Food of the Fifties

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hicabob
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by hicabob »

roymeo wrote:No one's mentioned the Gallery of Regrettable Food yet?
http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/

Some of those are too much! Makes you wonder if people will feel similar about our current food delicacies in 60 years or so? I expect so. Bacon weaving and poutine come to mind.
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wilpat
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by wilpat »

Kidney stew, Grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Ham Hocks and cabbage, Country fried steak and gravy (still my favorite today) Grilled tuna sandwiches, Prune pudding with dumplings, Spam and eggs. My memory has run out!!
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gatorman
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by gatorman »

So I made the Alton Brown Swiss steak recipe tonight. It was great, but it wasn't like I remember! I distinctly recall the taste of celery, and the celery in this version was completely subsumed by the tomatoes and the spices. Next time, I may need to run a couple of stalks of celery through the food processor and add celery puree to get closer to what I remember. Also, since I don't have a pressure cooker to get the meat tender, I used a meat mallet on the round steak. As a result, the mouth feel was entirely different as well. Still very good, the steak was quite tender and it certainly is a dish I'd make again. But I can see I'll need to do some experimenting to get back to the original taste profile. One good thing, when I was 11 no Mouton Cadet to go along with it, not so tonight.

gatorman
Last edited by gatorman on Wed Feb 11, 2015 8:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by gatorman »

We'll be eating the Swiss steak for a couple days more, but then I've decided to make one of yours, goulash. Any tips you can offer? What's the trick to making great goulash?
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Mrs.Feeley
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by Mrs.Feeley »

gatorman wrote:I think the reason we ate a lot of the things we ate in the '50s was because there simply was not the variety available we have today. The "international" section of the Thriftimart grocery store my mom shopped at occupied about 6' of shelf space and consisted of some kosher items, taco sauce, canned refried beans, soy sauce, canned bamboo shoots, canned water chestnuts, and little else. The vegetable selection was long on potatoes and root vegetables year round, but the fresh vegetables and fruits were highly seasonal. In season you could get them, or at least some of them, out of season, forget about it There may have been a couple of varieties of pasta sauce, but nothing like today. Fresh pasta was simply not available. I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea, people simply had to use what was available, and so they improvised and made do. It takes a lot longer to walk the aisles at my local grocery store than it did when I was a kid, but I'm thankful for the variety from which we can select today.
gatorman
This is all so very true. I don't think our nearby grocery stores, which were very small, even had an international section. Chinese food was a synonym for chop suey made with heavy bead molasses and canned bean sprouts and celery. Never heard of soy sauce until I went to college. Pizza...well, there was no such thing as frozen pizza. There was a nearby pizzeria but ordering a pizza was considered a very expensive thing to do so rarely did anyone do it. Certainly my frugal parents never did. Anyhow pizza was considered a party food, and not substantial enough for family dinner food. The elementary school I went to served pizza for lunch every once in a blue moon. The crust was baking powder biscuit slathered with leftover chili from the day before. It was actually pretty good. When I was a teen Chef Boyardi Pizza Kits were the rage. They came with a little bag of flour and such that you mixed with water and pressed into a pan, a tin of Parmesan cheese to sprinkle on top, and a can of tomato sauce. That's as close as we ever got to pizza.
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Mrs.Feeley
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by Mrs.Feeley »

gatorman wrote:So I made the Alton Brown Swiss steak recipe tonight. It was great, but it wasn't like I remember! I distinctly recall the taste of celery, and the celery in this version was completely subsumed by the tomatoes and the spices. Next time, I may need to run a couple of stalks of celery through the food processor and add celery puree to get closer to what I remember. Also, since I don't have a pressure cooker to get the meat tender, I used a meat mallet on the round steak. As a result, the mouth feel was entirely different as well. Still very good, the steak was quite tender and it certainly is a dish I'd make again. But I can see I'll need to do some experimenting to get back to the original taste profile. One good thing, when I was 11 no Mouton Cadet to go along with it, not so tonight.

gatorman
I looked up my Swiss Steak recipe. It's very simple. With a meat mallet and flour, pound thin a couple pounds of round, rump or chuck steak. Brown the pieces in shortening. Then bake at 325F for two hours in a covered dish with a large can of tomatoes, a chopped onion, salt and pepper. There are no spices or garlic. Remember most people didn't have fresh garlic available to them in the 50s and 60s. Your mom may have added celery and carrots. My mom added celery and carrots to everything. I have a note in my cookbook that I made this just a few years ago. I made lots with the hope of having a week of leftovers. Some friends happened to stop by and by the time they left there was no Swiss steak left. Everyone seems to have liked it.
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gatorman
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by gatorman »

Mrs.Feeley wrote:
gatorman wrote:So I made the Alton Brown Swiss steak recipe tonight. It was great, but it wasn't like I remember! I distinctly recall the taste of celery, and the celery in this version was completely subsumed by the tomatoes and the spices. Next time, I may need to run a couple of stalks of celery through the food processor and add celery puree to get closer to what I remember. Also, since I don't have a pressure cooker to get the meat tender, I used a meat mallet on the round steak. As a result, the mouth feel was entirely different as well. Still very good, the steak was quite tender and it certainly is a dish I'd make again. But I can see I'll need to do some experimenting to get back to the original taste profile. One good thing, when I was 11 no Mouton Cadet to go along with it, not so tonight.

