Strange childhood food memories

[Marlene]

My dad would take slices of bread cut into 3 strips, lay cheddar cheese over each strip and a slice of bacon on top, then grill them in the oven. These were usually Friday night snacks.

[Suzanne F]

... ronzoni spagetti with watered down ketchup (only Heinz) and individually wrapped american cheese food product on top. ...

My mother-in-law's version was tomato juice and American cheese with spaghetti. I think ketchup was too spicy for her. Fortunately, I did not meet my husband until many years later.

[polly]

Every day mum would feed us all a BIG spoonfull of cod liver oil...

[snowangel]

Since my folks were both in grad school at the same time, there was almost no money. Every so often, my folks would get day old raised donuts, split them in half, lightly butter each half, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, and put under the broiler. When this was breakfast, my sister and I thought we were royalty.

[awbrig]

Hey Susan,

Thats cool, because, in your parents mind, you WERE and (are) royalty...

but now they have Krispy Kreme to tell you that, too bad they didnt invent them...

[Ladybug]

My mother was fond of making

1)tuna noodle casserole with raw diced onions stirred in

2)slimy okra (like booger soup)

3)fried bologna

4)fried onions

5)mashed turnips

6)fried salmon balls (NOT what you're thinking!)

7)lasagna with cottage cheese

She used convenience foods at times - boxed macaroni and cheese, boxed cake mixes and pudding mixes, etc. She went through a phase where she thought my brother and I needed nutrition so she force-fed us Brewer's yeast. Groan!! She did, and still does, make wonderful cookies, fudge, and biscuits. I miss her cooking - well, some of it.

[Flossie]

My mother used to make thick chicken broth with loads of vegetables and this stuff called soup mix. As far as I can remember, it contained pearl barley and lentils. I couldn't bear the barley and refused to eat it until one day she forced it down me with the inevitable consequences.... I have NEVER eaten that stuff again.

Actually, a lot of things she made had that lumpy, claggy texture - tapioca, cornflour, Bird's custard. Yuck! But some of her cooking wasn't bad.

[oraklet]

snowangel,

" When this was breakfast, my sister and I thought we were royalty."

very, very nice.

[lamb]

My mom made me sardine on white bread sandwiches for lunch. I was able to clear the cafeteria table at St. Bernard's Elementary School in 10 seconds flat.

My two older brothers were there, however, to beat the crap out of anyone who made comments about mom being weird. They were good catholic school boys.

Today they are the ones making the comments about mom being weird. Therapy works wonders.

[jtraceynj]

Fish sticks, macaroni and cheese, and ketchup -- lots of ketchup. Sometimes I would "accidentally" push the macaroni into the ketchup.

I tried to resurrect this as a gag at home -- it was pretty gross.

My grandmother made a famous 2-ingredient "pasta fazool": campbell's pork and beans mixed with spaghettios. Thank God I wasn't alive yet. My aunt said she hated this so much she asked my grandmother: "Ma, can't you just keep them separate so I can eat one, then the other?" And my grandmother said "No, then it wouldn't be pasta fazool!"

Another odd memory: My grandfather, addicted to Entenmann's crumb cakes, would hide them from my father. When we'd visit, my dad would hunt for it, find it, slice the entire top off, eat it, and put it back in the hiding space. Good for much hilarity. This was the only time I heard my grandfather curse.

[Stephanie]

Scrambled eggs with kosher salami--the thick stubby kind with lots of fat and garlic--cooked so that the salami would get crispy. I haven't had that since I was a kid and just picture it now as one big cholesterol bomb.

My mom was and is a good cook, so I never really complained too much. However, through pressure I was able to get her to stop cooking beef tongue.

[Jinmyo]

My grandmother made a famous 2-ingredient "pasta fazool": campbell's pork and beans mixed with spaghettios. Thank God I wasn't alive yet. My aunt said she hated this so much she asked my grandmother: "Ma, can't you just keep them separate so I can eat one, then the other?" And my grandmother said "No, then it wouldn't be pasta fazool!"

At least she had standards.

[jaybee]

When I was 2 or three years old my mother would often leave me in the care of her aunt, an old, very short and fat Russian lady who wasn't quite right. She was fond of walking around in the nude, making a paste of ground up asprin, Coleman's mustard and egg whites and trying to get me to eat them with a spoon. I didn't like it much, as the asprin left a bitter taste in my throat and the gooey raw egg whites made me gag. As an adult, I've come to realize this recipe, when enhanced with Frank's Louisiana Hot Sauce makes an excellent beverage.

