What was your mom's go to meal when times were lean?

Macaroni and cheese and fish sticks.

Macaroni and tomatoes. We sometimes had salmon patties. I can still remember the smell. I never knew we were poor, until I was older and listened to my older sisters talk about how bad things were. They said they were coal miners daughters without the coal. I hate hearing about anyone who grew up hungry. Hope you're well and fed tonight, OP.

Being Irish, potatoes. Either boiled with salt and a chunk of cheap butter spread on top or mashed up. Breakfast was porridge so occasionally just another bowl of that. My mother worked two jobs so sometimes my dad was the one cooking the spuds. We always ran out of money on Wednesday and my parents got paid on Friday so we had 2 lean days. I have 11 siblings and when I realized I was gay I was fucking thrilled because it meant “this” - poverty and too many kids and sex leading to other mouth to feed so you can’t even enjoy an orgasm without being punished for it - would never happen to me.

Beans and cornbread.

Patio frozen burritos, Michelina frozen lasagna, canned ravioli.

bump

Spaghetti with cut up hot dogs in the sauce.

My mom served us spaghetti topped with Velveeta and ketchup. Even she must have been disgusted because it never happened again.

Why didn't she just get a job? Or even food stamps? You can live quite well on them.

Because back then people had pride. My parents would rather go hungry than accept charity.

Spaghetti and mashed potatoes.

Goulash. Hamburger, noodles and tomato sauce. My mom worked her ass off but always was with an alcoholic. I remember times coming home from school and being so hungry and going in the fridge and all they would be in there with beer. I swore when I became a adult that would never happen. I do not drink and never eat Goulash.

Bakes beans on toast.

We ordered Chinese.

Salmon patties, breaded pork tenderloins that came frozen in a box of four, and she made a bean/hamburger casserole with biscuits from a can on top sprinkled with cheese. I didn't realize we were poor until kids made fun of my clothes at school. My mom finished school and became the VP of a very large bank and my dad got a better job as well. When we had money I hated the kids at school so much I dressed all punk rock in thrift clothes by the time I got to high school...in my $100 Docs, of course.

Cream Tuna on Toast Potato soup

Little meat pies in muffin tins, with ground beef and veg. I loved them and had no idea they were her day before payday meal. So yummy.

Baked beans + cut up hot dogs

My twin and I once split a can of beef-a-roni I that was stretched with milk.

My folks had a big farm. My dad owned thousands of acres of farmland. We had $.

SOS and then saved the beef jar for OJ glasses

Tuna casserole. Basically just canned tuna, spaghetti and Velveeta. And it was (and still is) good! Especially if you can afford some canned mushrooms.

Times were so lean, we didn't have a mom.

Got a lug of tomatoes from Ti Juana and made vegetarian red sauce (days before "spaghetti sauce" was sold in a jar. Elderly neighbors gave us their fresh figs off of a tree which they didn't want, so we made fig jam for homemade wholewheat bread. "Beast stew" which was really pot roast made with much cheaper stew meat with lots of potatoes and carrots. Campbell's alphabet vegetable soup with added beans.

The above were good, hated the days we had organ meats.

Angola Soup (called that because Mom didn't have a name for it and there was some war in angola happening on tv when we asked her what ir was). A soup made of Ground beef, vermicelli noodles and onions.

She would make a giant pot of spaghetti, fill ziplock bags, and freeze them.

Wait till the Darfur Orphan gets here.

You know, the starving child in Africa who would have killed to have a bite of that Beefaroni and milk!

The meals all sounds repulsive.

Hot dog boats. Lay down a slice of white bread, add a slice of American "cheese" and then diagonally place a weiner on top. Connect the edges of the bread on top with a toothpick. Heat in oven until toasted. Voila, a crunchy hot dog!

This was served with frozen french fries fried in a huge cast iron skillet with Crisco that had been reused a million times and a Coke. (We were poor but we always had real Coke and Mama always had her Malboro 100s.) Dessert was a Little Debbie snack. A vertible white trash feast.

r7=Sheldon Cooper

Galonggong with rice

Gin and regrets.

Homemade pizza from scratch.

My mom made large cookie-sheet sized pizzas with pepperoni or italian sausage, green peppers and onions and would proudly announce they "Only cost $1.75 apiece!"

When we were broke, we ate them just about every night. Being a kid, I didn't complain.

I still love her pizza.

My mom always had a garden, so we had vegetable soup a lot.

Holy shit you've all contributed the exact same comments to the exact same thread annually, for years.

We never had lean times, although once a week, the nannies, maids, and family driver would join us on the main dining table for a get together dinner.

[quote]Holy shit you've all contributed the exact same comments to the exact same thread annually, for years

it's the Circle of Life

My mom made food from scratch. She scratched it out of a can.

Hamburger helper. Sloppy Joes. Creamed beef on toast (aka shit on a shingle)

If my mother didn't have enough meat for a loaf, she'd put what she had into muffin tins. We get four small muffins instead of a chunk of meat loaf.

A pack of Herbert-Tareyton and a bottle of Rock and Rye.

These threads are good for several reasons... The posts may give some people a few good thrifty ideas, and help others to remember not everyone has enough to eat, or enough money to eat well. Gratitude is good, and there is too much food waste in affluent cultures like America. Perhaps these threads make some people realise how lucky they were, even if their family did struggle. I'm always struck by the posters who have warm memories of certain foods, and that their families never let them feel poor. Though some were really poor, it sounds like they had wonderfully gracious and brave parents.

Other posts are simply hilarious like R25 and Angola soup!

What a great post, R42.

Cheers R43

"hoover gravy" flour, bacon grease and water, on a biscuit

Lobster. My dad and uncle were lobstermen so whatever they couldn’t sell and we ate it like other people ate potatoes. We’d keep them in the bottom drawers of the fridge and you’d hear them scratching the sides all night. I didn’t touch the stuff

Meatloaf

R47, extended with rice or with off brand corn flakes?

R14/YMF, your family experienced lean times?

Mashed potatoes with a beef mince, onion gravy.

I couldn't help but laugh at some of you guys talking about salmon patties. My mom, whose family were multi-millionaires, married my dad who came from nothing but manage to put himself through law school (and then me, too) used to fix what she called croquettes . . . but they were made with TUNA not salmon.

Dear Lord, the whole house would smell like cat food.

I couldn't help but laugh at some of you guys talking about salmon patties. My mom, whose family were multi-millionaires, married my dad who came from nothing but manage to put himself through law school (and then me, too) used to fix what she called croquettes . . . but they were made with TUNA not salmon.

Dear Lord, the whole house would smell like cat food.

Ummmm.....

Typical midwest stuff, Hamburger Helper, sloppy joes, frozen pizza (usually Tombstone or Tony's...both of which taste absolutely disgusting now), sometimes Polish sausage with canned sauerkraut, or ham and beans with cornbread.

What do you mean by "lean times", OP? If we got hungry we would just ring cook and have him bring us something tasty!

A disgusting concoction of tuna fish and noodles. Never again!

Stuffed cabbage or spaghetti/macaroni with meat sauce. My mom could stretch a pound of ground beef to next week.

My wonderful Italian mom canned her homemade spaghetti sauce, and there was always a stash in the basement. We could have eaten pasta every day, and never gotten sick of it.

R58 your mom sounds wonderful.

Ratatouille. It's actually very cheap to make.

She was r59.

She passed away last year. Your lame attempt at humor sucks.

r58 seems very passive aggressive.

at least raygun is now ashes, like all those young men who died of aids because of his homophobia and callousness

R61 no lame attempt. I’m married to an a Italian, and that is our joke. He had a weight problem in his youth, because he ate fresh pasta sometime twice a day. . Long story...

Meatloaf that was mostly crackers, eggs and ketchup. And chunks of celery, which feels like chomping bugs to me.

