Unfortunate food, fortunately forgotten

[Lincsong]

I don't like onions. If onion powder is used in the food fine, but I don't want to look at little green things in my food, or slimey things either.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I not only don't like onions, I'm violently allergic to them -- even a small bite and I can't breathe. I once had a bagel with cream cheese spread by a knife that had been used to spread something with onions in it, and that nearly put me in the hospital. Needless to say, I avoid eating out anyplace where I can't be sure I won't get onions.

 

[JimWagner]

I suppose that if you looked hard enough you could find (or make) just about anything people used to eat. But some things just need to be left to the past. For example, my dad used to cook breakfast on the weekends when I was a kid and he liked to serve up (shudder) such things as scrambled eggs and calf brains, or scrambled eggs and fish roe. Sometimes with scrapple on the side.

There was recently an episode of Dirty Jobs where Mike Rowe went to a place in PA where they were still making scrapple. Even less appetizing when you see how it's made. :eeek:

 

[martinsantos]

My grandmother made the same kind of food almost all her life. Used a lot of gelatine - but only for candies. usually her fruit candies were marvelous - but I remember very well one (she called it as "mighty pinky" or something like that. Have the aspect of a pink spounge) that walways put me in bad moments. I didn't want to bore hers, so I had to ate a lot of this.

Mayonaise was popular too. Home-made, in a way that in most restaurants today is prohibited - eggs not cooked, somebody told that they can give severe health troubles. But these mayonayses were very tasteful!

Some meats, like brains, etc, she used to cook. This I didn't experiment. At her small town, in 20s/30s, the usual was to buy a living pig, for example. A neighbour would kill it, and then put the meat in salt and fat to conserve. Of course they tried to have food as much as possible from the pig.

 

[Puzzicato]

Especially during WW2 when food was rationed, you can eat animals like rabbit and possum, or other animal parts like brain and liver.

I've never eaten possum (or squirrel) but I am partial to rabbit and liver!

I can still remember the first time I went to my husband's grandmother's house. She told me to get the salad out of the fridge and I couldn't find anything that looked like a salad, vegetable, or piece of fruit. She is from a time when the generic term salad refers to: leaf salad, fruit salad, and jello with things- namely fruit- in it. Each meal is comprised of meat, a "salad", and a potato dish.

Intriguing - so what was the concoction you were supposed to be getting out of the fridge?

I'm rather fond of jelly when flavoured with the juice of real fruit and whatnot, the flavoured stuff that comes in satchels is not high on my list of delicacies. Jelly is an integral part of one of the great puddings, Trifle, which melds it with cream, custard and cake.

I also like a proper jelly. I do a rather good "Hotel California" jelly - pink champagne with berries in it.

 

[Miss sofia]

I'm rather fond of jelly when flavoured with the juice of real fruit and whatnot, the flavoured stuff that comes in satchels is not high on my list of delicacies. Jelly is an integral part of one of the great puddings, Trifle, which melds it with cream, custard and cake.

I do love offal, something that is thankfully coming back into fashion, 'nose to tail eating'. Devilled kidneys, liver and bacon, stuffed hearts, crumbled brains, steak and kidney pie. Even tripe, when cooked properly. Delicious, cheap and thrifty.

I love trifle, jelly and custard, fruit jellies, proper nursery food. Ditto the offal too, very popular still in the UK. Yummy!

 

[Fletch]

Mayonaise was popular too. Home-made, in a way that in most restaurants today is prohibited - eggs not cooked, somebody told that they can give severe health troubles. But these mayonayses were very tasteful!

You roll the dice every time you eat raw egg in anything - mayo, Caesar dressing, even the beloved cookie batter. Salmonella lives in some eggs and quite a bit of poultry. But some say it's more common now that the birds are factory farmed.

 

[martinsantos]

I believe so, Fletch. When I was a kid nobody talked about salmonella, and never heard about anybody getting sick about eggs.

There was too a kind of chantilly, using eggs... Very very good. :essen:

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think the reason people didn't talk about it then is that people weren't as susceptible to it then. We're loaded full of antibiotics now, between the drugs we take every time we have a sniffle or a toothache and the stuff that's in the food itself, and we slather ourselves in antibactierial soaps and lotions and gels every time we go out the door, and as a result our natural immune systems are all out of whack. Hence, salmonella has a field day.

