June 12, 2010
more food stuff
I found this nostalgic article with a contemporary message by Tom Hughes and wanted to post it.
The Foodways of a 50's Childhood
"It seems remarkable to think about it now, but I went home for lunch until high school. I dashed home on my bike, about four blocks, sat down with my Mom and ate lunch at the kitchen table. We discussed our mornings. I played with my dog a few minutes and then biked back to play with friends in the schoolyard. Some students brought lunch but not many. Those were the days most moms were homemakers. I didn't encounter a school cafeteria until I was in 9th grade. Another strong memory of growing up in the 50's was how almost every family had a vegetable garden in the backyard. These were habits formed by wartime victory garden necessity. We would all pour over the seed catalogs that piled up in winter. Parts of every weekend were dedicated to working in the garden with my Dad.
My family, like most families I knew, always sat down for meals together, including breakfast. We were expected to be on time, help serve, clear and clean up. We were also expected to participate in the conversation. Sunday midday dinner was served in the dining room. We wore our best clothes and used the best china.We all ate the same food, no special menus or diets were considered. We certainly were expected to "clean our plates" and if we balked the "starving Armenians, or Chinese children" were quickly mentioned.
Many of my fondest childhood memories are food related....my parents canning surplus fruits and vegetables, for instance. I loved watching their assembly line. Later they put a big freezer in the basement and froze their excess garden harvest, as well as buying and freezing meat fresh from wholesalers. No wonder I had so many friends--my parents kept a steady supply of popsicles and ice cream sandwiches which were freely distributed.
I can remember enjoying watching my parents cook up huge pots of vegetable soup, Saturday night feasts of "corned beef and cabbage," my Dad sharpening his carving knives for baked hams, and roast beef. My mom grew up on a dairy farm and my dad was a city fellow who enjoyed eating. Once a month or so we went out for dinner. We dressed for this occasion as well.
On Tuesdays, my dad was usually away on business and my Mom took the night off from cooking and we all went to Yvonne's Diner for dinner. Yvonne's menu featured the same things we ate at home. It was all cooked from fresh ingredients and not at all fast. I can't remember ever having Chinese take-out, eating pizza or any other ethnic food until I was away at college.
The type of food my family cooked or ordered out, I guess, could be identified as standard American/British. Meat, potatoes, a green veg, dinner rolls, salad and dessert. Once in a while I got my mom to prepare my favorite---"Spanish rice." This was the most ethnic we ever got. It was pork chops cooked in stewed tomatoes, bell peppers, onion, sugar and some spices poured over rice. The only time we did not have potatoes with a meal was this one dish with rice.
We ate out of our garden from spring to the middle of fall. But we still made regular trips to the farm stands on the edge of town for fried green tomato orgies and, of course, sweet corn. My Dad ate prodigious amounts of corn on the cob and he said we didn't need to bother growing it in our garden. We also ate corn chowder, corn fritters, corn pudding and corn a dozen other ways.
In peach season we sat with our neighbors out on the porch and took turns cranking our own ice cream.We also had fresh strawberry ice cream and later in the summer, blueberry.
A big deal in high school once we all got driving licenses was to drive out of town to the highway and hang out at a place called Gino's Hamburgers. We would buy a bag of silver dollar sized mini hamburgers and a separate bag of fries, all washed down with strawberry milkshakes. We watched as these meals were assembly-line mass produced and passed through a window. We would go back and lean on our cars to eat. Little did any of us know that we were experiencing the birth of the fast food revolution.
In my junior year I lived with an Italian family in Florence, Italy. It was altogether familiar to me that they too, sat down for every meal as a family. Everyone came home from work or school at midday for lunch and a rest. I had developed the hamburger habit, nevertheless, and a big treat to assuage my homesickness was tracking down hamburgers in Milan and Rome.
A lot has changed about how America families eat over this past quarter century. Now in most families, both parents work, kids are required to eat lunch at school, few people have the time or energy to tend much of a vegetable garden; eating out is common, ethnic restaurants and fast food outlets are everywhere, people don't need to know how to cook to feed themselves as packaged convenience foods and microwaves cater to everyone's tastes and habits. Kids spend their time riding in or pushing a grocery shopping cart, not tending the family garden.
What hasn't changed is that early experiences with food imprints habits and tastes that extend into adulthood. Kids who eat well, participate in gardening, cooking and sharing meals with family and friends are more likely to continue these habits as adults with their own families, as my wife and I have done.
Now after several decades of eating conveniently and fast, an alarming percentage of two generations are seriously overweight and out of touch with their food.
Reformers feel the only alternative is to reconnect children at the earliest age possible with food experiences in school settings that were once a universal feature of family life. "
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