That was when you asked for extra mashed potatoes.

Chicken cacciatore -- uses a cheap cut of chicken (thighs), just add vegetables and tomatoes. Braise.

Pinto beans. My mom had a 50 pound burlap bag of them in the basement. She'd fire up the crockpot and make a batch, then put the crockpot with the leftovers in the fridge and reheat them until it was empty and then do it again. Sometimes she'd refry them WITH CRISCO. We had them nearly every meal.

Fried potatoes and onions, liver and onions, onions and onions.....

R61 Sorry about your mum. I hope have her recipe so you can replicate the sauce, and honour her that way.

[quote]I didn't realize we were poor until kids made fun of my clothes at school.

We were food stamp poor when I was a kid, there were five of us age range 6 through 16 and my little brother was only 11 months younger than me. We wore thrift store clothes that my mom bought larger so we'd grow into them, so I was always self-conscious in school because I didn't wear trendy clothes.

I remember having a conversation with an aunt when I was in my 30s or so about how poor my family was and how I wore the same clothes all the time and her response was that it was nothing to be ashamed of because our clothes were clean and we were always bathed. I had never thought about that before and it made me feel better about being a poor kid.

R61 sorry about your mom, too. Did she pass down any recipes?

Margarine and sugar on white bread for lunch. We loved it.

[quote] my little brother was only 11 months younger than me.

Irish twins.

My neighbors mom always made hamburger helper beef stroganoff. It looked like dog food.

R69/r71 My mom was one of those cooks who never wrote down a recipe, just eyeballed the ingredients, and it came out perfect every time. My siblings and myself (there were 5 of us) hung around the kitchen on Sundays to help with dinner, so between all of us, we pretty much perfected her recipe for sauce and meatballs. The only thing missing is my Mom's love.

💟 Thank you for your kind words.

R28 Well, then starve ;)

Powdered milk and Tang.

Dinner was either 3 eggs stretched with corn flour to feed five people or skillet fried onions and potatoes

R28 is a Freaking Fraud and using my name in vain.

From what I remember about my dear mom, her go to meal was stone soup and and fried plantains.

EVERYTHING on this thread sounds [italic] Delightful !

No one ate the government cheese???? We had grilled cheese, cheese soup, Mac n cheese, cheesy eggs, and on got days we even had cheese sic kles!

Amateurs!

R75 Oh honey, the love is right there with you all.Every single time you make her sauce,you will think of her and smile.

If she was cremated, adding a bit of her ashes to the sauce should add a nice, piquant woodsy flavor, as well as as letting her live on, in your pasta.

I remember that black & white wrapper, R80!

My mom made the typical midwestern fare already mentioned (Hamburger Helper, canned veggies, goulash, etc). The neighbor girl became a frequent dinner guest at our home....so much so it apparently got to her mother who then invited my sister and I for dinner one evening.

She made “soup”: canned yellow corn, water, cut up hot dogs, and some salt.

Raised with manners, we finished the bowl, politely refused seconds, thanked the hostess, and returned home. It was awful. Hamburger casseroles didn’t seem so bad after that.

The horror of my dad’s ham and beans. Disgusting alone, they become utterly revolting when mixed within”corn relish”. This was some atomic grade nasty shit he’s make when flat broke, and it was a full Dutch oven’s worth.

We learned early how to scam meals off the neighbors when that mess was stinking up the house.

We had enough money for food but my mom hated to eat and hated to cook. She lived on cigarettes and black coffee. My dad worked most nights so my mom would give me a dollar to go across the street to the Polish grocery and get a ham and cheese hero. I'd get it with mayo, lettuce and tomato and it was stuffed with real Swiss cheese and the most delicious imported ham. With that I would get an orange or grape soda, some kind of package dessert like Yodels, or a Devil Dog or those cupcakes that came 3 to a pack and a bag of chips, ALL for that dollar. I felt like a stuffed pig when I finished eating and would watch TV till 9m and fall into a coma more than fall asleep from all that food. I'm lucky I didn't turn into a 300 pound kid. I played a lot of ball but no real exercise either.

You should have seen me at the movies on Saturdays. There too for 1 dollar I would go back to my seat with my arms filled with all kinds of food, popcorn, hot dog, chips, candy, ice cream. I spent way more time eating than watching the movies. If there was any justice in the world I should have been a fat kid. I saw the few overweight kids that were around at that time and they didn't eat near as much as I did.

Yes, I'm old.

In sorry so many you had it rather rough.

My mother had a knack for using whatever was in the refrigerator to make great dinners. When she served something I especially liked, I would ask the name. She would laugh and tell me it was just something she threw together. When I would ask what was in it, she would tell me, 'A little of this and that. Whatever I had in the refrigerator.'

She always produced a nice dinner (on the income of a single working mother) and I rarely saw them twice.

I think ham was the go to dish to save money. Ham could be served so many ways and was often stretched with eggs onions and potatoes. I still love all the combinations to this day.

My mom didn't believe in buying groceries or cooking.

OP you’re somewhat presumptuous .

Buttered noodles with poppyseeds, odd but tasty

R90 here I must apologize for that fucking comment I made....reading the lengths your moms had to go to to put a meal on the table is humbling and mss as led me realize how fortunate we were. Apologies again 😘

This always makes me cry, even though my own circumstances weren’t as terrible. I went to a fancy prep school, as a scholarship student, and the other kids would make fun of my clothes. My mom made a lot of stouffers French bread pizza. They burnt the top of my mouth.

My dad's go-to was hot dogs, onions, and canned potatoes in a skillet, covered in ketchup and salt. White people salchipapas, essentially.

My mom's was Jennie-O turkey loaf with canned corn and instant potatoes, always on paper plates.

Beans and rice and rice and beans. Once a week a meat. Maybe chicken,maybe hamburger,and precious little of that. I wouldnt touch beans or rice for decades . It wasnt easy to feed a family of 5 when there was only one income and dad drank half of that.

Dandelion greens, wild stuff, lamb kidneys, pig liver. The good stuff.

Mom would make pancakes the day before pay day. We thought it was great to have breakfast for supper. We had no clue that it was because Mom and Dad were broke.

I can remember two meals.

Creamed tuna on toast: white sauce (bechamel) with a can of tuna mixed in

Melted cheddar cheese over saltines: cut up cheddar and put on individual crackers and placed under oven's broiler. She would also make chocolate milkshakes (vanilla ice cream whipped up with a hand mixer and add Nestles Quik).

Mac and cheese with Tuna.

I remember fondly the rare occasions when we had a roast chicken. Chicken was expensive for us and I adored it.

Open faced cheddar cheese sandwiches made in the broiler (the cheese gets brown and crisp even if you use a cheap cheddar), with an apple. To this day, one of my favorite dinners.

Shakshuka: eggs in sauce with peppers, with bread to mop up the sauce. It was a great meal and we knew how lean times were so we ate it up.

Pasta with vegetables and oil, maybe garlic. Filling, very good.

Most of our meals were simple and filling and very inexpensive.

Scrambled eggs with cauliflower as filler. Mom used lots of butter and sprinkled the eggs with pepper.

Now it's trendy to use cauliflower in recipes. Mom, you were ahead of your time :)

That sounds delicious, r102.

No one has mentioned rice and beans. Filling and nutritious.

We also had homemade macaroni and cheese. When things were lean I would make it. Today, it costs about $7 to make a big tray of it (plus frozen broccoli as a side) that feeds six people for dinner. It takes about 45 minutes to make from scratch.

I know lots of ways to feed a family on a tight budget. But you have to be willing and know how to do the cooking.

My mother had two meals she had in her back-pocket in case money ran out...

