The trick was on you: all the margarine was yellow, but your margarine had been imported from the newly-integrated South, where separate-but-equal margarine for whites and coloreds was no longer legal.
I grew up before all the packaged prepared foods hit the market (with the exception of Swanson TV Dinners). My dad was meat and potatoes, and he looked upon such exotic fare as spaghetti with great suspicion. Asian food was “gook” food, or “Chinee”, and he wouldn’t eat it. So we had a lot of meatloaf, fried porkchops, liver and onions, and one of the Holy Trinity of vegetables: peas, green beans or corn (all canned). And, of course, potatoes. Not rice. My father also was fond of stewed chicken with dumplings and of beef stew. Since we lived in Alaska, we had the occasional halibut or crab.
My mother was a pretty fair cook, but she was frustrated by the limits of what my father would eat, although sometimes out of stubborness she’d just plunk down something different and say, “eat it or dinner’s over”. Where she really excelled was in baking, so our desserts were always yummy, although they were generally of the apple, cherry, banana cream or lemon meringue pie variety. Her fresh bread was to die for.
Spicing was pretty much limited to rosemary, which I love to this day. Otherwise, salt and pepper ruled the day. Lots of salt.
My Mom’s hamloaf is one of the dishs I miss the most since she’s passed on. She didn’t bake it in an oven, though, she had some kind of a pan over a doubleboiler arrangement. And she didn’t hawaiianize it but served it plain with on the side, a mustard sauce that had a dab of horseradish in it. Best of all was the next day: Sliced about a quarter inch thick and in a sandwich cold.
We had spaghetti with catsup and grated cheddar cheese.
I’ve been reading these threads for years, but this is the one that finally got me to register.
I’m 48, and whereas I was born elsewhere, I grew up in Lubbock, Texas, from the time we moved there just before I turned 6 in 1964. The population then was about 150,000-180,000. Heavily segregated , with Whites in the west and south, Hispanics in the north and Blacks in the east. The central area was sort of a Bohemian mix, because of the university there. So I grew up in a total white-bread area in the western part of the city. I had many of the foods mentioned here and have fond memories of them. And I remember that “seafood” meant Long John Silver’s Seafood Shop.
My grandmother, who lived in a totally white-bread small town in Arkansas, would make a special “green salad.” Jello with a layer of creamed cheese in the middle. It was GOOD. Mmmmm. I have not had that since she died. It just would not taste the same if she didn’t make it.
I also think it worthwhile to bear in mind that while it IS fun to make fun of these foods, there are many people in the world who have never had enough to eat, and they cannot even imagine enjoying this bounty that we take for granted.
God, it’s homemade SPAM. :eek: 
Nope. Miracle Whip has flavour. I never knew what ‘salad cream’ was but thought it might have - uh - taste. It doesn’t. It’s cream. On salad. Very wierd stuff. You can find it (in Canada anyway) bottled by Heinz. Miracle Whip is tangy-sweetish. Imagine mayo with maybe cider vinegar in.
Oh yeah. You carefully poured off the morning’s haul of bacon fat into the jar every day and then it could be used to fry other stuff - or would be slathered on the roast before roasting.
Mom was big on burger or steaks or pork chops, mashed potatoes, and tinned veg - peas or carrots or green beans or yellow beans. Sometimes beets! Dad LOVED the Kraft tinned spaghetti (it actually had spices in it!) and had a little jar of cracked dried chilis he’d put on it. We did have that barf-smell ‘parmesan’ junk in a green tin which I tried once and loathed. Thank heavenly Pete I finally learned that parmesan could be bought like real cheese and shaved.
Back to home - dad and mom divorced and he ended up with a vegetarian who hated to cook. The man who if mom wasn’t home would ‘cook’ by frying whatever was in the house became a gourmet. My first meal at his home included cauliflower souffle and featured cheesecake for dessert. I don’t remember what else there was - only that it was delicious beyond belief and I didn’t even realize there was no meat until I was telling a friend what I’d had for dinner.
Thence onward I turned into a recipe collector and cook and I’ll try pretty much anything that’s not in the category of ‘icky slimy fishy things’ or organ meats.
Mom was a good sport and would eat anything I cooked. Prior to my experiments, ‘foreign’ food to her was Chinese take-out or pizza but she never refused to try new stuff that I made and was game to go to different ethnic restaurants.
She did do the ‘big dinners’ very nicely - turkey, chicken (she used to buy capons!), and roast were good and the vegies were plentiful. I will be forever grateful for her recipe for white sauce - use Carnation milk and it’s awful nice if you want a creamed veggie - especially carrots.
Speaking of ‘slop’ as some of you have, it didn’t come from mom but rather I invented a slop during her era and she enjoyed it. It’s one of my comfort foods: fry up some ground beef; when it’s browned, add a tin of italian-flavoured stewed tomatoes (and juice), a tin of corn niblets (drained) and a tin of asparagus (also drained and chopped). You can toss in your favourite seasonings. It’s quick, colourful, and amazingly tasty.
I am going to try that.
I am so White Bread, I actually enjoy ground beef.
I will brown ground beef with onion and celery, then add plain cooked white rice to it, some garlic and salt and pepper and herbs, and happily eat it. Your Hamburger Slop sounds tastier, though.
Hey! You live where I live 
But I’m an import from the East (no, not as far east as the folks from Fisgard LOL)
Actually your mix sounds not so bad but I’d be going whole hog and tossing in some mushroom soup LOL.
Mix with mashed potatoes: you get my favourite meal. I call it ‘scrambled amoeba’. 
I still use Chef Boyardee pizza kits, because they’re cheap, easy and convenient (especially for those of us who don’t own mixers to make our own dough.)
I do add my own pepperoni and shredded mozzarella, but for a “homemade” pizza, the Chef Boyardee kit is pretty handy.
Sounds like it’d go great with hot ham water.
Wait, “mixer” and “dough?” You can use those two words in the same sentence? I’ve always made my pizza dough by hand, no tools involved.
Vlad/Igor