My sister is her this week, for her vacation, and to celebrate her birthday. She does not cook, and does not like to, so I try and accommodate her palate by asking what she is most hungry for.
Like most folks, she gets hungry for food she grew up on, and rarely consumes now.
Her one request this week was creamed eggs on toast. Huh? Wha you say? Yuck?
This was actually a weekly staple that we grew up on, and when i say weekly I am not exaggerating.
My sister and I just had a long discussion at the table about what my Mother cooked when we were under the age of 12, and lived on Logan street.
2 days a week we had breakfast supper. Pancakes, eggs, and side pork. I never liked side pork. It was to porky, if there is such a thing, and I did not even like the smell. Once in a while she would fry up bologna instead, we did have bacon on few occasions as it was a treat. My Father would put peanut butter on his pancakes.
1 night a week we would have creamed eggs on toast, which was delicious.
1 night a week we would have hamburgers, fried in a skillet.
Sometimes we had fried egg sandwiches on toast.
1 night a week we would have goulash (hamburger, tomatoes, and macaroni)
Saturdays we may have chicken and dumplings, meatloaf, or chicken and noodles.
Sundays we would have a beef or pork roast, or fried chicken.
The following were big treats liver and onions for my Dad. Fried fish in the summer after dad went fishing, always paired with a macaroni salad, and fresh buns. Spaghetti or tacos.
Seems strange, but we sat and pondered and pondered that menu for about an hour, and that was what we came up with...
I looked at her, and said, "you know, I knew we were poor, but we must have been very poor to have eggs 4 nights a week". Eggs used to run mom about a quarter a dozen for Jumbo farm raised eggs that often had double yolks. And she bought them from a gal that delivered them to the house. A quarter a dozen if that, they may have run cheaper than that from time to time.
I also will tell you my Mom is rolling in her grave right now, for sharing this on the internets...
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8 comments:
Funny how you just assume things are "normal" until you grow up and then you realize what it really meant. Your mom was making the most of what she had in feeding a family. We do that a lot now. When we have ham, will use the ham bone in pinto beans ... when we have turkey, we make stock for use later.
My kids are just going to grow up and realize their mom was lazy for having cereal with milk for dinner some nights. :)
It's funny how looking back, we realise how different our finanical situations are now then they were when we were kids. I didn't know Hamburger Helper was meant to have hamburger in it until I was a teenager.
I've never had creamed eggs on toast. I hope it's more delicious than you remembered.
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I really never understood how much money we didn't have until I was out of the house. We had things like spaghetti, easy to make and would feed us for two days. We also would have breakfast for dinner quite often.
I’ve had creamed beef (S.O.S). That’s a Navy staple, but never creamed eggs.
yah... eggs. I come from a family of 7 children raised by a single mom -- on a nurse's salary, no less! a dozen eggs with 10 hot dogs sliced in could feed the family. macaroni with cottage cheese and raisins added and baked in the oven... or a large pot of macaroni with a can of tomatoes, a can of tomato soup and a can of cheddar soup was dinner for 8 (I still have a sister who prefers this method.) I didn't know until I was in high school that people added meat to pasta! and that "sandwich spred" was eaten on sandwiches as a condiment rather than just on bread by itself... and I still love pickle & mayo sandwiches and tomato & mayo sandwiches (because sometimes that was all there was to eat until pay day!)
of course, these economic conditions led to a few good things: we each went to work by age 13 or 14 to add income to the household (work ethic) AND you will find that my sisters and my pantries are over filled -- we plan to never run out of food!
My mom was a school teacher so she would cook all the meals for the month on a Saturday and freeze them so she wouldn't have to make dinner when she got home. She is also so organized that if the dish needed to be topped with cheese or something she had it grated in a baggie attached to the top of the container which also had the instructions for heating it neatly printed on the top.
so yawl know, I am more amused by the comments than my own post...
I just read your coments out loud to my sister, and we enjoyed them very much
Breakfast for dinner is a favorite around here. But I'm not sure how I feel about creamed eggs? what is that exactly?
yeah for sisters!
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