: Thanks for your memories. Delightful reading.
baboo at 3:10PM on 09/16/08
I love this thread so much! Thank you all for sharing. (I don't think I'm old enough to have any interesting food memories to share...)
Junie at 5:12PM on 09/16/08
Some would say I am as old as dirt, but I remember inventing dirt. And I worked at the first McDonalds in the SF Valley.
Fred Rickson at 6:38PM on 09/16/08
I just wanted to thank everyone for such wonderful memories--too many thanks to write out individually, but what a wash of remembering carrying my metal Peanuts lunchbox to school, and hearing about my mother's first job as a 'soda jerk' making floats and soda with injected syrup, not from a bottle--going out to eat and asking to see the dessert cart--and on a more processed note, remembering a supermarket with only sliced bread, no bakery loaves, and eating Jell-O pudding pops in summer!
HeartofGlass at 7:51PM on 09/16/08
@Barbara Hanson - Those Charlie Chip cans were like gold in my Mom's house. When the company no longer came around, those cans got relegated to containers in which the revered Toll House Cookies were stored during the holidays. As a right of passage, my Mom gave them to me on my first married Christmas. When those cans come out, my family knows Toll House cookies aren't far behind.
Josdean at 11:55AM on 09/17/08
Oh my. I remember the milk man, I remember when the only frozen dinner were Swanson TV dinners, but mostly, I remember that 2 slices and a coke cost 95 cents (2 slices @35 and the coke @25) at the real Original Rays.
chisai at 8:07PM on 09/17/08
I remember the popcicle man every summer in that 3 wheeled duded up golf truck? That said "Joe's Ice Cream" ,the box up in front and in the back the dry ice where the big supply of ice cream bars, ect were stashed. Blackberry picking w/my mother and helping her make jam. The T.V. ad of Annette Fabray pushing the recipe cards, by starting out w/a strand of her hair in her face and saying "sometimes cooking can be a bore", then she would blow the strand back into place and say" but not anymore "...... The Milkman delivering Foremost milk and other dairy products. People actually smoking while shopping IN the grocery store. Bazooka gum was only 1 cent a piece. Wax lips/teeth. Pop rocks. Every kid in the hood coming to the house for a piece of mom's home baked cookies, streudels,ect. My easy bake oven baking mini cakes on single light bulb. Mom would spend days making cookies and kuchen's for holidays. Mom spending hours making Hungarian stuffed cabbage roles nestled atop sourkraut and pork chops, served with sour cream and knurdels that she served for the holidays to family and other guests, except me, dad had to get me a cheeseburger and fries at Dick's Drivein because when I was young I hated mom's dish. Actually going with a group of kids in the hood along with parents trick or treating (house to house, not malls) and every year having to share my candy w/some kid who dragged their paper Halloween bags on the wet cement (I live in rainy Seattle) causing a hole in bottem of their bag, therefore losing their candy stash. Campbell's chicken and dumpling soup that mom made me for lunch every day after kindergarten. When fast food joints where called their original name (McDonalds not McD's, Kentucky Fried Chicken not KFC, Burger King not BK). The old man who would take walks daily by my house that us kids called the Candyman because he always had yummy candy to give us kids. Bags of chips were 10 cents. Green Goddess and 1000 Island dressing was popular on Iceberg lettuce salads, Caesar salad was special. The "New and improved" everything craze. Coke vs Pepsi challenge. Gummi Bears only, not worms, grasshoppers cockroachs ect. Good God, the jello salads everything but the kitchen sink in them. Lets not even go into the hippy foods. Hardly anything in alum., plastic or cartons, everything came in glass that you return for deposit. Vegomatic products.
pjracz10 at 4:30AM on 09/19/08
Does anyone remember 7-up Gum? There was also Dr. Pepper gum. It looked like a Halls Centre but it was gum and had pop in the middle.
How about Cherry 7-up? (Also came in a gum flavour). This was probably late 80s, early 90s. I need to know I didn't make it up in my head.
ag3208 at 5:45PM on 09/20/08
ag3208, I assure you they existed :)
randomeater at 12:45AM on 09/21/08
I remember school milk that came in little glass bottles with a paper cap. I also remember saving the frozen oj "cans" and using them for hair rollers. My grandparents owned a neighborhood grocery and I remember filling a little brown bag with penny candy - my favorite were little flying saucer shaped things that melted like communion wafers and had little candies inside - and wax candy lips! I remember going to Hogan's meat market right next to my Grandma's store to get meat and 7-Up flavored pushups.
mrsbeezers at 9:54AM on 09/22/08
I remember the Dugan Bread van delivering wonderful bread and cakes to the door of our apt. in the Bronx. I remember the Seltzer man with his weekly home delivery. And the hot dipped jelly apples on a stick in the Fall, the sweet potato man in the Winter, the game of marbles played against the curb in a Breakstone Cream Cheese Box in the Spring, the street games like Ring O Leavi O in the Summer, and sitting on the fire escape on sultry Summer nights with the radio tuned to the Shadow or the Lone Ranger.