gatorman
I looked up my Swiss Steak recipe. It's very simple. With a meat mallet and flour, pound thin a couple pounds of round, rump or chuck steak. Brown the pieces in shortening. Then bake at 325F for two hours in a covered dish with a large can of tomatoes, a chopped onion, salt and pepper. There are no spices or garlic. Remember most people didn't have fresh garlic available to them in the 50s and 60s. Your mom may have added celery and carrots. My mom added celery and carrots to everything. I have a note in my cookbook that I made this just a few years ago. I made lots with the hope of having a week of leftovers. Some friends happened to stop by and by the time they left there was no Swiss steak left. Everyone seems to have liked it.
I've been looking around at other recipes and I've seen it suggested to add a can of cream of celery soup to the sauce. I may try that next time. Also, I forgot the carrots this time, will need to remember to stick some in next time. As to garlic, I grew up in California, and garlic was available. I remember mom using it a lot, but don't remember whether she used it in her Swiss steak. I used crushed tomatoes, as that is what I had on hand, that may have made a difference as well, the recipe calls for chopped tomatoes.
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by Leeraar »

I was born in 1950.

Some of the cookbooks my mother used are still staples on my bookshelf: Some of them are from her mother during WWII. I have her collection of recipes, handwritten or clipped from magazines and newspapers or canned food labels. I still make many of them. (I do all the cooking around here.)

Food has changed so much over the years. Boneless, skinless chicken breast was only "invented" about 1980. When I was a kid, a whole chicken weighed less than 3 lbs. Now, you can get boneless whole breasts that weigh that much.

The dishes I miss: Kedgeree, Welsh Rarebit, Savory Mince on Toast.

I regularly make Yorkshire Pudding (popovers), Shepherd's (Cottage) Pie, and various braised beef dishes: Spare ribs, shanks, oxtail, etc.

We have evolved the Cornish Pasties away from fat-laden pie pastry to using a rich pizza dough, like Calzones.

One thing I never see these days are the savory gelatin cold meat dishes she would make. Not my favorite.

L.
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dolphinsaremammals
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by dolphinsaremammals »

gatorman wrote:So I made the Alton Brown Swiss steak recipe tonight. It was great, but it wasn't like I remember! I distinctly recall the taste of celery, and the celery in this version was completely subsumed by the tomatoes and the spices. Next time, I may need to run a couple of stalks of celery through the food processor and add celery puree to get closer to what I remember. Also, since I don't have a pressure cooker to get the meat tender, I used a meat mallet on the round steak. As a result, the mouth feel was entirely different as well. Still very good, the steak was quite tender and it certainly is a dish I'd make again. But I can see I'll need to do some experimenting to get back to the original taste profile. One good thing, when I was 11 no Mouton Cadet to go along with it, not so tonight.

gatorman
Could there have been celery salt in it? I rarely see that as an ingredient in anything nowadays, but I always put it in baked beans because my Dad used to. It is an odd tasting item. Sometimes I see it in potato salad recipes.
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GerryL
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by GerryL »

gatorman wrote:
Mrs.Feeley wrote: My mom also used to make something called goldenrod toast. She'd pour over toast a heavy white sauce containing chopped egg whites and sprinkle on top crumpled cooked egg yolks. I loved it as a kid, but something tells me I probably wouldn't these days.
It was called eggs ala goldenrod in our house. We usually had it about one Saturday per month. One of my parents would fry up some bacon and hard boil the eggs. The gravy was made by browning some flour in the bacon grease and then adding milk, and lots of pepper, and stirring like mad until it thickened. Usually, it was served over toast, but if my dad was feeling ambitious, he'd make biscuits (using Bisquick, of course). The bacon was crumbled over the top. I live in the South, where biscuits and gravy is an institution, so I sometimes recreate it by ordering biscuits and gravy, eggs poached well and a side of bacon. Brings back lots of memories writing about it . . .
This was one of my favorite dishes and my mother would often make it just for me -- probably since no one else liked it. Mine was just toast, white sauce and hard boiled eggs. I even remember the photo in the women's magazine (maybe Lady's Home Journal?) that my mother had. Funny thing though was that I always called it "golden egg rod." It wasn't until I was well into adulthood that I realized I had swapped the words around. I still call it that. Just sounds right to my ear, I guess.
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GerryL
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by GerryL »

I haven't read all the posts here, so maybe this was already covered ... City Chicken.

Back in Michigan you could buy a pre-wrapped tray of meat that contained cubes of pork and cubes of veal along with an appropriate number of thick wooden skewers (thicker and shorter than shishkabob skewers). You'd prepare by skewering the cubes pork-veal-pork-veal-pork, dipping each skewer in egg and breading, and then pan frying them like chicken -- and eating like chicken drumsticks.

Haven't seen anything like it since childhood.
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by Leeraar »

GerryL wrote:I haven't read all the posts here, so maybe this was already covered ... City Chicken.

