Childhood "Treats"

[Busboy]

Hmmm...

Am I the only parent out there who still lets their kids eat cookie dough batter raw, doesn't mind a regular bit of candy in the diet and and ould care less about trans-fat?

[Toliver]

I can't believe I haven't seen this yet:

When my mom made pie, which was a couple of times a month, she'd put the trimmed raw crust on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, and bake it along with the pie.

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My mom used to make those. She called them "Pinwheels". She'd roll out the dough trimmings, spread soft butter on the dough and then sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar and roll it up. She'd then slice the roll into about one-inch pieces and bake them along with the pies. Man, they were good! Unfortunately, they disappeared rather quickly. I think the pastries called Rugelach (sp?) are close to Pinwheels, but not quite the same.

My mom rarely made pan-fried chicken. She learned to make an oven "fried" chicken recipe from her Better Homes & Garden New Cookbook that she received as a wedding present in the mid 1950's.

It involved breading the chicken in a seasoned flour mixture (she put the flour in a paper bag, dropped the chicken pieces inside and shook the bag to coat the pieces). She placed the floured chicken pieces in a 13x9 baking pan lined with aluminum foil. Then she drizzled a melted stick of butter over the chicken pieces and sprinkled garlic salt and paprika on top of that. The butter would actually clarify during baking with the solids settling on the bottom of the pan along with some of the flour. My "treat" was to scoop/scrape out the butter solids-flour mixture and put the scrapings on a baked potato instead of just regular butter. It's been years since I've had that and I can still recall that buttery "chicken-y" flavor today.

[cakewalk]

Ice cream!

Allow me to explain: my father was a butcher. To him, if anything was in the freezer other than meat, it was taking up valuable freezer space and did NOT deserve to be there. "What is this junk?" he would ask, if he saw anything other than his own familiar butcher-paper wrapping. So ice cream was indeed a treat for us to have in the house. If it was on sale in the supermarket, my mother would buy a half-gallon and somehow get it into the freezer. But we had to eat it all THAT NIGHT! (Which was never a problem, of course. Even my father helped out.)

[Jake]

Hmmm...

Am I the only parent out there who still lets their kids eat cookie dough batter raw, doesn't mind a regular bit of candy in the diet and and ould care less about trans-fat?

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Nope. Everything in moderation, right. We're not talking about a daily diet, we're talking about treats. A bowl of chips, dip and a soda every so often is not going to kill ya.

[nan]

I did the bread-butter-sugar thing, except I stuck it in the toaster oven...especially good with those colored sugars in the plastic containers with the pink lids. Oh yeah and also good with brown sugar instead. It gets all nice and gooey and yummy.

[lexy]

My mom used to make those.  She called them "Pinwheels".  She'd roll out the dough trimmings, spread soft butter on the dough and then sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar and roll it up.  She'd then slice the roll into about one-inch pieces and bake them along with the pies.  Man, they were good!  Unfortunately, they disappeared rather quickly.  I think the pastries called Rugelach (sp?) are close to Pinwheels, but not quite the same.

My mum made these too (still does actually), but without the butter. We called them snails though, since that's sort of what they look like.

Other than that, my dad would sometimes make molasses-spice cookies using leftover bacon drippings as a substitute for some of the butter (just the right amount makes them nice and chewy; too much however, and you get weird bacon-molasses flavoured cookies)

[LaurieB]

I totally forgot about the raw hamburger thing.

I was five. I had a salamander (the repitile, not the piece of equipment) and I had a ploy. My mom would give me a hunk of raw burger for the salamander. I would give him half, and I would eat half. Then I would go back to the kitchen and say "he was really hungry today! Can I have some more?" Then back to my room where he would get half and I would get half.

I have to believe my mom knew I was doing this. I hope.

Laurie

[Jake]

I totally forgot about the raw hamburger thing.

I was five.  I had a salamander (the repitile, not the piece of equipment) and I had a ploy.  My mom would give me a hunk of raw burger for the salamander.  I would give him half, and I would eat half.  Then I would go back to the kitchen and say "he was really hungry today!  Can I have some more?"  Then back to my room where he would get half and I would get half.

