# Things your family ate that aren't common? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 10, 2014, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777 "2014-04-10T03:58:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/101 "2014-04-11T20:15:11Z")
> [@delsina363](#): > > We would get things from the government: powdered eggs, peanut butter, butter, and cheese. > [@keturah](#): > > That cheese was something! Mild flavor like american cheese, but a little sharper and with out the rubbery texture/plasticity of american singles. I seek out and love all sorts of cheese-from the strongest blue to the gooiest, long aged soft cheeses and still think fondly of that cheese! > [@madmonk28](#): > > That’s funny, I worked with two guys who both grew up poor and they were rhapsodizing about that cheese. They both said that they wish they could find it in stores. > [@Motorgirl](#): > > I have fond memories of that cheese as well. We got it in giant 3 pound (I think) blocks. If you could get a reasonable sized slice off it (challenging) it was the best cheese for making grape jelly & cheese sandwiches. Ah yes! Give me some of that [government cheese](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZVPv9B-ZlM)! Actually I didn’t really like it but my brother did. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/102 "2014-04-11T20:25:17Z")
> [@Strangeland64](#): > > my brothers and Dad would eat the lungs and some other innard part, but they called it “lights”. Liver and lights refers to liver and lungs. Blech. I will take heart any day. > [@kambuckta](#): > > And as I’ve said in many a thread over the years, I don’t know how my sibs and I survived childhood with a mother who was such an atrocious cook! RIP mum…still love ya and all, but my GOD…what were you THINKING back then? 😃 Actually the combination of WW1, the Depression and WW2 about did in cooking - between the shortages, rationing, lack of time to actually teach a girl how to cook by a working war mom and the whole ‘scientific nutrition’ in a time period where science was barely past stone knives and bearskins a whole lot of crap happened to food. I will grant that the British group in charge of trying to figure out what the hell people could eat, and making up the cookbooks to pass around did a hell of a job feeding the population of an island nation mostly cut off from imported foods, and working with what could be grown locally for a population accustomed to being fed supplies by a world wide network of colonies could not have been easy. Though with some lead in, you could plant tea shrubs - there is actually a cultivar being grown reasonably happily in Cornwall. They could also have done plantings on some of their caribbean properties. I think the shortage of rubber and petroleum was a lot more crucial over all. At least the train system for shipment of goods was effective. I would have loved to go back and execute some of the experimental cooks working for ladies magazines in the early 1950s and save the world a lot of indigestion. Between the semiartificial food shortages and the bullshit need to screw with traditional recipies to get something to publish monthly, and the dipshitted school home economics teachers who had no idea of how to cook real food my generation is lucky we didn’t starve to death. If I could go back to 1965 and kill the jackass who though ‘hamloaf’ was a good idea, I could die happy. [Yup, take a picnic ham, grind it up and mix it with breadcrumbs, eggs, a packet of liptons dried onion soup mix, a dab of the canning liquid from some pineapple rings - form into a loaf pan, top with a concoction of catsup, mustard and chopped onions, and top with a couple pineapple rings with a marascino cherry in the holes. Bake into submission. BARF. It really was a horrible as it sounds - and this is coming from a kid who would happily eat brussels sprouts, lima beans and artichokes at that age.] ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/103 "2014-04-12T02:25:36Z")
How are we defining “family” here? My stepfather eats tongue, brains, and other stuff the rest of us wouldn’t touch. I ate all the balut. My sister drank up all the vodka in the house and replaced it with water. We had a lime tree in the backyard, I used to eat whole limes. Oh, here’s one thing the kids all ate (don’t remember if my parents ate any): soft boiled eggs, peeled, put into a bowl and mushed up into a soup-like breakfast. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/104 "2014-04-12T03:45:53Z")
