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Post by reuben on Nov 22, 2020 14:14:08 GMT -5
I'm appalled by those people who will not eat leftovers. After all, many things are actually better leftover! A lot of soups and stews fall into this category. When I was a kid my mom would make "hamburger vegetable chowder", especially in cool weather. We always liked it, it was always good, and always within budget, but was always even better the second day when all of the flavors had thoroughly blended and thickened.
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Post by martywny on Nov 22, 2020 14:20:16 GMT -5
I grew up with two parents that went through the Depression firsthand. Mom worked in the family diner when she wasn't in school or helping around the house. Dad, as soon as he was able, hopped trains out to the Midwest to work on farms and follow the fall harvest. The guys worked sunup 'till sundown, ate what the farmers put out for them, and slept in the barn. All their money was sent back home.
Growing up, we never ate fancy but every now and then mom would buy those frozen strawberries in the cardboard container with metal ends and make up a shortcake. We finished what mom cooked and did not complain. I grew up liking lima beans and having lived in the South a number of years, enjoy those butter beans cooked with a bit of bacon grease.
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Post by breezygardener on Nov 22, 2020 16:41:18 GMT -5
I come from a family of farmers/gardeners, many of whom went through the Depression, so no food ever got wasted at our house. I have an aunt who was particularly "thrifty" when it came to food, making one small roast feed 8 people for a week. I fondly remember hearing my father tell my mother (after yet another pepper-steak stir-fry) that he was going to revolt if he had to look at that beef one more time - lol!
That said, in a household of two, I do try to eek out as much as possible from our meals. While we'll be enjoying a large heirloom/heritage turkey for Thanksgiving this week, I'll end up using everything but the gobble.
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Pet Peeve
Nov 22, 2020 17:04:32 GMT -5
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Post by reuben on Nov 22, 2020 17:04:32 GMT -5
Yep, events like the Dust Bowl, Great Depression, two world wars, and a pandemic can definity shape a couple of generations.
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Post by armjr on Nov 22, 2020 20:18:47 GMT -5
My sisters were allowed to not eat one (1) thing. Anything else that was put on the plate had to be eaten in order to leave the table. All the serving bowls were put further than arm reach from me. I ate anything and everything. Still do mostly. Leftovers were a staple. Complaining abut the food (or anything else for that matter) was not allowed. Learning these things early in life served me well the last 44 years of married life. Not once, not one single time, have I ever complained about the food service in my house. First, #1 wife is a fantastic cook. Second, it's rude. We eat leftovers because they are delicious and the cook gets to take a break (sort of) on leftover nights.
When the boys were at home we didn't eat leftovers, because there weren't none! They are still like that. I can cook a brisket or fry a turkey and when the whole family is together they will eat it all, and all the trimmings too. On Thanksgiving we'll make two turkeys and all the carcass goes into a big pot for turkey soup or turkey gumbo the next day. At the end of it there won't be a scrap of food left in the house.
One of the hardest things #1 wife had to learn was cooking for two. In the first years after the last boy left home we'd have leftovers all week.
I think everyone needs to participate in a bona fide hog killin where the only thing not used is the hair, hoof shells and the teeth. Hogs are a lot more than ham and bacon. It is the epitome of not wasting anything.
I'm also a fanatic about fish. I do stop at fish head soup though, but fish stock can be made from the backbones. When we have crawfish I boil the head and shells to make stock for gumbo. Fish stock and crawfish stock makes excellent gumbo. I had a friend who was a Catholic Priest. He was from Ghana and he always wanted the fish heads, and any fish I would take him of course. He did like to grill the whole fish on coals but his favorite was to cook the whole mess down to a slurry and eat. I asked him once how he got the scales and bones out of it. He just looked at me for a moment and said it wasn't necessary to do that. I guess in Ghana they have a different perspective on what is edible. Sadly, he went in for a very routine gall bladder surgery and didn't come home to his earthly home. I sure miss him. He was one of the most likable people I have ever known.
When I filet a fish it looks like a surgeon did the work, and there's no bones in the fillet.
I like lima beans, especially speckled butter beans, and after that ANY other kind of beans.
When we cook greens I pour off the liquid and drink it.
And the list goes on and on.
One more story though.
My mother's parents got married in 1932. The job my grandfather could get was shoveling asphalt for the highway department. My grandmother was cook for the crew and they got to live in the cook tent. Staples were biscuits, beans and salt pork (enough for flavoring). My grandfather was the only one on the crew who had a rifle. It was a Remington Model 12 22 S/L/LR pump. The guys would chip in their pennies to buy a box of 22 Shorts and my grandfather would shoot East Texas squirrels. The expectation was that each shot was going to get a squirrel, and he shot them in the head to save meat. My grandmother cooked a lot of squirrels and biscuits and gravy. Actually that is pretty good eatin even today. As a side note, killing a squirrel with one shot with a 22 short is not as easy as it is to say.
