Sunday, March 7, 2021

Rhys remembers Jello Salad.

 


RHYS BOWEN: I saw this old advertisement the other day and boy did it bring back memories. When we first arrived in the United States one of the first things we were introduced to was jello salad. What a shock. Nothing like it in England. In England jelly was eaten at children’s parties along with custard or blanc mange. One served various things like cold chicken in aspic, but jello salad did not exist. In fact when we had English friends visiting us and took them to a neighbor’s house their son (aged 4) demanded loudly “why are they serving me my afters before my meat?”


 It was only one of the culinary surprises I was introduced you in America. In England we never served sweet and savory at the same time. No pancakes with syrup along with eggs and bacon. No biscuits and honey beside the chicken. It simply wasn’t done. 

 And when I was given recipes from older women—those who became housewives in the 1950s, every single recipe contained either cream of mushroom or chicken soup or cool whip. And a left-over from those days, I am still required to make green bean casserole for the family thanksgiving: cans of beans, cans of cream of mushroom soup and those fried onions.

 The other thing that shocked me was the size of the portions. In England a ham sandwich was two slices of bread with a slice of ham between them. A ham sandwich here is an inch thick of ham with all the trimmings! I remember a fellow Brit coming to New York for the first time. She stayed at a fancy hotel and ordered room service. She thought a chicken sandwich sounded good. Then she thought she was hungry so she ordered two chicken sandwiches. Each one came up with half a chicken on it!

 English cooking has always had a bad reputation—mainly because the average housewife used to boil all the goodness out of her vegetables and overroast the meat. But English cooking at its best relies on fresh, unadulterated ingredients. Cows and pigs are raised in pastures in UK. Eggs taste like eggs. Fresh fish comes from the sea the same day. There are now hundreds of small market gardens where organic produce is grown. And it’s interesting how Indian cuisine has been universally adopted in UK, ranging from curry and chips in a lowly café to wonderfully spiced delights in an upscale restaurant.

 So I’m interested to hear your memories of food growing up in the US. Did you actually like Jello salad? Did you ever cook with cream of chicken soup or cream of mushroom or cool whip? 

96 comments:

  1. I don't remember ever eating Jello salad, but my mother did used to fix orange Jello with bananas in it, which I liked. And, whenever I was sick, orange Jello, baked potato, or chicken noodle soup were the menu items.

    I still use cream of chicken soup and/or cream of mushroom soup in casserole recipes. I haven't fixed the green bean casserole that you mentioned in ages, but my husband has discovered another version of it he fixes sometimes, which is adding chicken to the mix. It's actually not bad, and we've had it every once in a great while. And, although it's been a long time since I've fixed it, I have a blueberry cheesecake recipe that has cool whip on the top of it. It's quite yummy, and I might have to pull that one out of the recipe drawer and fix again soon.

    When I was growing up, we didn't have a McDonald's or other fast food place to grab lunch from. My mother fixed sloppy joes from scratch, fried ham or bologna, and she made pimento cheese from scratch. Fried chicken seemed to be a Sunday staple, and I now feel bad about all that fried chicken and mashed potatoes and whatever else my mother fixed for us. We were a family of six, until I was eight and my older sister went off to college. Roast beef and potatoes and carrots was always a great meal. My mother also fixed carrots in brown sugar, and I always wanted those for my birthday. I still fix her lima beans in a cream sauce. In fact, my husband loves them, too, so we have them quite often. The favorite item my mother fixed, which was a holiday item, were her dressing balls and gravy. If I could have one food fixed by my mother today it would be those dressing balls with her gravy. Country ham was something we had often, too, not just at holidays. Mommy used to fix a frozen fruit cocktail concoction that was delicious, but for some reason, I've never fixed. Corn pudding was a regular dish we had, too. Transparent puddings (tarts) were our favorite dessert. Green beans fixed in the pressure cooker with a little bacon grease and a tad of sugar were always gobbled up quickly. OK, I'm going to stop now. Time for some sleep and dreaming of all this food.

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    1. Transparent puddings, Kathy? Did they have zero calories?

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    2. Kathy, I am so hungry for lima beans, which when I was a little kid my mother called "mommy beans." I don't know where to look for them now. I can't find any frozen, fresh or canned. Perhaps I will have to plant some, assuming I can find seeds!

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    3. Bacon grease...love it. A can with strainer, and lid, sat on the stove to have the drippings poured into after every breakfast with bacon, then we could just add the drippings when we needed it.

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    4. When I was a kid, I remember my Mom using bacon grease to coat the frying pan before cooking eggs.

      Now we use olive oil or vegan butter these days.

