The wonderful foods of the Golden Era

[belfastboy]

Based on the "trendy" thing (might already be passe' if I know about it) of having cocktails in mason jars (I know in the last few years I've seen it in a lot of NYC bars where people half my age drink, so it most be / have been cool), your peanut butter jar could be the next hot thing.

Yeh, I know it seems to be a "thing" but it pisses me off. When I am in new hip bar (usually by mistake or sheer necessity) and they serve my beer in a mason jar....I always ask 'can I have my beer in a f**king glass please. Come on!!

 

[Dalexs]

Hey everyone, long time since visiting... love the fact that I randomly log on, search "Boston" (just to see whats happening up here ) and find LizzieMaine and everyone talking hotdog's with MUSTARD ONLY! Thank you!
Me, I'm a Nathans fan myself (formerly from Jersey).
Love that I can buy them in bulk. And yes, Guldens Mustard only...

 

[BlueTrain]

My father referred to the ordinary white sliced bread as "light bread," obviously with good reason. It was something very exceptional when someone made white bread at home and I suspect it still is. He had been a prisoner-of-war in Germany for a year and spoke very highly of German breads, which would have been a heavy, dense bread, and probably rye. It's also nothing like Italian or French bread either and even around here, it's hard to find. There is a bakery not far away that does produce it but I think most of their output goes to other stores. It is definitely, as my father would say, full of strength, but some varieties have a strong flavor. I was rather surprised that a German grocery store that we visited when we were there to visit my daughter had a large variety of breads like that. A few grocery stores around here have some store-baked breads they call "artisan" bread, which is fairly close.

For some reason, tradition I suppose, my wife buys large quantities of those brown and serve rolls around Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas. They will be around for a month before they all get used up.

 

[Fading Fast]

Yeh, I know it seems to be a "thing" but it pisses me off. When I am in new hip bar (usually by mistake or sheer necessity) and they serve my beer in a mason jar....I always ask 'can I have my beer in a f**king glass please. Come on!!

A glass, IMHO, is just a better design for drinking as the mason jars are modestly awkward to hold for any period of time and the lip is too wide.

What I found interesting is the speed with which that trend hit: I saw it in one bar and, then, within only a few months, it was in many bars and "trendy" restaurants. It's already pretty much faded away in NYC, but (I think) it was two summers ago when you couldn't avoid it.

Beer, for me, is best either in the bottle itself or, if on tap, in a mug - and both should be chilled (sorry to my friends in the UK).

 

[LizzieMaine]

I use a mason jar for the glass of Alka Seltzer I keep on my nightstand -- the low center of gravity makes it less likely that I'll knock it over reaching to turn off the light or the radio, answer the phone, or retrieve my glasses. Or that The Cat will knock it over during one of her late night sprees. And if it does get knocked over, it's not likely that it'll break.

 

[vitanola]

A glass, IMHO, is just a better design for drinking as the mason jars are modestly awkward to hold for any period of time and the lip is too wide.

What I found interesting is the speed with which that trend hit: I saw it in one bar and, then, within only a few months, it was in many bars and "trendy" restaurants. It's already pretty much faded away in NYC, but (I think) it was two summers ago when you couldn't avoid it.

Beer, for me, is best either in the bottle itself or, if on tap, in a mug - and both should be chilled (sorry to my friends in the UK).

I wonder whether there may be an element of some 1970's revival. There was a fad in the late 1970's for pint mason jars with attached handles which were labeled "Mason's Drinking Jar". These remained popular in biker bars all through the 198o's and well into the nineties . The use of mason jars as drinking glasses (and lamp shades, and lamp bases, and storage containers, and...) came back into dashion in the Midwest in the mid-2000's, as part of the reinvention of the "Country" decorating style. Gone were the chintzes, ruffles, white painted furniture and decayed Victoriana of the older, 1990's style, and in came mason jars, folk art, rusty metal, and American flags.

 

[belfastboy]

I use a mason jar for the glass of Alka Seltzer I keep on my nightstand -- the low center of gravity makes it less likely that I'll knock it over reaching to turn off the light or the radio, answer the phone, or retrieve my glasses. Or that The Cat will knock it over during one of her late night sprees. And if it does get knocked over, it's not likely that it'll break.

I don't have a problem with drinking from anything per se, it rankles me when hip upscale bars/restaurants adopt down market practices. To me it is a form of cultural appropriation, my parents drank out of jars because that is all they had or could afford. They didn't do it because it was hip to go down market......nor did they wear torn jeans in order to look poor.

 

[vitanola]

I use a mason jar for the glass of Alka Seltzer I keep on my nightstand -- the low center of gravity makes it less likely that I'll knock it over reaching to turn off the light or the radio, answer the phone, or retrieve my glasses. Or that The Cat will knock it over during one of her late night sprees. And if it does get knocked over, it's not likely that it'll break.

