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YOur basic family meals growing up

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24285 **12/9/18 1:07 am**

In the post by RR brother 777 asked about staple food growing up. That was keyed by the statement I made that Christmas was the only time cotton mill workers at citrus.

Growing up our family ate well. In the 30s to 50s down south pastors received 'poundings' to augment their salary. Looking back I have no idea where that term came from. But some brother or sister would say to the church, "Next Sunday we plan to give the pastor's family a 'pounding', so bring what you can."
My mama could make some of the best biscuits and gravy you ever ate. WE had a lot of beans and stuff from mama's garden. My daddy always raised a hog so we had lots of pork.

About the cotton mill workers, they weren't starving, but in our area grapes, muscadines, apples and pears were the standard fruit, and it was usually free. Oranges and tangerines were relatively expensive so they found better things to do with their salary.

We and the mill workers ate collards, turnips, cabbage and turnip greens.
Sweeeets at our house was mama's sweet potato pie. Or apple fried pies.

Food I never heard of until I left home for the military: broccoli, asparagus, Brussel sprouts, Artichoke, poached eggs, home made spaghetti, ravioli, and many more. I thought the only steak was cubed steak whicn my mama cubed with the edge of a plate. Most of our meat was pork. But I never ate pigs feet. Sunday was usually fried chicken.

Oh and we ate a lot of okra and tomatoes.
Corn bread and milk was many evening meals. I still love it to this day!
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Some facts but mostly just my opinion!
jacsher@aol.com
http://shipslog-jack.blogspot.com/

Re: YOur basic family meals growing up

Friendly Face Posts: 387 **12/9/18 3:53 am**

Friendly Face Posts: 434 **12/9/18 4:52 pm**

Thanks Cojak and The Love of God. It sounds like the Southerners with more of a rural setting had it better food wise than those in the Northern industrial areas. You 2 were also raised a little later than my parents who were children of immigrants during the depression. i never went hungry like my parents time but when I was younger ordering a pizza or going out to eat was a treat that may have happened several times a year. I am so thankful for what we have and do my best to teach about being a thankful Christian.

Re: YOur basic family meals growing up

Acts-perienced Poster Posts: 11849 **12/9/18 6:09 pm**

That sounds like the way it probably was for my parents growing up. My mother said getting an orange in a stocking at Christmas was a big deal.

My grandmother grew corn and green beans and at them all time. From time to time she'd eat greens, turnip stew. Of course, she made corn bread, biscuits. Biscuits and honey was breakfast at my grandmother's house. She'd cook country ham and bacon, too. If my parents took her out, it was usually to the 'fish camp', which is what they call a fried fish place in North Carolina.

But my mom was a little bit more international in her cooking. She would cook that very foreign dish, spagghetti. My grandmother did not care for that. I remember probably around 1980, my aunt had a taco kit. She explained to my mother that her kids liked them and how to cook tacos. I don't remember the first time I had Mexican food. Maybe I was twelve, away on a Bible Quiz trip. I remember eating pizza once in elementary school. My dad hated cheese, but eating out at Pizza Hut after church when I was in high school, he discovered he liked mozzarella on pizza and we ate a lot of pizza after that and started eating Chinese food.

I always hated pinto beans and greens day either at home or at the school cafeteria. I still don't care for the plain pinto beans of the south, or did not the last I tried them. But Mexicans can cook the same beans, even without making them into that mashed up stuff, and make them taste good. I found turnip, mustard, and collard greens to be unpleasant and bitter and avoided them growing up. But overseas, I had a Chinese pickled mustard green soup with pork in it. My wife learned to make it. She might make that once a year. It's got a down-home flavor, sort of, but it's Chinese food and the greens are delicious if you pickle them with salt, sugar, and vinegar like that.

My wife cooks food from 12 or so different countries, but my kids haven't been exposed that much to some of the southern cuisine I grew up eating. We are in the south now, so maybe they will get the chance to be. My wife did learn to cook southern style green beans.
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Link

Acts-celerater Posts: 787 **12/9/18 9:48 pm**

Since my Dad was from Kentucky,everything we ate had the south written all over it. My childhood memories are filled with countless days weeding our HUGE garden. Everything we grew was canned to eat during the winter. Tomatoes, green beans,corn, potatoes, onions, beets, pinto beans, everything was canned or stored in the basement.