      Diana

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    5. Oh, how I wish those transparent pies were zero calories. Hahaha! Judi, I'm so sorry you can't find the lima beans or "mommy beans"(how cute). I buy the Kroger frozen brand from Kroger's. Deana, my mother always had her bacon grease can by the stove, too. Diana, I can't recall my mother using the bacon grease to cook eggs, but it's possible she did. I feel bad enough using butter to cook my eggs in.

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    6. Judi, we love lima beans, and they ARE hard to find now.

      When we were looking up how to grow them I found out that lima beans are baby butter beans! Who knew?

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    7. Thanks for that! Maybe now I'll have better luck finding seeds at least.

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  2. We had Jell-O when I was growing up, but never Jell-O salad.
    Yuck to green bean casserole . . . my mom didn’t make it; I don’t make it. She did use cream of mushroom soup, though. For cooking, I only have cream of bacon soup in my pantry . . . .
    Yuck to Cool Whip . . . I’m not a whipped cream person, so I can do quite nicely without the Cool Whip . . . .
    Generally, we had meat, potatoes, and a vegetable for dinner. My mom was a good cook, so we were happy diners.
    The thing I remember most about my mom’s cooking is that she always made bread from scratch --- Yum . . . .

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    1. It is the first I hear about cream of bacon soup.

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    2. Never heard of cream of bacon soup, but I'm looking for it now!

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    3. Joan, I'm with you on the whipped cream and Cool Whip! No, thanks. My kids, all of whom usually turn up their noses at "fake" foods, insist on Cool Whip at Thanksgiving with their pumpkin pie. And Stovetop Stuffing, too, something else I don't eat.

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    4. Campbell's makes Cream of Bacon soup . . . today a can of it will go into my potato casserole [shredded potatoes, onion, cheese, bacon soup, sour cream, butter] . . . yum!
      Karen, I'm not a fan of any kind of stuffing . . . I make it for everyone else, though . . . .

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  3. RHYS: I laughed out loud when I saw that Jello salad! Fortunately, that offensive dish never made it to our family dinner table!

    Mystery author Julie Mulhern posts plenty of other bizarrely awful and hilarious 1970s food (and fashion/home decor) on her FB feed since her Country Club mysteries are set in 1970s Kansas City.
    Have you seen them?
    https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10224874215946932&set=a.1057792569305 (aspic salad)
    https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10219293633076288&set=p.10219293633076288 (Frankfurter casserole)
    https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10220014103962751&set=p.10220014103962751 (meatloaf)

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    1. As an immigrant who arrived in Canada during the early 1960s, North American meals were foreign to my mom. Most of our meals were from recipes in the Betty Crocker Cookbook. Lots of meat and potatoes, not many fresh or cooked veggies. She served some more traditional Japanese meals once a week to appease my dad.

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    2. I’ll check these out, Grace. And you know that 2970s now counts as historical!

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    3. Right, 1970s now count as historical, 2970s is time travel, lol!

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  4. At our home, my mother made jello for dessert or sometimes a snack. She did not put fruit or vegetables in it. I think she may have made the green bean casserole. I also think our pancakes with syrup were not served with eggs, but that is not memorable. My mother's mom came to stay often and her cooking and baking were all from scratch. Canned fruits and vegetables were absolutely served, but I really hated them, except for canned pineapple. I am sure that the food of that time influenced my mother's choices. She was severely hampered by a crippling illness, so I am certain that short cuts were welcome.

    I have mom's Betty Crocker Cookbook from then and most of the recipes are scratch, although it would have one cook the veggies until gray.

    Our eggs and our meat were always fresh. My grandparents had a small grocery store nearby and my father and grandfather were butchers. The store specialized in meat. The whole town was famous for its egg farms, mostly owned by Jewish refugees who'd been arriving there since the early 1900's.

    I moved into my first apartment in Sept of 1970. There were many food shortcuts and unhealthy choices, but slowly I bought cookbooks. I subscribed to Bon Appétit magazine when it was new and only 6 issues a year. I do love sweet and savory served together, but that is a personal preference.

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    1. Judy, my grandmother would only cook fresh local food. Never canned or imported in her life

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    2. Judy, my great uncle was a butcher, and my dad worked for him for a time. His eye for a good cut of meat was legendary, as was his ability to accurately judge weight by hefting something. I've inherited that last trait.

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    3. Judy, I spent many years in a rural town that had a freezer locker on Main Street. The butcher would sell you the whole cow, or half, or a quarter, wrap up the cuts and freeze them in your personal drawer. You would come by once a week or so to select the cuts you wanted to cook. The butcher, whose name was Jack Farmer, and who shared my birthday, could even tell you who raised the cow you were eating. Talk about local! I miss that now.

