LOL JOJO!

7-up candy bars

That's all I can think of right at the moment, but then again I didn't grow up eating anything that I miss as an adult! LOL

Linda

How is it that all my relatives still make these things?
And it's not at a Mad Men party either. I saw half this stuff at Thanksgiving....

Red velvet cake. Just enough chocolate to taste sort of muddy- like chocolate milk without enough chocolate syrup- and with an entire bottle of food coloring. Why??? Do people think it's illegal to put cream cheese frosting on other cakes??

Oh My!! I had red velvet cake at a luncheon today!! LOL!
But wedge salad is having a trendy resurgence.
And blackened fish....*sigh* I loved that stuff...
I would like to invite that wild rice "blend"/ground beef, celery and cream of mushroom soup casserole to the table.
I will even buy that one a drink!!

Steak tartare?

How about the once quite common "White Sauce" (thin, medium, or thick) that you could make into so many wonderful things. Don't let -- "start with a thin white sauce" -- slip into a conversation because people don't make or use it anymore, and can't grasp the concept that you make it yourself with a few common pantry ingredients - none of which start with mono-something-er-other, or are over 15 letters long.

Sauces have been banned from application to foods these days, other than a thin squirt of something out of a plastic bottle, but I do adore an occasional rich cheese sauce for real homemade mac and cheese with buttered bread crumbs on the top, mushroom sauce, egg sauce over whole wheat toast points, curry sauce, cucumber or dill sauce with salmon, etc. - just for old times sake. And you have to make a white sauce to get them. What a concept.

-Grainlady

Grew up on sunny side up eggs cooked in bacon "drippings" (better sounding word for "grease"). Haven't had one in decades.

/tricia

That creamed chipped beef - my Dad used to make something he called Bully Beef, that had red colored shredded, or chipped beef in a white sauce/gravy (there you go, Grainlady!) At least, "bully beef" is what my ears heard and my little mind understood. I wonder if it was based on a French word.

Years ago my church had a progressive dinner. My sister's inlaws hosted one of the salad stops. They served tomato aspic. No one understood it. I actually liked it, but most people couldn't wrap their minds around it, much less their tongues. The hostess thought she was being so trendy. I still chuckle when I think about that. Thanks for the memory, Lars.

Sally

I still like creamed chipped beef. I'd add cabbage, no one seems to use it for anything except coleslaw anymore. And what happened to harvard Beets? I love them.

One of the foods that I don't miss are that green jello salad filled with chopped vegetables. And Aspic, don't miss that either!

Annie

Red Velvet cake is still very popular where I live! I think it is getting trendy again and see recipes for it in lots of cooking magazines! I made it once for a school function and got rave reviews on it!
Joann

We had tomato aspic at our wedding rehearsal dinner in 1969, at my request.

Maybe cabbage is going out of style somewhere....but not here in the South. It is always seen in the stores, but I couldn't find Napa cabbage readily available for the Asian Cabbage salad I made last week, so I subbed broccoli slaw.

Come on down here to get your Red Velvet cake too! Ha! I just get a bit queasy thinking about all that food color, so I abstain.

Teresa

I will " 3rd " the Liver and Onions. Have not had them for awhile. Chicken Livers, that is.
LOU

Hubby and I discussed this thread over lunch today. And by-the-way, I happen to really like creamed chipped beef and make it about once a month - and has never been called that my whole life having a WWII father...;-)

Hubby remembered the only time he ever ate Corn Pudding was when the pastor's 90-some year old grandmother made it on one of her visits from West Virginia.

As kids we would beg Mom to make Potato Pancakes (made with raw grated potatoes), and I've only made them once in my 40-years of marriage.

I still make Waldorf Salad, another old staple that has seen better days, and always think of a Fawlty Towers episode (a British Comedy) where the arrogant American orders Waldorf Salad and Basil Fawlty doesn't have a clue what it is.

When is the last time anyone made doughnuts? I make wholegrain baked doughnuts occasionally, and have a cool little pan for the job, but it's been at least 35-years since I made raised doughnuts from scratch. The same goes for Timbales, Rosettes and Funnel Cakes. Guess it's a hot grease thing....

Chocolate Mousse anyone? I made that on our 1st Wedding Anniversary (1972) because I saw Julia Child make it on TV and thought it must be the most wonderful thing in the world.

