Foods Then and Now
By Gail Grenier Sweet ©2006
THEN: Typical supper foods for Mike and me in the 70s --
We had ring bologna (Milwaukee German food) until we discovered that it cost as much as
steak.
For fish, we had tuna casserole or frozen breaded fish fillets.
For chicken, once in a while we had homemade chicken pie with carrots, potatoes and homemade
biscuits (a lot of work, Mum’s recipe). More often we had baked chicken with brown rice slathered
with undiluted cream of chicken soup as a sort of gravy.
Our “fancy” beef included:
Steak with peppers, onions and mushroomsBeef bourguignon (“What a waste of perfectly good Burgundy,” Pop said)
Roast beef with carrots and potatoes
But MOSTLY we ate anything made out of hamburger meat, such as:
Hamburgers
Spaghetti
Chili
“Glop” (the Grenier family version of Beef Stroganoff – just noodles, ground beef, & cream of mushroom soup)
“Porcupines” (big meatballs full of rice, slathered in cream of mushroom soup & cooked with carrots and onions in an electric frypan)
(I used to have a saying: “What’s supper if it’s not made of hamburger meat and cream of mushroom soup?”)
NOW: Typical supper foods for Mike and me in 2006 --
No more ring bologna
Rarely – tuna casserole (Mike burned out on it)Fresh or frozen salmon and other fish grilled or baked
Almost never – chicken (I burned out on it)
No steak (quit eating it and can’t digest it any more – gives a big stomach ache).
No beef bourguignon
No roast beef.
Rarely – corned beef and cabbage
Hamburger meat foods:
Hamburgers rarely; occasional veggie burgers
Spaghetti (sometimes vegetarian)
Chili (sometimes vegetarian)
No Glop
No Porcupines
Cajun food:
Jambalaya
Gumbo
Anything made out of spinach:
Spinach soup
Spinach pie
Spinach omelet
Spinach frittata
Can’t get enough spinach!
Homemade soups
Anything with feta cheese in it.