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    4. Wow, Karen and Gigi. My dad also drove around the state picking up the cattle and bringing them in for slaughter. He probably could have told us who raised it but it was not something a little girl would want to think about. Dad was an expert who eventually opened a small meat packing company. He specialized in fancy cuts for restaurants and big orders for small grocery stores. Every Saturday he would prepare orders for individuals, including, when I was on my own, his daughter! I am pretty sure Irwin succumbed as much to Dad's steaks as to my charms.

      JRW, we are all moving in the direction of your grandmother, loving everything fresh and made from scratch.

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  5. My mother made jello with apples and walnuts in it. She used instant rice and instant mashed potatoes, but she made her own cream sauce - she and I were the only two out of six who liked creamed tuna on toast, and it's still the peak of comfort food to me. She also used cake mixes. Her mother used to come and stay for a few weeks at a time, We kids were stunned when she made cupcakes from scratch!

    To her credit, she read Adele Davis and served us frozen vegetables, not canned (except for corn). We always had salad with dinner, and she bought whole wheat bread at the Orowheat day-old store nearby. We bought our milk at a dairy a few blocks away. Southern california looked a lot different in those days.

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    1. Oh, creamed tuna on toast - with peas. Still my go to comfort food.

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    2. Yes, with peas fresh from the freezer so they were still green.

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    3. There is a famous French chef who uses frozen peas. He says they are more often better than fresh because they are flash frozen.

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    4. I've never had creamed tuna! Must look up!
      Edith, my mom read Adele Davis, too, and that was a huge influence on her cooking. And I developed a severe reaction to MSG in foods in my early teens, so pretty much everything we ate was fresh and from scratch.

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  6. I grew up with Jello and chocolate pudding, the latter an enormous treat. Yes, I cook with cream of mushroom soup as a sauce base for certain meat recipes (pork chops, mushrooms, and apricots). I have never used cool whip.

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    1. Margaret, I remember chocolate pudding as a big treat, too.

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  7. Creamed tuna, not on toast but on mashed potatoes, was something Julie introduced me to. Her mother's version also contains peas, so it's pretty much a complete meal, perfect for Lenten Fridays.

    In my day I've made plenty of jello, both plain and with fruit. I've also used cream soups. Now the only canned soup in our cupboard is Campbell's tomato, sine qua non with a grilled cheese sandwich.

    Different things have their day in American cooking. It used to be meat at every meal, couldn't imagine not having it: beef, chicken or pork. Now we frequently have meatless meals, not because we are vegetarian but because there are so many good options out there. Fish used to be what you caught. Now we can have any fish any day. Vegetables were right out of the garden or out of a can. Frozen vegetables and imports now make almost all fresh vegetable available all year long.

    Times have changed. I do not disparage my grandmother and mother for making jello salad. Did you ever try to buy lettuce in the middle of Kansas in the 40s and 50s? Anyone remember tubes of tomatoes? Tiny reddish lumps that tasted like nothing? Or have you ever had to cook for half a dozen people during rationing, make a dimes worth of sausage go around the table? I suspect Rhys remembers days when many foods were scarce.

    My grandmother "canned" not only vegetables from her garden and fruit from her trees, but beef and chicken. She made her own bread and biscuits, her own smoked sausage and hams, her own butter from cream from her own cow. I don't mind that, after the war, she opened a can of mushroom soup to make this new green bean recipe, instead of making her own mushroom sauce. Fresh mushroom had to be picked from the woods and were always suspect.

    I think our food now is wonderful and I don't want to go back to the "good old days", but I would once more like to have one of those grapefruit sized oranges we got at Christmas. And some fried chicken that didn't come from KFC or Popeye's.

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    1. You are right about availability, Ann. I still remember when vegetables and fruit were strictly seasonal. Strawberries were available for a month or so. Winter veg were boring

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    2. I remember being so excited when my dad brought home a watermelon in February! It came from Cuba. We had relations then. I still try to buy in season and local, but it isn't always possible.

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    3. Exactly this, Ann. My grandson interviewed me a couple years ago about how food is different from when I was his age (I think he was 13). He was shocked to know that all the good things he loves, like sushi, were not just unavailable, but unheard of. Even spaghetti was an exotic dish to us in the 50's and 60's. But the biggest thing was seasonal availability. He couldn't believe we had no lettuce or tomatoes in the winter, and that we could only get oranges for a dear price at a couple times a year.

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    4. Agree with you, Ann, about the year-round availability of produce we enjoy now.
      I'm heading out to the Lansdowne FM now to get my winter veggies!

