Eating in the 50's

[Oaktree]

The palatability is directly related to how good of a cook the person making both the biscuits and the gravy are...they have to know what they are doing...biscuits and gravy ain't clam chowder or baked beans...

How do you screw up biscuits or gravy?

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

How do you screw up biscuits or gravy?

Seems most commercially made biscuits and gravy suck, I have only had a few that were any good. My step grandma made as my dad puts it "S**t on a shingle" which is home made gravy over toast with a side of eggs, which was good. The gravy makes or breaks the dish more than the biscuit, but in any case dinner rolls would be a no go for me.

Seems the commercial gravies I have had closer resemble jello or drywall mud then a country sausage gravy.

Don't get me started on pumpkin pie lol

 

[3930dave]

How do you screw up biscuits or gravy?

Skillset.

As a young woman, my one Grandma would have cooked large harvest-meals for threshing crews on a woodstove, and thought nothing of it. Just another (long) day's work.

Me, on my own in a kitchen, I can burn water. OK, I'm not quite that bad... but not that far removed either

Preparing what looks like simple food from scratch and having it turn out well often takes more skill/practice than it first suggests.... at least to a lousy cook like myself !

Rgds, D.

 

[mjarrels]

Canned Libby's country sausage gravy isn't bad, one can covers four slices of toast nicely.

mark

 

[Ken]

Skillset.

As a young woman, my one Grandma would have cooked large harvest-meals for threshing crews on a woodstove, and thought nothing of it. Just another (long) day's work.

Me, on my own in a kitchen, I can burn water. OK, I'm not quite that bad... but not that far removed either

Preparing what looks like simple food from scratch and having it turn out well often takes more skill/practice than it first suggests.... at least to a lousy cook like myself !

Rgds, D.

Dave as a pre-teen living in Colorado near Denver Dad would cut the wheat and then in bundles stack into 10 -12 bundle stakes for wagon to pick up when dry. and carry the shocks to the thresure hired to separate the wheat from the straw. Needing hired hands and during WW11 few willing labors was available. So would drive down to Laurent street near railroad tracks. hire bums off the railroad cars some had just got off the cars though the Moffat tunnel and smelled of coal smoke . So when lunch time came Mom had prepared a meal of chicken/or pork potatoes and gravy with some canned vegetable's from the pantry. all cooked on wood stove then a apple cobbler or peach. home made bread also real butter.
remember the large containers she used to cook with.
about dark Dad would return the men to where he had picked them up 10 hours earlier.
Next day there were a dozen men waiting for him to rehire. if some one had slacked off the day before he had new man willing to work.
Times have changed. the amount of food eaten and no one had a bit of extra fat on his ribs.

Case thresher and Case steel rim tractor. belt must of been 30 feet long on flywheel .

Anyone remember the Tootsie rolls a penny each and if hungry for a nickel get one size of paper roll today.
ken

 

[Bird]

Eating in the '50s? Well, I picked a big pot full of poke salat today. It's boiling on the stove right now. We ate lots of that stuff in the '50s, but I haven't had any in the last 30 years or so.

 

[3930dave]

Dave as a pre-teen living in Colorado near Denver Dad would cut the wheat and then in bundles stack into 10 -12 bundle stakes for wagon to pick up when dry. and carry the shocks to the thresure hired to separate the wheat from the straw. Needing hired hands and during WW11 few willing labors was available. So would drive down to Laurent street near railroad tracks. hire bums off the railroad cars some had just got off the cars though the Moffat tunnel and smelled of coal smoke . So when lunch time came Mom had prepared a meal of chicken/or pork potatoes and gravy with some canned vegetable's from the pantry. all cooked on wood stove then a apple cobbler or peach. home made bread also real butter.
remember the large containers she used to cook with.
about dark Dad would return the men to where he had picked them up 10 hours earlier.
Next day there were a dozen men waiting for him to rehire. if some one had slacked off the day before he had new man willing to work.
Times have changed. the amount of food eaten and no one had a bit of extra fat on his ribs.

Case thresher and Case steel rim tractor. belt must of been 30 feet long on flywheel .

Anyone remember the Tootsie rolls a penny each and if hungry for a nickel get one size of paper roll today.
ken

Finished a snack, but I got hungry again just reading that ! :licking: Those hobos were probably fighting over who got to go.

It was after that era, but I helped my uncles stook grain in their fields. Was back to help when the thresher was at a neighbour's farm. Similar belt setup, 30' or so. Had to be at least 25 men and boys sitting at that harvest table - days like that don't come by often enough anymore....

Rgds, D.

