Eating in the 50's

[mapper]

I grew up in the 50-60, mom had a degree in home economy from U of Idaho. She always had a large garden, my sisters and I had to help weed it when we weren't picking strawberries, raspberries and beans during the summer. Beef came from a guy that worked at the pulp mill with my dad. We rarely ever ate anything that was not made from scratch.
I can't remember the first time I had pizza, I do remember classmate of my oldest sister whose mom used to put pizza in his lunch (homemade), I asked my mom what pizza was and her answer was tomato pie. It did not sound all that good to me then. I have learned since then I was wrong:licking:
We rarely ever had school provided lunch, it was a treat when we did, the cook at my grade school was really good, she prepared everything from scratch. I especially loved the baked red snapper that was served on Fridays, in our part of the country "red snapper" was actually a red rock fish that was caught locally and delivered fresh to the school. Compared to some of the god awful crap that is served at schools now we didn't know how good we had it!
Milk was 3¢ for a half pint carton, we would by milk tickets every month or so and mom would put it in our lunch box.

 

[grnspot110]

Anybody make sauerkraut by the wooden barrel?

We used stone jars, some were to big to carry to the cellar, had to fill them where they sat. The jars weren't worth much then, Dad bought them at farm auctions for little of nothing. This 8-gallon sold for $850 at Mom's auction three years ago: Buyer came from Omaha just for the jar!

 

[Kentuckyfarmer]

I thought when I joined I was probably one of the oldest on this forum. But after reading all these posts it sure is nice seeing there are lots here that grew up when I did and mostly the way we did too. Love those days and the memories I have of them.

 

[Citydude]

Sentimental trip down memory lane for sure. I remember my grandmother's butter she churned herself. My mother's fried chicken that I have yet to duplicate. Bonanza on the black and white Zenith TV and Jiffy pop popcorn. Those were the days...

 

[mjarrels]

My dad grew up during the depression and all 13 kids ate bean sandwitches for school lunch. Bet that three bedroom farm house was really tooting at night.

mark

 

[Ken]

End of WW11 the food stamp program was lifted so Citizens of this nation could purchase any food item on store shelves with out showing the book with stamps size of postage stamp .
and the school lunch program started forgot the cost but the sack lunch begin to be forgotten.
My mom prepared home made bread and slice of sausage that covered the bread also there was a fried pie with apple or peach filling. water furnished by well at school.

There was no food preserves or even thought of food poisoning and very little keeping a lunch cool while in school it sat on shelf with rest of the lunches.

Sometimes we get black pop corn from Missouri. and shelled off cob and popped in wire basket on the wood stove. then the butter was poured on top with salt.
is it stilled sold?
shelling peanuts home grown took a while to empty gunny sack full. then roast in oven the amount planned to eat that night sitting on front porch watching the sun set.
listening the Grand ole opera and also the Oklahoma am radio clear channel playing cowboy music.
Even could hear the words of the songs and not be shocked at the language.
seem to have drifted from food to memories.

 

[fried1765]

We used stone jars, some were to big to carry to the cellar, had to fill them where they sat. The jars weren't worth much then, Dad bought them at farm auctions for little of nothing. This 8-gallon sold for $850 at Mom's auction three years ago: View attachment 501779 Buyer came from Omaha just for the jar!

That is very likely a piece of now highly collectable "Red Wing Pottery".
Made in Red Wing Mn.

 

[Norm W]

Grandma had a Servel Electrolux gas refrigerator and my folks had a kerosene one. Ours used about five gallons of kero a week. Forget about keeping ice cream in it. Probably because of the poor refrigeration everything was cooked till "Done". I think I was about fourteen before I found out that hamburgers didn't have to be crunchy. Unfortunately, fresh vegetables were cooked about the same way. Fresh string beans were rather limp by the time they reached the table. Pizza showed up about 1954. It was usually used as a fund raiser for a church or a school.

 

[Jim Nelson]

We used stone jars, some were to big to carry to the cellar, had to fill them where they sat. The jars weren't worth much then, Dad bought them at farm auctions for little of nothing. This 8-gallon sold for $850 at Mom's auction three years ago: View attachment 501779 Buyer came from Omaha just for the jar!

Another good use for those crockery pieces was to "corn" the poached bucks that were in rut to make them edible. It was a lot better than corned beef and about the only way you could eat those old deer.

 

[TomSeller]

Almost everything all year long came from the garden, chicken coop, hog pen or pasture. Fresh, canned or frozen. On the very, very rare occasion we had something on the table that was "store bought". Usually from company coming over and bringing something. We always called it by that such as "please pass the store bought bread". There were almost always leftovers of the store bought items .... or the dog had to eat it.