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    5. Tangerines were in our Christmas stockings. A holdover from my maternal grandmother. Oranges/citrus fruit was expensive so it came from Santa and it was a treat. My little sister hated tangerines because of all the seeds (vs navel oranges that did not have them) so it must be Santa who provided those dreaded tangerines, Mom would never think to give her one.

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    6. Yes, we got oranges or tangerines in our stockings, too, a real treat.

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    7. My grandparents sent FRESH mandarin oranges from Japan, along with a few Japanese condiments and snacks (Pocky, rice crackers) you that could not buy in Toronto, for our New Year's parcel.

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    8. Ann, I agree with you about the fried chicken. I would love to have my mother's fried chicken again.

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  8. Oh, this brought back memories! I grew up in the 1950s. Our town had a small Air Force field nearby and many of my teachers and friends' parents were British war brides so I grew up not only with the very modern "convenience" foods, but with foods like spotted dick, toad in the hole, and fish and chips. I still like my fries wet and keep a bottle of malt vinegar on my table. My friend Margie Brown's mother always had fresh scones waiting for after school. They were wonderful and quite exotic.

    We never, ever, had Jell-O salad, but my mother was nothing, if not modern. Every holiday brought carrot and pineapple Jell-O mold to the table and there was often fruit salad Jell-O mold for dessert on weekdays. Mom never made the green bean casserole, but many of her recipes used cream soups. I remember her delight when Campbell's came out with a cheddar cheese soup. In the 1990s I tossed most of the recipes that rely on a can of soup - when the pandemic hit, I scoured the Internet to find the ones I remembered. Comfort food.

    When did Cool-Whip make it's debut? I don't remember it as a child, but I do remember making pies with it in the 1970s. I confess, I still like it on my Jell-O!

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    1. I still love those old comfort foods. Toad in the hole. Fish and chips. Yum! But I don’t make any of them

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  9. I ate a lot of Jell-O growing up, but not fancy Jell-O salad. I think it was a geographical thing. And they would always have had a layer of green Jell-O and green Jell-O is execrable. Patooie. Cool-Whip - never. I still keep Campbells cream of mushroom soup on hand -- for scalloped mushroom potatoes. A guilty pleasure.

    No sweet with savory? What about Indian food (curry with chutney) which is everywhere in the UK. Ditto most Chinese food in the UK would be heavy on sweet.

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    1. Catriona McPherson said the same thing about NEVER mixing sweet and savoury on the same meal plate in the UK, and was surprised they did this in the US. For example, she is still hates seeing sliced fresh fruit on a breakfast plate with eggs & sausage/ham.

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    2. Indian or Chinese food didn’t become common until the 1960s, Hallie— at least outside of the cities. It was strictly meat and two veg. Salads in summer. Never with the main course

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  10. We had a huge garden, canned vegetables were not bought at the store. Our grocer had a meat locker where we could store our beef and pork--from animals we raised. Milk came from the cows and so did butter. Jello with fruit was one of my dad's favorite desserts along with a large slice of angel food cake. We didn't do a lot of can of whatever cream casseroles, but my mom would try them or we would as we got older to give her a break from cooking. Cool whip was a topping for pumpkin pies at Thanksgiving and Christmas only.

    And Ann, I was thinking of my mom's fried chicken for all those Sunday dinners--mashed potatoes, chicken gravy, fresh green beans, sliced tomatoes from the garden, corn cut off the cob. And cornbread. Yum!!

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    1. We also had fruit and veg from the garden when I was growing up. And my dad would store racks of apples in the attic for the winter

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    2. Rhys, my mom also canned peaches and pears and apples, as well as berries we picked every summer. We stored potatoes and sweet potatoes and apples in the basement for the winter.

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  11. I can remember only one time in my entire childhood that my mom made a casserole. We all concluded that we didn’t need to have one again! The mothers of most of my friends made casseroles regularly. I don’t really know why mom was opposed to them. I hardly ever make them, either. We mostly had meat, potatoes, vegetables. Often the vegetables were canned but in the summer we had fresh vegetables. We ate a lot of homemade soups. The stocks were always made from scratch; no bouillon was ever involved. To this day, my sisters and I make soup more or less the way our mom did. My mom never made jello salads. I first tasted it at a potluck dinner. We didn’t have dessert very often, mostly just for birthdays, holidays, and when we had guests for dinner. My mom cooked as healthily as she could afford to. With five kids, my dad’s paycheck had to be stretched as far as possible. When I was in high school my dad was diagnosed with heart disease, and my mom successfully took on the challenge of preparing heart healthy meals for the entire family. I was older before I appreciated just how healthy our eating was. For the most part, I don’t cook the way she did, but my meals are healthy and balanced. I don’t like red meat so I eat a lot of fish and chicken, and fresh fruits and vegetables.

