https://romcavewalls.wordpress.com/2022/10/06/throwback-thursday-57-family-meal-rituals/

 

 

 

 

Maggie and Lauren co-host “Throwback Thursday”.  Today is Maggie’s turn:

She writes: “Thank you for sticking with us after our short absence last week. We are back and raring to go! This week we are going to delve into what mealtime was like in your home.”

This week’s prompt is: Family Meal Rituals

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QUESTIONS

Let’s start at the top of the day, breakfast! Did your family have a sit down breakfast or were you more grab and go? What beverages were served at breakfast? What was your favorite (and/or least favorite) breakfast meal?
We were ‘grab and go’.  My parents both worked, Pops a night shift so he went to bed when he got home and Ma had a day job.  I could scramble eggs from a fairly young age and make toast and that was about it.  Cold cereal.  Beverage? Milk or juice if we had some juice, for myself (as I got older) a can of coca-cola.  My favorite meal was a toss up between mashed potatoes with over easy or sunny side up eggs on top and French toast.  Still a favorite these days too.  I’m fairly restricted on what type of meat I can have, and carbs (I haven’t tried the toast since I’ve been ill) carbs in general are not my friend. Otherwise things like Denver omelets, anything with chunks and pieces of onion, bell pepper and such I do not like, cooked tomatoes, bell peppers and onions are disgusting in my opinion.   🤢🤮   I like omelets though, especially with ham and cheese or just cheese.  I can make one too.

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Did you snack before the mid-day meal?  Sure.  We weren’t terribly well disciplined in my house, although the phrase “You’ll spoil *insert meal* if you keep piecing (piecing = snacking)” was frequently heard.

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Lunch for most children was eaten at school with the exception of weekends, holidays, or summer vacation. At school, did you buy your lunch from the cafeteria, or did you pack lunch? In high school, were you allowed to leave school grounds during the lunch period?  When I was younger, we brought from home, usually PB&J sandwich or tuna salad sandwich, sometimes baloney; some sort of treat like a cookie, maybe (rarely) chopped carrots or cucumber.  Yes, we could.  I couldn’t count the number of times I ever did that though.  It wasn’t my “thing.”
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For times when you had lunch at home, was it sandwiches, leftovers, or a newly prepared meal?  The only time we were allowed to stay home from school, someone was sick. My father contracted Hepatitis B (the contagious one that’s with you for life.  He worked in a low income clinic and was stuck by a dirty needle someone had failed to dispose of properly) and we were quarantined for a month.  I got German measles and same deal only I was off for a couple of weeks. A sibling got mumps..stuff like that.   I have no idea what we had, either soup, tea or left overs probably.
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The evening meal is usually the most formal meal in many homes. Did your family sit down together and enjoy the evening meal or were you more of a TV dinner in front of the TV family?  TV .  I can count on one hand the number of times we sat down to dinner.

How did your weekend meals differ from your weekdays?  Ma usually cooked.  She wasn’t very good at it, and we saw a lot of frozen dinners, canned stuff like that awful Chinese food in a can, Chef-Boy-Ardee and the like.  And she cooked a mean frozen fish stick.  Roasts on Sunday usually, which were almost always over done leading me to be in favor of rare meat today.  I cook a real mean pot roast BTW

Who did most of the cooking in your household? Did that person also do the meal planning and grocery shopping? Were you taught to cook or were you shoo’d out of the kitchen?  Ma did.  It was ‘women’s work’ but Pops made the best tacos I’ve ever eaten and he could open a can in a pinch.  I was taught to properly cook out of self preservation and because I love doing it.  I stayed for a while with a family whose mother was a gourmet (a true one) and she taught me more.   Ma couldn’t cook.  She was more a baker. But overall I taught myself.  I’m picky so it’s just better that way.

Did you have dessert served at your meals? If so, what types?  You name it, we probably had it at some point.  Pie was a big favorite and ice cream.  And Ma made the best sugar cookies and other types of cookies that most people ever tasted, she got complements on her baking all the time.

Who cleaned up after meals? Was it a shared responsibility between men/women, girls/boys or was it delegated based on gender?  This time period was Utah circa 1970s.  Patriarch ‘rule’ was the S.O.P.   Women did the dishes.  We had no dishwasher, in fact when I moved to my present home, was the first encounter I ever had with one. Ma didn’t like doing them, I was a bit resentful of my assumed role, so the kitchen always had some dirty dishes in the sink.  If someone got tired of seeing that, they might do them.  I know my father did on more than occasion.

How about late night snacks? Okay or discouraged?  I moved out of my parent’s home when I was 19.  Nobody ever said yea or nay to the late night snack.  Of course now?  My stomach has final say and it doesn’t like that.

Were dining manners stressed in your household? No elbows on the table, no hats at the table, no belching, please, thank you, and may I be excused?   In a lacksidaisical sort of way.  I remember my male siblings finding it highly amusing to “toot some fruit” (either end) at the table.  The dog usually got blamed.

Did you have occasions where you had large family gatherings for meals? What occasions?  Aw hell no.  My family tends to get in grudge matches, there’s always someone who gets butt hurt over something trivial, and early on it was just known we didn’t ‘hang out’ with our extended family.  The first (and last) big gathering was when Pop’s side of the tree held a reunion.  It was extremely awkward, and I don’t know if they ever planned another or not.   We DO NOT speak.

Did you say grace or have a blessing before meals?  Religiously.  I still do, even though it’s only me and God talking. I doubt Ziggy gives a fig.

Now for the fun part. What dishes are you glad disappeared over the years? What dishes have you carried forward into your own home?
My mother and both her sisters had/have a recipe for scalloped potatoes that is really really vile.  My eldest aunt (who will see 100 next year) is a great cook otherwise.  I wish someone had burned that recipe all the same. 🤢 It’s gross.  Trying to eat Ma’s pancakes and French toast (burnt but with the inside goopy and raw..oh there’s a LOT of dishes I have crossed off my list! 

 I have the famous sugar cookie recipe (they aren’t as good as Ma’s), and all sorts of different sweeties (I used to be able to make fondant divinity for Christmas, but have lost the knack).  From the gourmet I stayed with I have a BBQ chicken that knocks them dead, and a thing called “frog eye salad’.  Plus a lot more.  Ma was a hoarder of recipes.  I never saw her actually make most of them, but she’d save them.

BONUS: Care to share any favorite family recipes?    None that aren’t complicated to make (see my ‘picky’ nature for cause).   I can cook anything, and if it turns out well, great, if it doesn’t I figure out why it wasn’t quite what it should be.   

Example:  I made a Japanese meal for my cousins with miso soup (gotta tweak that, it was so bland it was like drinking hot water with some tofu floating around); pot stickers (aka dumplings)  got to tweak those too, the pan was too hot and they got a little bit over done (not burnt precisely but on their way there).  I notice there wasn’t a pot sticker left over all the same.  I also made a big pan of rice (plain, I have a vegan cousin) and a big green salad.  I need to remember to get some honey mustard dressing.  But all in all it was a really good meal , even with the bland soup.   

I also make carne asada (roasted steak Mexican style), good for a gringa taco meat, and both disappear so somebody must like them.  I’ve made lasagna, spaghetti with homemade sauce.  I can cook a fish properly and do a moist and flavorful pot roast or other roasted meat.   

I ❤ cooking.