You obviously have not had my mom’s meatloaf. ::shudder::
It was so gross warm, but strangely good on a cold sandwich with lotsa ketchup.
I love chow mein, and eat it every chance I get, but I’d never dream of voluntarily eating chop suey. My cat has thrown up things that look more appetizing.
The thing with these so-called yesteryear dishes is that A)they are bland and B) they are time consuming.
What’s taken it’s place? Fast, non-bland food like stir-fry, mexican dishes, grilled meats and meal salads. Americans palates are a lot more open to ethnic flavors nowadays and a lot of these old-timey dishes just taste like salty grease.
Time consuming dishes that are not bland, such as beef stews, have stood the test of time. I don’t see BBQ pork disappearing anytime soon in the South.
Sure there’s more prepared food but that’s not why no one wants liver & onions. Meat prices have gotten cheaper and there’s no particular reason to serve offal any more. If you can get chicken parts for 99/lb (very common price for thighs and sale price for whole chickens) why feed your kids something that culturally, we consider dog food?
Meatloaf and burgers aren’t the same thing.
Meatloaf often contains bread as well as meat, and usually some other flavorings as well. Burgers are patties of ground beef. I’ve heard of burgers containing flavorings, but not of burgers with bread in them. This makes a difference in the texture of burgers and meatloaf, and food texture is very important to some of us.
Also, meatloaf is normally served with some kind of sauce or gravy, unlike burgers. I’ve had a number of what would have been decent pieces of meatloaf if it weren’t for the sauce/gravy.
I used to drive my grandma to the store on Saturdays, which was fun, cuz I was 14 and I got to drive grandpa’s '48 Studebaker. It was green, and it’d do 50 going downhill.
Anyways, she always bought salt pork (not bacon) and salted codfish that came in a little wooden box. I don’t know what she did with those things, but there was always some cold salt pork in a little saucer (remember saucers?) on their kitchen table.
I don’t remember if she was any kind of a cook. She used to rice potatoes just for me. Potato ricers have made a comeback. She could bake a mean custard too (using a cast iron wood-burning stove). I had a toy one of those, and damn but I’d like to know what happened to it. I could probably e-bay it and retire.
Bakeman’s cafe in Seattle used to make an awesome meatloaf sandwich. They made lots of good sammiches, but their meat loaf was the best. Mine always falls apart.
I wonder if Bakeman’s is still there (basement of a building at 2nd and Cherry, if I remember right). Any Seattleites know?
Speaking of Polish food-I hope pierogies never go out of fashion.
I LIKE eating fish sticks or fish patties and tater tots every once in a while. Or Weaver’s chicken mini drums chicken patties. With plenty of ketchup. It’s a nice, quick, “just got home from work/shopping/errands/whatever and I just want something warm and yummy.”
What about green beans caserole? With the french-fried onions and mushroom soup? My mother always made it with real onions.
My mom gave me a copy of The Joy of Cooking one Christmas. I laughed until I wept.
How many recipes for aspic does one need? Who wants their meat or their veggies encased in Jello these days?
The party food was funny too. There was a recipe for “Sandwich Loaf.” Layer crustless white bread and filling on top of each other until you have a rectangular cake-shaped "sandwich. Then ice the whole thing with cream cheese. Slice, serve, and puke!
What edition do you have? They completely revised it around 1997. B ut I have the '72 version of Joy and it is absolutely indispensible as a baking cookbook and as a reference for general cooking theory and practice.
Don’t you be dissin The Joy of Cooking*.
I have tuna casserole on the menu for this week. I love to make the old-timey comfort foods! Chicken fried steak? Check. Swiss steak? Check. (I use cube steak, it’s already tenderized.) Salmon patties? Check. Meatloaf? Check. (Try using Stove-Top stuffing for the filler. Mmmm!) And I had liver and onions at Luby’s the other day. I’ve created a dish with cooked chicken, frozen peas & carrots, canned mushrooms, mushroom soup and velveeta. Serve over (or mix in) noodles.
I also make quick healthier foods like grilled salmon and shrimp stir-fry.
It’s all good! (Man, I’m hungry. I’m making Chicken Parmesan with fettucine tonight.)
I love that book, it’s essential reading. But yeah, sometimes you just have to sit back and laugh. You expect me to do what???
Fried Egg:
“You probably want to start preparing the ingredients several days in advance. Now, to clarify the butter, first we…”
I have a new one. Even the modernized version still has a lot of archaic, laughable recipes.
But it has a lot of good points too, like explanation of how to cook almost all the basic foods. I use it regularly when I cook. I prefer How To Cook Everything though, because it doesn’t come with all the outdated content.
The latest revision of JoC sucks. The 72 version has a lot of filler, but the keeper recipes and procedures are worth the chaff. The new one is, IMHO, almost all chaff.
I find it interesting that some of the stuff on this list we still eat… tuna casserole made with mushroom soup, meat loaf, pot roast, open face sandwiches with gravy (how else do you use the leftovers!?), onion dip, chili as a meal by itself (with cheese sprinkled on top and a slice or bread and butter). All of these are regulars in my house.
I have to go to a little Ukranian deli to buy pickled beets as they don’t carry them at the grocery store. I love pickled beets. Yum! I think I should bug my Grandma for her recipe, and her jelly recipes… so good.
I love me some pickled beets too. My grandma used to make them in sweet & sour brine, with sticks of cinamon & cloves in it.
I really don’t miss the casseroles I was raised on in the 70s.
Last week, I made Turkey Manhattans. Open faced sandwiches, with mashed potatoes, sliced roasted turkey and gravy slopped all over. Also nice with roast beef, I’m told. It’s such a grandmotherly dish.
I make meat loaf at least twice a week. I’d cook liver & onions, but nobody likes it except for me.
Bourbon, sweet vermouth, bitters, turkey…yum… 
Are you from the Midwest? Never heard anyone but a Midwesterner use the term “Manhattan” for the delicious sandwich to which you refer. One of the few meals that actually requires that wonderfully-spongy, white, white, white bread.
Make your own. I think the recipe I have used to my satisfaction was out of a 30-year-old Betty Crocker, but if if you start making your own and can improve on that, please post.
I can eat a quart in about 4 days…
Jackpot!
My mom is purging her cookbook collection. She has a lot of weird ones from the 60s and 70s. In a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook called something like “Simple Meals for Two,” we found this gem:
Full O’ Baloney
Ingredients include diced potatoes, diced baloney, cream of celery soup, cheese, and milk.
The picture made it look like baloney cheese soup. A big bowl of bright yellow soup with baloney chunks floating in it.