    DebRo

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  12. Such great comments, thank you Rhys. Like you I grew up British. But in my case Sunday lunch was not a roast with all the trimmings - Yorkshire pud, roast potatoes, 2 veg, gravy etc. and of course, 'Afters". My Sunday lunch was curry. That is when we lived in Sri Lanka. Back home in England, Sunday lunch was at my grandfathers house which was our home from home, and it was the full Monty. My mum told a story of Sunday lunches when she grew up. With a table full of guest, my grandmother Queenie, would look around the table at her three daughters and say, "Patsy, please carve for us today". That was my mothers cue to get up and carve very thin slices from the roast beef, (thin is THE correct way to carve roast beef!), which would be distributed around the table. So, yes, arriving in the USA was quite a culture shock. The size of the portion still defeat me. Having been raised to clean my plate, faced with huge restaurant portions when we lived in Manhattan was hell for me. I had been told of the starving children in China by the nuns. How could I leave any of this food? Now, here in Maine, I know the chicken who lay our eggs. I get local meat and veggies and have learned to 'put food up' from summers bounty. Of course I still shop and buy fresh veggies year round. I have found some wonderful resources for curbside food over the past year and I hope they continue to be available. I still cook great English food. We had bubble and squeak last night with an egg each. Trying to cut down in the evening on amounts. And our 'dessert' or 'afters' or as Victor once said when out to dinner a very long time ago, using a phrase from his childhood, "What's for secs!" A few eyebrows were raised.

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    1. We always had the full Sunday lunch. My mum would make two pies— apple and lemon meringue, and we’d demolish both. Even then I thought what a lot of effort for something that went in two seconds! I still like my roast wafer thin ( and it took me a while not to call it a joint)

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  13. We loved Jell-O! We had black cherry Jell-O with real black cherries in it, it was kind of delicious. BeefRoni—Nice and orange. I wonder if it is still good. Speaking of orange food, there was a bottled salad dressing called Catalina which I really loved, and was thinking about it the other day. We also made pizza at home from the kit that included a packet of flour for dough, and a can of sauce, and a little packet of cheese. We absolutely loved that! You could mix water into the flour stuff, and then spread the dough on a cookie sheet, then add the sauce and cheese, and I remember we added green pepper and cooked hamburger. I don’t think “ordering pizza” was a thing.
    And I’ve never thought about this before, but I do not understand fruit on egg plates.
    Margarine was not allowed in our house. Nor was miracle whip. Or Cool Whip. Or a Velveeta. I was always annoyed about that, because all my friends got to have it.

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    1. Yes, I remember eating Chef Boyardee ravioli and Beef-a-roni at home. I used either Catalina or 1000 Island salad dressing when we ate out at Ponderosa Steakhouse in the 1970s/80s. They had a full salad bar. All those raw salad veggies and toppings (fake bacon bits/croutons) were a treat for me.

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    2. And HAMBURGER HELPER, which I think was also made by Betty Crocker!

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    3. All of the above, Hank. It's like we both grew up in the Midwest at the same time or something.

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    4. I think my mother tried the pizza kit once or twice, and also the Chinese food from a can, with the extra can of little crispy noodles on top.

      I want to thank you, Hank for the genius idea of the tortilla pizza. Not sure why I never thought of it myself, but it's a perfect fast lunch. I have been praising your name to all the dogs and cats this past week for passing that idea along to me.

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    5. BeefARoni, I mean. And Grace, I still adore croutons and fake bacon bits. So delicious.

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    6. I was thinking about hamburger helper the other day! Did it work?

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    7. Thank you, Gigi! I never would have thought of it without Covid… Small victories. xxxxx

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    8. I remember learning how to make thousand island dressing and the use of a bottle for Italian, though it had a packet of dried herbs and such. Only purchased salad dressing, when I was a kid, was Mom's blue cheese. Nice and thick jar of dressing, not a thin bottle for her.

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    9. HANK: I still like putting croutons and REAL bacon bits on my salad, but I make my own. Ad I haven't had any bottled salad dressing in my fridge, either. :-)

      Re: Hamburger Helper, I ate it as a kid, and liked it! Do they still sell it in stores?
      We never bought the TUNA HELPER, though. Tuna casserole, in any form, never made it to my family's dinner table.

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  14. I remember those pizza packets when my kids were small. A good snack!

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  15. Good morning from western New York, birthplace of Jello and home to Cool Whip! Did you know that there is a Jello Museum? It's in LeRoy, NY, the community where the flavored gelatin made its debut, about 15 miles from my hometown. And, yes, jello salads were a part of my childhood; it's hard to remember a large family gathering without one or two of them on the buffet. They are rare or non-existent today. And Cool Whip is made in exactly one place in North America -- about a half-mile from my house. That's not an endorsement of its nutritional value or its taste, although I've used it and there is usually a container of it in my refrigerator around the holidays. I can only think of one recipe I still use that has canned soup in it.