I have to believe my mom knew I was doing this.  I hope.

Laurie

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An early version of steak tartare, perhaps?

[elswinger]

Chicken gizzards, dipped in pancake batter, deep fried, served with Tabasco and ketchup.

[LaurieB]

"An early version of steak tartare"

For me, perhaps.

For my Mom, it was just me scamming raw hamburger.

Laurie

[LaurieB]

OOh just thought of another.

We rarely had "brunch" type stuff. But Sunday nights when my mom didn't want to cook, we had pancakes -- lathered with butter and topped with sugar and rolled up -- and you ate them with your fingers!

That's how they were different from breakfast pancakes.

I forgot about those, too. Thanks, all, for the memories.

Laurie

[Jake]

OOh just thought of another. 

We rarely had "brunch" type stuff.  But Sunday nights when my mom didn't want to cook, we had pancakes -- lathered with butter and topped with sugar and rolled up -- and you ate them with your fingers! 

That's how they were different from breakfast pancakes. 

I forgot about those, too.  Thanks, all, for the memories.

Laurie

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No thank you!! I still sneak some raw hamburger when I'm making something....but of course now I'm just testing the seasoning!

[andiesenji]

My grandmother and great-grandmother did not believe in "spoiling" children with treats. Fortunately for me, my grandfather thought that I was born to be spoiled and did his best to see that I got quite a few "forbidden" treats. Since the cook thought the sun rose and set on him, she followed his orders even when countermanded by the ladies.

I loved to hang out in the kitchen and "help" and if something was being fried, I often got "fried bread" as there was usually bread dough in one form or another waiting to be baked or rising, or whatever.

Cook would pinch off a golf-ball sized piece of the dough pull it into a pillow shape and drop it into the hot fat where it would immediately puff up to many times the original size, it was turned to cook golden on the other side and then was lifted out onto a towel and sprinkled with sugar.

It would be difficult to wait until it had cooled enough to eat safely and often I burned my tongue or lips, trying to eat it a bit too soon.

Just thinking about it brings that flavor back. Nothing tasted as good.

Edited December 4, 2004 by andiesenji (log)

[Shalmanese]

Last night, while trimming off the extra fat and skin from a chicken, I suddenly had a recollection of a 'special' childhood "treat" that my grandmother used to feed us. 

Whenever she would cook chicken, she would trim off the extra fat and skin, immerse them in hot oil, fry them until they were golden brown and extra-crispy, top them with a good sprinkling of salt, and feed it to us kids.  We thought that we were SO lucky to get such a delicious and crunchy treat!   

What sorts of 'taboo' treats were you fed as a child?

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What do you mean used to? I just did the exact same thing with beef suet last night. The tallow is destined for some very lucky potato chips on saturday. Fuck health nazis.

[Bash]

When we were kids, my grandmother would make a huge batch of Nutella sandwiches whenever we went to see her. She'd heap the delicious hazelnut/chocolate spread over thin white sandwich bread. (the stuff that's so white it rots your teeth!) This would then get buttered on one side and griddled to perfection. Mint tea was always at hand to wash it all down. The sugar/caffeine rush would last well into the next day !

I still indulge in a chocolate sandwich every now and then. Sometimes I add bananas....

[Septemberdog61]

Raw hamburger with tons of salt

Raw bacon

Licking the raw dough or batter of the wooden spoon (big brother got to lick the beaters)

[jgm]

Another indulgence comes to mind, but I had to go to the neighbors' house to get it. Our neighbor, when frying chicken, would take the leftover egg/milk concoction and mix it with the seasoned flour, and drop wads of it in the spaces between pieces of chicken frying in the pan. Her five well-behaved boys always waited until the chicken came around at the table, and each took only his share of the "crumbles." The one time I was able to convince my mother to do it, they were all gone by the time the chicken was cooked, and my sister and I were sent to our room for fighting over them.