Feeding the hogs,chickens, and the occasional cow kept me very busy. Many a time I wanted to play baseball with the other kids, but it seemed like there was never enough play time. While dad would butcher a hog or cow once in a while with the help of a neighbor, he usually took the animal to the meat processor and had them do all the hard work. I can still see all that fresh meat in boxes that had to be wrapped and frozen!

Days spent gathering wild berries with my Dad were so wonderful, and the smell of jams and jellies being made would fill the house.

Suppers at our house always had meat of some kind, and my momâ€™s chicken and dumplings were out of this world. Like everyone else, what I wouldnâ€™t give to be able to return to those days.
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“Hell will be filled with people that didn’t cuss, didn’t drink, and may even have been baptized. Why? Because none of those things makes someone a Christian.”
Voddie Baucham

Re: YOur basic family meals growing up

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24285 **12/9/18 10:16 pm**

Hey Link

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24285 **12/9/18 10:30 pm**

Funny that 'fish Camp' thing. I think all over NC the fish restaurants are called Fish Camps. I was talking to a guy once, who said he had a fish camp near Biloxi, MIss.

(Ignorant me!) I asked where It was located. He gave directions..I said, "We would like to visit one day and eat with you." He was confused by that, since a fish camp to him was a slip to launch a boat from and go fishing while camping, which is completely logical.
But around NC a Fish Camp is simply a restaurant for fish. Embarassed

_________________
Some facts but mostly just my opinion!
jacsher@aol.com
http://shipslog-jack.blogspot.com/

Re: Hey Link

Friendly Face Posts: 387 **12/10/18 1:47 am**

I grew up on a cattle farm

Acts Mod Posts: 25305 **12/10/18 7:53 am**

We raised our own beef and chickens and tended a huge garden (hated that). My brother in law was a butcher and we had our own butcher shop and walk in freezer that we bought from a grocery store being torn down. Needless to say, we always had meat and veggies, even when money was tight.
Our weekly menu was like this:
Sunday-roast
Monday-meatloaf
Tuesday-hamburgers
Wednesday-leftover roast
Thursday-leftover meatloaf
Friday-hamburger dish
Saturday-steak

I laughed once when we were pastoring a small church and struggling a bit. I remembered telling my mom, "All we have around here is beef, beef, beef. Can't we have something different like weenies?"

Her response, "Are you kidding? Them things is expensive."

And here we were eating weenies and wishing they were beef.
Laughing

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Doctor of Bovinamodulation

Acts-perienced Poster Posts: 11849 **12/11/18 1:30 am**

Re: I grew up on a cattle farm

Acts-perienced Poster Posts: 11849 **12/11/18 1:33 am**

Golf Cart Mafia Consigliere Posts: 3147 **12/11/18 11:59 am**

We ate very well because my mother was a cook like few others. However, meat was a luxury we had fewer than 5 times per week (sometimes 2 or less), and half of that was as cheap as you can get. A typical meal was beans, taters and cornbread, or cabbage and sausage or a caserole, usually some good homemade bread and a few delicious desserts each week. We typically ate out only on Sundays unless family was coming over.

Today, we feel poor or slighted if there is no meat for a meal, and if we go out to eat less than 3 times in a week. We have certainly become spoiled these days, but FEW meals taste better than those much less expensive ones that I recall as a kid.

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12817 **12/11/18 2:58 pm**

Growing up as a PK in the 1970s and 1980s, I mainly remember eating things like spaghetti with meat sauce, homemade burgers, tuna mac, and various types of Hamburger Helper for dinner. Chef Boyardee, hot dogs, and frozen pizza made up our typical lunch on weekends or when school was out. My favorite was momâ€™s spaghetti. Her meat sauce was the best.

Golf Cart Mafia Consigliere Posts: 3382 **12/11/18 3:56 pm**

Actually the first meal I can remember was cornbread and buttermilk. I was probably 4 or 5 years old. Mom makes the best cornbread. She puts the iron skillet and gets it hot, then puts margarine or butter in and lets it melt and pours in the mix. We also had fried fatback with it. Gooooood!

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 13654 **12/11/18 3:58 pm**

Pot roast, pinto beans and cornbread and cabbage, burgers, occasionally Mom would make Chinese rice and ribs, and even more occasionally we'd get Chinese takeout. Also had pizza once a week because the local pizza place had a buy one get one deal, and occasionally we'd get cheesesteak subs from there as well. I'm sure there were other meals, but I don't have a lot of recollections from childhood.

Re: I grew up on a cattle farm

Acts Mod Posts: 25305 **12/11/18 4:13 pm**