Terms Which Have Disappeared

[Zombie_61]

My grandfathers all died before I was born but I probably behave pretty much the way my father behaved, language-wise, at least. In other ways, not so much. He did not indulge in blue humor. In fact, neither he nor most of the other fathers in the neighborhood were particularly humorous or light-hearted, all of them having lived through the depression and the war. That would be WWII...

My dad had a good sense of humor, but he didn't reveal it often. If he made a joke, it was usually a sarcastic comment muttered at a low volume as if he was talking to himself. You would only hear it if you happened to be within a few feet of him, but it was always worth hearing.

Dad wasn't at all shy about "language" if the circumstances warranted it, but blue humor isn't something I associate with him...except for one night. A couple, who I was told were old friends that my parents hadn't seen in years, had come into town and we all went out to dinner. After a few drinks the conversations got a little more "familiar", and all four adults started making comments that were either "suggestive" or of the "double entendre" type. I was approximately 10 years old at the time, and the experience was a real eye-opener--not because I hadn't heard such humor before, but because it was the first time I saw my parents as "people" instead of "mom and dad". It was wonderful!

 

[BlueTrain]

I should point out that all my comments, mostly, are based on people I actually knew, many of whom I was related to. My mother was an invalid and never left the house. So my experiences and impressions should not be expected to be in any way typical, normal or common. I have no idea how people might have lived over on the other side of town.

 

[LizzieMaine]

White bread with butter and sugar sounds good to me. Not that far from cinnamon toast which I still eat.

Both my parent's were depression kids where having enough food was a palpable concern. My Dad seemed to move away from those foods as an adult, and, just me guessing, saw eating better as an achievement he was proud of (to himself, he didn't talk about this to others - but did tell me in his declarative manner that I should be very grateful for the food we had).

My mom, on the other hand, as an adult and to this day, eats bread and butter, cheese sandwiches, apples, Wheatena and other similar foods just like she did as a kid. And while she's been bird sized her entire life (5'1" - claimed 5'3" - +/- 100lbs), she enjoys a dessert as a treat just like it was when she was a kid. But even with desserts, it is simple food - a slice of pound cake, a cookie, vanilla ice-cream.

Funny, my dad and mom responded oppositely to growing up in the depression in that he wanted a new diet and she stayed with most of the foods from that time taking comfort (my guess) in being able to afford them now (but never really comfortable that she will always be able to).

We were a lot like your mom -- eating wasn't any kind of an aesthetic experience so much as it was simply something you did to sustain yourself. Food was food, and you ate what you had -- beans, fish, Spam, whatever it was, it was served without ceremony and consumed without much regard for preparation or presentation. We didn't dine -- we ate.

To this day that's how I function, and given the choice of all the meals in all the world, I'd have a simple dish of macaroni and cheese. The idea of "food as experience" is something that I just don't get -- the foodie types who go around taking pictures of their meals and putting them on Facebook cause me to go "jeez, eat that before it gets cold."

 

[vitanola]

We were a lot like your mom -- eating wasn't any kind of an aesthetic experience so much as it was simply something you did to sustain yourself. Food was food, and you ate what you had -- beans, fish, Spam, whatever it was, it was served without ceremony and consumed without much regard for preparation or presentation. We didn't dine -- we ate.

To this day that's how I function, and given the choice of all the meals in all the world, I'd have a simple dish of macaroni and cheese. The idea of "food as experience" is something that I just don't get -- the foodie types who go around taking pictures of their meals and putting them on Facebook cause me to go "jeez, eat that before it gets cold."

When just the two of us are at home we'll make a roast or pot-roast of beef or pork, or a roast stuffed chicken, Slumgullion or another stew and eat that for four of five days, until it is entirely consumed. With the chicken, the picked carcass can always be re-processed into a casserole or Chicken a-la King. Left over scraps of a roast make a nice hash or meat salad for sandwiches. I always insist upon making soup with trimmings from the kitchen, and so we nearly always have some sort of soup with our meals, for soup is a great budget stretcher, and besides we both were brought up with soup at practically every dinner (thanks to our respective grandmothers). After all, what else can one profitably do with vegetable trimmings? Now that we have Mom and Dad in the house we cook every day, particularly since we have friends over a couple of nights each week. Cooking for one or two is merely a chore. Cooking for family and friends it is something more of a pleasure, I think.

 

[2jakes]

Deer & goat meat have a wild taste which I used to eat as a
kid for the simple fact that I was hungry and had no choice.