[mixmaster b]

I remembered another of my Mom's health food recipes.

Cheese sauce made with whole wheat flour, served with whole wheat pasta and frozen green beans. (Do not try this at home.)

She still makes this!

But she was able to teach me some good basics, like stock-making, bechemel (sans whole wheat), and a pretty decent spaghetti sauce. Thanks, Mom!

[nightscotsman]

When I was 2 or three years old my mother would often leave me in the care of her aunt, an old, very short and fat Russian lady who wasn't quite right.  She was fond of walking around in the nude, making a paste of ground up asprin, Coleman's mustard and egg whites and trying to get me to eat them with a spoon.  I didn't like it much, as the asprin left a bitter taste in my throat and the gooey raw egg whites made me gag.  As an adult, I've come to realize this recipe, when enhanced with Frank's Louisiana Hot Sauce makes an excellent beverage.

I'm sorry - I can't let this go by. You made that up, right? Right?

[Adam Balic]

My mother, while an excellent gardener, is a terrible cook. One memory that I have is having to bring a cake to some crappy grade 2 function. My mother obviously made a commercial, circ. 1979, brand mix 'n' bake thing evil-vileness. It was really bad (some sort of brown hippy-oid thing, with fibre and sultanas) and none of the other children would eat it, which upset me, so to get over this problem of "I love mummy, but her cake is shite", I started eating the cake to remove its evil from the world. Unfortunately, it was a big cake and I was only a little boy, furthermore, it wasn't one cake it was two cakes as my mother had made a second cake for some kid who's mother was dying of cancer. Two large evil cakes. I ate them both (well, mostly ate, some I fed to the magpies) and then, one hour later, threw-up all over the class room. The teacher made me stand in the punishment corner for being greedy.

Bastard mother, bastard teacher and bastard cake.

[yvonne johnson]

Adam, what a good boy you were. What a horrid teacher.

I may've mentioned this one before. My mother wanted me to eat porridge before going to kindergarten. I didn't like porridge, so my mother had the bright idea of coloring it. One day it was pink, the next yellow. "But it's porridge", I'd say. She eventually gave up.

I wasn't keen on fish either when I was very young. My mum tried to disguise it by putting grated apple with a sprinking of sugar over the top. "But it's fish!"

An earlier post on cod-liver oil reminded me. At the age of around 5, I pretended to swallow my cod-liver oil tablets and then rush up-stairs and put them under the wardrobe. This was successful until my mum did the spring cleaning. Drat.

[Wilfrid]

Hehe. "Well, I say it's porridge, and I say the hell with it."

[Adam Balic]

Yvonne - you didn't like fish or porage (well that's how they are spelling it here now, but you know what I mean), truely you were destined to leave the fair city of Aberdeen. .

But sugar and fish .

[Hopleaf]

My two older sisters convinced me that grapefruit with Salad Seasoning (anyone remember that stuff?) sprinkled on it was delicious. I tried it, with them watching gleefully, and never let on that it tasted like crap. But I got them both back for that stunt by putting a rubber band around the sprayer so that it shot out at them when they went to do the dishes. Ahhh, childhood.

[yvonne johnson]

But sugar and fish .

It was a very odd combination. Not recommended.

[heyjude]

Often on Thursdays, my mother would use up the weeks leftovers in a dish she called Gadgets. These were biscuit dough spread with the leftovers that had been ground in her meat grinder. She had the kind that fastened to the side of the table and used a red rubber thingy under the clamp to keep it from sliding around. The dough was rolled up as for cinnamon rolls and sliced before baking. Looking back, I bet this recipe was adapted from the Bisquick box. I have never been tempted to duplicate this.

[Suzanne F]

When I was 2 or three years old my mother would often leave me in the care of her aunt, an old, very short and fat Russian lady who wasn't quite right.  She was fond of walking around in the nude, making a paste of ground up asprin, Coleman's mustard and egg whites and trying to get me to eat them with a spoon.  I didn't like it much, as the asprin left a bitter taste in my throat and the gooey raw egg whites made me gag.  As an adult, I've come to realize this recipe, when enhanced with Frank's Louisiana Hot Sauce makes an excellent beverage.

I'm sorry - I can't let this go by. You made that up, right? Right?

Maybe not -- sounds like a variation of a Prairie Oyster (raw whole egg + Worcestershire sauce), one of those out-of-fashion hangover cures. The addition of aspirin is just part of the "cure."