those were the days

I woke up this morning thinking about my childhood. I think it would be interesting to do a short series about select stories from my childhood. Some of them are pretty unique...

When we were kids, we were piss poor, only we didn't know it. Ah, the wonderful naiivety of being a child. We didn't eat Cheerios, Captain Crunch, or Fruit Loops; we ate Toasty-Oh's, King Vitamin, and Fruity Rings, in the big bags because they were WIC approved items. By the way, that was a really great program- it kept us fed! Nowadays we joke that we're "poor again" whenever we see generic cereal on the counter because money's tight.

My mom used to clip coupons like it was nobody's business. She'd come home waving her 3-foot-long receipt bragging that she saved $100+ from coupons. I gotta say, that's pretty badass. You can't do that anymore- when is the last time you saw a "triple coupon" day?

We also never had to buy our school lunches. Chicken ring things, those big rectangular trays of "pizza" cut into lopsided triangles, mashed potatoes scooped out with an ice cream scoop... it was all free. Except, I think in high school my parents were making enough money so we had to pay a portion of it.

Hmm... this has turned into a food-related blog. What other kinds of food memories stick out from when I was a kid?

We used to eat "Cowboy Beans" or "beanie weenies." It was a can of pork n beans mixed with chopped-up hot dogs and a squirt of mustard and ketchup. We loved that stuff. Ugh, haha.

Tator tot casserole. A mixture of ground beef, mushroom soup and green beans, baked with a bunch of tator tots on top. I'd eat it, but it wasn't my favorite. Dayna came over one time when my mom made it, and LOVES it. For one of her wedding shower gifts my mom included the recipe for it.

Our parents were very strict when I was younger, then "went soft" as we grew up. My younger siblings get away with SO much shit that I never did.

For instance, if you didn't like what my mom cooked for dinner, you sat there until you ate it. Of couse, I was as stubborn as anything, so sometimes I'd sit there for hours after dinner, then go to bed hungry. Well, my parents say I was stubborn, but I remember that I really couldn't choke it down. It was probably a combination. Most of the time it was stuff I liked, though. There were only a few dishes that I really didn't like, and made me feel physically ill- I blame it on the Celiac!

The absolute WORST was beer brats. They'd boil bratworst in beer, then grill it. Revolting. I'd dread the day when my mom cooked those, because I knew I'd be going to bed hungry. I remember one time I hid my sausage in my napkin and threw it away. When I showed my dad my empty plate he got suspicious and looked in the trash, and I got in trouble. The next day when I got up for breakfast, he placed it in front of me and said if I didn't eat it, it was going in my lunch. I remember the thought going through my head that I was eventually going to die of starvation. But, my parents weren't THAT mean. I got breakfast and they didn't make me eat the damn bratworst.

Even to this day, I have to leave the house when they cook beer brats because the smell gags me. One more thing to tell my therapist, haha.

As we grew older they loosened up a bit and made the rule that you could eat a peanut butter sandwich if you didn't want what my mom cooked- but you couldn't do it every day.

What was your childhood like at meal-time? Similar to mine, or different?