Strange eats you picked up from your ancestors.

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

Like others, we had a lot of organ meats when I was a kid. Tongue sandwiches; I remember them well but haven't seen one for over 55 years.

 

Liver and onions, if the liver not cooked to death. Always liked it. You used to see it on cafe menus all the time, but I haven't around here for a long time.

 

Stuffed beef heart my mom made a lot. I'd eat it again if I was ever presented with it. Haven't seen or hear of it for generations.

[Buckshot Bear]

24 minutes ago, Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619 said:

Like others, we had a lot of organ meats when I was a kid.

 

There's a bit of resurgence down here in Oz Red and eating 'Nose to Tail' is becoming trendy......like they have just invented it. 

[DeaconKC]

Never could handle the texture of liver of any critter. Still love chicken gizzards and fried okra. Grandma and Mom used to make "Relief Box Candy" when I was a kid. Seems the Depression Era Relief boxes would have a big can of peanut butter in them and if they could get pwdered sugar, they would make a candy by spreading out a mixture of mashed up powdered sugar and boiled potatoes, then spread peanut butter on top of it. Then roll it up and slice into small pieces.

[Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474]

I guess I'm a little(?) weird because I love beets, boiled and skinned with salt and butter; pickled with sugar and cloves; asparagus; fresh, steamed yellow or green beans. I could make a meal of them alone.

[Cypress Sun]

2 minutes ago, Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474 said:

I guess I'm a little(?) weird because I love beets, boiled and skinned with salt and butter; pickled with sugar and cloves; asparagus; fresh, steamed yellow or green beans. I could make a meal of them alone.

 

Alone is correct.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

I like beef or calf's liver, but can't stand them with onions.  With a good country sausage gravy they are a once a month thing, but my wife wouldn't have it in the house nor let me order it at a restaurant if she was with me.

[PaleWolf Brunelle, #2495L]

7 hours ago, Bailey Creek,5759 said:

Bundecalda.

 

5 hours ago, Alpo said:

Don't know what you were trying to say there, but Duck Duck Go says that ain't a word.

 

Two other web search engines corrected the entry to "Bagna Cauda"

[Ozark Huckleberry]

Grampa Tony was an old-school farmer raised by old-country farmers. Did EVERYTHING by the almanac.

 

There was NO part of a critter that went to waste. Sure -- steaks, hamburger, chops, hams, etc., but also head cheese, blood sausage, scrapple, et al. -- if it could be eaten, it wound up on the table in some form or another.

 

Truth be told, I never had a problem eating any of it.

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

10 hours ago, Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474 said:

I guess I'm a little(?) weird because I love beets, boiled and skinned with salt and butter; pickled with sugar and cloves; asparagus; fresh, steamed yellow or green beans. I could make a meal of them alone.

 

10 hours ago, Cypress Sun said:

 

Alone is correct.

Nonono, I like beets, but roasted which makes them sweet I have favorite recipes for borsch, beet salads and other thing.

 

I also have the gene which causes beeturea,

[Cypress Sun]

8 minutes ago, Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 said:

 

 

I also have the gene which causes beeturea,

 

Well, I suggest that if you commit a crime during winter...don't pee in the snow near the crime scene!

[Texas Maverick]

15 hours ago, Caprock Kid said:

Calf fries and lambs quarter.  Worked calves to get the first while the kids picked the lambs quarter growing around the catch pens. (Lambs quarter was like collard greens.) Pail of calf fries (rocky mountain oysters as some call 'em) went up to the kitchen so they could me battered and fried for lunch!

That reminds me of a weekend trip to the lake with a girlfriend back in my early 20's. A lifetime ago. Anyway we were spending the weekend at the lake and we went out for lunch after running around the lake in my boat. She saw the special was Rocky Mountain Oysters and said she liked seafood but had never had any oysters and ordered them. I didn't say a word while she ate them and said they were good. When we were leaving and I was paying the bill at the cash register the lady asked her how she liked the oysters and she said they were good. The lady said she was glad she liked them because a lot of people wouldn't eat them. She then told her what they were when my girlfriend looked a little confused over the statement and said something to the effect that she liked all kinds of seafood. After hearing what they really were she ran out into the parking lot and proceeded to expel her lunch all over the ground. I had to play dumb as to I didn't know either or I would have been in a world of pain. LOL

