There are still some traditional butcher shops around, but even those tend to keep the carcasses in the back of the shop. We have some Asian groceries around that sell birds feathers, heads, feet, etc. intact. Some places in San Francisco even have live birds. Also lots of live fish and other sea goodies.
What is this “in season” you speak of?
I sometimes use a newer (10th edition or so, I think) Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. It’s better than some of the older cookbooks I’ve seen lying around, but I find myself constantly having to up the spices and throwing things like green chile in for it to be any good. A really amazing (as in, how the heck did anyone eat that stuff?) set of cookbooks I have are the Peg Bracken “I Hate To Cook” books that my father had back when he was in grad school (so these particular books are like 35 years old.)
I’m fascinated by culinary anthropology, so I love discussions like this, on the changing nature of people’s eating habits over the decades, and how food trends come and go.
My mom also had plenty of cookbooks from times past, with pictures and descriptions that ranged from bland and boring to scary and evil. I was overjoyed last time I visited home that she found her old collection of recipe cards from the early 1970s, complete with Gallery of Regrettable Food-style photography. I scanned the “best” ones for my blog:
http://bigbadvoodoolou.blogspot.com/2007/04/recipe-cards-from-1970s.html
I remember the first times I heard of ranch dressing and fried mozzarella cheese sticks were both on restaurant menus in the late 1980s, and I had never encountered balsamic vinegar until I moved into my own apartment (with roommates!) in 1998. My family also disdained spicy food, so it came as a major shock to everyone when I finally experimented with the likes of salsa, jalapenos, Thai and Indian food, and ended up loving it all.
Both of my parents cooked for us and forced me to learn how to cook, and I’m glad they did. Still, my dad is a meat-and-potatoes guy who appreciates Italian and Chinese food, but refuses to get any more “exotic” than that. He is always impressed when I go to the trouble of making semi-fancy meals from scratch, but doesn’t see the point. When I marinate steak overnight before grilling it, cook it just until rare, and melt bleu cheese on top, it’s practically alien to him when he’d rather just oven-broil a steak with a little kosher salt on top.
I have collected a few of the early and mid century cookbooks mostly for the art and color photography but one of the best was a 60s book on BBQ that had a massive roll of meat on the cover being spun on the rotisserie. What was that meat you ask? A 10 lb. bologna ‘roast’. It had been skewered, decorative slashed and sauced.
I"m reminded of the old-people restaurants that can be found all over western New York, where the average age of a diner is in the 60s or 70s. Most menu items include meat entree with a side of two different vegetables. The words “roast” or “fried” would often precede many items.
Here’s a typical menu of a WNY-area old-person’s restaurant. Except for the Italian menu items – remember, there’s a very large Italian-American population in the state, and Italian cuisine was never realy considered “exotic” – it’s not much different than what one would see on a 1950s-era restaurant menu.
*Southern Fried Chicken
Soaked in buttermilk and hand dipped in special seasoning before fried to golden brown. Served with cole slaw, vegetables, and choice of potato
Grilled Sirloin
Grilled 12oz. sirloin steak topped with battered onion rings and served with vegetables & choice of potato
Chicken Parmesan
Hand breaded chicken breast topped with marinara and provolone served over pasta
Breaded Jumbo Shrimp
Served with coleslaw & choice of potato
Fettuccine Alfredo
Pasta tossed in a rich garlic cream sauce and finished with parmesan cheese
Hot Meatloaf
Our meatloaf smothered in gravy with vegetables & your choice of potato
Hot Turkey
A hot turkey dinner smothered in gravy, served with traditional stuffing, vegetable, & your choice of potato
Chicken Pot Pie
Hearty Chicken Stew loaded with vegetables in a rich cream sauce served in a bread bowl
Fish Fry
Take out available. Fresh haddock fish fry served with coleslaw, macaroni salad, rye bread, and your choice of potato. Beer battered, breaded, broiled, Cajun, Lemonpepper or Italian style
Breaded Pork Chops
Twin boneless loin chops breaded, pan fried, and served with applesauce and choice of potato.
Chopped Sirloin
10oz. chopped sirloin topped with mushroom gravy and served with vegetables and potato.
Grilled Calfs Liver
Smothered in bacon and sauteed onion, served with vegetables and potato.*
Absolutely, and in my case the starving little black children in Africa were a lot closer 
One thing that struck me, on reading one of the 1940s-vintage Nero Wolfe novels – was Seargent Kramer’s lunch of “Buttermilk and Pickles”. I don’t think this was Rex Stout/Archie Goodwin the epicure-by-extension putting down Kramer’s plebian tastes. I think this was a plausible 1940s lunch. I just can’t really imagine it.
True, no instincts. I LIKE spices and so forth, but when I put them in food, the results are sometimes … regrettable.
In defense of my mother, she makes great fried chicken and cornbread, and delicious greens and black eyed peas and other Southern dishes. But she does have a weakness for canned asparagus. That stuff … eeeeew. And jelloed stuff. The store-bought dinner rolls just might be because I’VE always preferred store bought to homemade. Still do. Of course, mom buys the stuff that comes pre-baked, whereas I prefer the stuff that comes in cans.
Terrorcotta just doesn’t like curry. Her loss. I use store-bought curry and it’s delicious.