Back in Michigan you could buy a pre-wrapped tray of meat that contained cubes of pork and cubes of veal along with an appropriate number of thick wooden skewers (thicker and shorter than shishkabob skewers). You'd prepare by skewering the cubes pork-veal-pork-veal-pork, dipping each skewer in egg and breading, and then pan frying them like chicken -- and eating like chicken drumsticks.

Haven't seen anything like it since childhood.
You can still get City Chicken in neighborhood grocery stores in SE Michigan.

L.
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cheese_breath
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Re: Food of the Fifties

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Mrs.Feeley wrote:
gatorman wrote:So I made the Alton Brown Swiss steak recipe tonight.... I used a meat mallet on the round steak. As a result, the mouth feel was entirely different as well.....
I looked up my Swiss Steak recipe. It's very simple. With a meat mallet and flour, pound thin a couple pounds of round, rump or chuck steak....
I actually saw Swiss Steak already pounded in my local Kroger meat section last week. But I didn't like it in the 50s, so I guess I'm not going to try it now.
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by Bulldawg »

Gatorman :

I know as a Tech man you had some experience with the Varsity cuisine ? so perhaps some chili dogs and onion rings are in order ? perhaps washed down with a frosted orange OR a gatorade ?

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Re: Food of the Fifties

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dolphinsaremammals wrote:
gatorman wrote:So I made the Alton Brown Swiss steak recipe tonight. It was great, but it wasn't like I remember! I distinctly recall the taste of celery, and the celery in this version was completely subsumed by the tomatoes and the spices. Next time, I may need to run a couple of stalks of celery through the food processor and add celery puree to get closer to what I remember. Also, since I don't have a pressure cooker to get the meat tender, I used a meat mallet on the round steak. As a result, the mouth feel was entirely different as well. Still very good, the steak was quite tender and it certainly is a dish I'd make again. But I can see I'll need to do some experimenting to get back to the original taste profile. One good thing, when I was 11 no Mouton Cadet to go along with it, not so tonight.

gatorman
Could there have been celery salt in it? I rarely see that as an ingredient in anything nowadays, but I always put it in baked beans because my Dad used to. It is an odd tasting item. Sometimes I see it in potato salad recipes.
I don't remember if she used celery salt , but celery salt is a good idea. I may replace some or all of the regular salt with celery salt.
Thanks,
gatorman
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by gatorman »

Bulldawg wrote:Gatorman :

I know as a Tech man you had some experience with the Varsity cuisine ? so perhaps some chili dogs and onion rings are in order ? perhaps washed down with a frosted orange OR a gatorade ?

Whadda ya have ? , whadda ya have ?
I ate there once or twice, but I was never a fan. That sign "No Food Over 24 Hours Old" always put me off. What did that mean exactly? I just didn't like it. Last Fall we went up to Atlanta for my 40th reunion. We ate at Merrymac's Tearoom, but the Varsity still didn't make the cut. I know the Varsity is an Atlanta institution, but it will have to get by without my patronage.
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by lucky3 »

If you lived within 100 mile radius of the Bronx.....

...you were familiar with chopped liver, chocolate egg creams, charolette rouse....and of course, that small kosher dill pickle right out of the barrel!

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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by Leeraar »

Haven't read all the thread, but did we get to the awful casseroles made with canned soup as a base?

L.
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by Mrs.Feeley »

Leeraar wrote:Haven't read all the thread, but did we get to the awful casseroles made with canned soup as a base?

L.
Scan for "a tuna died for this?" :D

Follow-up included comments referring to how the potato chips crumpled on the top provided some consolation. This thread moves fast.
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by curmudgeon »

Leeraar wrote:Haven't read all the thread, but did we get to the awful casseroles made with canned soup as a base?

L.
There were a lot of bad canned soup casseroles, but I really liked (and still do) the chicken with rice one that my mom made. Chicken pieces laid out in a flat baking dish with uncooked rice spread around, and a mixture of cream-of-chicken and cream-of-mushroom soups spread over the top and then seasoned. Baked for an hour or so, the rice absorbed lots of good flavor and there was a nice crunchy crust on top.
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by gatorman »

curmudgeon wrote:
Leeraar wrote:Haven't read all the thread, but did we get to the awful casseroles made with canned soup as a base?

L.
There were a lot of bad canned soup casseroles, but I really liked (and still do) the chicken with rice one that my mom made. Chicken pieces laid out in a flat baking dish with uncooked rice spread around, and a mixture of cream-of-chicken and cream-of-mushroom soups spread over the top and then seasoned. Baked for an hour or so, the rice absorbed lots of good flavor and there was a nice crunchy crust on top.
That sounds good. Could you post a recipe?
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dolphinsaremammals
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by dolphinsaremammals »

Somebody asked about goulash, and I went looking for my Mom's recipe without finding it. But I ran across several recipes from magazines where spaghetti was used as a crust and then stuff put on top of it. One was some sort of "pizza."

On the other hand there was Sour Cream Noodle Bake that sounds good.

As I recall the goulash, elbow macaroni was cooked and presumably drained. Ground beef was browned in a skillet and presumably most of the fat drained off. The macaroni was added to the skillet and some sort of tomatoes and it all cooked probably just to blend. There must have been something else though, maybe onions, because this sounds like nothing. On the other hand, pennies were really being pinched, so maybe this was everything.
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by texasdiver »

gatorman wrote:
curmudgeon wrote:
Leeraar wrote:Haven't read all the thread, but did we get to the awful casseroles made with canned soup as a base?

