Childhood comfort/staple foods.

I want to know if any of us were actually healthy as kids. xp


Dad's house: cheap sandwich meat, lays potato chips and little debbie snacks. Also tater-tot hotdish and no bake bars when my dad actually made food.
Mom's house: white bread soaked in milk and sugar and microwaved. and also, Shwan's ice cream cups.
Grandma's house: watermelon!! and macaroni salad with tuna and grapes.

I sometimes wonder how I turned into such a crunchy hippie?

Mushy peas with ketchup! Something which most people recoil in disgust from, oddly enough.

I think I'm one of those people, Larry.

I used to eat chickatees which are a type of corn crisp (chip, Americans?) that used to be sold in Ireland. My parents used to run a small grocery shop and apparently I would be content to just sit on the floor and munch chickatees.
I also used to love crisp (chip) sandwiches. Salt and vinegar Tayto on bread and you need some butter to go with that.

I can't really think what else. Mammy stayed at home until I was 15 so home-cooked meals were almost all I got as a child.

I also used to sit in the fruit n' veg aisle of whatever supermarket my parents were shopping in and just munch on mushrooms and tomatoes straight from the displays, which was apparently insanely unhealthy but I grew up just fine. Ish.

That's awesome, Larry. You had a taste for veggies when most kids wanted candy.
Ro your story is so cute. I have to go research Tayto now...

My comfort foods were always sandwiches. When my family lived in Germany, we'd go to this same deli and I'd always want gelbwurst-mit-grün (this type of lunchmeat with little green flecks of herbs in them). Also leberwurst (liverwurst); not the kind that comes in slices, it's actually a spread. Some of that on german bread with a blob of mustard on top is the ultimate comfort food to me. My mom recently found a German deli in Buffalo and they had some of this stuff. I was sooo happy.

I was never a big sweets kid and we couldn't afford junk food snacks when I was young. Pretty healthy, I guess.

Though we did eat a lot of canned veggies (because they were cheap). I didn't realize people ate fresh cooked veggies until I was a teenager.

I think Natascha just pointed out that there are two types of poor families: smart, healthy, poor families and lazy, careless, unhealthy ones. My family being the latter. :p Whole foods are cheaper but require more ingenuity than opening a package of something like chips or little debbie cakes. My parents never actually cooked much but when I was at my grandparents house my grandma always made home cooked meals. It was always so nice. It was basically fend for yourself most of the time at my parents house: open up the cupboard or fridge, nosh on what you find, parents probably aren't at home or if they are, don't really bother with the food.

As a kid if we ever wanted a snack my gramma kept a bowl of fruit on the table, she'd hold it out and we picked what we wanted. We had six or seven fruit trees in our back yard so we always had something tasty to eat somewhere. My gramma always made sure we had veggies, too. After dinner our dessert was usually veggies on a plate and we each got our ranch for dipping. We rarely had candy or sweets, and we always had home cooked meals until I was about 12.

To this day I still prefer fruits and vegetables over most foods.

JessCUH wrote:To this day I still prefer fruits and vegetables over most foods.

You know, I've never been much of a fruit-eater; even as a kid. Certain fruits have always been too sweet-tasting for me. Pretty much all berries, peaches, grapes, sometimes even apples. Canned fruit always grossed me out, too. I don't know what it is, but I think I've always been sensitive to sweet tastes which sucks since all that stuff is really nutritious.

natascha wrote:Canned fruit always grossed me out, too. I don't know what it is, but I think I've always been sensitive to sweet tastes which sucks since all that stuff is really nutritious.

Fresh fruit is way healthier than canned fruit anyway. And veggies better for you than fruit.

I have this weird thing where I'll focus on one food group per day, which is wack. Today it's cheese and yogurt - dairy. Some days it's fruit. Some days nuts.... They say you're supposed to eat a variety but I don't think I'm doing it quite right, lol.

Everyone in my family always hated cooking. If it could be eaten without cooking or microwaved, that was usually preferred.
There were a few rare exceptions. My former step-mom would make bierocks (beef sauteed with sauerkraut wrapped in bread dough), fried green tomatoes, shepherd's pie, enchiladas, and chicken noodle soup that are all still comforting for me. Having spent a lot of time with my gram, too (who also hated cooking), cookie dough, brownies, cookies--anything sweet became enormous comforts for me. I enjoy baking more than cooking, and find a lot of comfort in creating something sweet that I can then devour lol