They say kids were a lot healthier when they used to play outside in the gutter. I can believe it.

As far as scrapple goes, I'll have a double helping, please. And I once worked in a meat market, so I know where it comes from.

 

[sheeplady]

Well, that and the fact that the chickens are loaded full of antibotics and other things that they weren't fed.

I might eat raw eggs from my own chickens. I might. But I really don't like chickens, so I doubt I will ever have them. I thought that the eggs used in commerical mayo were pasteurized?

And for those that asked: fruit, ice cream, cream, hard liquor, and nuts are all acceptable additives to Jello in my book. There may be more, I just haven't had them yet.

 

[rue]

I think the reason people didn't talk about it then is that people weren't as susceptible to it then. We're loaded full of antibiotics now, between the drugs we take every time we have a sniffle or a toothache and the stuff that's in the food itself, and we slather ourselves in antibactierial soaps and lotions and gels every time we go out the door, and as a result our natural immune systems are all out of whack. Hence, salmonella has a field day.

They say kids were a lot healthier when they used to play outside in the gutter. I can believe it.

As far as scrapple goes, I'll have a double helping, please. And I once worked in a meat market, so I know where it comes from.

Antibacterial anything isn't used in our house. I believe that we're setting ourselves up for big problems when we try to take away every single little germ from everything. Washing our hands with soap and water seems to work just fine. Always has. I've never been sick from eating an egg (raw or otherwise) in my life either.

Back on topic....

Salmon Mousse. Does anyone still eat this?

 

[martinsantos]

There was a fried macaroni, with a mixture of eggs, cheese and a few more things. It was showed as a "picnic food". Italian recipe - bus just terrible.

I really prefer the usual way about my spaghetti - this one a preferred food (specially when made at home. And those machines to make it are very pretty!). :essen:

Salmon Mousse. Does anyone still eat this?

I saw once... But the aspect was terrible, so I didn't try. I think I did the correct choice - nobody repeated.

 

[Effingham]

I can understand not wanting to put pickles in Jell-0 but none of you had Jell-O with say; fruit, ice cream or whipped cream mixed in it?

Oh, I grew up with Jell-O with a veritable fruit cocktail in it.

The more savory versions of gelatin freak me out.

 

[Gingerella72]

I haven't looked at all the responses yet so someone may have already posted this, but a gal who did a 50's housewife experiment last year blogged about some of the atrocious recipes she came across, and made (and forced her husband to eat, lol). The meat jello was particularly vile. Scroll through her blog to find the food entries.

http://www.jenbutneverjenn.com/2010/05/welcome-to-50s-housewife-experiment.html

 

[Effingham]

Meat Jello. >hurl<

Oh, my. Thanks for this. I think I'm going to have to share her website with some friends who like to cook.... experimentally.

 

[Lincsong]

I haven't looked at all the responses yet so someone may have already posted this, but a gal who did a 50's housewife experiment last year blogged about some of the atrocious recipes she came across, and made (and forced her husband to eat, lol). The meat jello was particularly vile. Scroll through her blog to find the food entries.

http://www.jenbutneverjenn.com/2010/05/welcome-to-50s-housewife-experiment.html

Sounds like this lady was lazy. Complaining about making breakfast?

 

[The Good]

Fortunately forgotten, indeed... Many of these foods seem disgusting.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I wonder what they'll say in fifty years about the trendy stuff people eat today? There's some pretty nauseating-looking stuff on the Food Network.

 

[LaMedicine]

I wonder what they'll say in fifty years about the trendy stuff people eat today? There's some pretty nauseating-looking stuff on the Food Network.

Ditto, I was wondering the same thing.

 

[Puzzicato]

As far as scrapple goes, I'll have a double helping, please. And I once worked in a meat market, so I know where it comes from.

One of the girls I work with won't eat haggis but will eat scrapple. It seems so inconsistent!

I wonder what they'll say in fifty years about the trendy stuff people eat today? There's some pretty nauseating-looking stuff on the Food Network.

Pretty similar things I imagine. I've sneered at the cookbooks of the 70s and 80s (really? I put strawberry and kiwi sauce on meat?) so I don't know that my current culinary output will escape! Although I don't cook particularly trendy stuff these days.