 

TM

[Finagler 6853 Life]

My parents are the reason my wife calls me a picky eater.  My parents were raised in the "Great" depression and their rule was you ate what was served or you didn't eat.  Mom liked to experiment sometimes and it didn't always go well.  I don't/can't eat anything from the gourd family as it triggers a gag reflex something fierce.  I can eat pumpkin pie, squash soup (begrudgingly) but I can't eat it other wise.  No organs.  Period.  My parents were of Scandinavian descent and dad loved picked, canned fish.  In a jar or in those little flat cans.  Herring, sardines, oysters, he ate them all.  Nope, I ain't going to do it.

 

My dad worked in a manufacturing facility office.  You could never count on him being home at a consistent time.  Sometimes 5:30, other times 6:00 and it wasn't unusual for him to show up at 6:30.  The rule was we had to eat as a family.  All of us, seven kids, mom and dad, so we couldn't eat until dad got home, had his cocktail and would sit down.  Mom wasn't a bad cook but it wasn't her greatest enjoyment.  Being from a farm in northern Wisconsin, our typical diet was some kind of meat, boiled potatoes and a veggie.  Well you can only plan on cooking meat so long until it becomes shoe leather.  Mom was old school and believed meat needed to be cooked "through" or you could get sick from it.  Especially pork.  So dinner was ready to be served at 5:30 "ish" but we were waiting on dad.  So by the time he got home the meat was tough and dry.  One thing mom could do is make gravy.  It was smooth, delicious and plenty to go around.  Beef gravy, pork gravy, chicken gravy, turkey gravy, she made it all good.  I tell people we needed gravy to rehydrate the meat.  We wouldn't use it as a condiment, we used it as a beverage to be able to swallow the dried out roast.  Mom would laugh out loud when I would tell that story.  Dad would get flustered and say that he wasn't home late that often and everyone would join together to tell him how wrong his perception is.

 

I learned to cook just so I could control what I was eating. If I don't recognize what's in the pot or any ingredients, I don't eat it.

[Texas Maverick]

6 minutes ago, Finagler 6853 Life said:

My parents are the reason my wife calls me a picky eater.  My parents were raised in the "Great" depression and their rule was you ate what was served or you didn't eat.  Mom liked to experiment sometimes and it didn't always go well.  I don't/can't eat anything from the gourd family as it triggers a gag reflex something fierce.  I can eat pumpkin pie, squash soup (begrudgingly) but I can't eat it other wise.  No organs.  Period.  My parents were of Scandinavian descent and dad loved picked, canned fish.  In a jar or in those little flat cans.  Herring, sardines, oysters, he ate them all.  Nope, I ain't going to do it.

 

My dad worked in a manufacturing facility office.  You could never count on him being home at a consistent time.  Sometimes 5:30, other times 6:00 and it wasn't unusual for him to show up at 6:30.  The rule was we had to eat as a family.  All of us, seven kids, mom and dad, so we couldn't eat until dad got home, had his cocktail and would sit down.  Mom wasn't a bad cook but it wasn't her greatest enjoyment.  Being from a farm in northern Wisconsin, our typical diet was some kind of meat, boiled potatoes and a veggie.  Well you can only plan on cooking meat so long until it becomes shoe leather.  Mom was old school and believed meat needed to be cooked "through" or you could get sick from it.  Especially pork.  So dinner was ready to be served at 5:30 "ish" but we were waiting on dad.  So by the time he got home the meat was tough and dry.  One thing mom could do is make gravy.  It was smooth, delicious and plenty to go around.  Beef gravy, pork gravy, chicken gravy, turkey gravy, she made it all good.  I tell people we needed gravy to rehydrate the meat.  We wouldn't use it as a condiment, we used it as a beverage to be able to swallow the dried out roast.  Mom would laugh out loud when I would tell that story.  Dad would get flustered and say that he wasn't home late that often and everyone would join together to tell him how wrong his perception is.

 

I learned to cook just so I could control what I was eating. If I don't recognize what's in the pot or any ingredients, I don't eat it.