I once ordered a plate of frog legs at a restaurant in Mexico for my girlfriend.
I told her it was chicken and the specialty of the house.
She enjoyed it, but got sick when I told her what it really was.
We stopped seeing each other soon after.

Some folks have no sense of humor!

 

[2jakes]

Terms Which Have Disappeared

"Out of this world".

Milk bottle caps!

 

[vitanola]

We always look forward to deer season, for we have friends who often bring us venison. Our local friends love to hunt, but save as sausage, hamburgers, or jerky they (or their wives/lady friends) have no idea how to properly prepare a venison roast. This lean meat very much wants to be larded, and no one else in the county seems to know what a larding needle is...

 

[vitanola]

A larding needle is a hollow skewer with a substantial handle and a very sharp angled tip which is used to thread strips of seasoned suet or smoked and heavily seasoned pork belly (bacon) through lean roasts or lean fowl (such as pheasant). The "Lardoons" so inserted into the meat tenderize, moisten, and season it. While pheasant is commonly hunted in our county I find these small, dry birds to be more trouble than they are worth. Besides, I do not care to clean the b*gg*rs. A loca Amish chicken is more flavorful, and they come already cleaned (and never contain shot!)

A properly larded roast of venison is a bit of trouble, but is tasty, moist, and tender when aged and larded (or larded THEN aged, as I do it). The only problem is the space occupied in the ice box for the aging roast, but in Michigan hunting season is late enough in the year that a roast may usually be aged in a closed container out of doors. Of course when a roast may be had free of charge one is not concerned about a little extra effort.

When I get in the mood.
I'll make a big deal preparing meatballs, spaghetti and garlic bread.
Sipping wine in-between while fixing it.
I don't drink alcohol on a regular basis and sometimes I burn the
garlic bread.
Nevertheless, I enjoy it.

With whole pork loins selling for $1.39/lb this week who needs "expensive" meatballs? I made mock Veal Parmagana over spaghetti last night. It is a nice thirty five minute dinner;

After lunch (or the evening before) take four small boneless pork loin chops (cut 1" thick from the small end of the pork loin) and pound them out as thin as possible. They will at this point be the size of dinner plates. cut into halves, dip in flour, then egg, and then seasoned crumbs. Put on a plate, cover, and refrigerate until dinner time.

When preparing dinner, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, fill a large pot with salted water for the spaghetti in the usual manner, and heat a large frying pan or saute with a lump of lard in it nearly to the smoking point. Very hot lard is not absorbed to any extent by the breading and so the cutlets are lower in fat when cooked in this traditional fat than when cooked in, say, Crisco. While the spaghetti is boiling (and your favorite prepared sauce is heating) fry the cutlets till nicely browned (about 2 minutes a side) and set them when done on a plate in the oven with paper towels between the cutlets to absorb any last bits of excess fat.

When the spaghetti is done, plate, cover with sauce, place a cutlet on top of the sauce, put a couple of tablespoons of additional sauce on the cutlet and place a slice of cheese (mozzarella, provolone, or muenster work best) on top. Place the finished plates under the broiler to brown and bubble the cheese. A propane torch with a flame spreader works just as well and does not heat up the plates.

Prep time for the pounded and breaded cutlets is about 12 minutes. Cooking time including prep for the spaghetti is less than 25 minutes.

A meal for six or seven which uses about 1 1/4 pounds of $1.39/lb meat.

The same cutlets, when not cut into pieces, make excellent Schnitzel. For Schintzel a al Holstein prepare spaetzel with nutmeg, fried in butter, a little red cabbage (rotkohl) and an egg broken atop the schnitzel, just set under a medium broiler, makes another lovely quick meal.

 

[vitanola]

Terms Which Have Disappeared

"Out of this world".

Milk bottle caps!

On parade!

 

[Stearmen]

Terms Which Have Disappeared

"Out of this world".

Milk bottle caps!

Then they found out the milk you and I were drinking as kids really was Atomic Powered!

 

[Fading Fast]

We were a lot like your mom -- eating wasn't any kind of an aesthetic experience so much as it was simply something you did to sustain yourself. Food was food, and you ate what you had -- beans, fish, Spam, whatever it was, it was served without ceremony and consumed without much regard for preparation or presentation. We didn't dine -- we ate.

To this day that's how I function, and given the choice of all the meals in all the world, I'd have a simple dish of macaroni and cheese. The idea of "food as experience" is something that I just don't get -- the foodie types who go around taking pictures of their meals and putting them on Facebook cause me to go "jeez, eat that before it gets cold."

