Nazi Germany Spies Hatched The First Family
http://home.att.net/~carlson.jon/TheFirstBunch1.htm

Canned vegetables! The only canned vegetables that my mom served were Blue Lake Green Beans. Cold. I still kinda like them, if you want to know the truth.

My mom was a frozen veg kind of cook. Our freezer had tons of the little waxy boxes of frozen peas, corn, and the fave – “Mixed vegetables” with the little cubes of frozen carrots.

I guess for a 50′s-60′s kid, I made out pretty well. My mom liked the frozen things, but she wasn’t too much of a processed food lover. Spaghetti-O’s, all that? I got those at the homes of my friends. Loved ‘em, too, they seemed exotic.

Being a lover of frozen food, my mom did serve us fish sticks and frozen breaded shrimp, which I loved – I don’t think I ate a piece of fresh fish until I was probably 21 years old.

We also were enthusiastic consumers of TV dinners – anyone remember Swanson’s? How about the salisbury steak dinnner with the little cup of sliced apples in the middle? Talk about a treat!

And the acme of classy desserts for my mom was frozen cherry or apple turnovers by Pepperidge Farm.

To this day, my mom still believes Pepperidge Farm is Teh Class.

I think, for me, living in the West Village right out college, coming home from work and walking past the Korean produce stand, Charlie Zito’s bakery, Murray’s Cheese Store and Ottomanelli’s butcher shop on my way home from the subway really gave me the best education on food. I realized you can buy it fresh, the day you cook it.

Damn. Charlie Zito made some fine bread.

Smiling Mortician: I have to admit you’re right about the canned asparagus, although I could choke that down. It was the canned green beans that got me. Like chewing thick, moldy cardboard with strings in it.

* Translator’s note: “sprinkles”.

As poverty-level undergrads the spouse and I lived for several years on [shudder] Hamburger Helper.

Oh yeah, I remember that shit. Also dried mashed potatoes (not too bad when rehydrated with milk) and at one point powdered eggs (pretty awful no matter what).

When my kids were growing up and I served the little ingrates my own fabulous from-scratch macaroni and cheese, lovingly made with hand-grated sharp white cheddar and half-and-half, they’d whine for the Velveeta Shells & Cheese served at their day-care center.

Nowadays I’m vegetarian and an aficianado of food that’s as fresh and organic as possible. When told I’m a picky eater, I inflict my stories of past food traumas on them.

Also, the thing about canned asparagus: It’s what you want when you make asparagus casserole, layering canned spears with hard-boiled egg slices and covering it all with homemade cheese sauce then baking for 30 minutes or so. The reason you do this is solely to use it as leftovers the next day on toast for breakfast.

In an election between an over-ambitious asshole and a reactionary thug, who wins?

The food stories are funny and enlightening. Sunday dinners were always from scratch, not fancy but fresh. Since mom worked weekdays, those suppers were usually sketchy/on your own.

But Sunday dinner was the best, and afterwards everybody pushed their chairs back from the table and lit up (cigarettes).

I demand sympathy for childhood exposure to a cuisine that emerged from the English post-war austerity years.

I’ve been bitching about what my parents dished out, but they grew up in the Midwest during the Depression. I imagine whatever they ate made rubbery scalloped potatoes seem like haute cuisine.