Don’t sully this thread with talk like that! You’re supposed to say “the ‘w’ word.”
Arrrrghhhhhh, I had totally wiped those “ham salad” sandwiches from my memory. But without the butter, we had it with oleo, the white stuff “shudder” because it was against the law to color it to look like butter (circa 50’s and 60’s). I never had real butter, except in resturants, until I met my husband who also introduced me to veggies that didn’t come in a can. For a treat my Mom still indulges herself by eating canned asparagas, cold, out of the can…gahhhhhh!
I think the “goulash” recipe (hamburger, elbow macaroni and tomato soup) must have come on the tomato soup can in the 50’s or the 60’s because everyone’s seems the same. We still make that one, (but with celery and green peppers, we are so adventurous 
) yummmmmm.
Another St. Louis oddity?? Neighbor’s recipe for Thanksgiving Turkey stuffing: Two dozen nasty, square, greasy sliders chopped up and shoved into the carcass. 
Has anybody mentioned ‘ambrosia salad’: Cool whip and a can of fruit salad. It’s got fruit in it…it’s got to be good for you.
And the ever popular canned sweet potatoes topped with brown sugar and marshmallows, baked in the oven. Again, I didn’t know you could buy and cook real sweet potatoes until I met MrSin.
I hear people talking about “mormon food” as if they had a monopoly on monotony. But I was raised in a lukewarm Southern Baptist church and it was disturbingly similar food-wise. Jello with shredded carrots? Yup. Throw some raisins on it? Yup. Something pale yellow with sauce in a pan? Oh yeah.
The ladies turned up their nose at the one person who stopped by KFC on their way to the church. But at the end of the buffet they would would be throwing away an empty KFC bucket and taking home their full dishes.
My mom cheated and would get our italian friends to make a real lasagne. They weren’t just italian. They were an italian family of eight with the competitive cooking bug. They cooked full dinners of amazing italian dishes like it was an OCD habit. Needless to say, we never had to carry any back home after church.
Substitute “Lutheran Church Potluck Dinner” for “Mormon Food” or “Southern Baptist Church” and it’s all the same slop. 
And walnuts and coconut! My mom makes it with walnuts and coconut. Soooo exotic.
But not Cool Whip. She uses pistachio pudding. It’s topped with Cool Whip, though.
Until we were dating, my husband thought “salad” was iceberg lettuce slathered with Miracle Whip. He’d never seen a turnip in his life.
I have a friend who throws all the denominations under the same bus…he calls it “Protestant wedding food!” (He is Jewish)
I dis them on the internet for wonder bread decades later?
Yes, you have seen the light!! Now, add one piece of Oscar Meyer Ham chopped into small squares in between the two slices of Velveeta, and you will have attained Grilled Cheese Nirvana.
If you happen to be in a bookstore, take a look at White Trash Cooking. It is a hilarious book with lots of recipies. Some of them are actually good.
And cream of mushroom soup is a wonderful comfort food if it has cheddar cheese melted in it. Mr. SCL eats it at least once a week.
I think I’m going to go to my mom’s tonight and give her a big hug for being such an excellent cook.
I grew up in the 80’s, in the suburbiest of midwestern suburbs, with my happily married, stay-at-home mom. We were dirt poor for a good while there - but we NEVER ate the kind of stuff you guys are talking about.
Never had Chef Boy-ar-dee, never spaghetti in a can, never even tasted Velveeta, no yellow cheese where it shouldn’t be, salads had green and other colors, never potato chips on anything, never tasted Hamburger Helper…
I know my mom was big into getting recipes from Woman’s Day and Family Circle. Perhaps by the 80’s those magazines had gotten a clue about recipes for “real food” and Good Housekeeping was the one propagating the yellow-cheese-and-potato-chips fads.
Or, perhaps it was a good time to be poor - all the stuff that came pre-packaged or in cans was too expensive for us 
That’s actually what saved us from a lot of this white bread food. It was usually too expensive and mom insisted on making things from scratch. She was also a bit of a health nut much of the time and worshipped Adelle Davis. She’d avoid anything she thought might have sodium nitrate in it. So there were certain things like hot dogs and bacon we were almost never allowed to have, as well as a lot of food-out-of-a-box type meals.