I appreciate this opportunity to be reminded of sweet precious memories of a softer time. At least for kids.
raycliffe at 10:43AM on 09/22/08
I'm so old that I remember (food style)...
Milk came delivered by Tricycle, and on Wednesday only, the rest of the week Hitler sent it to the troops on the Russian front, the man had it in large Metal cans and the Omi had to bring her own vessel of sorts to a Liter or so. Saturdays the Iceman cometh. Breakfast Rolls were 3 Pfennig, and all groceries (when available) were sold by weight, to bring your own bag was preferred. My Dad had a bike, I did not. Fast food was an Automat similar to Horn & Hardart with little drawers on walls. A liverwurst sandwich was 25 Pfennig. And not to forget Air Raids were held daily, sometimes twice. Snow plows were pulled by horses. Sugar beets were shredded and cooked in water to obtain some kind of molasses, the peeling from cooked potatoes were dried, ground and eaten as gruel, Ersatz Kaffee grounds,(after brewing some beverage) were mixed with Wednesday's milk and a stolen egg, they called it Coffee Cake.
Not much more, I have tears, go on and live, my advise !!
kanopemainer at 10:44AM on 09/22/08
Grew up in a fairly small northern rural town. I remember riding my bike 5 miles to my Grandpa an Grandma's house during the summer to spend the night. For breakfast she always had me go get their milk from the neigbor who produced all the milk for the surrounding farms. Skimming the cream off the top for Gp's coffee.
Grandmas from scratch "Chicken Pot Pie" PA Dutch style. Think Chicken Noodle Stew.
Grandpa sharpening Grandma's knives himself, letting us help. Because he didn't see the sense of wasting a nickle having the knife man do it.
Shelling peas, shucking corn and snapping peas on the back porch. Having a 1/2 acre garden for all our vegatabes.
Hoping we got two deer during hunting season so my parents could stretch their meat budget and afford a Steak for Dad's birthday
My parents never checked what we got for Halloween. MMmm homemade Popcorn balls and carmel apples. If we got sick, to bad we knew better. Usually didn't happen twice.
One dollar allowance would buy candy for the week and some comic books.
The closest McDonalds was 30 miles away and was considered eating at a restaurant as part of an all day shopping trip. Also I remember all you could get were hamburgers, cheeseburgers and Filet O Fish sandwiches(mom's favorite).
We never had soda. Except Ginger Ale on holidays or if we were sick. A&W Drive-In. The best RootBeer ever!!
Popcorn made on the stovetop in a pan.
Driving around the country side asking the farmers if we could pick the apples up off the ground Then taking them down to the press to make cider. The cost? Five cents a gallon or one gallon for every four.
Mom's Baked Beans and Hamburger.
Splurging once or twice during the summer for the Drive in movies. Two shows for a quarter. Same with the local theater. Odf course we were so small they showed the same movies for months.
Going to the county Co-Op to return the bottles and get fresh milk for the next two weeks!!
TV dinners which we couldn't afford and besides we didn't get a TV till almost 1975, 13" used B&W
PBJ sandwiches, fruit(apples) for lunch and a nickel on Mondays for our milk card for that weeks milk.
Best of all? Not missing what we didn't have or resenting people who did and enjoying what we did have
murrato at 11:03AM on 09/22/08
Does anyone remember Bobby Sherman records on the back of the cereal box? I think it may have been Raisin Bran. They were 45 rpm records that you had to cut off the box but they did play!
robincat at 11:03AM on 09/22/08
@kanopemainer, bless your heart. We can talk about how we grew up poor or deprived, but to live through war in your own back yard -- I'm just glad you survived and I hope there were some special family memories to hold on to.
My grandparents came of age in the Depression, so we were all taught to be frugal. Everything was home grown, homemade, from scratch. My favorite was (still is) cornbread cooked in hot oil in a cast-iron skillet. Don't forget to dribble some of that oil into the beans cooking on the back of the stove. They were considered "poor beans" without that oil to flavor them up.
I used to help my maw-maw make dinner for the men out in the fields. This was at noon -- fried pork chops or round steak (I got to flour the strips of meat), three different cooked vegetables, mac & cheese, biscuits AND cornbread, big jugs of cold sweet tea and usually some kind of cake they could eat out of their hands as they walked back to the tractors. No one was overweight, no one had heart disease or diabetes or other food-related health problems. Hard outdoor work and no processed foods. I guess that's the secret!
I do remember getting into a huge argument some years ago with a coworker who was bashing hunters and all sorts of hunting. Not that I want to stir anything up on here -- I'm not talking about trophy/sport hunting -- but I shut her up quick when I told her there were times that venison and catfish were the only meats we had when I was young. Still love them! I helped my dad skin squirrels, pluck ducks (hated that!) and it was a treat when there was enough money for beef.
