I’ve seen in some older books and comics (from the 1960s or so, maybe a bit earlier/later, though I could be wrong) that characters (usually mothers) will sometimes be cooking something, and then they’ll realize that they’re missing an ingredient, so they’ll borrow the missing ingredient from a neighbour, or send their kid to do so.
Was this common in and around the 1960’s? Have any of you Dopers experienced the borrowing of ingredients? Does it ever still go on these days? I myself have never done it, nor heard of anyone doing it around here (Montreal, Canada) during my lifetime (I was born in 1984.)
In the 7(?) years I’ve lived in my house I think one of my neighbors borrowed some flour once, it seemed so…quaint.
Typically, you bring them over some of whatever you made, well, if it’s baked goods anyways. I’d love a few of the M&M cookies you made with the flour you borrowed…a bowlagravy, not so much.
I think this is it. My mom, like most of the moms on the block in the 70’s and early 80’s, was a stay at home homemaker without a car. Dad had the car, but it was with him at work. There was a grocery store technically within walking distance, but it was almost an hour hike to get there, so we did that when she needed to GTFO of the house, but it wasn’t convenient for the proverbial cup of sugar.
Now, my mom had a pantry a Mormon would envy, so she didn’t ever need to borrow a cup of anything. But her neighbor wives also knew she had anything they might need, so I would often answer the door and fetch a cup of this or a couple of those for a neighbor who wasn’t stocked for the zombie apocalypse. I don’t recall anyone ever “paying her back,” but I’m sure if she’d needed something, they’d have given it back to her. It wasn’t an exchange with a ledger, it was simply the neighborly thing to do, and it was figured that it would even out sooner or later.
As an adult living in a big city, I’ve “loaned” (given) out food ingredients a few times, but I don’t generally live anywhere where I get to know my neighbors anymore, and it would be somewhat weird for a neighbor I don’t know to ask me for a cup of sugar. I’d give it without hesitation, but it would be unusual enough that I’d probably mention it to my husband, in a, “weird thing happened today” sense.
My neighbors will borrow stuff from me pretty regularly. It’s 10 miles to the nearest grocery store and no one wants to pay $3 in gas because you need some sugar or tin foil. They will pay me back on big things - they’re barbecueing and use my whole role of foil, sure. Some salt or an egg or two, not so much.
It doesn’t happen to me at all, but I think it’s because I don’t know the neighbors very well. I’d love to live in a spot where I can ask a neighbor if they can lend me a crockpot for a party, or help me out when I’m one egg short for my cake.
I used to send my kids to borrow stuff like that occasionally, usually from the moms of their friends. Those kids would borrow from us, too. Now I live in a small apartment complex where everyone knows each other, and people borrow all the time here, too.
When I was a SAHM I had a neighbor similarly employed. We used to lend stuff back & forth all the time. Sure, there is a grocery store 5 minutes away. But to go there you would have to pack up 2 kids first. So much easier to borrow.
We also used to leave a spare key to our front door with each other, or hidden in the other’s yard.
In the neighborhood I grew up in (suburbia) this absolutely happened.
All of the neighbors knew each other. All of them had the kind of lifestyles and pantries that would include basic staples. In the case of a cooking emergency, it was more expedient to run nextdoor or across the street (or to tell your child to do so) and ask to borrow some baking soda than to stop cooking and drive to the grocery store.
It was very common in my suburban area in California in the late 1950’s. We were friends with most of our neighbors, with the young children playing with each other being part of the bond.
I didn’t experience this later. (Perhaps in part because I was no longer in a household with young children?)
I am doing it (almost) by plan. I need two bay leaves for Christmas dinner. I never use them. I am not going to buy a jar of them. I am not going to drive across town to the Bulk Barn to buy two. I have a friend I know who uses them. I sent her a text message asking her for two. She said sure. I will go over later, we’ll drink a beer, and I will have my stupid bay leaves.
Yes, we occasionally “borrow” ingredients from one set of neighbors, and they occasionally do the same from us. It’s nice to be able to avoid an emergency trip to the grocery store. My neighbor came over to get a cup of soy sauce not long ago.
I wouldn’t worry about replacing something like an egg or a cup of sugar, but if I borrowed a can of tomatoes, for instance, then on my next grocery trip I’d remember to buy a replacement and take it to them.
I recall lending and borrowing the proverbial cup of sugar on occasion when I was a child. And this wasn’t that long ago, around 1990-ish. We lived in a small town in Texas, the kind of small town where everybody knows everybody else’s business and that the nearest grocery store was a good half hour drive in either direction. Like someone said above, typically if something was borrowed then a child (moi) would be sent over with a plate of cookies or a slice of pie or whatever had been baked that day as repayment.
Even when the mayor opened a general store down on main street so you didn’t have to take a couple hours out of your day to shop for basic foodstuffs, the lending of ingredients didn’t abate.
Funny, I never gave it much thought till today. Rather a friendly practice I reckon. Still, that was 20 years ago and we’ve moved back to the city long since. You know, I don’t think I could pick my neighbors out of a line up today and I’d be frankly quite shocked if on of them came over to borrow a cup of something. Don’t know if it’s the times or the city that’s changed my attitude so much.
I don’t think I’ve ever been asked for, or asked someone else for, ingredients like this. I assume it’s just the environment I live in. I’ve never been very friendly with my neighbors.
I remember doing it as a kid in the 60’s and as an adult in the 90’s, 20’s. I don’t really have neighbors now most of the time, but we did lend our driveway to the next door folks for a wedding this past year.
The most memorable borrowing was probably in the early 20’s when my next door neighbor sent her kid over to the neighbor next to me for a cup of milk. She called that neighbor before sending the kid over. I was sleeping in late, as I was wont to do when I didn’t have an early morning class, and was awakened by the kiddo ringing and ringing the doorbell. I stumbled to the door and the kid said “Give me milk”, she was only 4-5ish So I went to the fridge and gave her a half gallon of milk.
A couple of hours later the neighbor who was originally asked for milk called the askee and said when do you need the milk? All the while the askee neighbor was trying to figure out why she got a 1/2 gallon instead of a cup.
Went to the kid’s wedding two years ago. We still laugh about the “give me milk” thing.
OH, and to answer the underlying questions; it happened a lot when I was a kid and a younger adult. You didn’t return what was borrowed you just gave as you got. I don’t remember ever being stiffed by neighbors taking advantage of the “system”