> [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](#): > > I’ve not put butter on a digestive biscuit since I left home - neither have I eaten a puff ball in many a year. Puff ball? > [@Dogzilla](#): > > Growing up, I thought this was a regional thing. As an adult, I’ve been surprised to learn that it must have been a family thing, because the only people who have ever heard of this are related to me. > > But I grew up eating pancakes with Jolly Green Giant corn niblets mixed into the batter. > > Corn is sweet – it’s friggin’ delicious. > > I remember going to Perkins pancake house when I was little and crying when I got my pancakes because they didn’t have corn in them and were therefore, WRONG. The waitress couldn’t do anything to fix it because I don’t think they had canned corn on hand at Perkins. My stepmother thought we were crazy – we moved in with her and my dad when I was about 11 – the first Saturday breakfast we also got cornless pancakes and pitched fits. > > I still make them this way, as does my sister. I will occasionally make blueberry or pecan or something conventional, but my go-to comfort food is corn pancakes and eggs. > > I suspect it started with my Grandmother and her massive garden. Probably had a bumper crop of corn one year and she was desperate to figure out how to use it all up so BAM into the pancake batter… > > If you have heard of this or had them, please let me know because I think my family are culinary freaks. Corn Fritters! My mother made them once in a blue moon, and they were delicious! Essentially, pancake batter with corn kernels in it, fried in a skillet. I never until this moment considered making them because I just don’t make fried food. But the notion of just making pancakes out of them never even crossed my mind. Now I can have a version of my beloved corn fritters again, after maybe 40 years? Hooray!!! ---
**Author:** ![Athabasca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Athabasca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athabasca)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/105 "2014-04-12T05:14:49Z")
My mom is Icelandic so we had a lot of ponnokukor (crepe-like pancakes), rullupylsa (flank steak rolled and pressed in brine with spices, usually served at Christmas) and vinarterta (7 layer cake) But my siblings and i also ate weird combinations of things like Lipton’s chicken noodle soup with ketchup squirted in it. Bread spread with margarine and sprinkled with sugar. We would tear rhubarb from the garden and dunk it in a cup of sugar and eat it that way. My dad would occasionally make breakfast for us - he would take a medium size drinking glass, tear bread up and fit it inside the glass, then dump a softboiled egg on top of the bread. Egg in a glass. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/106 "2014-04-12T16:14:15Z")
My mother made “sludge.” Pour a can of soup into a pan, add a half can of water, heat till boiling, then add instant mashed potato flakes until it looks sludgey. I still make, eat, and love it. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/107 "2014-04-12T17:51:45Z")
> [@Suburban\_Plankton](#): > > I don’t have anything to add to the thread…I just wanted \*\*Doug \*\*to know that someone else got his joke 🙂 Yep, laughed out loud, thanks **Doug!** Looking back, I guess we didn’t have a ton of extra money when I was little so… [ul] [li]Brown sugar and margarine on toast[/li][li]“Pizza toast” namely Miracle Whip and pizza toppings on white bread toast[/li][li]Mock chicken sandwiches [/li][li]Canned spaghetti on buttered toast was a big treat, normally when Dad was out of town[/li][li]“goulash” which, as best as I can tell, was every leftover in a frying pan with some rice or potatoes. [/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Sahirrnee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sahirrnee/32/13937_2.png) [@Sahirrnee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sahirrnee)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/108 "2014-04-12T18:45:15Z")
Spam and beans, made like hot dogs and beans, cut the spam into bite sized chunks. Creamed tuna on toast, just like creamed chipped beef only with tuna. One of the things some people in the family eat, not me, is a pancake with a fried egg on top, then topped with sausage gravy, which doesn’t look too bad but then they add syrup to it. ---
**Author:** ![SerafinaPekala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@SerafinaPekala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SerafinaPekala)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/109 "2014-04-12T19:11:14Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > \ > > Actually the combination of WW1, the Depression and WW2 about did in cooking - between the shortages, rationing, lack of time to actually teach a girl how to cook by a working war mom and the whole ‘scientific nutrition’ in a time period where science was barely past stone knives and bearskins a whole lot of crap happened to food. > > I will grant that the British group in charge of trying to figure out what the hell people could eat, and making up the cookbooks