I'm going to take a little break from asking questions about historical events and as a few about family life when you were young.
This is today's question.
- As a child, describe a typical family dinner.
- Did you all eat together?
- Who cooked the meals?
- Was there an order that you sat in when dining at home?
- Were there specific meals you remember?
- Do you remember helping in some way?
- Who cleaned up after the meals?
For me, as a child (up until the age of 9, this changed when my mother passed away) we all had dinner together. We had a large table to fit all 8 of us. My parents sat at each end, my mother closest to the kitchen in case she needed to grab something. Us kids sat in order of oldest to youngest starting at dad and ending at dad three on each side. This posed one problem. My brother next to me was left handed, so he and my next older brother did fight a bit about elbow space. As far as I can remember, while she was alive my mother did the cooking. I'm sure my older siblings helped I just don't remember that. I do remember that my mother had a small repertoire of meals so they would repeat fairly frequently. I'm not sure if it was because it was all she was comfortable in cooking or because of the limited foods that were available at the time. I think she chose the recipes that would stretch the farthest with 8 mouths to feed. I remember hot dogs, which I didn't care for, so I would take the baked beans that she made and the Cole slaw and put that in the bun and eat that. Her baked beans were awesome, with molasses and fresh slices of onions on top, baked until the onions were blistered and soft then stirred into the beans before serving. She also made meat loaf, corned beef hash, and barbecue chicken. Two of the desserts I remember are apple Brown Betty and another that really didn't have a name. She would take a frozen pound cake and cut it into 8 slices. She'd put them all on a sheet pan and spread butter on them, then put them under the broiler until they were toasted. Sometimes she would put cinnamon sugar on them and sometimes they would be the base for strawberry shortcake. We also made home made ice cream as well. But my favorites were sherbet that we got at the local farm store. I remember helping my mother make fresh lemonade. She would slice up 6 lemons, and put them in a gallon Tupperware container. Then pour in 2 cups of sugar and she would hand me a large wooden spoon. I would crush the lemons in to the sugar using the spoon and once she inspected to see if they were done correctly she'd add water and ice and it was the best lemonade ever. After my mother passed away the cooking was handed down to me. At the age of 9 I began learning from cook books and would cook for my dad and two brothers still living at the house. To this day I can make any recipe that I find. But I cannot just wing it in the kitchen usually because I learned with cook books it's the way I'm most comfortable. So I have a large library of cookbooks and also collect those that were published before 1960. It's fun to see how a different generation cooked.
With what's going on today with the Coronavirus it got me to thinking about what they did about food during the second world war when items were scarce. While our food supply is still fine for now, hoarding has caused shortages of items that are typically available for all. So for the next few days I'm going to copy some information from one of my old cookbooks about ration cooking. Just in case anyone needs some of these tips. Each day for the next few days I'll copy over some of this information.
This is taken from the Lily Wallace New America Cookbook published in 1946, she was a home economics lecturer and writer.
The first paragraph in her section on Ration Cooking is as follows...
America may march to victory on it's stomach. A nation's morale and health depend greatly upon food. If the homemaker can do nothing else, she can wage an earnest battle for heath and strength for her family in the kitchen and thus contribute her share to ultimate victory on the military front. many common, low-cost foods are right in health and strength values, ad may be attractive to the last by careful preparation and cooking. Conservation of food begins with wise buying and the use of all grades of food, not alone the prime or fancy selections. It covers careful planning of menus and scrupulous use of all kinds of left-overs.
While this was written about war times we are in a crisis that can make use of these writings. So her words still ring true.
Her next section was about Buying Wisely.
Shortages and Surpluses. While there are shortages in some foodstuffs, there are surpluses or gluts in others. The wise buyer will watch for specials in surplus items from time to time. The U.S. Department of Agriculture asks patriotic housewives through their grocers to buy Victory Specials to relieve and avoid waste of seasonal gluts.
While we don't yet have Victory Specials, we can look at the food shelves and reach beyond our usual buying to buy the items that might be a little off the beaten track for us if that's all that is available.
Tomorrow I'll be posting the sections on Vegetables, and Meats.
Here's the form to fill in for today's question.