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  16. My mother-in-law's old recipes are heavy on convenience foods like canned soup and Jello. I threw a lot of them away, because we just have never been fans. I used to experiment with layered Jello desserts, that also contained Cool Whip, but that is not real food, to me. Isn't it made with palm oil?

    For a long time I kept cream of mushroom soup around for tuna noodle casserole, but I have not made it for ages, and probably won't again. It was a good dish for stretching for the whole family, and something the kids would mostly be relied on to eat. If we have canned tuna now it's for tuna salad, which is still a staple in Steve's diet. But he makes it with lots of celery, and not the way my mother made it, with sweet relish. It took me a long time to get used to that.

    When I think of Jello I remember going through a million cafeteria lines, including in hospitals, that reliably had wobbling red or green squares of the stuff in with the desserts. And the "Jigglers" we used to make when the kids were little: made with less water so they wouldn't melt outside of the fridge, and cut into shapes with cookie cutters, or in small squares. Even the really little kids could pick up the squares and eat them with their fingers. It was a big hit in the summer.

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    1. Jigglers were sort of DIY gummies, before we had gummies, weren't they?

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    2. When I taught at Dominican University the rumor was that the beet jello in the cafeteria had been there fir years. Nobody ever took it and if you dropped it it would bounce!

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    3. Dominican University--where? I went to Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois.

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    4. They were, Gigi!

      Omigosh, Rhys, that's hilarious. Beet Jello? Ugh. I can see why that would hang around awhile. Why???

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    5. BEET JELLO? Is that for real and not a typo?!

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  17. Tuna noodle casserole was my comfort food as a kid. It was even better cold, the next day. These days, being fairly lactose intolerant, I'll either have to learn to cook it with nut milk, or skip it all together. The lactose intolerance does make Cool Whip mildly interesting, however.

    My mom was . . . unimaginative? Timid? Okay, she was a terrible cook, but she was also a full-time teacher who didn't have a lot of time to slave over a stove when she got home. Sometimes we had French toast for dinner, with bacon alongside, and never mind the "don't mix sweet and savory" rules. I don't remember her ever making Jell-O salad, but we did have Jell-O around. I didn't really like it, but lime and black cherry were the best of the bad. Sometimes we'd drink it hot to calm a bad cough.

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    1. My mom was also a teacher but we always had meat and veg— thinks that could be cooked quickly—pork chop, liver, sausages.

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    2. We did have pork chops and--God help me--liver, although I loathed liver. She was also big on steak, thanks to that freezer locker. Fast stuff she did pretty well. It was the complex stuff where she got sketchy.

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    3. Gigi, mac and cheese was my comfort food in college. I used to love mac and cheese.

      Diana

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    4. Wow, Gigi, I'd completely forgotten that, but my mother also made hot Jello for us when we were sick.

      And she would pan fry liver until it was like shoe leather. It wasn't bad enough that it was liver, she had to also make it impossible to chew.

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    5. I was a weird kid. I loved liver with bacon and mashed potatoes. Yum. I haven't made that in years.

      I remember hot Jell-O, too. I loved black cherry that way.

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  18. Yes, yes, and yes. Cream of mushroom soup casseroles were part of meals until I discovered the use of soy protein in the brand we purchased and then I no longer had to eat green bean casserole at holiday dinners. Other family members insisted it be part of Thanksgiving so my cousin would haul the ingredients to our aunt's home to assemble in the casserole dish and put it in the oven as the turkey rested. Cool Whip was used by the Dales because it easier. I think granddad would bring new convenient food items home for grandma to try and if she liked it, it stayed. I know my mother like it better than whipping cream mainly because she didn't want to have to stop and get the mixer out at the end of the meal. That and it didn't spoil as fast (or turn deflate) so she wasn't wasting money if it wasn't used up that evening. Individually molded Jello salads were served at Grandma Dale's home for every Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter dinner. I have Grandma's metal star shaped molds on my kitchen display shelf, with the replica of my childhood lunch box and thermos. We did not use the same Jello recipe for every meal. She had a Jello brand recipe book and I know she used four or five different recipes. Green (lime) with canned grapefruit slices and or Mandurian oranges slices at Easter, raspberry with canned whole cranberry sauce and those same canned oranges or canned or canned, drained crushed pineapple were a couple that I remember. Each salad was topped with small dollop of Miracle Whip. Grandma did not have mayonnaise in her house, don't ask me why but she didn't so we did have it either. My mother joyfully tossed the jar of Miracle Whip as soon as she realized my father wasn't coming back. She hated the stuff. One of our favorite cakes use lemon Jello. It's a favorite and I always have a small box of the Jello and lemon cake mix in the house because it's easy for a last minute potluck meal at work.