to pass around did a hell of a job feeding the population of an island nation mostly cut off from imported foods, and working with what could be grown locally for a population accustomed to being fed supplies by a world wide network of colonies could not have been easy. > > Though with some lead in, you could plant tea shrubs - there is actually a cultivar being grown reasonably happily in Cornwall. They could also have done plantings on some of their caribbean properties. I think the shortage of rubber and petroleum was a lot more crucial over all. At least the train system for shipment of goods was effective. > > I would have loved to go back and execute some of the experimental cooks working for ladies magazines in the early 1950s and save the world a lot of indigestion. Between the semiartificial food shortages and the bullshit need to screw with traditional recipies to get something to publish monthly, and the dipshitted school home economics teachers who had no idea of how to cook real food my generation is lucky we didn’t starve to death. If I could go back to 1965 and kill the jackass who though ‘hamloaf’ was a good idea, I could die happy. [Yup, take a picnic ham, grind it up and mix it with breadcrumbs, eggs, a packet of liptons dried onion soup mix, a dab of the canning liquid from some pineapple rings - form into a loaf pan, top with a concoction of catsup, mustard and chopped onions, and top with a couple pineapple rings with a marascino cherry in the holes. Bake into submission. BARF. It really was a horrible as it sounds - and this is coming from a kid who would happily eat brussels sprouts, lima beans and artichokes at that age.] Hey! dont be dissin hamloaf! Its a PA Dutch thing too but they seem to do it in an edible way. MFK Fisher’s book [How to Cook a Wolf](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/250693.How_to_Cook_a_Wolf) is an interesting read about wartime cooking you might find to your liking. My family survived my mother’s “cooking” somehow and my sister even became a good cook (I dont cook at all). We endured the tough fried porkchops and steaks that my dad seemed to love. I just ate “gravy bread”: white bread with red eye gravy spread thickly and then lots of salt and pepper when something like that appeared. Common as can be, no surprises in my family. ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/110 "2014-04-12T19:12:24Z")
> [@Athabasca](#): > > / rullupylsa (flank steak rolled and pressed in brine with spices, usually served at Christmas) / We ate that at Christmas, too. Only we spelled it _rullapolsa._ Norwegian cold cuts. I laughed at the Bill Cosby reference, too. “You won’t come near smoke and fire and jello!” ---
**Author:** ![rjk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@rjk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjk)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/111 "2014-04-13T05:05:57Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Cinnamon toast. Spread margarine onto white bread, sprinkle sugar on top of that and cinnamon on top of that, then stick it under the broiler of the oven till it was crusty. Loved it. I grew up on that, more or less. We would toast the bread first so the butter would melt, then add _brown_ sugar and the cinnamon. I just had some the other night for the first time in years, on some kind of multi-grain bread, and it was great! We have a toaster oven, so I’ll have to try melting the sugar a bit. (And of course that’s _brown_ sugar, not white.) Maybe after that I’ll do some with ginger or a pie-spice mix. And now that I think of it, I have had brown sugar on peanut butter too… ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/112 "2014-04-13T11:08:47Z")
> [@Petrichord](#): > > That, good **pulykamell** , is my childhood in a tin. Dace, little fish smaller than your hand, prepared with salted black beans and crammed into a small oval tin can along with a week’s worth of sodium. Add a bowl of rice and you’ve got a perfectly tasty, if unhealthy, dinner. “Sodium”? Would that be table salt or something else? (Asks the person who never thought someone might treat olives with lye until someone mentioned it in this board) ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/113 "2014-04-13T13:30:37Z")
Moving from MPSIMS to Cafe Society. ---
