What was it like for you growing up at home?

Down the road, I'll post a Turkish tripe recipe. I still have the other half, that I plan to make into Menudo. (Mexican tripe soup, which I've actually yet to try - parents were big on doing the Italian marinara thing with it.) But for each, I'll wait a bit. Although, seriously, that Turkish tripe recipe hit all my buttons of enjoyment.
 
Mountain Cat said:
Down the road, I'll post a Turkish tripe recipe. I still have the other half, that I plan to make into Menudo. (Mexican tripe soup, which I've actually yet to try - parents were big on doing the Italian marinara thing with it.) But for each, I'll wait a bit. Although, seriously, that Turkish tripe recipe hit all my buttons of enjoyment.
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Please NOOO, lol. I hate tripe!!

Russ
 
Mountain Cat said:
We did have a lot of offal at home - both mom and dad cooked this. Mom drew the line at having the lamb's head Dad brought home one Friday night - but he and I (and probably my brother) tucked right in. But otherwise, tongue, sweetbreads, beef heart, tripe (which they made in a marinara sauce, Italian style), were frequent encounters at dinner time. Also liver, which back then I didn't appreciate so much.

He was also a hunter, and came home with venison. Once with rattlesnake (yes, tastes like chicken).

Occasionally frog legs (probably from Chinatown), just about anything. We ate a lot of the cheap meats, with expensive cuts reserved for special occasions. I think one year asked for sweetbreads for my birthday dinner. It was later in my teen years - those trips through Pennsylvania Dutch country - that Dad was able to source his souse or head cheese - mother passed on that, too, but I loved it.

And not to slight the vegetable world, we all loved okra, which we served every way but battered and deep fried. (I tried that at a chain restaurant one year driving in the south - it was chopped to smithereens and battered so it was all breading and barely any okra... I ended up peeling off the breading because I couldn't stand it, and didn't want to order something else.) I was also a beet fan from early childhood, which set me off from others.
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My Mum and Dad used to have tripe or jellied eels for dinner on Saturdays. I couldn't even bear to be in the same room when they were eating it. I used to end up with a plate of apple, cheese, and chips/fries instead.

Until about 35 years ago, I used to cook a pig's head quite regularly to make brawn. My daughter and the stepdaughter who lived with us loved it, although they couldn't bear to look in the pot while it was cooking - the jaw bones and the teeth used to make them feel quite queasy. I used to like ox liver too, especially in a casserole with plenty of tomatoes, but the CJD outbreak put paid to that. The first outbreak was in a farm not far from me, so most of the local shops stopped stocking it and I've rarely seen it since.
 
TastyReuben said:
If you've ever seen an episode of The Waltons TV show from the 1970's, that's pretty much how I grew up, right down to the sawmill.

We raised our own food, for the most part, killed our own meat, made our own butter, and until the mid-1990's (long after I moved away) Mom continued to cook on a wood cook stove.

We canned and preserved, kept a milk cow, made cheese, had a root cellar and a smokehouse. My dad and my brothers built the house I grew up in, from digging the basement to doing the wiring and plumbing, the whole bit.

Very little automated in the way of kitchen tools. About the only electric things my mom had were a hand mixer and a blender, and she got those for free.

No microwave. We had an electric cooker, but it was never used (except by me when I got older).

Six kids, two parents, and one set of grandparents who didn't live there but were there all the time.

Dad owned a sawmill and worked a day job for a soft drinks bottling company. Mom stayed home and ran the house and raised us kids. Sometimes when money got tight, she'd find a temp job "doing for" an older person nearby.

We ate a lot of pork and chicken and ground beef. Pork chops, bacon, and sausage and hamburgers and fried chicken and chicken and dumplings.

We had a grapevine, so Mom put up grape juice. Lots of beans and potatoes and onions. Buckets and buckets of tomatoes and peppers.

We had fruit trees and lots of berries as well. Mom baked a lot of pies. There was always pie.

Truth be told, though, my mom wasn't a very good cook. She was always rushing around, behind schedule, so she burned a lot of stuff and she was also from that generation that felt meat, especially pork, had to be cooked extra well done, or else you'd die.

