Some Foods From My Childhood Are As Good As I Remember

and some aren't

[lawman]

Just had some Animal Crackers today. Yummy, just as good as I remember.

On the other hand, as a child I used to think chipped beef gravy on toast was haute cuisine. Now I can't stand the stuff.

[LifeinAsia]

I now only eat free range animal crackers that are raised under humane conditions. :)

[limoshawn]

free range animal crackers

too funny LIA, I was 1 click away from registering that as a domain name when I realized that I don't need any more domains/work to do!

mac-n-cheese and hot dogs, still just as yummy as I remembered from when I was a kid.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I had tatties and mince for dinner tonight. :)

[wheel]

I had tatties and mince for dinner tonight. :)

That sounds vaguely #*$!ographic.

[wheel]

And I don't have a lot of fond memories of food from my childhood. British background, but apparently the only thing that got handed down through the generations was that everything had to be boiled to the point of paste before it was consumed.

[johnhh]

boiled to the point of paste before it was consumed

ha .. still do it myself - the wife has a heart attack when I do that

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Tatties and mince is an old Scottish favourite [en.wikipedia.org...]

And we also still have stovies on occasions - delicious!
[en.wikipedia.org...]

[Old_Honky]

I wouldn't boil to the point of paste but I abhor the current trend to under cook vegetables. My wife unfortunately likes her veggies almost raw so when I cook a roast dinner I have to do two lots of each veg. However I was pleased to read recently that the latest medical evidence is with me, well cooked vegetables are now good for you as you can absorb the nutrients more easily. Of course the next research project will probably reverse that.

Being English and unfamiliar with US Cusine I wondered what "chipped beef gravy on toast" was and looked it up on google. It doesn't sound very appetising. Give me good thick brown British gravy any day, but never on toast. What sort of perverted idea is that? Still what can you expect from a nation that puts maple syrup on bacon. :)

[lawman]

Give me good thick brown British gravy any day, but never on toast.

What, you never heard of SOS? [en.wikipedia.org]

[LifeinAsia]

well cooked vegetables are now good for you as you can absorb the nutrients more easily.

That's assuming you don't cook all the nutrients away when you cook them. :)

Still what can you expect from a nation that puts maple syrup on bacon.

Unfortunately, most Americans would be putting high fructose corn syrup on the bacon- hardly any actual maple syrup in the bottle. :( (And yes, I admit to being one of those, before I actually read the ingredients.)

Back on track, I thought tomatoes were wretched when I was a kid. (Of course, ketchup was great!) Now I absolutely love them (although most of the ones you find in stores are crap, unless they're organic, from a local farm, or heirloom) and rarely use ketchup.

Then again, I had a very narrow selection of what I would eat as a kid. Outside that narrow selection, I KNEW I didn't like it- I didn't even need to try it to know I didn't like it. Of course, now I know better. Luckily, I have tried a wide range of foods since then and discovered that most of them are actually pretty good!

seafood-
Then: fish sticks, canned tuna
Now: salmon, fresh tuna, catfish, bass, trout sea bass, sushi, calamari, squid, oysters, clams, scallops (in a hurry will use fish sticks in tacos and sometimes add canned tuna to other dishes)

fruit/veggies-
Then: apples, bananas, rarely watermelon (hated the seeds), corn, mashed potatoes, French fries
Now: spinach, arugula, tomatoes, bananas, cherries, cranberries, sweet potatoes, peppers (green, red, yellow), squash, cucumbers, mushrooms, onions, broccoli, cauliflower- just about anything (although still don't like beets that much)

meat/poultry-
Then: burgers, hot dogs, chicken, turkey
Now: (only eat red meat 2-3 times/month these days and rarely anything processed and portions of meat are much smaller than before) leaner meats, bison, chicken, turkey, pork

[edited by: LifeinAsia at 4:51 pm (utc) on Jul 6, 2011]

[jecasc]

British background, but apparently the only thing that got handed down through the generations was that everything had to be boiled to the point of paste before it was consumed.

Ah yes, traditional british dishes. The main driving force behind the british empire. Thousands of britains eagerly fleeing their home country searching for better food.

[SevenCubed]

Cretons on toast is just as good as I remember. (Bing it for best results). Chasing it with a strong coffee accentuates the flavour even more, yummy.