L.
There were a lot of bad canned soup casseroles, but I really liked (and still do) the chicken with rice one that my mom made. Chicken pieces laid out in a flat baking dish with uncooked rice spread around, and a mixture of cream-of-chicken and cream-of-mushroom soups spread over the top and then seasoned. Baked for an hour or so, the rice absorbed lots of good flavor and there was a nice crunchy crust on top.
That sounds good. Could you post a recipe?
gatorman
My mother's recipe. She used to put it in the oven on the way out the door to church and it would be ready when we got home. I still make it for my kids

1.5 cups white rice
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can milk
6-8 chicken legs or thighs (bone in)
1 package Lipton's powdered onion soup mix

Spray cooking spray in a 9x12 backing or casserole dish
Add rice and spread around
add mushroom soup and soupcan of milk and stir around to mix with rice
lay chicken pieces on top
sprinkle with package of Liption's onion soup mix
Cover with foil and bake for 1.5 to 2 hours at 300 degrees, removing foil for last 1/2 hour or so.
dewey
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by dewey »

gatorman wrote:
ResearchMed wrote:I think "pigs in a blanket" are the tiny cocktail franks with either ready-to-bake croissant-type triangles (from a can in the fridge section) or some other pastry rolled around them.

Stuffed cabbage is... stuffed cabbage :happy [cabbage stuffed with some ground meats, often in a tomato-y sauce?]

Yes, some of that nice "comfort" (aka "heavy", often) was good.

Casseroles seemed to be a bigger thing back then, too.

RM
Pigs in a blanket may have involved cocktail franks and croissant dough in your house, but in ours it involved cabbage leaves, stuffed with a mixture of ground round and rice, cooked in mom's Presto pressure cooker with tomato sauce.

A friend's mom made tuna casserole a lot, doesn't sound very appetizing, but I remember it as being pretty tasty. I also remember eating Chicken Divan, but, other than chicken, I couldn't tell you what was in it.

gatorman

+1 Also stuffed cabbage was pigs in a blanket in our house too. We also called them by a Ukrainian term I can pronounce but have not a clue how to spell. Helupkies (as close as I can get phonetically). They were in our diet along with perogies, etc. stemming from the Ukrainian side of our family tree. All good eats.
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by texasdiver »

Some of these still give me post-tramautic shock from my 1960s childhood, some are happy memories

Shredded carrots in orange jello (yikes)
Liver and onions
boiled potatoes, ham, and cabbage (served with ranch dressing)
3-bean salad
Sunday roast beef with onions, carrots, and potatoes
fried sardines or fried smelt
grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
velveeta covered broccoli or cauliflower
peanut butter filled celery sticks
canned peaches with cottage cheese
pan fried chicken
chile served with cornbread
lentil casserole made with hamburger and ketchup
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Re: Food of the Fifties

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Mrs.Feeley wrote:
gatorman wrote:I think the reason we ate a lot of the things we ate in the '50s was because there simply was not the variety available we have today. The "international" section of the Thriftimart grocery store my mom shopped at occupied about 6' of shelf space and consisted of some kosher items, taco sauce, canned refried beans, soy sauce, canned bamboo shoots, canned water chestnuts, and little else. The vegetable selection was long on potatoes and root vegetables year round, but the fresh vegetables and fruits were highly seasonal. In season you could get them, or at least some of them, out of season, forget about it There may have been a couple of varieties of pasta sauce, but nothing like today. Fresh pasta was simply not available. I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea, people simply had to use what was available, and so they improvised and made do. It takes a lot longer to walk the aisles at my local grocery store than it did when I was a kid, but I'm thankful for the variety from which we can select today.
gatorman
This is all so very true. I don't think our nearby grocery stores, which were very small, even had an international section. Chinese food was a synonym for chop suey made with heavy bead molasses and canned bean sprouts and celery. Never heard of soy sauce until I went to college. Pizza...well, there was no such thing as frozen pizza. There was a nearby pizzeria but ordering a pizza was considered a very expensive thing to do so rarely did anyone do it. Certainly my frugal parents never did. Anyhow pizza was considered a party food, and not substantial enough for family dinner food. The elementary school I went to served pizza for lunch every once in a blue moon. The crust was baking powder biscuit slathered with leftover chili from the day before. It was actually pretty good. When I was a teen Chef Boyardi Pizza Kits were the rage. They came with a little bag of flour and such that you mixed with water and pressed into a pan, a tin of Parmesan cheese to sprinkle on top, and a can of tomato sauce. That's as close as we ever got to pizza.
I remember the pizza kits, pizza from a kit became a Friday night staple at our house. We'd supplement the kit with extra cheese, pepperoni and mushrooms (from a can). My mom usually bought a can of mushroom "stems and pieces" because it was less expensive than the button mushrooms or the regular sliced mushrooms. I became quite expert at making pizzas, or so I thought. When I finally got a real pizza from a pizzeria, I was astonished by how much better it tasted than my kit pizza. Up to that point, I'd been quite satisfied with kit pizza, but my first taste of the real thing ended my love of the kit. I still ate it, but I knew what I was missing.
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by gatorman »

dewey wrote:
gatorman wrote:
ResearchMed wrote:I think "pigs in a blanket" are the tiny cocktail franks with either ready-to-bake croissant-type triangles (from a can in the fridge section) or some other pastry rolled around them.