Later in their lives food quantity was the thing. My grandmother always turned out quality stuff but there was a thing about the amount and eating until you could not walk at every meal. She would be putting food on my plate as I was eating it. She would put on a breakfast (every morning) that would make Denny's throw up their arms in disbelief. I guess not having enough to eat for a long time affects your thinking.
But still there was no waste as long as my Uncle was alive. He came up in a family of 10 and he would eat chicken bones down to the bone part of the bone. That spongy stuff that the joints are made out of was food, and so was the marrow. And he ate it at 90 mph. He grew up with the "Two shot" rule. Take the 10 ga and two shells. Come home with less meat than a meal for 10 and less than one shell, and he got a whipping. He told me of taking an hour or more to get enough blackbirds in the pattern of that 10 ga to get enough for a meal and then doing it again. Same with quail or doves.
Alan
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Post by gardendmpls on Nov 22, 2020 22:31:04 GMT -5
My rule was if you don't like it, you know where the peanut butter is. With nine kids never had to worry about leftovers. My husband had the same attitude. When he was a kid growing up in Israel, they had a thing about all kids drinking milk, almost like a patriotic duty. One day he went to school and developed a stomach bug. They made him drink his milk anyway and he threw it up. So for the next week they had him drink his milk every day and he kept throwing it up. Would not touch milk after that, not even in cereal or coffee. With me, I didn't like oatmeal and was made to sit at the table all day. I was more stubborn than my Mom and finally was allowed to leave the table. Swore I wouldn't do that to my kids- if you really don't like something after you have tried it, why be forced to eat it. Funny thing is, as I got older, my taste buds changed and I grew to love oatmeal.
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Post by tom 🕊 on Nov 23, 2020 10:24:28 GMT -5
eat all the food on your plate The Shakers had a reputation for restoring the health of sickly children. The mother of a man I once knew was a sickly child, and her parents took her to the Shakers. At supper she loaded her plate but ate only part of it. Next morning the plate was given to her for breakfast. The Shaker rule was that you could take whatever you wanted, but you had to eat it.
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Post by ahntjudy on Nov 23, 2020 11:55:05 GMT -5
I learned my lesson at an early age... I poured too many Grape Nuts into my bowl and was unable/unwilling to finish them... Mom taught me my lesson by enforcing that I eat them before I could eat a next meal... By that time, the milk had swelled them into mushy Purina dog food consistency... Not good... Never did that again...
Mom and Dad grew up during the Depression... I learned early on 'Depression mentality' and apply it to my life to this day...
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Post by centralilrookie on Nov 23, 2020 13:39:33 GMT -5
As I’m sitting dining on a bowl of Saturday’s ham and beans I have to chuckle. Mom’s fridge was full of margarine bowls and cool whip containers filled with leftovers that got used up one way or another while I was growing up. During my working years I always felt pretty lucky to find a meatloaf sandwich in my lunchbox on Monday!!😂😂😂
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Post by SpringRain🕊️ on Nov 23, 2020 14:36:13 GMT -5
margarine bowls and cool whip containers I remember the days when we saved and collected them and used them for food containers after cooking meals. Now I wonder how many chemicals were in those bowls.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Nov 23, 2020 15:45:10 GMT -5
margarine bowls and cool whip containers I remember the days when we saved and collected them and used them for food containers after cooking meals. Now I wonder how many chemicals were in those bowls. I think got a lot more chemicals from those foods, that the minute amount of chemicals leached from the plaatics.
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Post by breezygardener on Nov 23, 2020 16:52:44 GMT -5
Good Lord - I will have to become the leftover QUEEN after this year's Thanksgiving. The smallest fresh heritage/heirloom breed turkey we could get at Whole Foods this morning weighed in at 22.36 pounds!! This will be largest turkey I've ever cooked & I'm gonna be like the Forrest Gump's shrimp company, but with turkey - roast turkey, cold turkey sandwiches, hot turkey sandwiches, turkey curry, turkey pot pie, turkey a la king, turkey tetrazzini, turkey noodle soup, turkey stir fry, ad infinitum. Twenty-two pounds - ARRRGGGHH!
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Pet Peeve
Nov 23, 2020 17:21:39 GMT -5
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Post by pepperhead212 on Nov 23, 2020 17:21:39 GMT -5
breezygardener I wasn't buying a turkey, but I noticed in my supermarket early this morning that there were almost only a bunch of huge turkeys, fresh and frozen, and very few small ones.
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Post by Wheelgarden on Nov 23, 2020 17:48:11 GMT -5
breezygardener, you forgot turkey salad, turkeybone stock, turkey ice cream..."that's about it..." Sharpie said, "Don't forget turkey scraps for the dog."
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Post by desertwoman on Nov 23, 2020 18:41:26 GMT -5
Whoa! breezygardener, and I thought we were going to overwhelmed with a 7 pound turkey breast for the 2 of us. (that was the smallest I could get today)
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