I would say you have never gone without and  been very hungry for anything. A lot of times there wasn't much in our home when growing up. One of our main meals was brown beans, fried potatoes and sometimes we got to have some cornbread. It was a cheap but filling meal. Seems my mother always had a big bag of beans in the pantry along with white rice. We got a lot of rice with some type of gravy or broth to pour over it and a slice of bread. 

 

Now my wife is a pretty good cook and we usually have meat and a vegetable for our dinner meal. We used to have potatoes as well but she keeps reading they are not good for you and she is more of a health nut than I am. 

 

TM

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

4 hours ago, Cypress Sun said:

 

Well, I suggest that if you commit a crime during winter...don't pee in the snow near the crime scene!

Well at least not after eating a lot of beets.

[Subdeacon Joe]

I don't recall meals I didn't like while growing up.  One element I didn't care for was Mom's macaroni and cheese, stove top, made the cheese sauce, and almost always added a #3 can of diced tomatoes.   It was great when she left those out. 

 

Liver and onions, especially when the onion got really dark and crisp, mashed potatoes, green beans, and a salad, which was usually a half a head of iceberg lettuce cut into wedges and some carrot sticks with a bottle of Kraft French Dressing.

 

Liver was about once a fortnight.  Same for Halubki. Meatloaf, pork chops, and pan fried chicken (not breaded), were just about every week.  

 

Spaghetti about every other week.  Same for rump roast, round steak, hamburger chili.  

 

Hamburgers about once a month.  Same for dtew.

 

Most meals had, aside from the salad I mentioned, either mashed or baked potatoes, a hot vegetable, most often canned green beans, corn, or peas. Bread and butter, and milk. (About every 2 or 3 days we went to Golden Arrow Dairy and got "Six half gallons and a buttermilk" my 3 brothers and I really went through it, and Dad and I both loved buttermilk of an evening, usually with a handful of crackers in it).

[Finagler 6853 Life]

1 hour ago, Texas Maverick said:

I would say you have never gone without and  been very hungry for anything. A lot of times there wasn't much in our home when growing up. One of our main meals was brown beans, fried potatoes and sometimes we got to have some cornbread. It was a cheap but filling meal. Seems my mother always had a big bag of beans in the pantry along with white rice. We got a lot of rice with some type of gravy or broth to pour over it and a slice of bread. 

 

Now my wife is a pretty good cook and we usually have meat and a vegetable for our dinner meal. We used to have potatoes as well but she keeps reading they are not good for you and she is more of a health nut than I am. 

 

TM

Well, that's true enough.  I never went hungry from not having a meal provided.  If you would have seen me back then you would have thought I was starving as I was tiny and skinny.  I've made up for it.  I am well fed.  My parents always acted like they were going to have to go without.  The food fear of the depression stayed with them for the rest of their lives.  Nothing was thrown out.  All left overs were made into something else.  Stews, soups, pot pies, etc.  If mom couldn't use the leftovers right away, it got wrapped and put in the freezer for future use.  Every so often my sisters would clean out mom's refrigerator. Mom would have a teaspoon of mayo in a 16 ounce jar or just enough jam/jelly to cover the bottom of a jar.  Mom would have half a dozen jars like that.  Mom and dad would blame the other for not throwing things like that out.  They would have spaghetti sauce that had mold on it and wouldn't let you throw it out because they said they'd just scrape the mold off.  No.  No mom.  As a kid, my folks had gifts of cheeses, those little fancy wrapped, specialty ones, in the fridge that were older than my youngest sister.  They weren't going to eat them but they sure as heck weren't going to throw them away.  Food/hunger fear is a real thing.

 

I did learn what true hunger is in high school when I was on the wrestling team.  Not eating for 2 or 3 days to make weight is punishment.  I promised myself I'd never go hungry again. Me and Miss Scarlet have that in common.