Salmon Croquettes on a bed of creamed peas.... I used to order that at a restaurant in Topeka, KS back in the 70's.

I think one of the best things my mother ever made with Jell-O was Pineapple Bavarian Cream. The 1940's through the 60's was the best, and the worst, days for Jell-O, which ended in complete and utter shame with Jell-O Knox Blocks (aka Finger Jell-O) when I had kids in the 70's.

-Grainlady

The food I would invite to a pity party is a REAL bagel. Not the soft smooshy things that pass as bagels, not cranberry walunt bagels, not asiago cheese and sundried tomatoes bagels, no, a plain bagel that is chewy! I know you can still get them in NYC and big cities. When I was growing up no one had ever even HEARD of bagels, lol! We only got them on visits to Detroit or NY/NJ. Now they are ubiquitous and no longer fit to be called bagels. So that's why I think they should get an invite.

And of course wild caught seafood, but that's another story . . .

French fries fried in beef fat.

Just bought liverwurst this week, braunschweiger, actually. What is the difference between liverwurst and braunschweiger?

Grainlady made me chuckle. My Dad was also a WW II vet and we never called the dish creamed chipped beef on toast, it was always S-O-S. :-)

Just for the record, I love Knox blocks but I call them....Jello shots.

Corned Beef Hash! I had to look it up to see whats in it. My Mom used to flop it out of can and put it in the frying pan (30+ years ago). Something about fried globules of red stuff and white stuff didn't make you thing you were quite eating food. In its "purist form", it doesn't sound bad. Poor corned beef hash.

To that add anything that could actually be considered a treat! Everything is "healthified" in some form or another. Poor butter, sugar, "regular" flour and anything made out of them are being kicked to the curb.

Teresa, you can get it here too, everywhere. It's just that no one I know does anything with it except coleslaw. I occasionally make cabbage rolls and sometimes the "leftovers" from slaw get tossed into soup.

Other than that, the only time I see anyone cook cabbage is when they are on that "cabbage soup diet".

too bad too, I really LIKE cabbage.

Annie

Annie, you're not alone. I posted a dinner we had with steamed savoy cabbage as a side dish on the WFD thread last week.

Annie, I love cooked cabbage, too. I was at a country, very country, restaurant in the boondocks of eastern Oklahoma, and got a vegetable plate, including cooked cabbage and butter. MMMMmmm-mmmmm, it was so good!

Sally

Another who really likes cooked cabbage! So much so we tried growing it last year but the bunny got it. :(

I like it best in beirocks but we serve it in many ways.

/tricia

We love cooked cabbage. I'm in my glory when I can buy it for $1 a head.
Boiled with butter or olive oil. Oh so good. Sauteed with onions too. We love broccoli, cabbage and brussels sprouts. Hmmm looks like we like the gassy veggies!

I love shredded cabbage sauteed in butter. I toss in a few caraway seeds. While I'm preparing the cabbage I have wide egg noodles cooking. The cooked noodles get mixed in with the cabbage mixture and sauteed till slightly browned.

I need to go and buy some cabbage. I think I'll be having this for dinner!

I should have added that the sauteed cabbage/noodle dish is called Haluska by people of Polish decent. And often times sour cream and a little paprika is tossed in at the end. And sometimes thinly sliced onions are sauteed with the cabbage and caraway seeds.

I learned to make White Sauce in junior high Home Ec class in the 60's and I still make it these days. Typically, when the funds are low and the cupboards are looking bare, I'll make Creamed ______ Over Biscuits. Canned tuna, chopped ham, leftover chicken, whatever we have. It's comfort food for us. And, I usually use evaporated milk for the sauce, which I think should be added to the pity party. I try to always keep it on hand, but don't often tell anyone that I use it, cuz they usually say "Eww".

I agree about evaporated milk! I started making my breads with it because dried milk was so expensive and hard to find. I've got 3 cans of evap milk in my pantry right now.

Thought of another one - Baked Alaska, which I learned to make a hundred years ago in Home Ec class! I was surprised to find out that a friend of mine loves making it and in fact, did one for my birthday. It was such fun.
Sue

Wonderful reminder of chipped beef on toast. I had forgotten that delicious dish. Another vote for liver and onions. As a child I remember my folks ordering liver and onions every Sunday after church with a baked potato with sour cream and chives and a wedge salad with Roquefort dressing at a local coffee shop.