1. Tater Tot Casserole (browned ground beef with can of cream of celery soup mixed, bake with a bag of tater tots on top)

2. Chicken Far East (canned white meat chicken in a pan with chopped celery, a can of water chestnuts, a can of cream of chicken soup, white vinegar and lots of black pepper served over chow mien noodles if they were on sale or toast)

She stocked up on soup whenever it was on sale (I think the store brand was 3 for a 99 cents sometimes) so she had a pantry full of it.

I actually thought Chicken Far East was very fancy...especially when she would serve it with LaSueur Petite Peas. I had no idea how hard things were for her until she told me years later. And yes, I still make it sometimes.

For desert we would have canned Oregon Kadota figs. She would buy them by the case at a discount grocery store. I have never seen them since. Again, I thought we were fancy.

Patio and occasionally Jose Ole burritos. Garbage.

Budget Gourmet. So much of it.

earrings

caftans

gin

regret

Hot dogs on Wonder bread with Campbell's canned pork and beans.

R89. Did we have the same mother? My mother thought buying food was a waste of money

Boiled fucking dinner. YUCK! Tasteless corned beef, turnips, potatoes and carrots. I would always want to throw up when I bit into the turnips thinking they were potatoes.

My parents went without so I could eat.

This thread pushed me over the edge and I wept like a baby for my mother. Yeah, yeah... MARY!

She had a hard life. I hope she can eat whatever she wants wherever she is now. As much as she likes.

Is she alive R112? If so take her to dinner.

If she is dead she can only be consumed by worms and can no longer eat.

This thread (and ones like it that pop up fairly regularly) make me think of a couple of things. One is how much nostalgia there is in them for a time long past, however lean it was. Are some kids growing up right now who are eating their own versions of these meals? Or is going hungry now a thing of the past in the US? And if not, what do 21st century poverty meals look like? Will these kids be posting in threads like this in about 20 years? My other thought is how repugnant it is to make fun of people for their poverty. Insulting remarks about their clothes, their meals, or how they live are truly ugly.

R113 is a psychopath

I am charmed that your mothers came up with appetizing fanciful names for their no budget menus.

My dad would put a bunch of leftovers together and bake them into a casserole with cheese on top. No matter the combination of ingredients, the end result was always called “ souvlaki “.

[quote]Now it's trendy to use cauliflower in recipes.

O, That's Good!

My mom was a teacher and we had lean summers because she rationed her salary during teaching months to have money for the summer so she didn't have to work a summer job. Toward the end of the summer funds would run out. No new school clothes until she went back to work, either.

These were the times of: Camps frozen steak with the butter pats; top ramen with frozen vegetables and an egg; fried peanut butter and / or cheese sandwiches (Kraft single) served with ketchup or jam; spaghettios; buying all the dented can goods and raiding the remainder bin at the grocery store; fish sticks; pancakes or frozen waffles, or cereal for dinner; cut up hot dogs fried with scrambled eggs on toast.

Spaghetti. It was even easier when it was lentil spaghetti sauce. Pasta is filling and goes a long way.

Creamed tuna on toast. (White sauce with canned tuna, peas optional, toasted white bread.) I liked it a lot, actually.

Beans and weenies.

Rice with lemon pepper. Delicious.

R14 I know several single mothers who barely scrape by. Unfortunately, they turn to $5 Hot N Ready Pizzas, 10 for $10 items at grocery stores, fast food value menus and other cheap processed foods. These items have replaced many of the above mentioned "cheap meals" made in years past. Spaghetti I think will always be a great, inexpensive, multi-day meal stretcher.

R112 hugs 🤗

Times were not lean. We had money always.

Man, you people lived like Kings and QUEENS!!!

I would get a fried egg on a piece of toast. (And I had no idea we were poor.)

Not a mom meal, but when I was a broke-as-a-joke college student in the late '80s, one of my roommates (a cool hippie chick) used to make "tuna pie," a casserole of canned tuna and Kraft mac and cheese, topped with crushed saltines. It was really good stoner food. I used to joke with her about how much I craved her tuna pie. 😆

She would just make simple swap outs - instead of steak/ ground beef, go with cheaper meats like chicken thighs/drumsticks, pork chops, etc...

My folks gardened and canned. My mom is Italian, so we always had tomato sauce made from scratch, and ate a lot of pasta dishes, along with stuffed cabbage, stuffed peppers, anything with tomato sauce.

My dad would cook breakfast often - just basic stuff, home fries, eggs, toast.

I was glad when she made Runzas. Cheap to make is awfully tasty!

Oatmeal

Frozen fish sticks and ketchup and box mac n cheese.

R103 MANY people mentioned rice and beans before your post. Start with R95 and work your way back.

R130, Information and recipe for Runzas.

Once in a while, to change things up a bit from pasta, she would brown some ground beef or bulk sausage, add in tomato sauce and serve it over mush (polenta). Then take the remaining mush from the pot and pour it in a loaf pan and put it in the fridge. It's great, sliced and fried up in butter in the morning, and topped with some maple syrup.

Libby"s cornbeef, instant mashed potatoes and can corn or peas. My mother kept canned goods only for the day before my dad got paid. She made things from scratch other times.

Either "country style" boneless pork ribs or kielbasa, along with some sauerkraut & potatoes, roasted in the oven. Italian sausage, potatoes, peppers, onions, roasted.

Basically any cheap meat, along with some (fresh) potatoes and vegetables, in her roasting pan.

She was also a big fan of Shake&Bake/Oven Fry as a topping on roasting chicken or pork chops.

That actually sounds delicious R137. I think I will try to copy some of your mom's dishes. I never combined sauerkraut with potatoes and I think it sounds great, especially with those meats and I remember loving Shake n Bake as a kid but haven't had it in so many years. I think if they still make it I will buy the one for chicken and pork chops. You're mom sounds like a creative cook.

Mum was Scottish, so we had mince ‘n’ tatties (ground beef, potatoes, carrots, Worcestershire sauce fried up in a big pan) when she had to stretch Dad’s paycheque. It tasted good. Judging by some of the posts here, we were lucky to have it.

Bon appetit, tout le monde!

R139, Linked is a recipe for your Scottish-based dish.

Pancakes. Mom always made it fun, though. I didn't realize that pancakes meant that we'd run out of our monthly grocery budget. To this day, I love having breakfast for dinner.

We drank a lot of milk as kids so my mom would buy carnation powdered milk and I remember it being good. She’s make a batch and mix it with the fresh milk.

Spork & pickle sandwiches. Spork was an alternate brand Spam. My mom would grate it on a box grater, grate some pickle into it as well, then mix with mayo. This was put on toast, and I couldn't tell you why, but it was fucking delicious. I haven't had it for 40 years.

R142, My mother did the same calling it, "double milk." Supposedly it tastes more like natural mothers' milk.

We used to get large packages of completely made by hand corn tortillas in Mexico for a nickle. Mom would ask them to be made small enough to fit into our toaster, buying multiple packages at a time and freezing all them.

After heating in the toaster we'd sprinkle on cheddar or jack cheese. Or we'd use them instead of hot dog buns. Yes all beef hot dogs, mustard, pickle relish inside a corn tortilla. Or corn tortillas spread with peanut butter, no jelly.

Lard sandwiches

I ate mayonnaise sandwiches as a kid.

At the end of the week, my mom would throw all of the leftovers together in a casserole dish, held together by cream of “something “ soup, topped with crushed potato chips or crackers. We called it “Cream of Refrigerator Casserole.”

R146, Little House on the Prairie's Laura Ingalls talks about eating sandwiches with bacon grease every day for lunch at school. The rich kids got butter.

Potato soup but basic. She served cooked cubed potatoes and the water they were boiled in and egg dumplings. No seasoning.

Stone soup!