 

[milkman]

Bird mentioned "light bread" and reminded me of Easter dinner when I was a kid. We didn't eat meat during Lent, 40 days, and when Easster Sunday came, we had deviled eggs and sliced ham sandwiches with lettuce and mayonaise on light bread. The light bread was a treat and after Lent, the meat was really good. The light bread came in an orange or red wrapper and was a double loaf, separate the two slices and wind up with crust on only three sides of the slice. When I was young, always had shoulder as the Dr. usually got the cured hams for delivering one of my brothers or sisters.

 

[crash325]

How to Make Biscuits!!

Take something like a large biscuit pan. Pore some canned milk at one end. (pan tilted up on 1 end.)
Put a bunch of flower on the high end. Some baking powder on 1 side in the middle of the pan.


Stir some flower into the milk. Stir in some backing soda.

If it does not look or seem right stir in a little more flower or baking powder. Do this until you are satisfied.

Put in large dutch over, sit on some hot coals. put the lid on cover it with hot coals.
Make dinner. & When you are done, be ready for the best biscuits you ever ate.

 

[dmccarty]

How do you screw up biscuits or gravy?

Biscuits can be overworked. The fat, butter or lard, should be mixed into the dry ingredients. Not too much mixing but not too little either. There is a Goldilocks amount of mixing. The fat should also be the right size, not to large and not too small.

Not sure how one messes up gravy but I have had bad gravy. Usually not enough fat or pepper.

Later,
Dan

 

[bigtiller]

Biscuits can be overworked. The fat, butter or lard, should be mixed into the dry ingredients. Not too much mixing but not too little either. There is a Goldilocks amount of mixing. The fat should also be the right size, not to large and not too small.

Not sure how one messes up gravy but I have had bad gravy. Usually not enough fat or pepper.

Later,
Dan

Quite often the gravy doesn't have nearly enough sausage in it.

 

[hawkeye08]

Yes, you can screw up gravy. My middle daughter (perhaps 14 at the time) and I were home at dinner time and she was going to make me one of my favorites, biscuits and gravy.. She was very good at biscuits and they always turned out just right. She had recently learned to make gravy and for some reason, it did not thicken. She was not happy and had wanted to make a perfect dinner. The gravy did not taste good either, but to salvage it, we put some hotsauce in it and ate it anyway. Some of the biscuits were eaten with butter and fresh jam.. we still laugh to this day about the hotsauce gravy...

 

[sailorman]

I know a girl who puts hot sausage bits and the grease in the gravy . It is great over biscuits . Livin' all my life in the New Orleans area spicy food can be a way of life . Southern cookin' lets you know you 're alive and exactly where !

 

[Woodeye]

For years I didn't know that the line in a John Fogerty song Poke Salat Annie was a reference to food, I'm sorry but I don't know what it is.

 

[Looking4new]

For years I didn't know that the line in a John Fogerty song Poke Salat Annie was a reference to food, I'm sorry but I don't know what it is.

Nor I.

 

[sailorman]

For years I didn't know that the line in a John Fogerty song Poke Salat Annie was a reference to food, I'm sorry but I don't know what it is.

Here ya go .
Poke Sallet (Poke Salad): How to Handle, Harvest, and Prepare the Poisonous Pokeweed | Delishably

 

[Looking4new]

Thanks sailorman.

 

[Duwop]

Eating in the '50s? Well, I picked a big pot full of poke salat today. It's boiling on the stove right now. We ate lots of that stuff in the '50s, but I haven't had any in the last 30 years or so.

Bird that sounds good I'm always looking for some I've collected it along the railroad tracks of Chicago, through the Appalachian Mtns and throughout the southeastern us during my life. Being 54 and having been taught by my elders over 40 years ago to harvest what nature provides leaves me to ponder. Do you think that there are many under 50 who know what poke salat looks like let alone ever et any or how to cook it. I know the folks who taught me are either dead or up into their 80's. I've tried to teach my youngins but they think the store will always be there and that I'm just and old fool tryin to hold onto the hard times I grew up through. I married a younger woman who admires my knowledge but often says when I bring in something from the wild I ain't eatin that. Well go hungry

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Growing up poor country folks in Oklahoma, I've eaten a ton of Poke Sallet. Poke Sallet is where you find it, and it seems to be everywhere. It comes up in our flower beds, garden and down by the creek. I haven't eaten any in years, though, just like I haven't eaten any squirrel, duck, rabbit, or possum grape jelly. Seems like us kids knew from the beginning that it was poison until it was boiled, water drained and reheated in fresh water. I always liked it; preferred it to Spinach. Today my favorite is Swiss Chard.

 

[crash325]

How about Bob's Big Boy. He was fat & that is not the in thing any more.
A&W root beer stands - good burgers & root beer.
Dairy Queen was a big deal. Only 1 still in business around here.