Stuffed cabbage is... stuffed cabbage :happy [cabbage stuffed with some ground meats, often in a tomato-y sauce?]

Yes, some of that nice "comfort" (aka "heavy", often) was good.

Casseroles seemed to be a bigger thing back then, too.

RM
Pigs in a blanket may have involved cocktail franks and croissant dough in your house, but in ours it involved cabbage leaves, stuffed with a mixture of ground round and rice, cooked in mom's Presto pressure cooker with tomato sauce.

A friend's mom made tuna casserole a lot, doesn't sound very appetizing, but I remember it as being pretty tasty. I also remember eating Chicken Divan, but, other than chicken, I couldn't tell you what was in it.

gatorman

+1 Also stuffed cabbage was pigs in a blanket in our house too. We also called them by a Ukrainian term I can pronounce but have not a clue how to spell. Helupkies (as close as I can get phonetically). They were in our diet along with perogies, etc. stemming from the Ukrainian side of our family tree. All good eats.
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by cheese_breath »

dolphinsaremammals wrote: As I recall the goulash, elbow macaroni was cooked and presumably drained. Ground beef was browned in a skillet and presumably most of the fat drained off. The macaroni was added to the skillet and some sort of tomatoes and it all cooked probably just to blend. There must have been something else though, maybe onions, because this sounds like nothing. On the other hand, pennies were really being pinched, so maybe this was everything.
You got the basic recipe. Elbow macaroni or macaroni shells, hamburger and tomatoes. Add chopped onions and/or peppers if you like.
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cheese_breath
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by cheese_breath »

gatorman wrote: I remember the pizza kits, pizza from a kit became a Friday night staple at our house. We'd supplement the kit with extra cheese, pepperoni and mushrooms (from a can). My mom usually bought a can of mushroom "stems and pieces" because it was less expensive than the button mushrooms or the regular sliced mushrooms. I became quite expert at making pizzas, or so I thought. When I finally got a real pizza from a pizzeria, I was astonished by how much better it tasted than my kit pizza. Up to that point, I'd been quite satisfied with kit pizza, but my first taste of the real thing ended my love of the kit. I still ate it, but I knew what I was missing.
gatorman
I was used to MI pizzas which were quite good. But when we moved to CA in '57 the first pizza we had there was almost inedible due to whatever kind of awful cheese they used. I don't know if it was just that one or they all tasted like that, but it was so bad we never tried another and used kits the whole two years we were there. Happy to report CA pizzas are now very good.

On a good note through it was in CA that I was introduced to tacos and fritos.
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bhsince87
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by bhsince87 »

I'm sorta surprised that, as a child of the 70's, almost every food mentioned here was still on the menu when I grew up!

The only thing I don't remember is egg creams.

I still make quite a few of these dishes today, but only occasionally.

And I have a huge collection of old cookbooks which I enjoy reading, whether I ever make anything in them or not. They can usually be found for a dollar or two in antique (i.e. junk) shops around here.
Time is what we want most, but what we use worst. William Penn
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Crimsontide
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by Crimsontide »

texasdiver wrote:
gatorman wrote:
curmudgeon wrote:
Leeraar wrote:Haven't read all the thread, but did we get to the awful casseroles made with canned soup as a base?

L.
There were a lot of bad canned soup casseroles, but I really liked (and still do) the chicken with rice one that my mom made. Chicken pieces laid out in a flat baking dish with uncooked rice spread around, and a mixture of cream-of-chicken and cream-of-mushroom soups spread over the top and then seasoned. Baked for an hour or so, the rice absorbed lots of good flavor and there was a nice crunchy crust on top.
That sounds good. Could you post a recipe?
gatorman
My mother's recipe. She used to put it in the oven on the way out the door to church and it would be ready when we got home. I still make it for my kids

1.5 cups white rice
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can milk
6-8 chicken legs or thighs (bone in)
1 package Lipton's powdered onion soup mix

Spray cooking spray in a 9x12 backing or casserole dish
Add rice and spread around
add mushroom soup and soupcan of milk and stir around to mix with rice
lay chicken pieces on top
sprinkle with package of Liption's onion soup mix
Cover with foil and bake for 1.5 to 2 hours at 300 degrees, removing foil for last 1/2 hour or so.
Small world. This is my wife's recipe. She made it this past weekend and we are still eating on it tonight :D
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gatorman
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by gatorman »

texasdiver wrote:
gatorman wrote:
curmudgeon wrote:
Leeraar wrote:Haven't read all the thread, but did we get to the awful casseroles made with canned soup as a base?