R150, I love simple potato soup, it's a great budget meal, but should be made like this:

1. You peel and dice the potatoes into tiny cubes

2. You heat 5 tbsps of sunflower oil in your soup pot and slightly brown 3 tbsps of semolina in it while stirring

3. You add the potatoes and fill the pot with boiling water you have ready

3. After 15 mins of boiling, add salt and a bit of black pepper.

That's it. It takes about 30 mins to prepare. Put some cheese in the bowl when you serve (I prefer crushed Feta cheese - it's DIVINE). Eat with bread. One of my favorite foods.

R152, You don't add onions or milk to your potato soup? What country do you come from as most Americans aren't very familiar with semolina.

I make homemade vegetable broth in my crock pot, add cubed potatoes and fried onions and carrots, a lot of seasonings. Then I make white sauce and combine, topping with sharp cheddar cheese.

I used to eat mayo sandwiches with potato chips inside the sandwich and I loved them. I still do, also tomato sandwiches with mayo but both have to be on white bread, not quality white but like Wonder. Both have to have gobs of mayo on both sides of the sandwich. I wish I could still eat like that and get away with it.

R153, I come from Bulgaria. And no, I add nothing else - it becomes astonishingly flavorful as it is. It was my grandmothers go-to "poverty soup" in the hungry years after the fall of Communism and I wasn't complaining. Try it - you'll thank me.

Sometimes I wonder whether a drop of beer wouldn't bring out the taste but I haven't tried it yet.

Once, my siblings and I wanted a dessert. Out of nowhere, my dad, who didn't normally cook, whipped up some butter (margarine, actually) and sugar sandwiches (white bread). It was really good, actually, and I was wondering, "Where have these sandwiches been all my life?"

Campbell's vegetarian vegetable alphabet soup with a can of kidney beans mixed in, the only canned soup my mother bought and just when it was on sale. Bought a can a few years back and it wasn't the same product whatsoever. At least I've been able make a copycat from scratch. From then on I always added curry powder to my soups.

We were middle to upper middle class, but pop was a actual nutcase with constant grievances about being victimized by his 'expensive' family. This led to extreme thrift in areas like clothing, electricity and gas use, and food, of course. of

Because dad was crazy, mom was allowed to buy only the smallest...not largest sizes of food items. The kids were permitted staples like mac and cheese and hamburger while the 'rents dined on filet mignon and lobster. Vegetables were rationed. Mom often fed us pizza from a boxed mix, which used dried canned cheese, and was fixated on tiny cans of grapefruit juice for some reason. Divorce would have been a good thing for us kids, but ultimately mom was probably as daft as the old man.

If you know the basics of cooking, you can use oil to fry onions, garlic, salt and common spices into almost any base food (pasta, potatoes, rice, bread, flour, cornmeal, etc,) and make it taste yummy.

Homemade vegetarian lentil soup. Now I add carrots, potatoes, a little chopped rutabaga, onions, garlic, curry powder, various spices to my version.

I made lentil soup today as money is tight. It's great to add whole garlic cloves in it - they taste delicious after stewing in the veggie broth!

Sweet especially if you are into living history.

R162, I've watched Clara's whole series, love her spunk. She lived to a ripe old age too.

Clara claims dandelion greens are edible. Has anyone ever picked similar weeds for consumption?

My neighbors made dandelion salad quite often. It was heavily seasoned and not bad at all.

They are fantastic, R163, if you pick them young and tender. The organic vegetable company I subscribed to when I lived in Portland provided them as well, so someone is growing them organically and commercially for greens in this decade.

R112, <3

Beans on toast. Sloppy Joe. Homemade pizza. Fish sticks and French fries.

Toast, jelly, peanut butter.

Good stuff.

When I was super-broke I would make a whole box of spaghetti pasta, al dente. Then throw it into a frying pan with a generous amount of cooking oil and high heat, minced onion, minced garlic, soy sauce, lots and lots of black pepper and red pepper flakes (no slat... the soy sauce is enough), and a heaping spoonful of sugar. The trick was to get it really, really spicy with the black and red pepper, which complimented the sweetness and savoriness of the oil and onion and garlic. Sometimes when I made it just right the sugar would caramelize things a bit. Scrumptious! I was really satisfying. Sometimes I crave it even when I have money.

My dad's union was on strike so my mom did cut the food budget. We had meatloaf, ring baloney. hamburgers, cheaper meats. fortunately my mom was a good cook so it still tasted good.

This is semi-related to the original post:

There was a time in the mid-00's (if my memory is correct) where fast food chains were going overboard with the "Dollar Menu" trend and offering remarkable amounts of food for $1 an item.

Not anymore!

R130, I was about to ask if that was also known as bierocks - then I opened your recipe and see that it IS!!!! For those looking for something easy to make in bulk and freezes well: this is it.

Assume you have German/Volga-German heritage?

My Dad worked second shift, so we never got to eat with him during the week. It was very important, though, that we eat with him on the weekend, and that's when we ate really well. During the week, it was usually pretty uncomplicated stuff. Mom would cook up big batches of stuff that just needed to be reheated when we got home from school: kielbasa cooked in sauerkraut with potatoes on the side, Cincinnati child (ground beef chili served over spaghetti and topped with shredded cheese). My Dad would make us all breakfast on the weekends. He be up early, out in the kitchen whistling, and make us French toast or pancakes. My parents shopped at a railroad salvage store, where they buy dented food items very cheaply. And my Mom belong to some co-op, so she'd buy government cheese, and dried split peas and lentils. My parents care a lot about our education, so even though we were poor, they still always paid for tuition for Catholic schools. We never went on vacation, though.

Your parents and Catholic school cared about your education; sadly, you've forgotten past tenses and conjugation.

Meatloaf. The original recipe probably called for coarse bread crumbs, but my mom tore white bread into cubes, adding it to the ground beef to stretch it. Any time I’ve had meatloaf as an adult, I’ve missed those softened bread cubes, which soaked in all the flavor. I also remember tuna noodle casserole, mac and cheese with cut up hot dogs, butter beans and ham, LaChoy chicken chow mein (disgusting), bean and bacon soup, frozen pizzas, and whatever was on sale or my mom had coupons for. For breakfast, toast topped with margarine, cinnamon, and sugar (which is actually delicious).

R172:

Ignore R173. I loved your post.

Loving this thread!

[quote]Because back then people had pride. My parents would rather go hungry than accept charity.

^^^ Found the Republican.

There's no pride in letting your children go hungry. Just accept the damn can of Spaghettios for crying out loud.

We had government cheese once but dad was a big cranky asshole and said we didn't need government handouts, but we did because he didn't make much and he spent a lot on booze. So we went without cheese for a long time, except in this "ham and cheese" lunchmeat mom would buy me. Everything we ate for years were these "lean" meals, we didn't have any good meals until mom got her degree and started working, and soon after dad got sober. Suddenly we were able to afford Kraft Singles or ground beef. Before that it was all Kraft Spaghetti Dinner or pinto beans with cornbread. Sometimes one of dad's coworkers gave dad some "extra" fish he didn't need. In retrospect I don't think it was extra fish at all but someone trying to get dad to take a little help he otherwise wouldn't have accepted.

I know Datalounge is all assholes nowadays but the talk about not accepting charity because people used to have pride is messed up. There were days when I had nothing to eat but some stale oyster crackers and off-brand margarine.

Applying for and getting government food aid is very difficult as well as stressful for so many. Those who've never been through the process, nor helped others try and fill out the maze of forms, should show a little more compassion.

R168, that sounds incredibly delicious!

Thank you, r178.

Yes we do this thread once or twice a year-- I enjoy it every time.

Whenever this subject comes up, I always find myself curious to know about the height attained and current health of the posters in these threads. No shade. Some of the meals, especially from the older posters, sound relatively healthy by today's standards; of course, some do not. I wonder what the long-term impact has been on individuals.

It’s funny to me that some of your dads cooked. My dad couldn’t (and wouldn’t) so much as make a piece of toast. Or wash clothes or dishes. Only women did those things.