I rarely ate cereal as a child, unlike most kids. We always had a full breakfast of eggs, potatoes, meat, biscuits and gravy, and pie every morning.

We didn't eat a lot of processed food. I never had a pizza from a pizzeria until I was 19 and had moved away. Same with steak and a lot of things like Fritos.

No "foreign" food whatsoever was allowed in the house. No Mexican, Chinese, or Italian food items.

I have a lot of funny/weird/sad stories of not being exposed to common things until after I left home and moved out on my own.

We didn't celebrate Christmas or Easter or birthdays or anniversaries. My dad was very religious, but not in the usual sense. Closest thing today would be Jehovah's Witnesses. Us kids were not allowed to participate in any school celebrations, like Valentine's Day card exchanges or cupcakes for a classmate's birthday. We had to sit out in the empty hall while the other kids had fun.

We didn't associate with other people as friends. Anyone who was at the house was primarily there for some kind of business. We went to school and came home and worked. No after-school activities, no friends, no sleepovers, no dating, no dances. No toys or anything like that.

If I have one overwhelming memory of my childhood, it was work. Never-ending work. On a small family farm/homestead, there is always something to fix. Something always needs painted, repaired, planted, weeded, harvested, fed, or otherwise tended to.

We heated mainly with wood, and no central air conditioning. Ohio, if you're not familiar, is as hot and humid as Satan's backside in the summer and as cold as a snowman's cold bits in the winter.

All in all, I can't say that it was a lifestyle I enjoyed much, and of all the kids, I'm the one who lives the least like that now.
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One of my uncles used to work in a corn chandler's in what is now east London. He and my aunt lived in the end cottage of a terrace of traditional Essex timber-framed cottages and the corn chandler's shop and yard were built behind it. Eventually he closed the business and retired but they could not enjoy their retirement as my aunt got lung cancer (assumed to be as a result of all the corn dust etc) and died not long afterwards.
The cottages and the corn chandlers were demolished and were replaced by flats a couple of years later my uncle moved to another timber cottage in Billericay in Essex. It was even smaller than the one he had had and was one of many cottages built behind a pub on the high street. There was no road access - if you went to see him by car, you had to park in the pub car park and walk down a path. Some developers bought the land where the cottages were and started to demolish them. My uncle wasn't happy with the money they offered him to move so he stayed put. There were new houses going up all round him and a road which stopped at one side of his home and started again on the other side. Eventually they upped the offer and he moved to an old brick built Victorian schoolhouse in Norfolk. It came with 32 acres of reed land and a row of mainly derelict cottages, so he bought himself a nice big digger from the Council and started clearing it. He was in his 70s then and much to everyone's surprise and disapproval he married a young girl of about 20 (I know she was younger than me). We went up to see them in 1973. The schoolhouse had no mains water, drainage, gas or electricity when he moved there, but by the time we went to see him he had installed mains water (one tap in the kitchen!) and had bottled gas for lighting and cooking. Heating was still by the original open fire. They converted the building into a 4 bedroomed house (he had 4 grown up children living at home, all of whom called Carol "Mum" even though she was younger than them). They had squatters living in one of the cottages where he stored building materials (and kept his pheasants) on the understanding that they would make sure no one stole the materials and they would move out once the house was finished. They did both of those things. The last we heard of him was that they had moved to a level-crossing keeper's cottage in Norfolk. He will obviously be long gone now, but I've never found out what happened to his children (which had been added to) or his wife.
 
My parents ate offal regularly too, I've come to love chicken livers through them.

They had a fondness for duck stomachs ( gesiers in French) that I did not share with them, but I did like beef heart stew.

They also ate cows tongue, for which I have passed to this day. The texture seems very unnapealing.

But overall I have no particular problem eating offal and I am grateful for that.
 
Windigo said:
My parents ate offal regularly too, I've come to love chicken livers through them.

They had a fondness for duck stomachs ( gesiers in French) that I did not share with them, but I did like beef heart stew.

They also ate cows tongue, for which I have passed to this day. The texture seems very unnapealing.

