The food from that era really cracks me up and grosses me out! LOL Ham loaf? Jello with mayo...what was she going for? I always thought it was exaggerated in tv shows and movies but found an old cookbook and yep....it was all for real. ;)
shareIf you think that stuff was bad, then along came the Apollo era and the "astro food" craze: Tang, space food sticks that looked and tasted like edible candle wax (but we still ate 'em), space bars of various sorts.
When I look back on the food I grew up eating in the 70's, I'm amazed I'm not just one giant slab of preservative-embalmed human jerky.
The Jell-O and mayo combo was gross!
shareI really wanted to try Mrs. Gus Grissom's Cheese Porcupine from the last episode! Ah! I found the recipe! http://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/article/how-to-make-a-cheese-porcupine-a-lesson-from-bon-appetit-1964
My book club always has themed food for the books we read, and when we read The Help, I got out my husband's grandmother's Better Homes and Gardens cookbook from the 1960s. The BEST food in it was super-bland (Cheese Omelet). The worst was inedible.
"Arguing with trolls is like playing chess with a pigeon . . . ."
I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s and yes meals were different then. Jello has always been popular and molded jello with fruit was served with many holiday meals, and some people still serve it today.
I remember a vegetable aspic that was made with unflavored gelatin, tomato juice, artichoke hearts, green olives, and other vegetables. That was always served with a dollop of mayo.
Ham loaf, if made right, is delicious! One recipe from the 1950s I still use, but have omitted some ingredients. My mother always served ham loaf with a cold mustard sauce - mayonnaise, with mustard and horseradish, mixed to taste. I always serve the mustard sauce with baked ham and everyone loves it.
I think food of the 1950s and 1960s was still pretty much regional, with the various areas of the country having their own regional favorites. I grew up in the northeast and never ate Mexican food until we traveled to California. Now days, while there's still regional favorites, ethnic food is available everywhere.
You're right, Missyron.
I don't think I'd even seen an avocado until my mid-20s, the only beans we ever had were Lima or Baked, and forget Jambalaya mixes. (No, really, forget them and make it yourself.)
My kids would not believe me when I told them we could only get strawberries in Spring, peaches after midsummer, apples near autumn. All of our kids have grown up where you can have anything, all the time, where's the fun in that? How do you learn to appreciate something/anything?
Ahhh! Blueberries are here! Pies, Muffins, Raw by the Fistful. And then - poof - they're gone.
The kids and the berries.
The show's food stylist seems to have a lot of fun with the assignment. Meatloaf cupcakes with mashed potato icing! Betty's cheese porcupine, Marge's tater tot surprise....
shareThink about the 50s and early 60s. That was before the proliferation of ethnic cuisines. You didn't have the massive variety we have today. I remember when Mexican food was kind of exotic, and you had to go into the city to get Chinese food. Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, all of the Central and South American stuff, none of that was around.
So, it was pretty much American/western European grub. Lots of roasts, fried chicken, pork chops, hamburgers and hotdogs. Meat loaf, chicken loaf, pork loaf, ham loaf, casseroles. A lot of side stuff was canned or frozen, since that was the "new" way of doing things. Every meal seemed to have mashed potatoes, or mac and cheese. Or both.
No fast food for the most part, so you made your own. You also didn't have microwaves, which affected food prep since leftovers would have to go back in the pot or oven to get reheated.
I remember my mom and aunts getting creative with stuff, especially new foods. Jello with just about every fruit you could think of, and some veggies (I remember Jello with cucumbers.) Fancy snacks would be something smeared onto a Triscuit or Ritz cracker. Deviled eggs and a lot of variations of macaroni salad and potato salad.
I remember my mom, in the mid-60's, making curry once as this really exotic dinner-party dish. I remember that she had to look all over hell to find saffron in order to make the saffron rice. Ten years later, when we were living in London, I practically lived off of curry because I couldn't stand English food.
shareUsed my first Microwave oven (Amana Radar Range) 1968 at college. Discovered waxpaper will ignite in these ovens!!!
shareI have to laugh every time I see the wives showing up at somebody's house with a Jello mold! We always had Jello in the 60's and 70's. My mother's standard holiday "salad" is lime jello with cottage cheese, pineapple and pecans. My sister hates it and I can never look at green Jello the same way!
shareI think that is what's called "Watergate Salad"?
shareLOL - I had to look that up . . . accordnig to AllRecipes, the Watergate Salad has pistachio pudding instead of lime Jello and miniature marshmallows instead of cottage cheese. Maybe I'll make that at Thanksgiving and see if my sister likes it!
Just the fact that pistachio pudding exists as a thing freaks me out no end....
shareLOL My mo still cooks like that or ike the
'Astronaut Wives' did 90% of the time. Jello, hot dogs, hamburger helper, deviled eggs at picnics, frozen Salsbury Steak dinners from a box, instant mashed potatoes, stuffed cabbage or peppers with rice & hamburger, etc. :P Oh well...lol
Anyway on the topic of ethnic foods...that reminds me of a discussion I read online recently within my hometown, how they're building a new 'upscale shopping center' outside of town, near the housing developments with the $400+K McMansions, and some people were speculating how they wished they'd get a 'Whole Foods' or 'Trader Joes' or various chain restaurants. Restaurants including specifically PF Changs or Benihana, with one woman claiming she'd "never go to the two Chinese restaurants & one Mexican restaurant currently in our hometown....because they're 'dirty.'" ('Dirty' perhaps meaning cleanliness, but sadly most likely 'dirty' because they're run by Chinese & Mexican immigrants...and not a locally hired, largely caucasian staff like the chain restaurants would be. smh. 😒)