When the mother of my brother’s son died suddenly, and my brother was getting ready to go pick up his son (who lived with the mother in another state), my dad asked him “Doesn’t his grandmother (meaning the mother’s mother) want to take him?”

Because men don’t raise children, women do. My brother gave him an earful.

R143, ham salad! We would have this with leftover ham. My parents had a meat grinder (which I have now!) that clamped onto the kitchen table. It was a treat to be the one grinding!

My father, an immigrant from rural Europe used it to grind up some very fatty smoked meat. It was extremely flavorful and he’d spread it on toast for us. It was delicious. Probably some scrap part of the pig.

R182, how old are you?!

I’m 40.

Family of five. Mom asked the butcher at the IGA to save ham bones for her. He was so nice, he would wrap them in butcher paper and write 5¢ on the package in wax pencil. Then she would get a giant cant of hominy for 50¢. She froze onions we grew out back, so she would cut off the freezer burned outer layers on an onion, chop it up and dump the onion, hominy and ham bones into a big pot, add a lot of water, and boil it for a couple hours. She served this with toasted white bread with oleo. It lasted several days.

Bones from the butcher used to be routine. Do people still do that?

R187 I still get bones and make great soups

Just in the autumn. Obviously.

I love Spam and American cheese grilled on white bread. That is pure trailer trash food but I still love it, only I never eat it now, maybe once every couple of years. I saw they have Spam lite. I mean really what is the point.

Creamed tuna on toast and canned spinach.

I am sure there were times that money was hard up, but my parents would have never let us children know of something like that. However there were times where my mother fixed the following for dinner:

Dried Beef and gravy over toast, my father loved it, I hated it and would have PB&J instead.

Scrambled eggs

Grilled cheese

Salmon patties, I loved them and would request it sometimes but a couple of cans of Salmon isn't exactly cheap food

Pancakes with hamburger gravy

I don't think times were lean much, the parents would take me to restaurants as a child and allow me to order lobster quite often. They would regularly have Prime Rib and T-bone steaks at home, I liked the Prime Rib but was not a fan of steaks and would prefer a hamburger to a steak. We certainly were not rich but my father believed in eating well.

OP types morbidly obese.What do you weigh, OP, about 485 lbs?

My mother would make a big pot of beans. She would buy dried beans and soak them. Then she would add cut up ham or smoked sausage, onions and sometimes collard greens. She would also make cornbread with real corn in a cast iron skillet that would get crispy on the outside and was moist with corn on the inside. During the summer, we would get tomatoes from the local farmers and slice those to eat with the beans. Those tomatoes were so flavorful and juicy, not like the ones you get at the supermarket today.

I hated that meal as a kid, but would love it today.

R194, that sounds like good eating

[quote] Holy shit you've all contributed the exact same comments to the exact same thread annually, for years.

And apparently you R35, have read each of those threads and even remembered them annually, for years, so you must have enjoyed them.

I don't think it was because times were lean but sometimes my father would work late or be out of town and my mother would serve frozen TV dinners which I loved or frozen Pot Pies which I hated. I think she just wanted a break from cooking and as long as we ate we kids didn't care that much what we ate.

We had Chef Boyardee pizza or frozen dinners when my dad was away.

I love or loved Swanson TV dinners with a passion, back when they were in those little foil things. Back in the day they did have a ton of sodium but were made with real ingredients and tasted like real food because they were. They also had dinners that haven't been around in decades, like fried shrimp with cocktail sauce, not hot and spicy Mexican meal and some other things I can't remember. The turkey dinner and the fried chicken were delicious and I loved the one that came with the warm brownie.

Now they taste like the chemicals they're made from, no real food anymore and the sodium is not just high, it's truly dangerous even to someone fairly young. So sad...

R187 and R188. Soup is the greatest of foods; I serve it at all my tea parties. Soup of the evening, beautiful soup.

Oops, I should have said the Mock Turtle.

But that reminds me, my mother used to serve what she called ‘mock duck.’ I think it was a pork cutlet or thin cut of beef wrapped around a stuffing. It was good.

_R42 My Mom smoked Herbert Tareyton’s, too! She said she switched bc it stopped people from bumming cigarettes from her

For the really lean times, buttered noodles with milk, or tomatoes with noodles (always elbow macaroni). My mom only made that when my dad was on overnight duty as an orderly, and she was saving pennies. It was a quick meal, and gave her more time to catch up with the laundry and ironing at night.

Looking back, it's amazing what she crammed in a day, with three little kids (two in nursery school), a full time job putting my dad through school, all of the shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, ironing, helping my dad study and typing his papers. I don't think she got more than 4- 5 hours of sleep most nights.

I might be a tad older then some of you chaps. Growing up, we lived quite well, and then the Depression hit. Mum - well, Auntie as both my parents were dead, was ruined in the stock market crash. Cook would sometimes whip up a cheap chop suey type of dish, which got progressively worse as it came to light that neither he, nor Housekeeper were not being paid. So we were basically eating garbage. Auntie got a job at a department store which didn't help finances all that much. But through that job she met a millionaire and things looked up financially, a great deal so.

Smell you! Did you have the Irish or the Negro help?

R181 and R114:

To this day I don’t think I’ve ever seen my mom use a fresh vegetable, outside of making a salad. The impact on me was that as I hit mid-late 20’s (after college), I got very into food/health and learned how to make “real”/fresh food. Outside of pasta or rice, little from a box or can. I’m not gonna say I’ve never made Hamburger Helper.....but it’s maybe 3x a year vs. a week.

Alas, I eventually found myself single-momming it. However I have a good education/job. As the kids have gotten older their extracurriculars cut into what would have been cooking time. So, I now buy a lot of pre-cooked items from the deli/cafe at a high-end grocery store. So, in a couple decades they’ll be posting about their microwave meals.....though not even what that meant back in the 80’s. 🤣 (and I do still cook on weekends!)

It seems impossible that someone on DL has never seen Auntie Mame r205

Sometimes we were forced to eat choice ribeyes instead of prime

We're Italian,so we ate Pasta four times a week. Friday was Tuna Noodle Casserole with canned everything, tuna, peas, cream of celery soup,and crumbled crackers on top. She'd water down the milk and we ate oatmeal or cream of wheat for breakfast, PB&J for lunch, Saturdays were grilled cheese and Campbell's tomato soup. Sunday was Pancakes. Then a pot roast with lots of potatoes and carrots. LOTS. We did have real butter. No margarine. But it was whipped butter.

R204 is living in his Auntie Mame parallel universe again-

R210, What's the big deal with Auntie Mame?

I'm not trying to hijack this thread, but it seems an appropriate place to ask a question: what can you do with ground-up potato chips? My latest guilty pleasure is Lay's potato chips with homemade onion soup/sour cream dip. Unfortunately, the last third of the potato chip bag is always nothing but crumbled, smashed chips that are useless for dipping. When my mom made tuna casserole when I was little, she'd put potato chip remnants on top of the casserole. But what else can you do with them? I've got a lot of these smashed chips saved up and I hate to throw them away.

R212, coat chicken or fish in butter, press in the chips and bake....good times.

For lunch, my mother would sometimes give us tomato soup with potato chips in it instead of crackers.

I eat the crumbled chips at the bottom of the bag and then I vacuum myself.

^^^Doesn't your caftan get caught in the vacuum hose?

Roadkill

Nah, I ball it up and make a turban out of it before I start the vacuum.

R212, Mix the crushed potato chips and add a little grated cheese. Put on top of scalloped potatoes, creamed mixed vegetables, green bean casserole, zucchini casserole, and bake for 10 minutes to brown the top. Or add to most any dish in place of salt. Or stir into tuna salad or meatloaf. for sandwiches.