We would go down to the banks of the Red River in central Louisiana and pick dewberries in the early mornings. Dewberry jam for the buttermilk biscuits, and cobbler for dessert! Yum!
I wanna go home now!
Editmom at 11:23AM on 09/22/08
I don't recall Bobby Sherman records - but I do remember "Archies" records on the back of Honeycomb boxes. I was not fond of the cereal, but I had to have the records!!
mrsbeezers at 11:43AM on 09/22/08
A truck delivered ice to our house for the ice box, and so the ice man would know how much to lug up to the house, a color-coded card (each corner was a different color) was hung on the front door knob, red corner up for 50 pounds, yellow for 25 and so on. We were out playing, knocked the card off the door and just scooped it up and hung it back without regard for the color that was "up." When a huffing, puffing "ice man" arrived at the door with 100 pounds, he AND we took a mighty tongue-lashing from my embarrassed mom. Who remembers the cellophane packets of margarine, plain white with a little color pellet that had to be burst and then squished to turn the white margarine yellow?
expat39520 at 12:17PM on 09/22/08
I turned 60 this year and spent my childhood years in Bergen County, New Jersey during the 1950s and '60s. There were several ice cream trucks that came around in summer, including the Good Humor man. Those little white trucks had bells mounted above the windshields which the driver operated by pulling a string. None of today's annoying music blasting over loudspeakers! The ice cream bars were kept in freezers in the back of the truck and the driver opened these really thick doors and had to reach way in to get your Popsicle or chocolate-covered vanilla ice cream bar. (All 10 cents.) There were hardly any chain "fast food" places unless you counted Dairy Queens, which in those days had only soft ice cream, sered at walk-up windows. My friends and I went to a soda fountain in either a drug store or Mom and Pop candy store to get Cokes for either 5 or 10 cents, made by squirting Coke syrup into a paper, cone-shaped cup held by a stainless steel holder, then they would fill the cup with seltzer and stir it up with a spoon. We kids earned our spending money by bringing soda bottles back to the sore for a 2-cent deposit on small bottles and 10 cents on the large. If we were lucky enough to find a quart-sized beer bottle, we could return it to the liquor store for 10 cents! Ice cream sodas and milk shakes were 25 cents and a malted was 30 cents. They would give you the stainless steel mixer cup and it would fill a standard sized Coca Cola glass about three times. Ice cream cones were ten cents.
The local lunch counters cooked their hamburgers on the grill but sometimes my grandfather would take me to a highway place called Sandy's Charcoal Hearth for a really good char-broiled burger. Naturally, after tasting these, I was completely unimpressed with the McDonald's variety, which I first tried around 1965 when fast food places started invading Bergen County, much to the chagrin of the older residents who appreciated much better food — and service.
They had a chain called Dugan's "Bakers for the Home" in the NY metro area and their trucks would visit your neighborhood two or three times a week. They carried Entenmann's-quality baked goods. Milk men? Of course! We had a metal milk box and the milk man would bring us four quarts of milk every other day. (Five kids in the family.) My Mom also bought more milk during her weekly shopping trip, which sold for around 25 cents a quart.
I was lucky living in Hackensack, New Jersey up until 1958 because we were within walking distance of what many people consider to be one of the finest bakeries on Earth. The B&W (Boehringer & Weimer) bakery. Their specialty was the real New Jersey-style crumb cakes, where the cake is about an inch high and the crumbs on top are thicker than the cake! They also sold very good 7-layer and Neapolitan cakes with butter cream icing so rich it tasted like chocolate or vanilla flavored butter! Their brownies, with chocolate icing and walnuts, were only 8 cents apiece!
As an 18-year-old in 1966, I started visiting New York's Greenwich Village, where I tried such "exotic" fare as cappuccino and bagels for the first time!
JerseyWarren at 12:24PM on 09/22/08
Wow! You guys memories are fantastic. I certainly enjoyed reading them all as each one brings back my childhood. I was a little thing back in thde 40's and 50's but I remember the milk being delivered to my moms house in a glass bottle which was designed for the cream to float to the top of it. A whole loaf of twin bread was 50cents but Mr. Sam, the grocery man on the corner, would sell you half for a quarter. Sno-cones were about a nickle and oh, so good. Coca Cola came in tiny glass bottles in a machine or some places had the soda thing where you had to slide the lid open and reach in the ice cold water for your soda. I could go on and on...