**Author:** ![PurpleClogs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f04885/32.png) [@PurpleClogs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PurpleClogs)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/114 "2014-04-13T13:48:27Z")
Thick layer of crunchy peanut butter on warm toast, stack 2 or 3 slices on a plate , cut into bite size layered pieces, drown it in maple syrup, eat with a fork. Mmmm. Requires a lot of milk to wash it down! ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/115 "2014-04-13T14:24:40Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > “Sodium”? Would that be table salt or something else? (Asks the person who never thought someone might treat olives with lye until someone mentioned it in this board) [Here it is](http://tastyislandhawaii.com/2009/09/25/fried-dace-with-salted-black-beans/). I’m intrigued. Next time I’m at the local Asian mart, I’ll have to check. As for the sodium, it appears to all be from the table salt used for the beans and, presumably, to preserve the fish. ---
**Author:** ![Queen\_Tonya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/4491bb/32.png) [@Queen\_Tonya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Tonya)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/116 "2014-04-13T21:57:29Z")
> [@Missy2U](#): > > Only thing I can think of is flank steak marinated overnight in Wishbone French Dressing then grilled on the charcoal grill. Serve with dressing as gravy. Mine is the only family that I’ve ever known of that had that. Still do It’s one of our favorite meals. Yep, we had it and I still make it once in a while. I like to grill it in a cast iron skillet and pour the leftover marinade in once it’s halfway cooked, so the dressing turns from bright red to a lovely brownish sauce. ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/117 "2014-04-13T22:25:50Z")
My mother used to make the following sandwich: Mashed bananas, peanut butter, mayonnaise and crispy bacon layered between slices of white bread. ---
**Author:** ![Harg\_Fargusen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/da6949/32.png) [@Harg\_Fargusen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harg_Fargusen)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2014, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/118 "2014-04-13T22:34:22Z")
Braunschweiger, sardines on saltines, morel mushrooms (when in season) and persimmon pie (also when in season). ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/119 "2014-04-14T05:29:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Wait, **Tethered Kite** , you say you actually _ate_ lutefisk? As in, you put it in your mouth and swallowed? Voluntarily? Were your grandmothers also getting you drunk first? > [@Tethered\_Kite](#): > > Actually lutefisk, like cardboard, is edible with enough melted butter. I’ve never encountered lutefisk first-hand, but have felt curious about it for a while – since reading a fair number of references to it on US-based message boards. It appeared from same, to be a Scandinavian-American speciality, with nearly everyone else in America considering it horrible beyond description. I was interested to read recently, an account by the British cookery writer Sophie Grigson, of sampling lutefisk in the Lofoten Islands in Norway. She rated it there as not revolting, but just dull and not particularly appetising – found it hard to see the point of it. She described its preparation as “Stockfish, as hard as a bone, is soaked for 4 - 7 days in frequent changes of water. Next it is plunged into a lye solution… and left for 2 days or longer, according to taste… the [lye]… must then be thoroughly washed out, which is done by submerging the lutefisk in running water for several more days. Then, and only then, is it ready to cook !” Ms. Grigson’s hostess served the lutefisk boiled and dressed with sizzling pork fat and bacon cubes. The writer reported enjoying the bacon, and the side dish of carrot stew, but commented re the lutefisk: “That bizarre jellyish consistency and terminal blandness seemed a cruel destiny for what was once good fresh Lofoten cod.” ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777/120 "2014-04-14T13:51:09Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > ETA: Oh, just thought of an obvious one that makes most people wretch at the sight/thought of: [Polish style aspics](http://img.smaczny.pl/p/m/800_600_2_1/p/z/11/galareta_z_nozek1.jpg). The most common type in my family is similar to that one: chicken, egg, peas, carrots, suspended in a gelatinized broth. We’d typically eat it served with vinegar poured over it and a slice of hearty bread. I really love this stuff, but I’ve never met anyone who is not Eastern/Central European who will go anywhere near it. It was generally eaten as a snack or light lunch. My ex-wife’s family was of Polish/Bohemian descent. Her father made that stuff in their basement and gave me some to try, complete with vinegar. I nearly hurled. He called it what sounded like “szoltza”, but that’s not the correct spelling. My mother made a dish called beef and kidney ragout. I never liked it, probably because of the consistency of the kidneys. My father refused to eat it, yet she persisted in making it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-your-family-ate-that-arent-common/685777.md?page=7)