[Texas Maverick]

25 minutes ago, Finagler 6853 Life said:

Well, that's true enough.  I never went hungry from not having a meal provided.  If you would have seen me back then you would have thought I was starving as I was tiny and skinny.  I've made up for it.  I am well fed.  My parents always acted like they were going to have to go without.  The food fear of the depression stayed with them for the rest of their lives.  Nothing was thrown out.  All left overs were made into something else.  Stews, soups, pot pies, etc.  If mom couldn't use the leftovers right away, it got wrapped and put in the freezer for future use.  Every so often my sisters would clean out mom's refrigerator. Mom would have a teaspoon of mayo in a 16 ounce jar or just enough jam/jelly to cover the bottom of a jar.  Mom would have half a dozen jars like that.  Mom and dad would blame the other for not throwing things like that out.  They would have spaghetti sauce that had mold on it and wouldn't let you throw it out because they said they'd just scrape the mold off.  No.  No mom.  As a kid, my folks had gifts of cheeses, those little fancy wrapped, specialty ones, in the fridge that were older than my youngest sister.  They weren't going to eat them but they sure as heck weren't going to throw them away.  Food/hunger fear is a real thing.

 

I did learn what true hunger is in high school when I was on the wrestling team.  Not eating for 2 or 3 days to make weight is punishment.  I promised myself I'd never go hungry again. Me and Miss Scarlet have that in common.

We never had enough for leftovers, there were 4 kids plus our parents and you got what you were going to eat the first time it went by you and you had best eat everything on your plate. Nothing went into the trash.

 

TM

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

18 hours ago, Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474 said:

I guess I'm a little(?) weird because I love beets, boiled and skinned with salt and butter; pickled with sugar and cloves; asparagus; fresh, steamed yellow or green beans. I could make a meal of them alone.

 

Nothing weird about it. I eat beets once a year in homemade Borscht at Easter. Asparagus I regard as the king of vegetables. Overcooking ruins them; just right they are the tops.

 

Green beans are good. Fresh garden-grown are superb.

[Buckshot Bear]

Mock Fish, grated potato mixed in beaten eggs and fried in a pan, loved it, mum cooked it regularly growing up.

 

[J-BAR #18287]

During my early elementary school years Dad was a salesman.  If commissions were slow we had cereal for supper.  We didn't know any better until my sister and I became adults.  
 

"What's for dinner, Mom?"

 

"Corn flakes or shredded wheat, take your pick."

[watab kid]

pepper on my cantaloupe ............mostly i learned things i didnt want to ever eat again from my ancestors like haggis and boiled cabbage 

[St. Louis Suomi SASS #31905]

Anything that says lamb/sheep on the label.  If I don't know it is in the food, OK, but I gag when I discover it is in the food.  Courtesy of my mom telling us it was unfit for humans to eat.  Bubble and squeak (boil potatoes until they dissolve, add cabbage and continue to boil til it is no longer recognizable and  add poor cuts of beef and continue to boil  until it too dissolves.  You can fry leftover from it the next day.  It was bad the first time, it was worse the second time.

 

Any meat with milk dish - that is just plain wrong.  (Cheeseburgers excepted). 

 

Best meals, red cabbage saluted with vinegar,  cabbage rolls, smelt fish (Actually, any fish), pork chops with mountains of fresh horseradish.

 

STL Suomi

[Texas Maverick]

9 hours ago, watab kid said:

pepper on my cantaloupe ............mostly i learned things i didnt want to ever eat again from my ancestors like haggis and boiled cabbage 

That is the way I like my cantaloupe. With pepper and salt on my watermelon.

 

TM

[Texas Maverick]

On 11/19/2023 at 9:31 AM, Big Sage, SASS #49891 Life said:

Salt Rising Bread. Mom made bread she called Salt Rising. The thing I remember most was the smell.......it stunk like hell! But oh was it tasty. My Dad loved it and me too. That and Mom's Rhubarb pie were to die for. Sadly Mom took her recipe's with her when she passed.

My mom would make fried bread. Don't remember it smelling but the bread lathered with butter was great. I remember my brother eating way to much of it and the funny thing was he and my other brother shared bunk beds. I remember him eating a bunch and then leaning over the top bunk and heaving all that bread out on top of my other brother one evening. I now wonder if it was rising as well as that it expanded in his stomach. 

 

TM

[Cypress Sun]

 

Fried mullet roe.

First had it for breakfast mixed with grits.

Had it many times since, many different ways.

Still prefer it fried with buttered grits, pepper, salt and a little tabasco.

