[Sca-cooks] Re: pantry foods was Cooking Spam

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

>
> "Dunbar, Debra" wrote:
> >
> > During tough times growing up, we'd eat fried bologna.  Mom called it
> > "Mexican Hats" because it popped up in the middle like a sombrero.  We kids
> > loved it, and had no idea we were eating it because it was the day before
> > payday and all the other food was gone.
> > Wrynne
>
> Ooh! Now there's an interesting topic that I would like to hear about!
>
> We had a lot of tough times when I was a girl- my dad was self employed
> (an architect, but he did primarily church and church-related buildings-
> it's a long story) and we frequently got down to being creative out of
> the pantry. I have eaten more than enough generic mac n cheese to
> suffice me for several lifetimes. Mom also made pancakes, zillions of
> things with hamburger, and the ubiquitous pot of beans. Navy beans, no
> meat. Bleah! One of my brothers still won't eat any sort of mac n
> cheese, no matter how wonderful, or beans unless slathered with cheese
> and salsa and stuff. And I don't care for plain pancakes. But you know,
> my mom almost never got bologna- she thought it was too expensive and a
> luxury!
>
> So does anyone else have the day-before-payday-food stories? Stuff you
> remember fondly or stuff you never want to eat again?
>
> 'Lainie

White trash cheese and crackers! Saltines with processed American
cheese food on them--if you fold the slice in quarters, they just fit. And
you eat dill pickles or Spanish salad olives with them. ;-)

Although those are more a paternal bonding thing than a just-before-payday
thing.

During the periods of time when my father was unemployed, Mom used to make
Spanish Rice which was basically rice cooked in tomato juice (which one
can make from watered down tomato paste) with celery and kidney beans. I
think there may have been onion involved in it as well, and some spices
but probably not a whole lot. I won't even buy kidney beans.

Then there was liver and onions, which my father is quite fond of, and was
very cheap in the 70s. The children had to eat it, but we were allowed to
use as much ketchup as we wanted to disguise the taste. Even the smell of
cooking liver makes me queasy, still.

Fried bologna, OTOH, is tasty. I had a kids'-cookbook-type recipe where
you fried the slice of bologna and then put it in a muffin tin to retain
the shape, cracked an egg into it and baked it. Different. Not as good as
the pizza with sliced hot dogs on it, but still tasty, especially on
toast.

Margaret