But on the other hand that same delightful treat is like heart attack on toast and so I can only indulge in it a few times a year.

[johnhh]

trout sea bass ..no please help you are torturing me .. send me some .. my favourite - only available near here at an expensive Chinese restaurant .

Rather like American style breakfasts, its the pancakes and real hash browns - not those frozen rubbish we get here in the UK.

I'll skip the "English muffins" they serve though.

Best beef - South of France, best pizzas - Italy and a few places in Germany.Best breakfasts - USA - worst food - UK ( and I live there, although there's a good Italian in Sloane Square and the Ivy does the best chips )

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I think you must olive in the wrong part of the UK. For example Glasgow's restaurant culture is amazing.

[graeme_p]

A friend who lives in New York who visited London after many years was amazed at the improvement in the quality of restaurant food.

Traditional British food can be pretty good done right. When I first took my Sri Lankan wife to live in Britain she really loved things like roast chicken with gravy and Brussels sprouts. From her point of view they were an exotic novelty.

@jecasc, not just the empire: 10% of British citizens live abroad. The town I live in has lots.

[rbarker]

"...boiled to the point of paste..."

Wow, you just explained my mom's cooking. She's British...

[ken_b]

Watermelon rind pickles

Fruit soup.

[LifeinAsia]

Fruit soup.

Did a double-take. I thought your wrote fruit soap. :)

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Wow, you just explained my mom's cooking. She's British...

Then she's your mum not your mom! ;)

[lucy24]

I was well into adulthood before I learned that spaghetti is not customarily served with ketchup, powdery grated cheese from a can, and plain ground beef. Never knew there existed pizza toppings other than pepperoni, either.

This is part of a much longer list, but I will spare you.

Don't talk to me about sophisticated European family cuisine. Those mothers must have come from some other country than mine.

[johnhh]

For example Glasgow's restaurant culture is amazing.

Glasgow - is that the place in the Artic Circle with the fried Mars Bars :)

[Essex_boy]

Boiled rice, Mincemeat mixed with baked beans love it !

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Glasgow - is that the place in the Artic Circle with the fried Mars Bars

No, that's actually Edinburgh. ;)

[Old_Honky]

Boiled rice, Mincemeat mixed with baked beans love it !

I'm curious, do you actually mean mincemeat - the sweet fruity stuff they put in mince pies, or mince - minced meat? The latter sounds like it could be OK (if a little bland) the former sounds almost as disgusting as putting custard on kippers.

[lucy24]

the former sounds almost as disgusting as putting custard on kippers

I've got a recipe for baked beans with chutney and a bit of honey. (Also onion and mustard and I forget the rest.) They're delicious :P

Incidentally, English food wasn't always boring. Look at cookbooks from the 17th century or earlier. Some ways into the 18th; I don't know exactly when the cutoff was. Blame it on a weird combination of socioeconomic factors, paradoxically including a quest for reliable sources of spices. Part of the tangle was the institution of "nursery food", meaning that the upper classes weren't introduced to the concept of flavor until it was too late for most.

[johnhh]

No, that's actually Edinburgh. ;)

thats just passing the buck :) next you will be mentioning curried beans ( baked beans + curry powder ) actually I do like haggis .. once you have caught one :)

[graeme_p]

@lucy, leading the industrial revolution meant large cities before the invention of refrigeration or fast transport - if you send something into London by barge unrefrigerated it is going to be half rotten by the time it is eaten so you have to just boil it to death.

[lucy24]

if you send something into London by barge unrefrigerated it is going to be half rotten by the time it is eaten so you have to just boil it to death.

Or drench it in an array of spices, heavy on the pepper, so you won't notice. Food brought overland into monster cities like Peking can't have arrived in tip-top shape either, but they managed to develop a pretty decent cuisine anyway.

I no longer have the nerve to make Norwegian-style eggnog even though I remember it fondly. You don't know where that egg has been or how long it's been there-- and you can't stick eggs in the freezer for a couple of weeks to kill off the creepy-crawlies. (Or can you? What happens to an egg if you freeze it?)

Canned tomato soup is still a good comfort food though.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

next you will be mentioning curried beans

Ah, but they're nothing to do with either Glasgow or Edinburgh.
[google.co.uk...]