But overall I have no particular problem eating offal and I am grateful for that.
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I did try cow's tongue but am not a great fan. I'm not keen on kidneys either, so steak and kidney pies are out of the equation.
 
Elawin said:
One of my uncles used to work in a corn chandler's in what is now east London. He and my aunt lived in the end cottage of a terrace of traditional Essex timber-framed cottages and the corn chandler's shop and yard were built behind it. Eventually he closed the business and retired but they could not enjoy their retirement as my aunt got lung cancer (assumed to be as a result of all the corn dust etc) and died not long afterwards.
The cottages and the corn chandlers were demolished and were replaced by flats a couple of years later my uncle moved to another timber cottage in Billericay in Essex. It was even smaller than the one he had had and was one of many cottages built behind a pub on the high street. There was no road access - if you went to see him by car, you had to park in the pub car park and walk down a path. Some developers bought the land where the cottages were and started to demolish them. My uncle wasn't happy with the money they offered him to move so he stayed put. There were new houses going up all round him and a road which stopped at one side of his home and started again on the other side. Eventually they upped the offer and he moved to an old brick built Victorian schoolhouse in Norfolk. It came with 32 acres of reed land and a row of mainly derelict cottages, so he bought himself a nice big digger from the Council and started clearing it. He was in his 70s then and much to everyone's surprise and disapproval he married a young girl of about 20 (I know she was younger than me). We went up to see them in 1973. The schoolhouse had no mains water, drainage, gas or electricity when he moved there, but by the time we went to see him he had installed mains water (one tap in the kitchen!) and had bottled gas for lighting and cooking. Heating was still by the original open fire. They converted the building into a 4 bedroomed house (he had 4 grown up children living at home, all of whom called Carol "Mum" even though she was younger than them). They had squatters living in one of the cottages where he stored building materials (and kept his pheasants) on the understanding that they would make sure no one stole the materials and they would move out once the house was finished. They did both of those things. The last we heard of him was that they had moved to a level-crossing keeper's cottage in Norfolk. He will obviously be long gone now, but I've never found out what happened to his children (which had been added to) or his wife.
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Your story reminded me of a guy I knew about 25 ? Years ago , he was in his late 60s and lived on a farm cottage. The owner lived next door, he had 2 teenage daughters. You see where I'm going? Anyway this "old" guy moved to Australia and one of the daughters of the farmer went with him to have a look around Australia. Years later it turned out the daughter was sleeping with the old guy. She was only 17 and lived with him for years, real family scandal. Btw I've stayed in Great Yarmouth. Loved it around the broads.

Russ
 
Elawin

What an interesting story. I would love to know what happened to your Uncle, his child bride and your cousins.

I am the eldest of 7 children. Baby Brother is 13 years younger than i am. Our first home was a 2 bedroom 1 bath frame house on a corner lot. There was a large tree in the back yard with a tire swing. There was a gas floor furnace in the short hall. I remember tripping and falling on the furnace with my forearms on the hot grate. Fortunately Mother was right there and grabbed me before my arms burned enough to scar.

I did something that I was not supposed to (I don't remember what). Mother put me on my knees in the corner of the kitchen. She went to another room and immediately became concerned. Usually when she put me on my knees I squawked non stop. This time I was silent. She walked back into the kitchen and found me very happily peeling the wall paper off the wall.

We moved to our family home when I was 4. Brother was 2. A large brick home (2,000 square feet) on an acre of Dad's family land. A 3 bdrm. 1 full bath and a shower bath. Den, larger living room, small kitchen with an adjacent small dining space. A long hall an enclosed 1 car garage.

The washer was in the garage. No dryer. There were always at least two babies in diapers. No pampers. Most of us were also bed wetters. So diapers and sheets every day had to be hung on the clothes line. I remember helping Mother in the winter when the diapers had frozen on the clothes line. It was like carrying in a stack of planks. Mother would run a line down that long hall to dry the diapers.