L.
There were a lot of bad canned soup casseroles, but I really liked (and still do) the chicken with rice one that my mom made. Chicken pieces laid out in a flat baking dish with uncooked rice spread around, and a mixture of cream-of-chicken and cream-of-mushroom soups spread over the top and then seasoned. Baked for an hour or so, the rice absorbed lots of good flavor and there was a nice crunchy crust on top.
That sounds good. Could you post a recipe?
gatorman
My mother's recipe. She used to put it in the oven on the way out the door to church and it would be ready when we got home. I still make it for my kids

1.5 cups white rice
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can milk
6-8 chicken legs or thighs (bone in)
1 package Lipton's powdered onion soup mix

Spray cooking spray in a 9x12 backing or casserole dish
Add rice and spread around
add mushroom soup and soupcan of milk and stir around to mix with rice
lay chicken pieces on top
sprinkle with package of Liption's onion soup mix
Cover with foil and bake for 1.5 to 2 hours at 300 degrees, removing foil for last 1/2 hour or so.
I haven't cooked anything using evaporated milk in many years, but that recipe looks really good and I believe it has moved ahead of the goulash I was going to make. For anyone who is interested, here is a link to a number of recipes using either evaporated or sweetened condensed milk:

http://homecooking.about.com/library/ar ... dairy5.htm

gatorman
curmudgeon
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by curmudgeon »

Crimsontide wrote:
texasdiver wrote:
gatorman wrote:
curmudgeon wrote:
Leeraar wrote:Haven't read all the thread, but did we get to the awful casseroles made with canned soup as a base?

L.
There were a lot of bad canned soup casseroles, but I really liked (and still do) the chicken with rice one that my mom made. Chicken pieces laid out in a flat baking dish with uncooked rice spread around, and a mixture of cream-of-chicken and cream-of-mushroom soups spread over the top and then seasoned. Baked for an hour or so, the rice absorbed lots of good flavor and there was a nice crunchy crust on top.
That sounds good. Could you post a recipe?
gatorman
My mother's recipe. She used to put it in the oven on the way out the door to church and it would be ready when we got home. I still make it for my kids

1.5 cups white rice
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can milk
6-8 chicken legs or thighs (bone in)
1 package Lipton's powdered onion soup mix

Spray cooking spray in a 9x12 backing or casserole dish
Add rice and spread around
add mushroom soup and soupcan of milk and stir around to mix with rice
lay chicken pieces on top
sprinkle with package of Liption's onion soup mix
Cover with foil and bake for 1.5 to 2 hours at 300 degrees, removing foil for last 1/2 hour or so.
Small world. This is my wife's recipe. She made it this past weekend and we are still eating on it tonight :D
That's pretty much the way we make it as well. We don't use onion soup mix, but we would sprinkle with ground pepper and paprika.
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GerryL
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by GerryL »

Did anyone else have apple toast-tites? You need a gadget -- a toast-tite maker -- that consists of 2 concave cast iron disks hinged together at one edge and with long handles on the other edges. In the open position you put a slice of white bread on one side, a little butter, chopped up apple and some cinnamon and sugar. Place a slice of bread on the other. Close the gadget, secure the handles together and trim off the excess bread. Then you place it on the stove burner to cook/toast the ingredients. It turns out a yummy little bread and apple pie. I suppose you can use other ingredients, but we always used apples. With a bowl of soup it makes a nice lunch.

I still have my family's original toast-tite maker. I've used it a few times in recent years, but now that I have a smooth-top range, I worry about accidentally damaging the surface.

This past Christmas my brother found a new toast-tite maker at a fancy kitchen supply store and bought it for my sister-in-law, who used to have the same thing growing up in Australia.
Carson
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by Carson »

Gerry, they are readily available for the campinghttp://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/73818?pr ... 7704150480 type now.

This thread makes me smile. I was raised in the 80s by two very frugal baby boomers, and this is how my mom still cooks! In a way I think I will miss it when she is gone. But not a can of Lima beans.

What about Boston brown bread? I think she still has some cans that were especially saved from the recycle bin for that purpose.
dolphinsaremammals
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by dolphinsaremammals »

Still wandering around, I came across ambrosia. I haven't seen that in years. That led me to a Pinterest page on marshmallow salads:

https://www.pinterest.com/explore/marsh ... it-salads/

Image
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Mrs.Feeley
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by Mrs.Feeley »

GerryL wrote:Did anyone else have apple toast-tites? You need a gadget -- a toast-tite maker -- that consists of 2 concave cast iron disks hinged together at one edge and with long handles on the other edges. In the open position you put a slice of white bread on one side, a little butter, chopped up apple and some cinnamon and sugar. Place a slice of bread on the other. Close the gadget, secure the handles together and trim off the excess bread. Then you place it on the stove burner to cook/toast the ingredients. It turns out a yummy little bread and apple pie. I suppose you can use other ingredients, but we always used apples. With a bowl of soup it makes a nice lunch.

I still have my family's original toast-tite maker. I've used it a few times in recent years, but now that I have a smooth-top range, I worry about accidentally damaging the surface.
My husband recently bought me one of these apple toast gadgets, having recently come from a family gathering where they were used. We use it on the outdoor grill. I think he got found it for $25 with the camping supplies at Farm & Fleet.

Instead of toast I tried using dough from a southern fry pie recipe like the kind my grandma used to make. With canned apple pie filling. Omigosh, pie heaven! :D Husband said we need to throw a dinner party and serve these with just a salad. My response: why invite guests when he can just eat all the little pies ourselves?