One might imagine that you would have had, say, a green Anchor Hocking "Block Optic" tumble-up on your nightstand, for they were so very much of the 1930's period, and were largely distributed as premiums at moving picture houses. If not AH, then perhaps Jeanette or Dunbar.

Being so aggressively bourgeois, we have a couple of those Depression sets put back, but for most of the rooms we use more pretentious Fostoria engraved, Fenton, or Bohemian Glass carafes.

Of course the mason jar does the same job, but then a table spoon would do the same job as a soup spoon, or a boullion spoon, or a sugar shell, or a jam spoon. W dinner fork will do more or less the same job as a pickle fork, an oyster fork, an ice cream fork, a fish fork, a salad fork or a cold-meat fork.

 

[vitanola]

I don't have a problem with drinking from anything per se, it rankles me when hip upscale bars/restaurants adopt down market practices. To me it is a form of cultural appropriation, my parents drank out of jars because that is all they had or could afford. They didn't do it because it was hip to go down market......nor did they wear torn jeans in order to look poor.

Rather like Marie Antoinette playing milk maid or shepherdess at her fantasy village "La Hameau de la Reine", I think.

 

[Bamaboots]

Yeh, I know it seems to be a "thing" but it pisses me off. When I am in new hip bar (usually by mistake or sheer necessity) and they serve my beer in a mason jar....I always ask 'can I have my beer in a f**king glass please. Come on!!

In the South the Mason jar drink glass has been common for ages, in bars and southern style restaurants where the only tea served is sweet. I've never been a fan, even of the Mason jar beer mugs with a handle. I read once or someone told me, and can't remember which "that if God intended us to drink from Mason jars we would have been born with grooves in our lips."

 

[vitanola]

Yeh, I know it seems to be a "thing" but it pisses me off. When I am in new hip bar (usually by mistake or sheer necessity) and they serve my beer in a mason jar....I always ask 'can I have my beer in a f**king glass please. Come on!!

I wonder whether the Mason Jar vogue is a reaction to the slightly ridiculous late 2000's mania for "Correct glasses" for different sorts of beer? In our house we use Pilsners when drinking beer (which is VERY seldom) but that is because we only ever seem to drink Pilsner beer, generally with a "zelo vepro knedlo" (Pork sauerkratu and dumpling) dinner.

"Correct Beer Glasses":

 

[LizzieMaine]

And let's not forget the Stella Artois "chalice." Seriously, Boys, just because you gave your yellow swill a European name doesn't mean your consumers are medieval nobility.

 

[Hal]

Beer, for me, is best either in the bottle itself or, if on tap, in a mug - and both should be chilled (sorry to my friends in the UK).

Yes, beer SHOULD be chilled; I have not come across unchilled beer in the UK for 40, if not 50, years!

 

[emigran]

We still use View attachment 68924 glass and enameled steel refrigerator dishes. I have three or four sets from my grandmothers, a couple sets from an aunt, and some garage sale finds. Never bother with tupperware, and the dishes last practically forever.

There was always Jello with fruit cocktail in one of these...

 

[Fading Fast]

Yes, beer SHOULD be chilled; I have not come across unchilled beer in the UK for 40, if not 50, years!

That's funny and shows my ignorance as I've never been to the UK, but took all the comments about warm British beer to be true. My apologies to all our UK members.

 

[Dirk Wainscotting]

Reading Lizzie's first reply on page one of this thread I'm surprised how similar the food and diet is to what I ate, right on the other side of the Atlantic. Perhaps it is a standard working-class diet of that era. I lived on a farm, but we also bought some of our food and most people today would refuse some of it. I enjoyed it though.

The OP mentioned rhubarb and not seeing what it is good for. Well, rhubarb and apple pie or strudel is delicious.

 

[BlueTrain]

I wouldn't eat some of the food we had.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

My mother used to fix "Chipped beef on toast" for breakfast occasionally. This was made with the very thin-sliced dried beef that is sold in small jars. It was Depression fare but with white gravy it was very tasty stuff. The army's SOS is made with ground beef. You can still get the chipped beef, sold by Hormel, I believe, but it's ungodly expensive. Definitely not Depression fare anymore.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I loved chipped beef, but it was Buddig's, the kind that came in a plastic pouch. I'd eat it cold, just as it came from the pouch, and that was my lunch on many many days -- no toast, no bread, no sauce, nothing but the meat itself. I had the jarred salty kind a few times, but it wasn't the same.

 

[russa11]

I dearly loved Uneeda Biscuits with cheese melted on top, and was furious when Kraft bought out Nabisco and discontinued them. They were the only kind of soda cracker I ever liked.

Uneeda Biscuits and the Crown Pilots were the two crackers I kept in my desk at work. When they dropped both I was not a happy camper.