[bold]What was your mom's go to meal when times were lean?[/bold]

Dinner at my grandmother's house.

We weren't poor, she just hated to cook.

R212 sprinkle on top of your tuna salad sandwich - YUM!

Times were never lean- lucky- there was always plenty of good food- in many cases much better than I understood at the time. And not too much and very little junk.

Campbell's Chicken & Stars soup. It was 5 or 6 cans for a dollar at our local grocery store back in the '80s. I despise it to this day and have not touched it since.

Chicken & Stars is what my mom gave me when I was sick.

We’d go through times we had money as well. My mother couldn’t cook to save her life. She would take us out to Howard Johnson’s for almost every day when shopping. We knew all the waitresses names, and whenever one of them quit, it was like losing an aunt!

Enchiladas. Corn tortillas filled with hamburger, onion, and green chilies. Mom would pour a can of Old El Paso enchilada sauce over them and sprinkle it with shredded cheddar.

Leave the crushed potato chips in the bag. Roll it up tightly. Throw it in the trash.

How many have you accumulated? I'm concerned.

Liver and onions

R226, We had cheese enchiladas, cheddar cheese used to be cheaper than American processed fake cheese.

During the end of the month all we would have was mostly beans and rice or sopita, which is that abc or round tiny noodles in a broth. Sometimes fried bologna. We always had tortillas in the house as well

We got the gvmint cheese for a while, too. Would make quesadillas.

My grandparents were still gardening into their 70's. When my parents and I would stop by to help out, visit, and make some lunch, we would often make beefsteak tomato sandwiches when they were in season. Just a thick slice of beefsteak tomato, olive oil, s&p on some fresh Italian bread.

R231 that sounds delicious

[R231] some of these things sound like modern gourmet “farm to table.” Up thread there was someone with the greens and homemade cornbread. Simple food is now for the affluent who shop at farmers markets.

R212, your potato chip crumbs are loaded with salt and fat. Put them on anything even slightly savory and the flavor will be enhanced.

But it's disgusting. It's trashy. There are no non-trashy things to do with potato chips. Have you ever seen Queen Elizabeth downing a bag of Lay's? The Pope? Former commoner Kate Middleton? Or even Kitty Carlisle, for that matter.

It isn't done in the finest homes. Why not just take your potato chip crumbs to a tailgate party and pour them into your mouth, straight from the bag they came in?

What r175 said.

Two things have been reinforced by reading this thread:

1. "My child is a picky eater." Hearing that always will annoy me.

2. Off-topic but alluded to in this thread- Bring back school uniforms and I write this as standing by this no matter how much research shows me they don't make a difference.

Boiled ring bologna and potatoes and canned peas.

My parents grew potatoes, greens and strawberries in our little garden. We also had 2 chickens who lay when they felt like it.

So our meal when there was nothing else we’re potato platski (or latkes) with fried egg and greens in garlic and soy. My parents would usually go without the eggs so my brother, sister and I could eat extra.

I've never heard of "ring bologna." Isn't it just a giant hot dog? Must be a regional thing. (California native here.)

R236, My mother's potato pancakes (latkes) were the best ever. She made then in the Osterizer (blender?) as she didn't want to grate enough potatoes to feed her 5 daughters. Turned out thin, light, with super crispy edges. Restaurant versions are always totally inadequate by comparison.

Mom served them with applesauce, they're also good with plain yogurt.

[quote][Potato chips are] disgusting. It's trashy. There are no non-trashy things to do with potato chips. Have you ever seen Queen Elizabeth downing a bag of Lay's? The Pope? Former commoner Kate Middleton? Or even Kitty Carlisle, for that matter.

I know, I KNOW! I'm embarrassed even admitting on an anonymous posting board that I've become addicted to chips and onion dip, let alone copping to saving bags of chip crumbs. I've got four bags so far, and they're all sealed up tightly to keep in the freshness and keep out bugs. They're so tasty that I really don't want to throw them out.

I appreciate the suggestions here. Tonight I'm going to make macaroni & cheese and use some of the chips as a topping.

Kitty Carlisle, eat your heart out!

Hi, I'm a tone-deaf heartless cunt (and liar) dropping in to confirm my family certainly never experienced lean times and you are all morally inferior because poor! Ta!

r237, yes.

I was too lazy to find an image of the really inexpensive stuff that we had in my family as a kid.

Usinger's is top shelf stuff.

My parents were good, working class, parents who did the best they could for their children. Miss you, Mom and Dad.

R7 similar, spaghetti’Os with cut up hot dogs and saltines.

Hamburger Helper and often without the hamburger.

R23 good one, I liked that.

I cannot understand the posters talking about eating hamburger helper, spaghetti-O's, frozen dinners and pizza. They would be considered over-priced items and easy to make from scratch in my home.

I cannot understand the posters talking about eating hamburger helper, spaghetti-O's, frozen dinners and pizza. They would be considered over-priced items and easy to make from scratch in my home.

R39 yup, chipped beef on toast. I wish I would have know about shit on a shingle. If so, I could have said; ‘Mom, not that same shit on a shingle again’.

R68 yes, liver and onions was my Dad’s favorite ‘stretch the budget’ meal. We had it often. He loved it, I hated it. On those nights it was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for me.

R97 in our house it was waffles, made with Bisquick. And like you, we had no clue. We always thought having breakfast for dinner was fun and something new and exciting.

Scrambled eggs and Minute Rice. We loved.it.

R111 yes, we all had some fuck’n amazing parents. And many of us were completely clueless at the time and didn’t come to realize it and appreciate it until years later. Thanks Mom and Pops.

R137 & R138 yes, lets celebrate creative and frugal Moms everywhere by buying Shake and Bake and celebrating their ingenuity. Thanks Mom.

R233, farmers markets aren't for the "affluent". If anything, their produce is exponentially cheaper than the grocery stores. Many local farmers, at least where I live in NE Ohio, set up temporary stands throughout the summer and fall months, and sell their stuff directly.

r253 NE Ohio is vastly different than farmers markets in urban metropolitan areas. They are far more expensive than produce at the grocery store.

R254, sorry, I didn't realize that.

My mum would always make sausages along with the liver and onions R248, so I'd just have those with gravy. I could still taste the liver though, blech.

R174 Ah yes, LaChoy Chicken Chow Mein. We always thought and regarded that as a fancy and exotic meal. Here we were a lower middle class white family in the Midwest eating like just like kids in China. How special we thought we were.

R234 I am laughing so hard I just peed my pants.

My Momma was Italian and she worked which was unheard of in the 50's but necessary. She liked to think she was"modern" so she served us TV dinners, and frozen Chop Suey or beef chow mein, over rice with a can of those fried crunchy noodles. Chicken or beef pot pies were another big item. On Saturdays we had sloppy joes.

We had a freezer in the basement, and my parents always bought big stuff on sale, so like hams and turkeys and we'd go to this wholesale place and get huge bags of chicken wings, or giant packages of ground beef. Then come home and break it up into two nights' worth of dinners in each bag. The turkey or ham we'd use, and I swear we used every big of that ham. Soup, even. Every bit. I also remember eating a lot of "breakfasts" for dinner, like waffles or pancakes, omelettes, etc because breakfast was always the cheapest meal. So hot cereal for breakfast, then pancakes and eggs for supper. I will point out, and I don't know if anyone else found this to be true, not nearly enough green vegetables were consumed. Mostly potatoes or rice.