I've been too timid to try using it on an electric stovetop with coil burners out of fear that the temp wouldn't be high enough to toast the pie properly or I might damage the coil.
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Mrs.Feeley
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by Mrs.Feeley »

dolphinsaremammals wrote:Still wandering around, I came across ambrosia. I haven't seen that in years. That led me to a Pinterest page on marshmallow salads:

https://www.pinterest.com/explore/marsh ... it-salads/

Image
Still my heart! Love maraschino cherries! Are they no longer so popular? I rarely see them in stores anymore.
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cheese_breath
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by cheese_breath »

Mrs.Feeley wrote:
dolphinsaremammals wrote:Still wandering around, I came across ambrosia. I haven't seen that in years. That led me to a Pinterest page on marshmallow salads:

https://www.pinterest.com/explore/marsh ... it-salads/

Image
Still my heart! Love maraschino cherries! Are they no longer so popular? I rarely see them in stores anymore.
You're probably looking in the fruits section of your grocery store. I usually find them in the baking and spices section. Weird huh?
The surest way to know the future is when it becomes the past.
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Mrs.Feeley
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by Mrs.Feeley »

cheese_breath wrote:You're probably looking in the fruits section of your grocery store. I usually find them in the baking and spices section. Weird huh?
Ah-ha! Don't know why I never thought of searching in the baking section. I was looking by the ice-cream toppings. And then the dried/canned fruit section. And when they didn't turn up there, the liquor section. Can anyone say "Shirley Temple on the rocks--and don't forget the cherries and little umbrellas!" Thanks Cheese_Breath!
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cheese_breath
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by cheese_breath »

Mrs.Feeley wrote:
cheese_breath wrote:You're probably looking in the fruits section of your grocery store. I usually find them in the baking and spices section. Weird huh?
Ah-ha! Don't know why I never thought of searching in the baking section. I was looking by the ice-cream toppings. And then the dried/canned fruit section. And when they didn't turn up there, the liquor section. Can anyone say "Shirley Temple on the rocks--and don't forget the cherries and little umbrellas!" Thanks Cheese_Breath!
And if you don't find them there look by the marshmallows.

I put a few in salads sometimes if I'm trying to get fancy. First time my MIL saw them there she thought they were little cherry tomatoes...until she tasted one.
The surest way to know the future is when it becomes the past.
Leeraar
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by Leeraar »

GerryL wrote:Did anyone else have apple toast-tites? You need a gadget -- a toast-tite maker -- that consists of 2 concave cast iron disks hinged together at one edge and with long handles on the other edges. In the open position you put a slice of white bread on one side, a little butter, chopped up apple and some cinnamon and sugar. Place a slice of bread on the other. Close the gadget, secure the handles together and trim off the excess bread. Then you place it on the stove burner to cook/toast the ingredients. It turns out a yummy little bread and apple pie. I suppose you can use other ingredients, but we always used apples. With a bowl of soup it makes a nice lunch.

I still have my family's original toast-tite maker. I've used it a few times in recent years, but now that I have a smooth-top range, I worry about accidentally damaging the surface.

This past Christmas my brother found a new toast-tite maker at a fancy kitchen supply store and bought it for my sister-in-law, who used to have the same thing growing up in Australia.
Still known as a Jaffle Iron ...

Try a Google search.

L.
You can get what you want, or you can just get old. (Billy Joel, "Vienna")
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GerryL
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by GerryL »

Leeraar wrote:
GerryL wrote:Did anyone else have apple toast-tites? You need a gadget -- a toast-tite maker -- that consists of 2 concave cast iron disks hinged together at one edge and with long handles on the other edges. In the open position you put a slice of white bread on one side, a little butter, chopped up apple and some cinnamon and sugar. Place a slice of bread on the other. Close the gadget, secure the handles together and trim off the excess bread. Then you place it on the stove burner to cook/toast the ingredients. It turns out a yummy little bread and apple pie. I suppose you can use other ingredients, but we always used apples. With a bowl of soup it makes a nice lunch.

I still have my family's original toast-tite maker. I've used it a few times in recent years, but now that I have a smooth-top range, I worry about accidentally damaging the surface.

This past Christmas my brother found a new toast-tite maker at a fancy kitchen supply store and bought it for my sister-in-law, who used to have the same thing growing up in Australia.
Still known as a Jaffle Iron ...

Try a Google search.

L.
A little different than the Jaffle Iron. (I'd never heard that one before.) Not as deep. This is like what I have (http://www.toastite.biz/) but I don't think mine is aluminum, although I could be mistaken. It is very black and heavy.
dolphinsaremammals
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by dolphinsaremammals »

GerryL wrote:
A little different than the Jaffle Iron. (I'd never heard that one before.) Not as deep. This is like what I have (http://www.toastite.biz/) but I don't think mine is aluminum, although I could be mistaken. It is very black and heavy.

I'm not big on gadgets, but that oozing melted cheese picture has about done away with my will power.