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  19. I did half my college junior year in London, and our host "mother" was an amazing cook. To this day, I'm still fond of brussels sprouts because of the way she made them.... I grew up in the 60s and am very familiar with the casseroles and jello recipes. Ugh.... As an adult, I am a vegan for ethical and health reasons, but as I child, I was made to cry at the dinner table many a night, my tears splashing off the fat congealing on the hamburger fat on my plate: "You don't leave the table until you eat that," still echoes in my ears.... It seems there was a big difference between the way the svelte Europeans ate and our own customs here. Now I have the impression that more and more of Europe has adopted American tastes and portion sizes, is that right?

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    1. Keziah, I remember the wonderful vegetables in England. I spent half of my junior year in England too. I noticed that when I travelled to Europe with a tour group that there were fast food places like McDonald's.

      Diana

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  20. So many of the convenience foods we had in our house was due to 5 kids and being on a budget. And the fact both of my parents grew up in the Depression and then had food rationing in WW2. Canned ravioli as kind of cool. The infamous green bean casserole was first eaten at an aunt and uncle's in the Panhandle. That showed up at Thanksgiving for years. And a jiffy shrimp curry also came from the same aunt, using frozen cream of shrimp soup. Looking back, casseroles with a cream soup base and exotic fruit jello salads were experiments my older brother and I conducted. Shoot. I even still have freebie jello recipe books and a Campbell soup one a friend gave me back in the 70s. Mom cooked "normal" food, meat and vegetables. Salads were iceberg lettuce with tomatoes. Everyone picked their own bottled dressing to use. Russian, Catalina, Green Goddess, Blue Cheese, whatever. We ate a lot of canned vegetables too and potatoes were usually cut up and boiled. Moving to New Orleans really blew open her cooking universe!

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  21. RHYS: This is a wonderful post! This brings back wonderful memories. This is going to be a very long post.

    Now I know why I always manage to lose weight whenever I visit the UK. I remember how wonderful the vegetables are across the Pond. When I was at Oxford, the dining hall served bell peppers with rice for dinner and it was so good! Your mention of Jello Salad reminds me of when my college friends had a party about ten years after graduation. They love the 1950s music and they decided to have a 1950s theme party with food from the 1950s and it was potluck. Someone brought Jello Salad. And I did have Jello in certain colors because in order to do the test for colon cancer, I had to eat certain things for a few days. The list of food that I could eat was very limited.

    And I remember that the Julie Mulhern mysteries set in the 1970s has a Facebook page with photos of Jello Salad.

    When I was growing up, it was whole wheat bread and soy bread. My mom always made big salads with lots of fresh produce. As a child, I was a very picky eater. The only thing I liked in the salads were cucumbers, LOL. As a teenager, I started to like more vegetables.

    Mostly I liked fruits when I was a child. I preferred food that tasted sweet to savory back then. Now I can eat anything. When I was a kid, there was the Co-op, which was replaced by Andronico's later. I do not know if there was a Co-op when you and John moved to the States. Because my Mom grew up in a health food household, she continued that tradition when I was a child.

    When my mom was in graduate school, she learned about Chinese cooking and I remember she cooked Asian food sometimes. Sometimes I would eat something that reminds me of when we eat out at Asian restaurants. And when my Mom went on her Grand Tour of Europe before I was born, she brought lots of recipes home. I remember she made custards because I asked for custards after reading Winnie the Pooh. And I remember the homemade sangria with lots of fruits and lemonade.

    Yes, I remember the canned vegetables and canned fruit when I was a kid. I liked the canned peaches, though. The only things from cans these days are soups and beans.

    While my school friends were eating sugary cereal, we had oatmeal cereal or eggs for breakfast. I loved eating bacon. Now I know bacon is not healthy. They also had drinks like Kool Aid. We NEVER had Kool Aid in our home.

    When I was very little, I remember Country Cheddar Cheese from a brown jar that you could spread on toast. I never found anything that tasted like that again until I was living in England.

    Before I learned that I was allergic to milk and wheat, I remember we had a lot of dairy like butter and whole wheat bread.

    Agree that the portions are bigger in America. I think the portions are too much. I remember someone saying that in Spain, the portions were very big.

    My Mom NEVER bought Cool Whip. She made fresh whipped cream. We never had cream of mushroom soup at home.

    Growing up, I thought our family was unusual because we had healthy food and never had store bought potato chips nor sugary cereal. My father loved sweets from a bakery.