Meatloaf. Ugh. To this day I hate meatloaf.

r260, we also lived out of our basement freezer. There was an outlet store that sold day old bread and we'd always have a few loaves in the freezer. Occassionally we'd get Ring Dings, Yodels or Devil Dogs, and would get to have one that night, and the rest would go in the freezer to be doled out. I liked the Devil Dogs still slightly frozen. If meat was on sale at the supermarket, my mom would get as much as she could and freeze most of it. She was a teacher so had no income from end of June until early September. We got by most of the year just fine but it was the 70s, hard recession and everyone we knew was struggling a bit. At the end of the school year my mom would get a deal from the cafeteria lady/supplier and come home with about 20 big squares of frozen school pizza. I think there were 10 pieces of pizza per square, you'd have to break off however many you were going to cook. We ate that almost every day for lunch in the summer. Washed down with HiC or iced tea made from powder. It's a wonder none of us were fat.

Compared to most people in our town, my family was considered "rich" - but now that years have passed, looking back on it, we weren't rich at all. We just had enough money for a new car every two years and whatnot. Certainly not rich.

Yet, I was never told when money was tight, and I'm sure there were plenty of times that it was tight. But I certainly remember my mom cooking goulash or hash or BFD, or just beans and cornbread, on many occasions. Also, both my parents grew up pretty poor in the Great Depression, and I think they enjoyed having those types of meals as well, and being nostalgic.

R263, What was in BFD? I also remember hash which I loved, lots of plain baked potatoes with perhaps a tiny bit of margarine, over cooked boiled vegetables, broiled chicken backs and necks which were cheap.

We ate a lot of soup. Chili, and oatmeal.

R265, Recall a sister's SDSU cultural anthropology class conducted an experiment. Participants were broke college students who agreed to duplicate Native American's basic diet of beans, corn, corn tortillas, chili peppers, and water for a period of time. Different from the NA they could eat as much as they wanted of the above food.

All lost weight and were never sick.

My heart goes out to those of you who were hungry but I have to say many of these meals or dishes sound delicious. Some may not have been too healthy but sure do sound tasty. I guess maybe not too bad for those of you who are older since back in the day even what we consider junk food now wasn't made with really bad ingredients, even if they used lard and such, it's real food and today we know that things like butter, lard, chicken or beef fat and real cane sugar aren't nearly as bad as the Frankenfoods that have come to replace them.

Codfish cakes, like salmon croquettes.

Completely agree, R267. Only difference I would take is that the point many (admittedly, not all) are making is that we weren’t often truly hungry....maybe just didn’t realize the shoestring our folks were walking on to pull it together every meal.

Upthread someone talked about people complaining their kids were picky eaters (sorry, lost post #). Last night I made steak, roasted butternut squash, basmati rice, & salad (not bagged). My kids told me they “didn’t like it” and after days of reminiscing and following this thread it was all I could do to not lose my shit. They went to bed with whatever they chose to eat, and no more. And no Sunday night ice cream for anyone.

Not a go-to MEAL, but a go-to snack when times were tough:

Minute rice with margarine and maple syrup.

Imitation rice pudding, leftover brown rice heated in milk and served with cinnamon. Sometimes served for breakfast instead of oatmeal and milk with a few raisins or cornmeal mush or wheatina. Dry cereal was an extreme rarity as was soda. Like it had to be almost free and used for coke floats before we got to have it.

Margarine was also a rarity, butter didn't exist. Mother used a little leftover chicken fat to cook. She constantly complained about the price of "poor man's butter" or avocados which she loved mashed and spread on a corn tortilla.

Envy those of you with mothers that didn't constantly complain about poverty. I knew from the very youngest age.

Really envy those posters who weren't always spanked for refusing to eat a certain food or meal deemed cheap and healthy. Yes 3 of my 4 sisters are way, way overweight and/or IMHO have eating disorders.

Mother had go-to lazy meals--TV dinners, Stouffer's lasagna, french toast, grilled cheese--but not an economic necessity as far as I can tell. My favorite cheap-o meals are pizza w/ Trader Joe's pizza crust, french onion soup, salmon patties (identical recipe to crabcakes), turkey meat loaf, dutch baby pancake, shakshuka, infinite variety of pasta dishes, bread pudding, quiches

R272 reminded me of this: "Okay, Jodie, I would never ordinarily say this, but... is there any way you can get to a pound cake?"

My old country Polish great grandmother, when I was about 6-7 she'd make us "sangwidges" of two pieces of white bread she bought on sale, with ketchup smeared on them, and a thick slice of onion. That was it. Lunch.

Did kids manage to eat an onion sangwidge?

Yeah,if you drank a glass of milk with it. My uncle, her son used to throw a couple of greasy sardines in his, but they made me gag.

Jezus Chrystus

Stone soup.

I thought perhaps our Darfur Orphan would have weighed in on this topic, but then I remembered that he doesn't have a mom.

[quote] My uncle, her son used to throw a couple of greasy sardines in his, but they made me gag.

You're lucky your uncle wasn't throwing something else your way that might make you gag.

R280

me neither.

I did not have a Mother.

And I was hungry..

R280

me neither.

I did not have a Mother.

And I was hungry..

R280

me neither.

I did not have a Mother.

And I was hungry..

R280

me neither.

I did not have a Mother.

And I was hungry..

R280

me neither.

I did not have a Mother.

And I was hungry..

Hmmm... Seems Muriel was backed up last night.

Baked chicken. EVERY fucking night. This was at a time in the 80s when beef was much more expensive than chicken.

[quote] ...when beef was much more expensive than chicken.

So your mother is still eating chicken every night, eh?

Fer chrissakes, somebody in your family should buy the old woman a steak.

we were very lucky that way. I grew up on Long Island, my dad was an architect for the NYC Board of Ed. Mother only worked if she wanted to. That said, she was nuts but she was a great cook. She, a German Jew, could fry a chicken with the best of southern cooks. She made a great italian tomato sauce too.

My ex grew up outside Scranton and told me his dinner could be a piece of bread smeared with catsup with some government cheese on top. He said as poor as they were the family was happy...unlike mine with plenty of money and good food.

"Mother" with no possessive adjective. Smell you!

we always had lean times and my mother hated to cook. We always had something with ground meat on Mondays. On Wednesday we always had fried eggs for dinner. On Thursday we had spaghetti made with a dry packet of Spatini that made the sauce. We only had starch once a month. Most nights we had one serving of meat(one slice) , one serving of a vegetable (¼ cup) and one serving of a canned fruit( one piece unless it was fruit salad). we were never allowed seconds. We did have a nice roast on Sundays. It made for an extremely healthy diet but I was always hungry. I learned to fill in with chocolate which I ate a lot of and became addicted to it. At the height of my addiction I would consume 10 lbs. a week but never gained a pound from it. I still eat chocolate everyday but nothing near what I used to and it has to be milk as I don't like dark.

She would tell cook to switch to Iranian caviar.

The children would, of course, have none of it.

R292 you did not describe an "extremely healthy diet" at all.

For R288. You were not alone.

Bump for hard times

Fish chowder. Lots of potatoes, some onions, milk, a little flour, water, inappropriate leftover vegetables... it'd stretch less than a pound of cheap white fish to a hot meal for five people. It was one of the few things my father could cook, and he'd make it occasionally.

I kind of liked it at the time, but going to New England as an adult with a little money in my pocket was a revelation. Real haddock chowder! Made with lots of the best fresh fish, and CREAM!!! Heavenly stuff, worth the trip on its own.

Corned beef hash patties made with canned corned beef. I loved it, actually.

Creamed tuna (white sauce) on toasted white bread. Loved that, too.

Kraft Mac & Cheese (in the tall box) made with 2% milk and margarine, a perfectly cut wedge of iceberg lettuce with Thousand Island dressing poured on top, and canned lima beans.

Oddly, this was one of my favorite meals she made as a little kid. It was like a treat.

[quote]What’s the big deal with Auntie Mame?

My MIL would make "frankfurter casserole" which consisted of cut up hot dogs, canned green beans, potato chunks and cream of mushroom soup. It wasn't terrible, believe it or not.

[quote]Times were so lean, we didn’t have a mom.

Did you...eat her?