Mrs.Feeley wrote:
cheese_breath wrote:You're probably looking in the fruits section of your grocery store. I usually find them in the baking and spices section. Weird huh?
Ah-ha! Don't know why I never thought of searching in the baking section. I was looking by the ice-cream toppings. And then the dried/canned fruit section. And when they didn't turn up there, the liquor section. Can anyone say "Shirley Temple on the rocks--and don't forget the cherries and little umbrellas!" Thanks Cheese_Breath!
If you want to amuse yourself sometime in a grocery store, ask them where the mincemeat is.
Leeraar
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by Leeraar »

dolphinsaremammals wrote:If you want to amuse yourself sometime in a grocery store, ask them where the mincemeat is.
At Hiller's in the NW Detroit suburbs, they will ask you which type you are looking for. British?
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L.
You can get what you want, or you can just get old. (Billy Joel, "Vienna")
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gatorman
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by gatorman »

dolphinsaremammals wrote:Still wandering around, I came across ambrosia. I haven't seen that in years. That led me to a Pinterest page on marshmallow salads:

https://www.pinterest.com/explore/marsh ... it-salads/

Image
My mom made ambrosia at least three times a year, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was a holiday big meal staple. I still like it and DW will fix it for me at Thanksgiving or Christmas using mom's recipe.
gatorman
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gatorman
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by gatorman »

texasdiver wrote:
gatorman wrote:
curmudgeon wrote:
Leeraar wrote:Haven't read all the thread, but did we get to the awful casseroles made with canned soup as a base?

L.
There were a lot of bad canned soup casseroles, but I really liked (and still do) the chicken with rice one that my mom made. Chicken pieces laid out in a flat baking dish with uncooked rice spread around, and a mixture of cream-of-chicken and cream-of-mushroom soups spread over the top and then seasoned. Baked for an hour or so, the rice absorbed lots of good flavor and there was a nice crunchy crust on top.
That sounds good. Could you post a recipe?
gatorman
My mother's recipe. She used to put it in the oven on the way out the door to church and it would be ready when we got home. I still make it for my kids

1.5 cups white rice
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can milk
6-8 chicken legs or thighs (bone in)
1 package Lipton's powdered onion soup mix

Spray cooking spray in a 9x12 backing or casserole dish
Add rice and spread around
add mushroom soup and soupcan of milk and stir around to mix with rice
lay chicken pieces on top
sprinkle with package of Liption's onion soup mix
Cover with foil and bake for 1.5 to 2 hours at 300 degrees, removing foil for last 1/2 hour or so.
Here's another recipe for chicken and rice bake, this one using using canned French fried onions:

http://www.frenchs.com/recipe/chicken-a ... e-RE0156-1

I like the addition of the sliced mushrooms. I'll probably make it with the Lipton onion soup the first time, adding sliced mushrooms, then make it again in a month or so using the French's onions to see which way we like it more.

Anybody ever make it using wild rice?
gatorman
texasdiver
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by texasdiver »

gatorman wrote:
texasdiver wrote:
gatorman wrote:
curmudgeon wrote:
Leeraar wrote:Haven't read all the thread, but did we get to the awful casseroles made with canned soup as a base?

L.
There were a lot of bad canned soup casseroles, but I really liked (and still do) the chicken with rice one that my mom made. Chicken pieces laid out in a flat baking dish with uncooked rice spread around, and a mixture of cream-of-chicken and cream-of-mushroom soups spread over the top and then seasoned. Baked for an hour or so, the rice absorbed lots of good flavor and there was a nice crunchy crust on top.
That sounds good. Could you post a recipe?
gatorman
My mother's recipe. She used to put it in the oven on the way out the door to church and it would be ready when we got home. I still make it for my kids

1.5 cups white rice
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can milk
6-8 chicken legs or thighs (bone in)
1 package Lipton's powdered onion soup mix

Spray cooking spray in a 9x12 backing or casserole dish
Add rice and spread around
add mushroom soup and soupcan of milk and stir around to mix with rice
lay chicken pieces on top
sprinkle with package of Liption's onion soup mix
Cover with foil and bake for 1.5 to 2 hours at 300 degrees, removing foil for last 1/2 hour or so.
I haven't cooked anything using evaporated milk in many years, but that recipe looks really good and I believe it has moved ahead of the goulash I was going to make. For anyone who is interested, here is a link to a number of recipes using either evaporated or sweetened condensed milk:

http://homecooking.about.com/library/ar ... dairy5.htm

gatorman
No, you don't use evaporated milk in the recipe, you just use the empty cream of mushroom can to measure out a canful of ordinary milk and swirl it around to get all the last bits out soup out.
Leeraar
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by Leeraar »

How about this:

Boil an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk for two hours (in water to cover) to make caramel sauce for your ice cream?

Some of these posts make me drool, but some of them ...

Look, there's a good reason canned fried onions and maraschino cherries are hard to find!

L.
You can get what you want, or you can just get old. (Billy Joel, "Vienna")
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cheese_breath
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Re: Food of the Fifties

Post by cheese_breath »

Leeraar wrote:.... Look, there's a good reason canned fried onions and maraschino cherries are hard to find!....
Hopefully I already helped people find the maraschino cherries. At my local Kroger I find the fried onions on the bottom shelf in the canned vegetables section.
The surest way to know the future is when it becomes the past.
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