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Friday, November 12. 2021

Were you raised on stuff like this?

I was working on some food posts about our Italian dinners when I found this image.


Funny thing is that millions of American kids grew big and strong on things like this. 

Posted by Bird Dog at 15:18 | Comments (23) | Trackbacks (0)

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Were you raised on stuff like this?

No.

I was raised on hamburgers and ore-ida frozen hash browns.

The only prepared food I remember getting were Banquet pot pies, 50 years ago they might be on special at 7/$1.00 and frozen pizza.

Chef Boy-Are-D made the canned spaghetti look really good when they advertised on Saturday morning cartoon shows, but Mom said it was too expensive. I never had it even once.

I never liked Mac 'n cheese either.
#1 feeblemind on 2021-11-12 15:31 (Reply)
No, but it got me through grad school.
#2 BillH on 2021-11-12 15:42 (Reply)
I still eat, and I’m 70.
#3 Vincent Mohan on 2021-11-12 16:28 (Reply)
No. I dislike the both the flavor and texture. In any event, canned or dried ingredients were cheaper to make a meal to feed us with.
#4 James the lesser (Link) on 2021-11-12 16:54 (Reply)
Well that's the thing. People don't want to admit that it's cheaper to buy canned spaghetti than to make it yourself. That applies to a lot or meals, up and to a a full steak dinner.
#4.1 snopercod on 2021-11-12 19:21 (Reply)
For me it was the canned ravioli, a rare treat since Mom could whip up a mean spaghetti sauce alongside a big pot of pasta.

Canned junk for sure, but tasty canned junk. I'm still a sucker for ravioli, but no longer out of a can, please.
#5 Michael Anderson (Link) on 2021-11-12 17:04 (Reply)
It probably sounds odd I never saw these kinds of things until I left home and was on my own. We grew up poor and most of our canned foods were home canned. I did have the canned ravioli a few times and canned soups but that was it.
#6 OneGuy on 2021-11-12 17:24 (Reply)
Just bought a couple cans today. The boy had his wisdom teeth out and need something mushy.
#7 itsatax on 2021-11-12 17:48 (Reply)
Were you raised on stuff like this?

No. My mother cooked a mean pot of Scots-Irish spaghetti. A family friend who spoke only Italian until she went to grade school gave it her seal of approval.
#8 Gringo on 2021-11-12 18:35 (Reply)
Back then, the Chef Boy-Ar-Dee stuff was in a fairly thick tomato sauce and had LOTS of pasta.

I still like it, but it's now a little bit of pasta in a thin tomato soup. "Shrink-flation"; same price, less actual product.
#9 Kenneth C Mitchell on 2021-11-12 18:53 (Reply)
That was treat when I was little.
#10 ccoffer on 2021-11-12 18:56 (Reply)
At 57, I still like Beefaroni!
#11 DougW on 2021-11-12 21:34 (Reply)
I can't say I was raised on it, but as a kid we did have it every now and then, usually for a quick-&-easy lunch. If we had spaghetti for dinner, it was with my mom's home made meatballs and sauce.
#12 Roy on 2021-11-12 22:26 (Reply)
I was raised in the 50's. My mom didn't like to cook, though she was a good cook, so she loved packaged stuff like Kraft Dinner and other meals in a box or a can. We had Chef Boy ar Dee maybe once or twice a month and I liked it. I haven't eaten it since I was a child and only bought it once when my son was maybe 5 or 6, caving to a moment of nostalgia. He thought it was weird, since he was accustomed to home-made spaghetti (well, not the spaghetti itself - just the dried packaged kind) with scratch meat sauce or meatballs. I still enjoy Kraft Dinner which is one packaged food I've continued to buy - I rarely make mac N cheese from scratch, and when I did, son preferred the boxed version. I always cooked 80-90% from scratch for my family, and now for myself. Mostly, because I like to cook, and homemade generally tastes better and is healthier.
#12.1 Humdeedee on 2021-11-13 08:56 (Reply)
We were po' folks when I was a kid.

Chef Boy-ar-Dee Spaghetti and Meatballs or Ravioli was a treat for when we were relatively flush, which was not all that often.

I still eat the stuff once in a while, more as Comfort Food than out of any real love for it. As previously noted, it used to be a lot better than it is now, both in flavor and nutrient content.
#13 jefferson101 on 2021-11-12 23:14 (Reply)
My mom's cooking was so bad I loved canned food like this while growing up. It wasn't till I got to college did I realize how bad her cooking really was. On the plus side, it made me a great cook.

In the 60s and 70s there was hope in progress, that "tomorrowland" feeling, prepackaged salvation in a can or box. Now, there is fear in progress as we watch our liberty digitally scraped away from us.
#14 M@rk on 2021-11-13 07:20 (Reply)
My parents were Depresssion babies. My mother used canned goods for some fruits and veg (in addition to frozen veg), but mostly she cooked from individual ingredients.

I do remember canned corned beef hash, which i enjoy to this day.
#15 Texan99 on 2021-11-13 07:53 (Reply)
We were all too familiar with the Boy-Ar-Dee canned ravioli, which we accepted as being what ravioli was (being of Irish descent not Italian). We now realize that the impression was misleading. By the time Spaghetti-O's came out, Mom had discovered the joys of Spatini sauce seasoning packets and thus we graduated from the canned stuff to a higher grade of cuisine.

True horror, though, is being forced as a reluctant child to eat canned asparagus which had undergone a secondary cooking and salting process on top of the stove, with the attendant color changes. It took me decades to recover and look forward to the yearly delight of asparagus lightly stir-fried with garlic, shiitakes, and red bell pepper with a bit of oyster sauce.
#16 Hairless Joe on 2021-11-13 09:16 (Reply)
"...asparagus lightly stir-fried with garlic, shiitakes, and red bell pepper with a bit of oyster sauce."

Stop it! You're making me hungry.

My wife - who can make the sweepings from the kitchen floor into a delicious treat - fixes asparagus that way. Mm-mm Good!
#16.1 Roy on 2021-11-13 17:20 (Reply)
And then, speaking canned food, what about a big serving of Spam, cut into 1/4" cubes and fried to golden perfection, with two eggs over easy on top?

A day's worth of protein, fat and salt in one meal!

I do admit that a whole can of Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee (any sort) can be delicious, and it still sells for about $1 per can.
#17 Pork by-product lover on 2021-11-13 09:51 (Reply)
You forgot the thick toast for your carbs...
#17.1 Andrew Simmonds (Link) on 2021-11-13 18:14 (Reply)
I wasn't raised on Spaghettios, but I liked it as a kid. I heated it up for my kids sometimes, but when I tried it as an adult, yechh. I don't know if it changed or I did, but it was just way too acidic.
#18 RebeccaH on 2021-11-13 11:25 (Reply)
Nope, I was raised on undercooked mashed potatoes served with overcooked cabbage.
#19 JTW on 2021-11-14 07:00 (Reply)

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