And where else would it be printed? On the bread? The other day cyber chat turned to the distinguishing characteristics of the Food of the Fifties. Conclusion? There weren't any. As one chatter commented, "A time when we all learned that food could be tasteless."
We had 3 seasonings at my house: salt, pepper and sugar. Yes, sugar! But how, you may be wondering was sugar used as a seasoning? EASY! We used sugar on sour cream, cottage cheese, white bread with butter, iced tea, coffee, bananas, rice, potatoes and anything else we could think of! Salt, of course, went on everything--tomatoes, cantaloupe and even watermelon.It was a time of canned everything. The cans held faded replicas of original food soaking in puce-colored liquid. But it was opened, heated and served and we all felt so modern. My mom wasn't slaving over the sink and stove as grandmother once had to do.
As the small 1 square foot open front freezer in the "ice box" got a bit larger, we added frozen vegetables to the family menu. Do you remember those old frozen peas and corn? The ice crystals on each kernal made it look like a variant of the H1N1 virus under a microscope. Even after cooking those frozen pellets for at least half an hour to "make sure", they were still only one grade above sawdust in flavor and texture. And how could anyone forget hominey???
My dad wouldn't allow a casserole in the house. That, he would say, was for poor folk who couldn't afford meat. And we would have meat! Meatloaf, Spam, Vienna sausages, canned ham, tough as rawhide pot roast and fried pork chops and chicken. In fact, if it couldn't be fried, it probably wasn't worth serving. Maybe that's why we never had salad until we were well into the Sixties. Can't fry lettuce--besides, that's chipmonk food anyway.
I'm getting cravings these days for Cheese Whiz--the kind that came in a jar with the little red pimentoes. Then you used the jar as a glass afterwards. Aerosol-propelled Cheese Whiz ranked right up there with Yuri Gagarin going into space as far as the Advancement of Science was concerned. Let the Russians go into oribt--we had Velveeta "cheese" and Vienna sausages! (BTW, a favorite dinner was sliced Spam with Velveeta cheese melted on the top--served with frozen mixed veggies, of course.) Eat your heart out, Sonoma cuisine!
My dad wouldn't allow a casserole in the house. That, he would say, was for poor folk who couldn't afford meat. And we would have meat! Meatloaf, Spam, Vienna sausages, canned ham, tough as rawhide pot roast and fried pork chops and chicken. In fact, if it couldn't be fried, it probably wasn't worth serving. Maybe that's why we never had salad until we were well into the Sixties. Can't fry lettuce--besides, that's chipmonk food anyway.
I'm getting cravings these days for Cheese Whiz--the kind that came in a jar with the little red pimentoes. Then you used the jar as a glass afterwards. Aerosol-propelled Cheese Whiz ranked right up there with Yuri Gagarin going into space as far as the Advancement of Science was concerned. Let the Russians go into oribt--we had Velveeta "cheese" and Vienna sausages! (BTW, a favorite dinner was sliced Spam with Velveeta cheese melted on the top--served with frozen mixed veggies, of course.) Eat your heart out, Sonoma cuisine!
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