In today’s entry to the Jack’s Winning Words blog, Jack writes about his childhood memories of meals at home and used this quote – “As a child our family’s menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.” (Buddy Hackett)
Of course, Jack’s post brought back a flood of memories from my own childhood and the meals that we used to get back then. On today’s restaurant menus, what passed for a salad in our house would be called a Wedge Salad; although when my mom was served it back then, it
only came with a spoonful of mayonnaise as a dressing. Chopping a wedge out of a head of lettuce was a quick and easy way to have a salad. Most of the time the salad might have consisted of orange Jell-O with shredded carrot in it or perhaps the always-popular canned mixed fruit (one always hoped to get the cherry slices).
Jack mentioned liver and onions and that was big at our house, too; although as a child I hated it. My dad was a hunter and during rabbit and bird seasons, there was sometimes game on the table – mostly rabbit. It was always a joke that whoever got a piece of bird shot in their portion won the prize for the night. If we had chicken, it was always a whole bird and there was always a “wishbone” to be pulled. My sister and I would each take an end and pull until it broke. I
have discovered later in life that there are two different interpretations of who wins when the wishbone breaks. At our house, it was the short piece that the rules declared was the winner and the loser could hang their piece on a doorknob. In other houses it was apparently the longer piece that won.
Vegetables that were served with meals were most often canned – corn, peas, green beans, mixed peas and carrots, black-eyed peas, butter beans and the ever popular creamed corn. During the summer, we might actually have some fresh vegetables, especially snap beans or butter beans, and corm on the cob was a favorite. Occasionally, mom might cook up some greens (collard greens or spinach with bacon grease) as a nod to her southern heritage.
Desserts were rare, with Jell-O cubes again being a favored go-to for mom or occasionally ice cream – it seemed almost always to be Neapolitan. Of course there was the occasional pie or cake (angel food or pineapple upside down cake seemed to be the favorites at our 
house. In the summer months, a watermelon often served as dessert and we had fun spitting seeds to see who could launch them the furthest. The fall usually meant pumpkin pies and the occasional mincemeat pie or a shoofly pie (my dad was Pennsylvania Dutch, so that was a favorite of his). If all else failed, mom would just shift the canned fruit salad from the salad course to the dessert course.
What meals do you remember from your childhood? Do you remember when TV dinners were introduced and became a big thing? Have you ever eaten a TV dinner?How about fish sticks ( the go-to for fish for my
mom)? Can you remember back before pizzas were available everywhere? What was your favorite “take out” family meal back then? Do you recall what it was like for the whole family to gather for dinner and not have a TV going or everyone looking at their phones?
Many of us have fond memories or maybe just vivid memories of childhood meals – loved or hated. What meals do you remember from your childhood? As a matter of fact, how many of you even remember Buddy Hackett? Thanks Jack, for bringing back fond childhood memories.
NormsMilfordBlog 
You bring back memories to me, too.