Eating in the 50's

[Looking4new]

The cat the dog food?

Cats, the other white meat!

 

[sixdogs]

Remember "American chop suey"?

 

[2LaneCruzer]

I remember eating fried cornmeal mush with syrup. I also accompanied Mom to the local dairy farmer for fresh milk, in gallon jugs. She had him dip off a couple of jugs of cream to make butter. One dinner that we had often was beef tongue, which I never did acquire a taste for. One special meal was beef liver and onions. Occasionally I see it in a restaurant now and then, but not often. Of course everything we grew was canned. Since we raised hogs the freezer was always full.

I love fried cornmeal mush! My Dad called it "corn dodgers" and they were great with butter and fried catfish. Mom made the yellow corn meal mush the day before, and let it set up on the frige. She then made patties about half the size of a hamburger patty and deep fried them. It must be a Southern thing, but I rarely see or hear of it any more.

Oh, yeah. Have eaten a ton of Poke Salit in my time, and my Grand parents ate another wild green called "Lamb's Quarter".

 

[Leejohn]

The cat the dog food?

Well I have to say, you got me there !! Dog food.

 

[milkman]

Anybody remember horehound candy.......I love horehounds.......hard to find these days but still a few places that sell it.

I remember it, wasn't fond of it when I was a kid, but I like it now. Cracker Barrel still sells it too.

 

[Bird]

Have eaten a ton of Poke Salit in my time, and my Grand parents ate another wild green called "Lamb's Quarter".

I, too, have eaten lots of Poke, and like it. But I've only heard of Lamb's Quarter. If I ever saw any I didn't know it.

 

[/pine]

Anyone else harvest wild dandelion? My mother and grand mother always fixed it with a hot bacon dressing....it gets tough and bitter after it starts to bloom

 

[Bird]

I've heard of eating dandelion greens, but never tried them. How about sheep sorrel? When I was a kid, I made a cobbler of sheep sorrels a few times using a green grape cobbler recipe. The taste was good, but that green color wasn't very appetizing; too close to the color I saw every day when I went to milk the cow.

 

[/pine]

I've heard of eating dandelion greens, but never tried them. How about sheep sorrel? When I was a kid, I made a cobbler of sheep sorrels a few times using a green grape cobbler recipe. The taste was good, but that green color wasn't very appetizing; too close to the color I saw every day when I went to milk the cow.

If you look at the contents of some of the pre-mixed salad bags at the grocery store (especially the "spring mix" types) they often have dandelion, lambs quarter and other greens that are not common commercial varieties...

I think my favorite wild green is water cress...

 

[Budweiser John]

Enjoyable thread, and coming into this world in 1943, most of the posts struck a revelant cord.
I don't recall anymore mentioning home baked cookies but my paternal grandmother made the best in the world molasses cookies. They were as big as saucers with a raisin in the center and baked on an old match lit white porcelain gas range on legs with an oven on the side.
Her mode of operendry was a scoop of flower from an ole 'Hoosier' kitchen cabinet, a pinch of this and a dash of that, and a huge splash of blackstrap molasses all blended together by hand in a stone mixing bowl. Rolled out on a wooden board, cut with an old coffee can, and baked...
Food for the gods.

B. John

 

[milkman]

I've never had the polk greens, but every spring, mom and I would go to the woods and pick wild greens. I remember she would look for lambs quarter, crow foot, wooly britches and narrow doc (she pronounced it nar doc) then on the way back to the house we'd pick a bunch of wild green onions. The green onions never got very big, but were really tasty, cut up and hot bacon grease poured over them. I don't think I could recognize any of the greens now, sure miss my mom. We would have fried polk stalks every spring that was similar in taste and almost as good as morel mushrooms. We would take the tender stalks of polk and strip the leaves and then peel the purple skin off. We then cut them about 4 inches long and split down the middle, soak over night in salt water. Then drain and roll in flour and fry in lard or bacon grease, real good eating.

 

[Johnny g]

When I was going to grade school(1room grade 1 -8) we would hear stories from adults about how they would eat wild leeks and get the day off school because of the foul odor, myself and a couple of others tried it and all we got was a lecture and a promise of the strap if it happened again.

 

[Leejohn]

I've heard of eating dandelion greens, but never tried them. How about sheep sorrel? When I was a kid, I made a cobbler of sheep sorrels a few times using a green grape cobbler recipe. The taste was good, but that green color wasn't very appetizing; too close to the color I saw every day when I went to milk the cow.

What, a old John Deere?

 

[2LaneCruzer]

I've never had the polk greens, but every spring, mom and I would go to the woods and pick wild greens. I remember she would look for lambs quarter, crow foot, wooly britches and narrow doc (she pronounced it nar doc) then on the way back to the house we'd pick a bunch of wild green onions. The green onions never got very big, but were really tasty, cut up and hot bacon grease poured over them. I don't think I could recognize any of the greens now, sure miss my mom. We would have fried polk stalks every spring that was similar in taste and almost as good as morel mushrooms. We would take the tender stalks of polk and strip the leaves and then peel the purple skin off. We then cut them about 4 inches long and split down the middle, soak over night in salt water. Then drain and roll in flour and fry in lard or bacon grease, real good eating.

You take a K and an E an N and a T a U and a CKY that spells Kentucky, and it means Paradise!!!!!

 

[Looking4new]

My Grandma used to make from scratch chocolate cake complete with chocolate icing. IF the cake lasted a couple of days it would dry out a bit and I would pour dark maple syrup on it. T'was real good. My Dad tried it and although he thought it was real good his mother (my Grandma) gave him a bawling out like I never heard before. It was okay for me to put syrup on her cake, BUT not him.

 

[TomSeller]

Anyone else harvest wild dandelion? My mother and grand mother always fixed it with a hot bacon dressing....it gets tough and bitter after it starts to bloom

My mom made wine out of it once.

 

[kevin37b]

Did you people ever do fondue ? The pot of oil with a can of sterno for heat . You put your steak , pork , sliced tater , etc on a fork and dropped it in the grease . I loved it and it was fun . Nothing like a quart of hot grease sitting in the middle of the table . It was a good way to get family and friends talking about how fine a cook they were .

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Did you people ever do fondue ? The pot of oil with a can of sterno for heat . You put your steak , pork , sliced tater , etc on a fork and dropped it in the grease . I loved it and it was fun . Nothing like a quart of hot grease sitting in the middle of the table . It was a good way to get family and friends talking about how fine a cook they were .

Nope, never did anything that fancy. With the advent of Aluminum foil, though, my Mom used to make "Hobo Dinners" for us kids. She would take a hamburger patty, a couple carrots, a couple taters, maybe a chunk of celery, some butter and salt and pepper, wrap it up in Aluminum foil and pop it in the oven. Us kids thought they were great!

 

[Bird]

We did the fondue thing a lot from '71 to the late '70s; still have some of the fondue forks, but can't recall having fondue now in many years.

Another thing that we did a lot in the '60s and '70s was cut round steak in strips, marinate it just in soy sauce, then cooked it on a cast iron hibachi grill. Pretty good eating with a salad and hot rolls to go with it.

 

[check]

Yes! Fondue at the Grizzly House in Banff, Alberta (90 minutes West of Calgary). We used to go there all the time in the 70s. Check out the current menu:

https://www.enjoybanff.com/menus/Grizzly_Menu.pdf