Funny, my DH and I have been on a retro kick, enjoying a lettuce wedge with Roquefort dressing most nights at dinner for the last couple of years. So easy and so tasty!

I'd invite tuna and noodle casserole with crushed potato chip topping, stuffed mushrooms, cottage cheese and chives or pineapple, New England boiled dinner, cinnamon toast, pimento cheese stuffed celery, pork chops and apple sauce sprinkled with cinnamon.

I love, love the old 70's, 80's salmon mousse made with a can of salmon, or even 2 cans of tuna, condensed tomato soup, gelatin, veggies, mayo and/or sour cream---but would anyone eat it? I even have two large copper fish molds and 12 individual serving size fish molds.

Gotta think of a way to bring this winner into the 21st century-to win the favor of yuck-sayers. Hmmm. perhaps veggies currently popular? The richness, in and of itself is not bad, but it needs a new cast of characters, and perhaps not the old usual suspects of green onion, celery, pepper,----,red pepper, broccoli, sliced water chestnuts, splash of heat? jicama?

Westside, I would stick with the green onion and celery for the vegetables and add capers, providing there is not too much salt in it already. I might like cooked spinach added as well, and I think you could use cream cheese instead of sour cream.

Lars

Yup, Lars, you are right. I remember melting the cream cheese with the can of tomato soup.

Thanks for your ideas.

Not a lot to add, but this has been a fun read.

The only time I've had aspic was in Home Ec. That did it for me.

I make Harvard beets a few times a year...yum.

We use evap. milk all the time. No one knows.

Another Linda, you reminded me of cream cheese and pineapple spread (didn't it come in little juice glasses?)stuffed in celery sticks.

One of our neighbors made tuna casserole with just tuna, crushed potato chips and cream of mushroom soup. Maybe it was because we were young and poor...it was oddly not bad.

How about "rumaki"? Bacon wrapped water chestnuts doused in soy sauce and baked/broiled.

Ahh yes, rumaki! I remember it from the 50's and early 60's. I thought there might have been a chicken liver involved too, but I can't be sure.
How about Franco American Beef gravy? Mom used to repurpose leg of lamb and make a chow mein with minute rice, canned bean sprouts and water chestnuts, topped with crunchy Chun King noodles. A fave when I was young, but now..ick!

Molded jello salads (any jello-- except while really ill or pre-colonoscopy), tapioca, Junket and puddings haven't been seen around here in years! They've been replaced now by creme brulee, cream caramel, pots de creme, flan and their Italian cousin, Zabaglione!

Funny story about creamed chip beef on toast. Mom made it quite a bit, I liked it but then I can eat just about anythying, (not that I'd want to anymore). My uber picky brother did NOT like it, so when mom served it she just made him his usual bologna sandwich or hotdog. Well, one year the folks went on a long vacation to Puerto Rico and hired a woman to stay with us. She seemed nice, well recommended, etc. On her first night with us, when we were missing our parents terribly and trying to adjust to them being gone, she made creamed chip beef on toast. Looking back on it, I can't imagine what possesed her. Like, way to endear yourself to the kid's you're looking after, right?! She insisted that her rule was you finish what's on your plate or you couldn't leave the dinner table. I tried to warn her that my brother didn't like creamed chip beef on toast, but she said too bad. Well this woman seriously underestimated how stubborn my brother was. There was a reason my mom just boiled him a hotdog and was done with it. He refused to eat the creamed chip beef on toast, even after getting a spanking and her trying to shove it in his mouth. He just sat there for hours on end. I imagined him sitting there all week. I imagined a pile of feces building up next to his chair, him getting all emaciated, and spiders making webs around his plate. I knew that he would die rather than eat the creamed chip beef. I tried to figure out how we could escape to a safe house. Well, the long and the short of it was, brother one, babysitter zero. She really wasn't so bad I guess, just old school, but as a child care worker myself it defies reason to come into a house for one week and try to totally redo the rules and parenting styles that are already established. And for heavans sake, make hotdogs and hamburgers, grilled cheese, waffles, pizza or something the kids will enjoy for the first night, to ease the transition. No, she picked that dish for a reason, and that reason was kind of perverse, IMHO. Now they'd make a show about her!

