Sunday, April 26, 2015

Adventures in Groceries With Dad

In my last post I made as silly remark about fixing myself a fried Spam sandwich which garnered me a couple of comments about that kind of food.  That got me to thinking about some of the foods I grew up with.  Mother was very conventional in her notions of what food should consist of, but Dad was another story altogether.

Dad dearly loved pickled pig's feet.  Every once in a while he would buy a jar as a treat for himself.  Mom turned up her nose.  She didn't like how they looked or smelled, so Dad and I would go out on the back steps and eat pickled pig's feet straight from the jar, tossing the bones to the dog, who then wasn't allowed in the house until the effects of the pickled bones had passed through his digestive system.

Dad loved the pies and cakes that Mom made.  And he could bake an apple pie to rival all others himself.  But often times when no dessert was on the table, he would tear up a slice or two of bread into his coffee cup, pour a little hot coffee over the bread and top it off with a spoonful of sugar.  He called this Poor Man's Pie.  He told me once that desserts were rare when he was growing up.  His family was rather poor, eking out a living on a small farm in northern Minnesota.  With nine children in the family, basic meals were more important than dessert.  He said his mother came up with this concoction as a means to satisfy a sweet tooth.

Mother didn't go into town alone very often.  Riddled with arthritis, she was physically incapable of grocery shopping and carrying heavy bags of food from the car into the house.  Dad worked in town, so he mostly bought the family groceries on his way home after work.  Which is why an odd assortment of food in cans or jars wound up in our cupboards.  Dad liked to try new things.

One of the first of these experiments that I remember was Potted Meat.  Comes in a little can - smaller than a can of tuna.  Looks kind of like bologna that has been whirled in a blender for a while.  It tastes sort of spicy.  Whether it is really meat is open for debate.  Dad loved the stuff.  He made sandwiches with it.  What he liked best was that it was cheap.  As a kid I had to try most everything he brought home that was new and different.  I found that I actually like the stuff.  It is on my food storage list as something to have on the shelf for a quick, easy sandwich.  Along with Spam.

I wish I knew what brand of canned ham Dad used to buy.  It was delicious.  We went on a lot of picnics at the lake in the summertime.  Mostly with my aunt, uncle and cousins.  Our family nearly always furnished a canned ham that we sliced up to go on homemade buns, and potato salad.  Sometimes the ham was sliced and fried for breakfast and sometimes it was roasted in the oven until nicely browned, usually with a raisin sauce on top.  It was all good.  But the last canned ham I bought that I could afford was so bad the dog wouldn't even touch it.  We're talking about a dog who, given a 10 second window of opportunity, would be buried up to her tail in a sack of evil, foul smelling garbage that was sitting by the door, waiting to go out to the dumpster.    That's bad.

About the only thing that Dad brought home to try that I couldn't eat was sardines.  I think sardines are one of those foods that a person either loves or hates.  Dad loved them.  I hated them.  Just couldn't stomach those oily little fish crammed into that can.  Dad said that was alright.  He would eat my share for me.

Gee, but I miss Dad.

12 comments:

  1. Armour is the best potted meat. A potted meat, mayonnaise, sweet pickle and sliced boiled egg sandwich is a treat.

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  2. Jess...I may joke some about my Dad's tastes, but am glad to have had the chance to try different food. Potted meat (Armour IS the best) is a great food storage item. I like the mayo and sweet pickle thing. Haven't tried it with egg.

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  3. I suspect Armour was the brand of potted meat your dad bought, as it seemed to be the most available. I may not care for spam, but I like sardines, even though I hated them as a kid!

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  4. Gorges...Although I really like other kinds of fish, I just can't seem to make myself eat sardines. They say a person will eat most anything if they are hungry enough. I've been hungry, but never when a can of sardines was within reach. :)

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  5. Your dad was a man after my own heart. Pickled pigs feet, Spam, potted meat and yes sardines. I like them all. One item I haven't seen in years and I believe they were put out by Hormel was pig brains in gravy. Boy that was good mixed up with some scrambled eggs.

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  6. Jim...Yeah, Dad introduced me to all sorts of culinary delights! But I do believe that if he had showed up with a can of pig brains, Mother wouldn't have let either of them in the house. She wasn't overjoyed about the pig feet. Said he was corrupting his oldest daughter. But Oh My, it sure was fun. :)

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  7. I guess I am one of those strange individuals that does not care for any of the food you mentioned plus many others. This is not to say that if I was starving I wouldn't eat them. I have a choice now to not eat them. My hubby on the other hand like you grew up eating these types of food and still loves a fried spam sandwich or fried bologna sandwich. Pickled eggs, hot dogs etc. I would much rather have something good for me than this! To each his/her own....I love the memories tho' sounds like you were close with your daddy and it comes out in your writings. Here's to your daddy who didn't fear the new things in life!

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  8. Mary...With what I have seen of your sense of humor, which is pretty much like mine that I inherited from Dad, you would have loved the man. Mother's tastes in food ran pretty much along the same lines as yours. I think because Dad grew up so poor, these wonderful things in cans and jars just fascinated him, for there were never store bought treats when he was young. Dad was a quiet man. I never heard him raise his voice in anger and I never heard my parents fight. But sometimes I think that part of the reason he brought home some of these foods? was just to get a reaction out of Mom. And he did. Which is why Dad and I ate pickled pit's feet on the back porch and not at the kitchen table.

    I loved him more than my life.

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  9. Saturday you were talking about having trouble with your internet. I had all kind of problems too. Internet explorer is going out. I tried Chrome 2 or 3 times and some others until I got Firefox. All my problems gone. Here is a link if you think you might want to download it. Hope this helps.
    https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/get-started-firefox-overview-main-features

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  10. steakandeggs...Thanks for the tip. Later, when I have time to fool with it, I'll give Firefox a try. I don't seem to have connection problems as much as I have working with anything Google related, like this blog, while using Explorer. Having to learn a whole new Windows with the new computer hasn't helped much. Probably some operator error involved as well. :)

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  11. I know how maddening it can be. I kept using Internet Explorer until it locked me out of Pinterest. It was becoming less and less I could do on my computer; then I knew I needed to make a change. Good luck.

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  12. steakandeggs...Thanks. It seems better today. Who knows why. I sometimes believe these computers have minds of their own! I will muddle through until I have time to spend fussing with it.

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