Dining Through the Decades

1990's  The chapter on the 90's was underwhelming. Seven pages and three recipes, none of which held any appeal to me. I suppose Pork Loin with Peach Salsa might be okay, Cod with Lentils I knew would be a fail with the family. Maybe I should have braved it a bit because I was pretty blown away by the 80's.  Never-the-less...at the end of our 80's meal Jeremy and I were discussing what foods we remember being faddish in the 90's. We remember Bagel Pizza's and Totinos Pizza Rolls. But maybe that's because that's what college aged people ate. At any rate, Jeremy said I should fix Three-Cheese Enchiladas which was his most frequently requested meal during our early years together. I decided to serve it with a Spinach Salad with candied pecans.   I also read that people using flowers in their food presentation was a big thing and I remembered that I used fresh rose petals on my wedding cake! (Okay, so I didn't do it myself, but that's w

I was dragging into this 1980's decade. None of the recipes were that inspiring to me and maybe it was a carry over of my extreme dislike of the 80's. I don't like the fashion, the movies, the music...not much about the 80's I'm into at all. Maybe I'm bitter because my hair was nowhere near the type of hair I needed for the big 80's hair look. Or maybe because my legs were so skinny that leg warmers just bunched at my ankles and made my legs look even skinnier. Maybe it is rooted in the time I showed up to school with my navy blue knit sweater with white hearts across the chest and was mortified to find a boy in my class wearing the EXACT same sweater. I'm not sure I ever wore that sweater again. In retrospect, he may have been more mortified than me....a GIRL dressed like him. Unless he was into dressing that way. He was probably still mortified to be wearing the exact same sweater as the least fashionable girl in the school though. So there were two

1970 Heavenly Tang Tea Chicken and Mushroom Crepes French-style Green Beans Bing Cherry Salad Mold Zucchini Bread  Wacky Cake This was my favorite meal to date. The 70's saw a continuation of the health food craze, the start of salad bars (does anyone remember those Souper!Salad! restaurants? I LOVED those!) and the cookbook itself had pages and pages of dessert recipes. Not only did I pass on having a dessert buffet for dinner , I passed on the lemon bars for dessert..which if you know me at all you know that is huge. Brunch was hugely popular in the 70's (so the book said) and so that is the direction I went.  The breakdown... HEAVENLY TANG TEA - Or what I would call Russian Tea or Friendship Tea growing up (and Jeremy calls this Spiced Tea). I LOVED this growing up so was all to excited to serve it to the kids. They weren't into it though. 😞 Ryan said it tasted too much like Apple Cider. I don't see the problem. No matter though...more

The Sixties Nouveaux Gourmets Menu Crab And Artichoke Casserole Elegant String Bean Casserole Tang Pie The sixties decade in the book was thick...so many directions I could go. Julia Child was fresh on the scene. There were the committed gourmets that cooked mainly French foods. Fondue was considered sophisticated and fun, the fad of health food and f lambé. Now I grew up in the health food clan, so I wasn't super excited to try that and Jeremy wasn't thrilled about the  f lambé...even though I think he was completely overreacting. I have successfully put out every kitchen fire I have started. The thought of making french food from scratch with ingredients I've never heard of, don't know what they are and no idea where to get them was completely overwhelming. We had no fondue equipment, which was a bummer because that would totally have been my first choice and later Hannah suggested I could use a crockpot and cheap skewers. Which is EXACTLY why I s

The Fifties - Revisited If there is one thing that is becoming more and more evident as I read about cooking and food through the years (and also discussing it with people) that it is not so cut and dry as to "this was popular". There were regional differences, and economic factors. A very wealthy family in New York City would eat very differently from a ranch family in Colorado.  Which brings me to my mom and her family. She was the ranch family in Colorado. They were the hired hands on the ranch. Their typical 1950's dinner looked quite different from my dad's suburban Chicago 1950's food. Although at that time they might have still been living in Miami. Anyway, the point is, this isn't so cut and dry as I thought.  So last weekend we went to visit my mom for her birthday and she surprised us with her 1950's meal! A typical meal she would have eaten growing up. As I said, she grew up on a ranch and they ate what was available to them. They

1950's Menu (As appearing in July 1956 Good Housekeeping)  Sauteed Spam  Instant Mashed Potatoes Frozen Buttered Peas Fruit Trifle This meal was proudly served on my grandmother's china that was passed down to me. The china was manufactured after the war. She couldn't remember the story of how she got it, but she was married in 1947, so I'm pretty sure this china was used throughout the 1950's.  So I won't lie. When I was reading through the fifties and planning a meal, I was feeling tired and lazy and I chose this menu because it looked easy. And I can't believe I'm putting this out there in a public forum...but I like spam. I'm sorry if I lose any friendships over this well hidden secret. Also, I wanted to try out my new frying pan.... It worked as advertised. The fifties were really big on outdoor barbecue and our current living situation doesn't allow for such, so there went half the recipes for the decade