What Meal Did Your Parents Fix For You As A Child

debbila

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What meal or food did your parents fix for you when you were a child, that you later found out it was because you were poor or they were being thrifty? It can be something that you liked, or didn't like. Do you still like or dislike it?

We weren't poor but mothers didn't work when I was growing up. Mom was economical after living through the depression. She sometimes made a pot of beans and cornbread for dinner, or lima bean soup. Unlike a lot of kids, I liked those foods and still do.
 

Katie M

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I remember a lot of comfort food. Meatloaf, spaghetti, grilled cheese, and tomato soup were staples of my childhood. We weren't poor, and neither was Mom growing up, but my grandmother was a child during the Depression. Mom ate like I did, and I think my grandmother simply wanted to give her children more filling meals than she'd had.
 

tabbysia

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We had most nights some type of breaded fried meat with gravy and potatoes, along with a can of some sort of vegetable. We did have quite often though macaroni and tomato. A box of macaroni and a can of diced tomatoes probably didn't cost very much. We also had a lot of sausage and sauerkraut (my mom is German-not by birth) or sausage and potatoes. We also had fried potato patties. I don't know how much a package of Eckrich sausage cost back in the 80's, but I'm guessing cans of sauerkraut, canned vegetables, and bags of potatoes were fairly economical. We had meatloaf quite often too. We didn't have a lot of money growing up. We always had the basics that we needed though.
 

NY cat man

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We had a lot of creamed tuna fish and peas on toast, or potato pancakes, supplemented by our garden, so we had a lot of home-canned food.
 

Winchester

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Cooked rice. With milk and cinnamon. And that's it. My parents didn't have a lot of money when we were growing up. And my Dad's paycheck only went so far.
 

weebeasties

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debbila debbila I grew up eating cornbread and beans too. I haven't "met" anyone else who knew what I was talking about. Still like to eat it!
We grew up poor so my parents had to find ways to feed the family economically. Navy beans with a hambone for flavor, a big pot of green beans and new potatoes, hamburger soup, sauerkraut and dumplings. Most of the vegetables came from our garden and my mom canned a lot. I still like to eat most of the stuff I ate as a child.
 

Willowy

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After taking care of my niece and nephews, I can say that it's hard to keep kids fed! So now I know why my mom never made anything too interesting. I remember a lot of spaghetti, meatloaf, mac & cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches with canned soup, various things with rice (fish sticks, chicken, canned chili, etc.), packaged chicken nuggets. We were not poor but my mom never learned to cook properly, so neither did I.
mothers didn't work when I was growing up
My grandma worked! But yeah, most didn't.

My mom says that on the rare occasion that my grandma made dinner (they had a maid/cook, because they lived in a Latin American country where domestic help was cheap), she would make canned stewed tomatoes mixed with Saltines. My mom hated it. She has nightmares about stewed tomatoes with Saltines, lol.
 

mizzely

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I never knew why we ate so much chicken legs and thighs and cheap pork cuts as a kid until I had to buy my own groceries!
 

Willowy

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I once had the 2 older kids for the weekend. We went to Walmart and bought $70 worth of food before going to my house. It was all gone at the end of the weekend. I don't know how anyone can afford to feed kids, lol.
 

muffy

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My father raised chickens and had a large garden in our back yard. We were not poor but my mother grew up in the depression. She would make a lot of spaghetti, chili, soup, stews along with canned and frozen food. I used to love her fried chicken, ham and fish sticks until I stopped eating meat at age nine years.
 

DreamerRose

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We had a lot of cornbread and beans, too. Mother used dried beans, soaked overnight, so it was a very inexpensive meal. This was back in the '50s, before frozen foods, so we ate fruit and vegetables in season. My, how good those first strawberries tasted!
 

marmoset

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We were pretty poor actually. My gran had a garden and did a lot of pickling. She also made her own blood sausage in her backyard. So we ate a lot of pickled vegetables and "old country" food. My dad hunted rabbits and fished and we got cheap "stewing chickens" from the market.

The Polish are big on keeping people well fed but it was all home cooked, mostly home grown etc. My mom made regular meals but portioned out meal sizes so no one was able to over eat. Just another way to stretch a dollar. I did learn healthy eating habits from them though and I wouldn't go back in time and wish for bags of chips, cookies and McDonalds.

Somewhere in my teens I fell in love with french fries though. That is my weakness!
 

LTS3

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Too many things to count :paperbag: We weren't poor but we weren't well off either. Dinner was always on the table, even if it was just plain rice and a scrambled egg 3 hungry kids had to share. I always got whatever was left over after my brothers squabbled over who got more. Sometimes it was a can of SPAM and other packaged foods. There were also lots of leftovers, sometimes for days :barfgreen:


We went to Walmart and bought $70 worth of food before going to my house. It was all gone at the end of the weekend. I don't know how anyone can afford to feed kids, lol.

A non-pet person could say the same thing to us: How can you spend X amount of food for just one cat???
 
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