[Dirty Dan Dawkins]

peanut butter on hotdogs

[Doc Neeley]

My Mom and Dad were from Oklahoma (dust bowl era) so we ate a lot of liver and onions, beans and hamhocks with mustard greens we picked in the empty lot across the street, fried squash, fried okra (yuk), turnips boiled and fried. Bread with sugar on it covered with Pet Milk for dessert. Meat and fish were always cooked thoroughly. 

[Tyrel Cody]

Both sets of grandparents: Brains, liver, possum stew, grits, squirrel.

 

Maternal grandmother used to keep sulfur water in the fridge. When I was really young I’d drink it no problem; but when I got older I just couldn’t.

 

My mom made us eat carob( which is absolutely not a replacement for chocolate) and all kinds of other nasty health food.

 

 

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

The last time I worked for a living was a summer in a slaughter house. There was a time when they had an order for a number of pounds of brains. I was given the chore. Most times the skulls were just sent to the rendering factory but for two days they were sent to me. There was a huge cleaver that split the skull. 
 

instructions were that if that cleaver left bone shards in the brain, just send the mess to rendering. Otherwise pluck the brain out to save it and send the rest down the chute to rendering.

 

yumm NOT!

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

We also in them days had lots of different casseroles. Multiple variations on Spanish Rice, one from a popular cookbook called "Western Meal in One".  My favorite was one based on rice and sausage.

 

Baked eggs (called sheared eggs by some).

 

Beef was always the inexpensive cuts; lot of chuck steak and roast. Pounded round for Swiss steak.

 

Everybody was on a budget back then; even people doing well didn't have the kind of money they do today.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

On 11/19/2023 at 10:00 AM, irish ike, SASS #43615 said:

As a kid liver and onions, still a big nope.

Mom would cook heart or tongue for her and dad, we got something else. We drew a line in the sand on those.

Pickled Beets, no as a kid, now yum.

Chorizo was a favorite of mine. Then I read the ingredients on a package at the market. Lymph nodes, salivary glands etc.  Then I remembered hotdogs are made from whatever is left over also. So Chorizo is back on the menu.

 I stopped eating Vienna sausage after reading the ingredients.  That was over 65 years ago.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

On 11/20/2023 at 10:33 AM, Texas Maverick said:

I would say you have never gone without and  been very hungry for anything. A lot of times there wasn't much in our home when growing up. One of our main meals was brown beans, fried potatoes and sometimes we got to have some cornbread. It was a cheap but filling meal. Seems my mother always had a big bag of beans in the pantry along with white rice. We got a lot of rice with some type of gravy or broth to pour over it and a slice of bread. 

 

Now my wife is a pretty good cook and we usually have meat and a vegetable for our dinner meal. We used to have potatoes as well but she keeps reading they are not good for you and she is more of a health nut than I am. 

 

TM

My parents, and later on my wife's parents, would come to visit and one of the first things they would do is check the pantry and fridge to make sure we weren't doing without.  

 

That went on eve after we were making more than they were together.

 

It was a aDepression thing, but all four of them were also raised on a shoe string long before that.  

[Tennessee Trapper Tom]

Just remembered my dad’s favorite breakfast. A thick grilled cheese sandwich. Top with Scarmbled eggs and brains. Top with red beans, Red Onion and diced jalepeno pepper and Tabasco.It would take all those condiments for me to gag it down. Having graduated high school and serving 3 tours Vietnam , he got used to eating a lot of strang things

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

1 hour ago, Forty Rod SASS 3935 said:

 I stopped eating Vienna sausage after reading the ingredients.  That was over 65 years ago.

There are two things you never want to see how they are made: laws and sausages.

[Texas Maverick]

8 hours ago, Tennessee Trapper Tom said:

Just remembered my dad’s favorite breakfast. A thick grilled cheese sandwich. Top with Scarmbled eggs and brains. Top with red beans, Red Onion and diced jalepeno pepper and Tabasco.It would take all those condiments for me to gag it down. Having graduated high school and serving 3 tours Vietnam , he got used to eating a lot of strang things

I wouldn't have even tried eating that. I would have just said "dad, there is enough for you to have seconds". LOL 

 

TM