In defense of my mother's parenting skills, she did try to get him to eat different foods, and she did teach him to say no thank you and make his own hotdog or bologna sandwich as he got older. She didn't cook separate, just heated up a hotdog quick for him when he wouldn't eat the main course, (that was the pre chicken nuggets era, although us kids all liked fish sticks which was often our fate, or a bowl of spaghetti-o's.) And in my brother's defense, he has a lot of food sensitivities, a lot of foods and additives give him a histamine reaction.

I can sympathize with your brother, but at least I was never hit for not drinking milk, which upset my stomach even as a child. I am completely against corporal punishment (It teaches children that violence is an appropriate response), and I think that not eating something is not a crime. Cleaning a plate is not a virtue either, especially if there is too much on the plate.

I did like fishsticks as a child, but not hot dogs, bologna, or spaghetti-os. I've never had creamed chipped beef, and so I have no idea how it would taste, but the look of it puts me off from the photos I've seen. I do remember crunchy Chun King noodles, which I liked. My sister still buys fried onions in a can, which I would not eat because even at an early age I read labels and found out that the first ingredient is oil - not onions!

Lars

How about that 24-hr. lettuce salad with the layers of bacon, cheese, some veggies, and a big smear of mayo over the top to seal it all in?

Mmmm, I love all this stuff! Liver, chicken livers, cabbage, cb hash, 7 layer salad, tuna noodle casserole, jello salads, almost everything listed. We still eat most of these things, too! More! More!

Ambrosia fruit salad.
1 cup each of sour cream, pineapple, marshmallows cherries.
Am I missing anything?

Jasdip, coconut!

I know all the old stuff.

Thanks Westsider....I forgot the most important ingredient! Haha

Ambrosia and 24-hour layered salad are still alive and well in my part of the country. Sometimes I make a tuna noodle casserole just for "old times sake." And tapioca has always been comfort food in our family.

Anyone remember THE party punch with lime sherbet and ginger ale?

Teresa

westsider, I'm sorry to say it, but there is no vegetable you could put in that salmon mouse that would make me eat it, unless I were starving.

Lots of things mentioned here
Are alive and well in our household, too!

When we find something we like,
We tend to stick to it.
But I do love to try new things, too.

This has been a fun thread to read.
And has reminded me of some
Old favorites.
Time to revisit them!

Rusty

We always had mandarin oranges in the ambrosia.

seagrass

Sometimes new is not better. Then again, some things are best left in the depths of our childhood memories.

Stuffed green peppers would be in the later category, to me. Mom made those things at least once/month during my childhood (1950s-1960s). I had to sit at the table until I ate my dinner. It didn't matter how they tasted. The aroma of those cooked green peppers haunts me to this day. As an adult, I permanently refuse to put my fork near anything with green peppers. Fortunately, I have not seen one in a very long time in my area.

/tricia

This one doesn't go quite as far back as most mentioned here but, how about the "blooming onion" so popular a few years ago. They even came out with a gadget to cut the petals before dipping in batter and frying.

Like a lot of you I love most of the oldies mentioned. Love liver and onions but save it for eating out if I can find it on the menu. The cooking odor never seems to leave the house and I don't like to mess with the liver getting it ready to cook.

Sh1t on a shingle was what chipped beef on toast was known as in our house growing up too!(Navy brat) Tuna casserole made from all canned ingredients, exception being the macaroni. Steak and kidney pie never gets made anymore in our family. I remember mom placing a tea cup in the middle of the large pan before topping the filling with a pie dough so it wouldn't sink down into the filling while baking. I would eat the steak but not the kidney. Chicken liver pate with pistachios is another treat I haven't seen in a while. Lots of great food memories reading this post. NancyLouise

Sally, I think your dad's term 'bully beef' is a historical one; that term is what the British soldiers used to refer to canned corned beef. (That's what I get for reading too many British war novels. I can recite most of that un-PC poem 'Gunga Din', as well.)

I've never had S-O-S. Can anyone post a reasonably authentic version of the legendary glop, like what you would have gotten in an Army mess tent?

Waldorf salad, ambrosia...don't care if I ever see any of those again. Likewise divinity fudge. Hated that stuff.

(As I type this, though, I'm eating a slice of Red Velvet Cake.)

Here is a link that might be useful: British rations 1880s to 1918

Beef stroganoff, Pavlova.

A great thread, ruthanna - thanks!