Growing up we "ate," and today, my girlfriend and I "eat." But when I started working and going to business dinners (some are "eating" experiences and some are "dining" experiences), I gained exposure to "dinning" experiences. At first, they seemed odd - overly fussy and long, but also interesting and, sometimes, nice. Then I began to understand them.

Dinning can be enjoyable as a social event to spend time with friends, co-workers or business partners. Also, experiencing food not as something to be consumed without much thought, but to be enjoyed in a pleasant atmosphere, slowly and with much thought given to the food's preparation and presentation can be a wonderful time. As with anything - especially anything that does cost more - many people turn it into a game of one-upmanship, of crazy competition and/or ego building, etc.

I have no interest in that - as noted, I "ate" growing up and "eat" now - but I can appreciate that "dinning" offers things that just "eating" doesn't. Two atypical examples make, for me, the point that it doesn't have to be about showing off or something like that. I love grill cheese and ate wonder bread, butter and Kraft singles grill cheese growing up and love it to this day.

A few years back, a neighbor told us about a grill cheese food truck nearby that made a gruyere, butter on fresh-baked Pullman bread sandwich that she said was crazy good. The sandwich was outstanding - I've had it several times - always fresh, always perfectly done (crunchy outside, warm, gooey inside). For $6 (this in NYC, a basic grill cheese anywhere will be $4, $5 or $6 anyway), this is a superior experience to the wonder bread kind. The thought that went into the ingredients and preparation are reflected in the outcome. That said, sometimes, I still want the wonderbread one.

The other example is something Hudson Hawk taught me when I was complaining about how hard - the lines, the special way you have to order, etc. - it is to just get a basic cup of coffee at Starbucks. His comment to me was, to paraphrase, "a basic old-school cup of coffee is not what Starbucks is about." His point is they are offering another experience for those who want to / care about details that someone just grabbing any old cup of coffee might not. He was right - I had the wrong mindset. Now I see Starbucks as that grill cheese truck and while I still don't care that much about their coffee, I get what they are about.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Deer & goat meat have a wild taste which I used to eat as a
kid for the simple fact that I was hungry and had no choice.

I once ordered a plate of frog legs at a restaurant in Mexico for my girlfriend.
I told her it was chicken and the specialty of the house.
She enjoyed it, but got sick when I told her what it really was.
We stopped seeing each other soon after.

Some folks have no sense of humor!

Think of the money you saved by not taking her to Paris and ordering said same.

 

[ChiTownScion]

We were a lot like your mom -- eating wasn't any kind of an aesthetic experience so much as it was simply something you did to sustain yourself. Food was food, and you ate what you had -- beans, fish, Spam, whatever it was, it was served without ceremony and consumed without much regard for preparation or presentation. We didn't dine -- we ate.

It was pretty much that way in our house. That us, until the mid to late 1960's and my Dad began watching cooking shows- especially Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" on television. And as he was designated cook at the firehouse on his shift, we as the family were guinea pigs for his latest inspirations. After a few hours of shoveling snow in near zero weather, for example, my reward would be a delicious beef barley or oxtail soup, with fresh bread still hot from the oven. He made a terrific beef rouladen as well.

Dad was the chef in our home, not Mom. She had the alibi of being Irish: when she would protest that she was a good cook, I'd retort: "Yeah.. you can open and heat up a can of Spaghetti-O's with the best of 'em. "(I was teasing: she really wasn't that bad. )

 

[Benzadmiral]

Terms Which Have Disappeared

"Out of this world".

Milk bottle caps!

When I was in first or second grade, a rumor percolated among us 6- and 7-year-olds that if you collected n milk bottle caps, you would get a free admission to our local amusement park, Pontchartrain Beach. The exact number of bottle caps you needed was never stated, you understand. So we all busily tried to collect the caps. At last our principal put an end to the rumors. "I don't know who started this, or how it got started. But Pontchartrain Beach is not offering any rewards or admission for collected bottle caps."

Which cleans me all up with milk bottle caps.

(For that matter, glass milk bottles seem to have vanished, around here anyway. There was a small dairy that still used glass, available at the local Whole Foods, aka Whole Paycheck; but their bottles are now plastic, last I looked.)

 

[Benzadmiral]

It was pretty much that way in our house. That us, until the mid to late 1960's and my Dad began watching cooking shows- especially Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" on television. And as he was designated cook at the firehouse on his shift, we as the family were guinea pigs for his latest inspirations. After a few hours of shoveling snow in near zero weather, for example, my reward would be a delicious beef barley or oxtail soup, with fresh bread still hot from the oven. He made a terrific beef rouladen as well.