Dad always had a garden. Mom could stretch a small amount of meat and feed a lot of people. We always had plenty to eat. Meat, rice and gravy and two or three vegetables. Stews, soups and gumbos. Casseroles. Red beans and rice with sausage. Jambalaya. Dad and my brothers hunted and fished.

During Crawfish season Dad would set traps in the Atchafalaya Basin and catch deep water crawfish. In season he would set out crab traps for wonderful blue point crabs.

Mom did most of the cooking. Every now and then Dad would take over the kitchen - Crawfish Bisque, Hog Head Cheese or Debris. The only thing I can compare Hog Head Cheese to is a pork terrine. Debris is an incredibly rich stew made from offal. Brain, tongue, kidney, liver, thymus, heart and chitlins. He also liked to cook his game and of course fry fish.

My parents worked hard to make sure we had a good education. Both were avid readers. I remember sitting on Mother's lap while she read the paper out loud, running her finger under the words. I was reading at 4 or 5 years old. When Mom went shopping treats for us was not candy or cookies. Our treats were books.

Later - phone is ringing.
 
ElizabethB said:
Elawin

What an interesting story. I would love to know what happened to your Uncle, his child bride and your cousins.

I am the eldest of 7 children. Baby Brother is 13 years younger than i am. Our first home was a 2 bedroom 1 bath frame house on a corner lot. There was a large tree in the back yard with a tire swing. There was a gas floor furnace in the short hall. I remember tripping and falling on the furnace with my forearms on the hot grate. Fortunately Mother was right there and grabbed me before my arms burned enough to scar.

I did something that I was not supposed to (I don't remember what). Mother put me on my knees in the corner of the kitchen. She went to another room and immediately became concerned. Usually when she put me on my knees I squawked non stop. This time I was silent. She walked back into the kitchen and found me very happily peeling the wall paper off the wall.

We moved to our family home when I was 4. Brother was 2. A large brick home (2,000 square feet) on an acre of Dad's family land. A 3 bdrm. 1 full bath and a shower bath. Den, larger living room, small kitchen with an adjacent small dining space. A long hall an enclosed 1 car garage.

The washer was in the garage. No dryer. There were always at least two babies in diapers. No pampers. Most of us were also bed wetters. So diapers and sheets every day had to be hung on the clothes line. I remember helping Mother in the winter when the diapers had frozen on the clothes line. It was like carrying in a stack of planks. Mother would run a line down that long hall to dry the diapers.

Dad always had a garden. Mom could stretch a small amount of meat and feed a lot of people. We always had plenty to eat. Meat, rice and gravy and two or three vegetables. Stews, soups and gumbos. Casseroles. Red beans and rice with sausage. Jambalaya. Dad and my brothers hunted and fished.

During Crawfish season Dad would set traps in the Atchafalaya Basin and catch deep water crawfish. In season he would set out crab traps for wonderful blue point crabs.

Mom did most of the cooking. Every now and then Dad would take over the kitchen - Crawfish Bisque, Hog Head Cheese or Debris. The only thing I can compare Hog Head Cheese to is a pork terrine. Debris is an incredibly rich stew made from offal. Brain, tongue, kidney, liver, thymus, heart and chitlins. He also liked to cook his game and of course fry fish.

My parents worked hard to make sure we had a good education. Both were avid readers. I remember sitting on Mother's lap while she read the paper out loud, running her finger under the words. I was reading at 4 or 5 years old. When Mom went shopping treats for us was not candy or cookies. Our treats were books.

Later - phone is ringing.
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Great background on your life. Education neve entered our vocabulary as kids. I was kicked out of school when I was still 14, mum said I needed to find a job ASAP as she raised us 3 boys and money was always tight. I added 2 years into my age and got a job in a sheet metal shop. I've always been a grafter working two jobs at times. I always said my kids would be educated, daughter has a teaching degree but son just wanted to work for me and my company. He's done night classes and is a business development manager on obscene money. They have easy lives compared to me. And the millenials blame me for everything, pfffft.

Russ
 
ElizabethB said:
Elawin

What an interesting story. I would love to know what happened to your Uncle, his child bride and your cousins.