This same neighbor also used to allow me, when I was about 3 or 4, to sit on her kitchen counter while she was baking, and didn't mind at all when I dipped my fingers in the cake batter, cookie dough, and icing. God, I miss that woman.

[elswinger]

I am sure this was a contributing factor to my growing up overweight and unhealthy, but when I was a kid my Mom would cut the fat off her steak or pork chops and put it on my plate. I thought it tasted good.

[Vancouver Lee]

When I was a kid, I would eat two Wonderbread slices slattered with butter or margarine and sprinkled with white sugar.  Funny thing is that I learned how to eat this at my dad's Chinese carryout! 

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We cleverly called it "sugarbread". It was a favourite from my Dad's childhood growing up in rural Pennsylvania.

[jackal10]

Toast and dripping, with lots of salt. Surprised no one has mentioned it yet...

Especially if it was beef dripping, with some of the jelly and that an onion had been cooked with the joint...mmm

Actually the avoidance of trans-fats may be doing more harm than good.

Recent reserach indicates its not the fat that causes heart attacks, but an immune reaction to a variant of a common inhaled Chlamydia infection that cause the fat (which is present anyway) to aggregate. Instead modest levels of transfats may protect from some forms of cancer...

Edited December 19, 2004 by jackal10 (log)

[Pan]

Inhaled chlamydia?? I'd love a link. I thought that was only a sexually-transmitted disease.

[jackal10]

I'm not a medic, but I believe there are all sorts of chlamydia, including blood and respiratory track veriants, which are naturally present in a benign form in up to 70% of the population, and do not indicate sexual contact. Interestingly it also explains why low dose of asprin is an effective preventative in some, as it supresses the immuse reaction that causes the platelets to clump.

Lots on the web if you search, for example

Chronic infection, Chlamydia and coronary heart disease

[Dejah]

The end slice of bread fried in bacon drippings. . .

Hostess Snowballs and Twinkies. . .

Pimento stuffed green olives...the whole jar, including the pickling the juice.

Speaking of pastry dough Pinwheels, hubby's Nana always slathered peanut butter and sugar on the rolled out dough, then rolled it up to cut into pinwheels. Sprinkle sugar on top and bake along with the pies.

[crinoidgirl]

Toast and dripping, with lots of salt. Surprised no one has mentioned it yet...

Especially if it was beef dripping, with some of the jelly and that an onion had been cooked with the joint...mmm

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I had forgotten about that:

The once-a-week London broil broiled (natch) in the under-the-stove broiler. My special treat was bread slices soaked in the juices from that.

I also did the sugar sandwich thing. My mom let me take those sandwiches to school in elementary school. Every day, for three solid years!

Not to mention the special treats from my Ukrainian/German/Russian grandparents on my mom's side - RAW MEAT! (still doing that, though I might have a 30-ft tapeworm in me for all I know), tongue,head cheese, sardines, herring, etc. - I've been eating all of this since I was about 6 years old. It gave me a head start on sushi/sashimi.

(edited to reflect Mabelline's subsequent post)

Edited December 19, 2004 by crinoidgirl (log)

[Mabelline]

I used to come in from school and have a butter sammich, sometimes with sugar, sometimes with banana and whipped cream -toasted- and sometimes I would have hack with my grandad (actually, step-grandpa, but the person whom I spent my toddler years growing up around). And I must admit, I have always called hack "tartar"because I was too young at the time to remember it's correct term, until I read it on a thread here. I still eat raw meat. If I die from some brain disease in 5 or 10 years, so be it. Like John Whiting said before; I've had a good life--and I will not give up those things which give me irrational happiness, for the sake of a medical scare.

Beside that...we eat our own beef. And we are very careful about our game animals (By the way-have you ever thought about that Anglo term game? There is no Native American term that is comparative. Animals that are eaten are considered our brothers, not a game. But I digress.)

Yeah, so I have this nightmare of waking up dead, and the big guy tells me that what did me in was a Junkfood meal 8 1/2 years ago when I was bummed out and grabbed some fast food.