carol107 at 4:51PM on 09/22/08
Dinner consisted of pound of ground beef 6 nights a week, which was purchased from the local butcher. On Sundays, Mom splurged and we'd have a whole chicken! Top Ramen was a "special" treat, as well as Swansons "Mexican" TV dinners, and flavored yogurts. Christmas stockings were full of walnuts and oranges. Ham hocks and beans served with a loaf of white bread that we'd decrust and roll into little dough balls. Taco Bell tacos were 25 cents each, and your order was served to you in a square cardboard box - my brother always seemed to snag the box since he was the messier of us kids. Homemade cookies in my lunchbox, that I would always trade for store bought, since I never got "store bought" cookies! (what a fool, huh?).
mekelbel at 8:26PM on 09/23/08
@robincat, i remember those flexible 45's. they used to come in mad magazine, too. you put them on top of a hard LP to play them. my favorite was an instrumental interspersed with lots of burps.
i remember when penny candy really was a penny and our mothers didn't know that sugar was bad for us {at least mine didn't seem to} and would let us buy ginormous bags of it. i used to love one that was a styrofoam spaceship filled with hard round jimmies.
and remember gum for a penny from a machine, and the striped gumballs were called winners and could be taken back into the store for a prize?
cybercita at 8:46PM on 09/23/08
hey btrflygirl... I remember the wax things filled with liquid too. But I really loved them! Do any of you remember the sno-cones that you could buy pre-packaged , they were with the other individual ice creams that you could buy? They were in clear packaging, blue paper cone, and the ice was red, blue and yellow. They were the best thing EVER. Oh and when they started to melt in the bottom of the paper cone it was so yummy... Whew! I also liked the Nehi peach. But the best memory is how the drink coolers SMELLED. I loved that, not sure why, but I'm pretty sure that it's just because I'm strange that way:)
floridagirl at 8:58PM on 09/23/08
Growing up in Lehigh Valley, I remember:
- having lunch at the cafe at the top of Bamberger's (or was it Hess's) dept store
- getting a bottle (glass) of Yoohoo at the cloth store-it seemed as big as a warehouse
- getting a big ole dill pickle from the jewish deli which was next to the wine maker's supply store
- fresh funnel cakes
- The farmer's market had a stand where the Amish ground horseradish fresh to order
One of my favorite memories is going to my grandfather's sugar house in Vermont during maple season and taking home Grade A light amber!
mmlandsmann at 4:42AM on 09/24/08
Those candy-liquid filled little wax soda thingies are still around (if you know where to get them heh heh).
Every once in a while I buy a pack for each of my kids and one for myself, too.
They have to be accompanied by those little faux ice cream cone candy thingies made out of dry waffle-y stuff filled with sticky strange-textured cotton-candy-like puffs.
A virtual symphony of textures this combination has . . .
foodvox at 6:56AM on 09/24/08
I remember when pretzels in NYC were hot and fresh and the big pickle barrels at South Street Seaport!
I wasn't around for Charles Chips but my mom took out the tins every Christmas to store her made from scratch cookies!
cupcakemcgee at 2:53PM on 09/24/08
When I was little we spent long, hot summers in the country (upstate NY near the Conn border). My mother, who was English (a war bride) loved new vegetables, especially "baby" ones, and got us all excited about tiny carrots, etc. Most people thought this was weird. At farm stands, she would beg local farmers for tiny potatoes -- the kind that now sell for five bucks a pint. They would shake their heads at this crazy lady and go out back to get little potatoes from a barrel where they had thrown them -- intended as dinner for the pigs!
adbw83 at 1:11PM on 10/06/08
I remember my Aunt Margie cooking authentic rouladen beef rolls, tied German-neatly with strings; she called them pigs in a blanket and taught me to make them when I was a teenager.
For dessert she made sheets of big, I mean big, puffy fresh oven-baked custard -filled German creampuffs. For the ever-present cookie jar, there were always thin gingerbread cookies and the slenderest imaginable lemon sugar cookies, melt- in -your- mouth delicious. How I miss that woman~ I also remember foods we ate that my mom called depression food. Cheap, but filling concoctions which every so often I still cling to as comfort food. One really unhealthy one may bring a memory to some of you "ration-card" war babies (like me). In place of cake or bakery goods, after dinner or at breakfast, we were allowed real butter spread ona slice of bread with a light sprinkle of sugar. My granma would ask, "a bit of sugar bread for you, dearie?" Mmmm...We loved it then, along with milk in our tea, the taste of pure butter was a luxury to savor, and milk added to tea was for "special" occasions only. That was during the war, mid forties, at the time when even little tots joined in to help to smash the aluminum cans flat, recycling for the war effort. Another comfort food "penny saver" was Muellers elbow macaroni, cooked a bit "al dente", slathered with Campbell's tomato soup straight out of the can and heated with a smidge of milk, but served with a dollop of that precious rationed butter, salt and pepper. To this day I consider that a treat when I feel a bit low. Crazy connections foods make to the psyche! Please share other "hard times" foods that you may remember, especially from "ration" days of the forties.
fifties girl at 10:18PM on 01/10/09