Home Cookin'

I was a child of the 1970s. Sure, I was born in the 1960s, but the decade that formed my wonderful self was the decade of polyester, Match Game, and Star Wars. That also meant I was subjected to some of the most interesting meal items of the past 100 years. Some of these items pre-date the seventies and some stretched into the 80s and beyond. Still others died out completely, but, in the ever-incestuous culture we live in, some food ideas have experienced a rebirth in much the same way elephant flares, Marcia Brady hair, and wannabe Grateful Dead Heads have slithered their ways back onto the AOL Welcome page.

BREAKFAST

Let's start with breakfast, where most of us used to begin our day. Back then, it was basically cereal with names like SUGAR Pops, SUGAR Frosted Shredded Wheat, and the king of all boastful cereal names - SUPER SUGAR Crisp, with the lovable SUGAR bear. And why wouldn't he be lovable? After all, he had that cool, smoky voice, hipster half-stoned gaze, wore that kick-ass blue turtle neck sweater, and of course wore no pants. He wasn't just pushing cereal on hyperactive kids, he was pushing animal porn. Throw in Porky Pig and Donald Duck and you'd have an x-rated version of Animal Farm. But, back to the cereal. It seemed each commercial claimed their cereal was loaded with "8 essential vitamins and minerals" and was a "part of this balanced breakfast." The balanced breakfast would show half a grapefruit, unsweetened juice, some unbuttered wheat toast, and maybe a handful of blueberries. I never knew anyone who ate all of that crap. The kids I knew filled up a bowl of Trix, Apple Jacks or Frosted Flakes, over-poured the milk, and with all the skill of a Wallenda, navigated their way in front of the television to watch Scooby-Doo. If you were a boy, you did all of this in your underwear.

The more enterprising among us would find a way to bug our parents for a slice of cake, some cinnamon sticky buns, or some other quickly-decaying dessert left to harden overnight when your folks' Pinochle game breached the midnight hour the night before. The right amount of nagging usually did the trick. Go too far and you got backhanded. Yeah, that was still in vogue back then. After breakfast, your mother threw you outside so she could A) get some peace, B) make you burn off the sugar, and C) watch her soaps.

LUNCH

For the sake of argument, let's not include the conveyor belt cafeteria food served in school. In fact, let's just stick to summer and weekend lunches, because, and let's be honest here, the school cafeteria lunch is a subject unto itself.

Lunch was a pretty straightforward affair. It was usually peanut butter and jelly, tuna fish, or lunch meat - usually baloney. We can all thank that damned Oscar Mayer commercial ("My baloney has a first name, it's O-S-C-A-R...") for roughly 30%-40% of our lunches back then. We were also big on deviled ham, Spam, and something called fluffernutters, which sounds like the name of a stagehand on a porno movie set but was actually just peanut butter and brain-shivering marshmallow cream. Now, some kids were particular about how their sandwiches were cut. The ones who didn't care, had theirs cut into four squares. The cool kids had theirs cut club-sandwich style into four triangles. Their bigger kids just went for the single cut into two halves, and the weenies always wanted their crust cut off. But, there was one thing we ALL agreed on: potato chips in the sandwich was the ONLY way to go. Toss in a few Oreos, Nutter Butters or yummy Keebler chocolate doo-dads, and you were a lazy blob until dinner rolled around. Then,mom threw you outside again or you watched reruns of The Flintstones, Gilligan's Island, or The Brady Bunch.

DINNER

Dinner was more than the third meal of the day. Dinner was a ritual. Some would call it "supper" but in our house, it was dinner, with a capital DIN. That's right, it could get downright noisy and boisterous with three boys at the table. Mom could have been part of the U.S. Olympic cooking team while Dad could have captained the Big Pork Chop stare-down squad. I really didn't appreciate the effort and taste of stews, roasts, stroganoffs, au gratin potatoes (or as we called them, "rotten au gratin"), stewed tomatoes on macaroni and cheese, and assorted casseroles. Fondue was big, as was BLT night and breakfast night where pancakes, eggs and bacon ruled the roost and there was Dad, methodically slicing his Jersey tomatoes with every meal.

We were an iced tea family, but not the kind made from the sugary powder. Nope, we had this convoluted, mad-scientist formula for making iced tea that involved photosynthesis, the alignment of the planets, and the sacrificing of an annoying neighbor, of which we had many. It tasted awful. The only way my Mom and I could stand it was to drench it in Minute Maid concentrated lemon juice. I put so much lemon juice in my tea that a black hole would form on my uvula.

DESSERT

We weren't a big desert family, but when there was dessert, it was a big to-do. Large hunks of cake and pie and teetering stacks of cookies. For holidays, mom would make ambrosia, which I hated. Separately,I like each ingredient, but, combined, coconut doesn't jive with marshmallows and those tiny Mandarin oranges creep me out in any language. Of all things I do miss, though, it was ice box cake, which my grandmother made. It was simple: a rectangular pan with a crust of graham crackers, about 2 inches of chocolate pudding, then topped with another layer of graham crackers. Chill. Serve into squares and top with an Alpine-size wallop of Kool-Whip. Die with a smile on your face.

Wow. I never really realized how much I have missed ice box cake, or those meals with my family.

Hell, I even miss the rotten au gratin potatoes.