[quote]Did you...eat her?

Only on her birthday and Mother's Day.

bump

We had a garden, so on Saturdays it was always soup with whatever came from the garden, carrots, potatoes, zucchini, celery, leek and pig trotters.

It was always delicious!

I didn't read through all the replies but YES, my mom made tuna casserole and it was DELICIOUS with fresh vegetables from our garden. And cheap because the protein was from a can. But it was great, and i still have her from scratch recipe that my kid and grandkids love. it's a family fave and we aren't big on seafood either.

Also omelettes (breakfast for dinner!). We had chickens so lots of eggs, our own homemade sausage and vegetables from our garden. Once a week in rotation. We also had a gourmet "chef's salad" served with garden vegetables, tuna, hard boiled eggs, avocados (lived in SoCal and had an avo tree). Each week was also a make your own burrito night with a ton of veggies, beans, cheese, sour cream. That was our favorite! My parents knew how to stretch their food budget and our food was delicious and fresh. We were lucky, they were great cooks. In addition to all those mentioned, we had Greek food, Schizuan, Mexican, Italian, etc. They were gourmands and were were very lucky that they loved cooking and a very experimental palate which helped when we were hard of times (which was often).

Bump

she'd raise utility pigeons. they were more economical than chickens plus occasionally convincing the butchers to buy some off her. usually so she could buy groceries for the things we couldn't sell or raise. we did have a couple times we had to rely on public commodities, though. but usually when that happened, it was wide spread and so, not uncommmon we'd take some of the neigbhoorhood kids some nights and other nights we'd eat at their place.

I still love dinners featuring tomato soup and grilled cheese, tuna noodle casserole, french toast, stuffed cabbage or peppers, meatloaf, and salmon cakes. These were foods my depression baby mother grew up with and made for us with quality ingredients.

Use Ina's recipe for a good salmon cake and stuffed cabbage rolls. Try "Meatloaf of the Gods" for delicious meatloaf. J. Kenji López-Alt has a great recipe for tuna casserole. I add a little cheese to it.

Eggs & sliced potatoes omelet. It was actually decent.

Two packs of Herbert Tareyton, a bottomless 7&7, and bitterness.

Rice and an egg. We always had greens in the garden.

We were never poor.

This thread is about 2 years old. I had never seen it until last night, and I read the whole thing. Fascinating, to put it mildly. I wish there was a way on this site to "save" threads, or make a little cache to keep favorites in. It seems like it would be easily doable.

R176 asshole,my parents were democrats and they LIKE EVERYONE ELSE were ashamed at taking charity. Nowadays people scam to get on it. Too bad the embarressment FADED. I am not the poster u were making fun of you clueless ass

1 box of macaroni and cheese+ a can of tuna + a handful of frozen peas. It's like a one pot tuna casserole.

I don't really remember having "struggle meals." Then again, the first 3 or 4 years of my life, my mother collected food stamps (I remember seeing them in a cup on the kitchen counter). So I guess, technically every meal was a "struggle meal" when I'd visit her on the weekends.

Oh, also, I was raised by my grandmother for the first 10 years of my life because my mother had to finish school because she was a teen mom, and her mom, apparently, didn't feel "comfortable" with me staying with my father because he was on parole and "about that life" at the time.

Funny how they both ended up becoming college-educated professionals because, I swear, they had all the right ingredients to grow up to become complete fuck-ups. According to my mother, getting pregnant motivated her to finish school otherwise she was going to drop out. She has 3 Master's degrees, now. So, it all worked out, I suppose.

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Alpo wet food, a friend of the family turned her on to it. This guy didn't even need to do this, he was just cheap, as were my parents.

We weren’t poor but my parents both worked and were alcoholics so food didn’t seem much of a priority. And mom never ever bought good stuff for snacks. No chips, cookies, candy, soda, canned stuff like ravioli or spaghetti-os…. Once in a while ice milk, specifically ice milk not cream. I remember always being hungry because not much between meals. We had a lot of boil-in-bags when that was thing for dinner. Funny cuz me, my dad, and brother were all foodies.

Chili brick and hotdogs

R319 your parents served you dog food?

R319 R322 hahahah seriously

Peanut butter and bacon sandwiches for dinner. That's when bacon was cheap.

Earrings

Caftans

Gin

Regret

Cabbage and ham.

My mom would make mashed potatoes with hamburger (or beef mince) gravy. With onions, I think. I wonder what it would taste like now.

^That reminds me of SOS (shit on a shingle). It was hamburger gravy on toast.

Remember those boil in a bag meals they used to carry in the freezer section? They came with roast beef or turkey in gravy, you'd pour them over toast or mashed potatoes.

Well we first had to play rock papers scissor. You know to determine who was gna eat that day at all.

Coronation Chicken

Fresh Scottish Salmon

Bombe Glacée Royale

Venison with mushroom whisky sauce

Gleneagles pâté

Crème Brulee with Sandringham oranges

Tuna noodle casserole, or Salmon croquettes with white sauce and some frozen mixed vegetables. Oh. And Pasta. We ate lots of Pasta with Italian sausage.

Cereal with water. NEVER AGAIN.

Beans and tortillas. I still can't eat the two of them together.

Campbell's chicken noodle soups. Buy them in bulk when they're on sale. Great for lunch.

I grew up on a farm, one of eight kids. My dad worked two jobs so we rarely saw him. Even on the weekends he would be working on the farm. We always had fresh vegetables, salads. Here are some of my moms specials.

She would make two pots of chili. My dad liked spaghetti in his chili, so one would have spaghetti and one would be made without. Lasted about three days.

She would make a huge pot of pinto beans with crumbled bacon slices. Cornbread. Sliced tomato and onion on the side.

I remember having cinnamon toast for dessert. White bread with butter and cinnamon toasted over an oven rack until crunchy. She would also take any leftover pie crust, roll it out, sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar, and put it in to bake along with the pie. I loved that. Also, Cherry Jello with whatever stale cookies she had. It was all mixed together to form in the mold. When she sliced it, she topped it with Cool Whip. Delicious.

When I was growing up, we were not poor but we were not rich either. My Dad had a good union job, and ran a working farm on top of that. We always had enough, but no extras. I don't remember my Mom and Dad ever going away on vacation. They saved their money. I wish they had spent the money on themselves. They left money and property to be split up, had a will, and still there were fights over the estate.

Times were lean?

R324, Are you Swedish? Peanut butter and bacon sandwiches are common in Sweden.

I have Swedish ancestry but I thought pb and bacon was a southern thing. I grew up in the Ozarks.

Cinnamon toast was always a go to any timet, etc. Oatmeal. We had a lot of apples, oanges, bananas, nothing else tho. Once in a while a few pears. Lots of canned peaches and friut cocktail. Ma would bake a 9x9 square tea cake and put canned fruit on it. Oh. We had a LOT of peanut butter, peanut butter and bananas, peanut butter toast, peanut butter and jelly. We never had cold cuts. We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or tuna or tomato sandwiches, or grilled cheese. With Velveeta.

Discarded tampons called "jelly rolls"

Rice with fried eggs and tomatoes salad.

Tuna casserole. The only thing canned we used was tuna...my mom made the creamy roux sauce instead of using cream of mushroom sou., Diced onion, frozen peas/carrots, celery seed, rotini (usually, depends on what noodle I have on hand, but NOT spaghetti or wide flat noodles and a little thyme.

It was/is delicious and I introduced 2 generations to it. It's a crowd-pleaser and requested at least yearly.

R10

[quote]Because back then people had pride

She’d rather starve than work? Who was this woman? Peg Bundy?

This is a terrific thread, one of DL's "greatest hits" IMO. I guess I ought to figure out a way to copy it and preserve it. I've sent links to it to quite a few non-Dataloungers. It was a real shock of a read, "educational."