Dad was the chef in our home, not Mom. She had the alibi of being Irish: when she would protest that she was a good cook, I'd retort: "Yeah.. you can open and heat up a can of Spaghetti-O's with the best of 'em. "(I was teasing: she really wasn't that bad. )

My mother was also a young adult during the Depression. She cooked some things very well: fried shrimp, for example, and veal cutlets, and baked potatoes. Her steak cuts were always annoyingly chewy, though, and her hamburgers crumbly (she mixed the chopped onions right into the meat before cooking it, as some local hamburger shops do to this day).

 

[BlueTrain]

When I was growing up, mealtimes were fairly formal, or at least breakfast and dinner. Dinner was usually referred to as "supper," but as we all know, supper is at midnight. Dinner was usually served unfashionably early, before six. Grace was also said at dinnertime, too, and everything was always on the table in bowls. There were also lots of different things on the table but nothing was ever referred to as a "course." It was a one-course meal with everything on one plate. None of those little bowls like you sometimes get in restaurants. Breakfast was relatively informal in comparison but seemed to always include bacon or sausage and eggs, fried, of course. That was generally the way it was at neighbor's houses, too. All of that remained the same for as long as they all lived. But none are still alive.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Dinner was the noon meal for us -- hence the "dinner whistle," the air raid siren on the roof of the town office that blew every morning at 11:30. I usually had -- and still have, to this day -- my supper around 430pm.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My mother was also a young adult during the Depression. She cooked some things very well: fried shrimp, for example, and veal cutlets, and baked potatoes. Her steak cuts were always annoyingly chewy, though, and her hamburgers crumbly (she mixed the chopped onions right into the meat before cooking it, as some local hamburger shops do to this day).

Veal cutlets -- breaded and fried in a skillet -- are a staple food of the Era that seem to have completely dropped out of sight. Any diner or lunchroom menu you look at from 1920 into the 1960s will feature a breaded veal cutlet served with tomato sauce for 50 cents to a dollar twenty five. It was never, ever called "veal parmigiana," it was just a breaded veal cutlet served with tomato sauce that obviously came out of a Number 10 can.

I must've eaten my weight in those things each year up until the late '90s, when suddenly I couldn't find the premade frozen ones in the store anymore. These came four to a pack, were thin meat encrusted with a yellow-orange breadcrumb batter, and were exactly like the kind I remember from "Mary's Restaurant," our little nondescript downtown lunch place when I was a kid. Heat up one of those, pour some Prince's tomato sauce over it, and there's your dinnah. But you can't get them anywhere now, and if you want veal in a restaurant it's a high priced speciality item served with an accent and an attitude.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Veal cutlets -- breaded and fried in a skillet -- are a staple food of the Era that seem to have completely dropped out of sight. Any diner or lunchroom menu you look at from 1920 into the 1960s will feature a breaded veal cutlet served with tomato sauce for 50 cents to a dollar twenty five. It was never, ever called "veal parmigiana," it was just a breaded veal cutlet served with tomato sauce that obviously came out of a Number 10 can.

I must've eaten my weight in those things each year up until the late '90s, when suddenly I couldn't find the premade frozen ones in the store anymore. These came four to a pack, were thin meat encrusted with a yellow-orange breadcrumb batter, and were exactly like the kind I remember from "Mary's Restaurant," our little nondescript downtown lunch place when I was a kid. Heat up one of those, pour some Prince's tomato sauce over it, and there's your dinnah. But you can't get them anywhere now, and if you want veal in a restaurant it's a high priced speciality item served with an accent and an attitude.

I wondered where Mom picked up that particular dish!

I recall the frozen *baked chicken* filets in the '90s. I'd put spaghetti sauce and parmesan cheese on 'em and have a pretty good dinner. Only later did I learn that combo is basically chicken parmigiana. (Those baked filets seem to have vanished from stores too. Fried you can get, but not baked.)

 

[2jakes]

When I go to public places for food, I have two choices:

1. Bright lights, loud music, bird chattering atmosphere where a glass of water
is available upon request. Food is ok & prices are $$.


2. Dim lights, no loud speakers or music, a glass of water is brought to the table
and the waiter "waits" until you ready to order. Food is very good but takes longer.
Prices are usually $$$$$.


One is for "eating" the other for "dining".
I know what to expect from each and enjoy them for what they are.