I am the eldest of 7 children. Baby Brother is 13 years younger than i am. Our first home was a 2 bedroom 1 bath frame house on a corner lot. There was a large tree in the back yard with a tire swing. There was a gas floor furnace in the short hall. I remember tripping and falling on the furnace with my forearms on the hot grate. Fortunately Mother was right there and grabbed me before my arms burned enough to scar.

I did something that I was not supposed to (I don't remember what). Mother put me on my knees in the corner of the kitchen. She went to another room and immediately became concerned. Usually when she put me on my knees I squawked non stop. This time I was silent. She walked back into the kitchen and found me very happily peeling the wall paper off the wall.

We moved to our family home when I was 4. Brother was 2. A large brick home (2,000 square feet) on an acre of Dad's family land. A 3 bdrm. 1 full bath and a shower bath. Den, larger living room, small kitchen with an adjacent small dining space. A long hall an enclosed 1 car garage.

The washer was in the garage. No dryer. There were always at least two babies in diapers. No pampers. Most of us were also bed wetters. So diapers and sheets every day had to be hung on the clothes line. I remember helping Mother in the winter when the diapers had frozen on the clothes line. It was like carrying in a stack of planks. Mother would run a line down that long hall to dry the diapers.

Dad always had a garden. Mom could stretch a small amount of meat and feed a lot of people. We always had plenty to eat. Meat, rice and gravy and two or three vegetables. Stews, soups and gumbos. Casseroles. Red beans and rice with sausage. Jambalaya. Dad and my brothers hunted and fished.

During Crawfish season Dad would set traps in the Atchafalaya Basin and catch deep water crawfish. In season he would set out crab traps for wonderful blue point crabs.

Mom did most of the cooking. Every now and then Dad would take over the kitchen - Crawfish Bisque, Hog Head Cheese or Debris. The only thing I can compare Hog Head Cheese to is a pork terrine. Debris is an incredibly rich stew made from offal. Brain, tongue, kidney, liver, thymus, heart and chitlins. He also liked to cook his game and of course fry fish.

My parents worked hard to make sure we had a good education. Both were avid readers. I remember sitting on Mother's lap while she read the paper out loud, running her finger under the words. I was reading at 4 or 5 years old. When Mom went shopping treats for us was not candy or cookies. Our treats were books.

Later - phone is ringing.
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If my uncle was still alive, he would be about 120 now and would probably qualify for the Guinness Book of Records, so we would know about him! Carol would be would be in her late 60s, and my cousins (Carol's step-children) would at least be in their 70s. Her and my uncle's son would be about 47. Still we haven't been able to trace them.
My treats when I was little were always books, some new, some hand me downs. I've still got most of them. Sweets were only for Christmas as sugar was still on ration then.
Funnily enough my daughter was reading at a very early age too. She went to a small church school not far away from where I lived and when she had started she had already read all the books she was given. It was one of those schools where, if the kids could do all the work, they were put up a class irrespective of how old they were. A lot of the kids in the top class were doing arts and crafts rather than the 3 Rs. Unfortunately we moved before she got that far and at her new school she had to do 2 years in one class for the others to catch up with her. She was bored witless but it didn't do her any harm in the long run.
 
Ain't life funny, growing up with nothing and seeing other kids my age with all the gear we couldn't afford. I remember playing cricket for the school with pads with no buckles to tie on our legs, just tape and string. Then a rich kid goes up to bat with all brand new gear, gloves , pads, brand new own bat. Bowled first ball. I laughed to myself. His parents bought him a brand new mini for his 15th birthday. I ran Into him about 10 years ago working in a factory. Never married, pretty much a loser. Another family I hung around with, when I stayed there we got a cooked brekky. I'd never had a cooked brekky ever. They had everything. My friend is a druggy living in squalor. His brother ended up a paedo. Another friend just got married 10 years ago for the first time and starting a family. Works piece meal on low wages. The kids with the least, appeared to have made the best of life.

Russ
 
I was embarrassed and subsequently humiliated and ridiculed by having to take free school dinners. To the extent that I persuaded my mum to give me a pack lunch. So started my long relationship with tomato sandwiches.
 
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