    Never liked KFC chicken. I remember my history professor bringing the Prime Minister of Canada to KFC when he visited California.

    When I visited England, I loved their fish and chips. When I visited Amsterdam, they had wonderful pancakes, which are more like our crepes. When I visited Paris, I remember having chocolate crepes. When I visited Scandinavia, I loved their pastries. When I visited Switzerland, I loved their rosti, which is similar to our hash browns but a better version of our hash browns. I also loved their muesli cereal.

    Diana

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    1. DIANAL Which Canadian PM went with your professor to a KFC?!

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    2. GRACE: Trying to recall if it was Mulroney or Harper. That was donkey years ago!

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    3. p.s. my professor taught Canadian History at Berkeley and had a summer cabin in Nova Scotia. His ancestors were Loyalists who emigrated to Canada.

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    4. DIANA: Mulroney was PM from 1984-1993, Harper was PM from 2006-2015, if that helps.

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    5. GRACE: That would be Mulroney. Thanks!

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    6. DIANA: I figured it was Mulroney since you said it was donkey's years ago.
      Harper's time as PM only ended 5 years ago.

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  22. One thing we did do that I appreciate til today, was to eat different types of ethnic foods as those restaurants became available around our area in Connecticut. My dad probably sold meat to the ones he brought us to. I like lots of ethnic foods and I thank my parents for that.

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  23. Hated Sloppy Joes. I remember that being served in the school cafetria. And we HAD to eat them! I would dash to the bathroom and throw it up before we returned to class.

    Diana

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  24. Such a fun post, Rhys. The only time we had Jello in our house was if you were ill, so it always makes me think of childhood sore throats and tummy bugs. And hospitals. No COOL WHIP. Ugh. No margarine. The canned soups fell by the wayside by the time I was a teenager. First it was Adele Davis, then Atkins, eek. Neither of my parents were ever overweight, so I'm not sure where my mom's obsession with the Atkin's diet came from. There were years in our house where the only snack were pork rinds... But that said, for all her quirkiness, my mom was a good and inventive cook, and if I grew up deficient in some of the staples of Southern cooking, I don't think it did me any harm.

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  25. I grew up in the 1950's in central California's agricultural heartland. My dad had a huge vegetable garden and we had fruit trees too. We canned fruits and vegetables and made jams and jellies, entering them in 4-H and county fairs. We had many casseroles using canned soup. I wasn't a fan of jello but multilayered jello salads were common. My grandmother, a good cook, made tomato aspic which I loathed. A special treat was having breakfast (bacon and eggs) for dinner. Fresh fruits and vegetables were fabulous.

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  26. I still use the cream soups, Cool Whip, and occasionally Jell-O. I still have the Jell-O cookbook and molds. We mostly had meat, potatoes, and vegetables as kids but my parents were adventurous so we tried a lot of things. Until I was a teenager, spaghetti was the only Italian food we knew. Pizza and Chinese came in then but most other ethnic foods were later. I had tacos for the first time when one of my professors had some of us to her house. I'm glad that we have so many options now. Stay safe and well.

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  27. A frequent Friday dish when I was growing up in the 1950s was made with a can of tuna, a can of some kind of cream soup and potato chips. Mix it up all together and heat it until the potato chips are soggy. Quite tasty and filling! As far as Jello salads, a recipe I like uses a layer of strawberry Jello, a layer of defrosted frozen strawberries, a layer of sour cream and another layer of Jello. It's tricky to get the first layer to set before you add the other ingredients.

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  28. Well, um, I still make the green beans with mushroom soup and fried onions--it's a must at holiday dinners. (Our older daughter is stationed overseas where the canned fried onions aren't available, so when she got nostalgic, she made her own breaded and fried onions! Somehow, though, the mushroom soup is still available.) And I have a few recipes I still make with mushroom soup.

    As for jello salads, yes, we had those occasionally while I was growing up. My mother also made a Watergate salad--pistachio pudding, marshmallows, pineapple, chopped nuts. I thought it was fantastic! I should probably try to find a recipe.

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  29. The portions served at restaurants here in the U.S. are crazy. I once thought had a healthy appetite, but not anymore! I can barely polish off a fourth of the meal. The good thing is, I guess, is that I have three more meals via takeout at home. But still...it's just WAY too much food. Also, I remember back when I worked at an ice cream place, once. Huge waffle bowls of multiple scoops of ice cream, with unlimited toppings...goodness gracious. And I haven't been to a movie in ages, and was stunned when I found out they were doubling as restaurants. I just couldn't imagine going out to eat beforehand and then going to the movie theatre and eating even more...chicken fingers, pizza, loaded nachos, over hundred different types of soda...it just astounds me.

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