She did however, try to broaden our horizons with that La Choy Chow Mein dinner crap. It didn’t go over well.
I think having lived in Southern California also helped her develop more of a taste for spices. We’d get tacos and burritos occasionally and she’d never have used miracle whip in place of sour cream. That’s just gross.
Us kids grew up mainly in Wisconsin, so pre-sliced, processed cheese was out. It was cheaper to buy a block of real cheddar and if you wanted it sliced or grated you had to do it yourself.
We were actually afraid of my aunt Connie’s ambrosia. It appeared to grow over the course of the meal, so that no matter how much people ate, the bowl remained full! :eek:
Damn, their part of the family was so poor for a while that one Thanksgiving when I was a kid, we had boiled celery as the vegetable! She wouldn’t let my mom go buy something because she was too proud. 
They raised 5 kids on a teacher’s salary in a 3 bedroom house in a tiny little town.
Oh, and I love the whole grain Wonder! My kids couldn’t tell the difference!!! 
I got my mom that for Christmas one year. To her, it should be called, “Comfort Food Cooking.”
In 1940s Iowa it was similarly illegal to color margarine, but only pre-sale. It came supplied with a yellow dye packet you could knead into the product. My dad’s job at mealtimes was to “squeeze the oley.”
Shoulda pan-fried the burger hash first. Mighta given it a little more chaw profile. Maybe even thrown in 3 or 4 orders of fries (which then would be double-fried, mmmm mmmm!)
White bread depends, sometimes. What do Italians love so much? White bread. Yeah, it’s crusty, yeasty, yummylicious white bread…but it’s still white.
My mom’s Italian family made their own red sauce, but about the only cheese around was Velveeta. Their Nebraska step-grandmother, who had grown up on a dirt farm, could cook and bake and can with the best of 'em, but she loved modern convenience foods like Maxim instant coffee.
Not at all. It’s quite popular. I first read about it in the Sun Times - in QT’s column. It’s good stuff, man. Here’s the recipe:
MAKES 8 SERVINGS
10 White Castle hamburgers, pickles removed
1 1/2 cups celery, diced
1 1/4 teaspoons ground thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons ground sage
3/4 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1/4 cup chicken broth
In a large bowl, tear hamburgers into pieces and add diced celery, thyme, sage and black pepper; stir to combine. Add chicken broth and stir just until moistened. Just before roasting, stuff cavity of turkey (enough for a 10-pound turkey) and roast according to package directions. Or place stuffing in a buttered casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
This is bringing back not-so-fond memories of my grandmother’s cooking. She made carrot-raisin salad, which was just shredded carrots with raisins, mixed with mayo. Blaugh. She also made something called congealed salad, which was orange Jell-O with cottage cheese mixed in (I actually liked that one).
I remember one time she made some potato soup that was so bland it didn’t even taste like anything. It was potato milk water. I asked someone to pass the salt and added a little, tasted it…still couldn’t taste anything. I added some more salt, took a taste, still nasty. I tilted the shaker again and shook and shook and shook, so engrossed in making my soup edible that I didn’t notice everyone at the table was staring at me. My grandmother was convinced that I had ruined the soup and offered to bring me more, but I took a bite and declared it delicious. I grabbed a piece of white bread off the communal saucer and my meal was complete. Best thing she ever made.
Salty potato milk.
That’s actually not a bad looking recipe, y’know. Whatwith the steamed onions on the Castles, what you’ve really got there is a plain ol’ sage bread stuffing with bits of finely ground beef. And IIRC, White Castles, surprisingly enough, uses all Grade A beef!
This reminds me of my late husband’s mother. We were invited for a chili supper one Sunday. It didn’t look like there was going to be enough to go around so she added a couple quarts of water to the pot.
Saltine crackers helped.
OK what’s the deal with Jell-o and carrot? Jell-o is the same thing us Brits call jelly yes? Sweet, wobbly dessert food? Where do the carrots come in? And for the love of Gord **why ** do they come in???