We did not buy many canned foods, but did get sandwich meats as mentioned in “Sandwiches.” We had meats and produce from our land that we put up by canning or freezing. After a Saturday in town, Laster’s grocery store was a regular stop on our way home. This is where we bought our staples, and if times were good, some extras. The staples were pretty much light bread, cigarettes and chewing tobacco, salt, sugar, spices, flour, mayonnaise, mustard, and mayhap a few of these:
Spam—I adore this. For those who scoff at Spam, I regard you with a mixture of scorn and pity. We Spam lovers are many and proud, else there would not be a Spam Museum. This paean to Spam is located in Minnesota, and built by Hormel in acknowledgment of its long-selling product. Spam figured prominently in the diets of our military in World War II and appeared on our table at home. We fixed it several ways:
Sliced, in a sandwich with mayonnaise and maybe lettuce or onion.
Sliced and fried as a main course meat.
Diced small and made into a salad with cherry tomatoes, mayonnaise, and bell pepper.
Salmon—Canned salmon was very popular. Most often it was prepared by making it into a salmon cakes or croquettes, as told in “All Things Fishy.”
Pork’n’beans—In addition to the canned meats in my Sandwich category, we usually had a can of pork’n’beans on the shelf. These were beans canned with very mild tomato sauce and with the teensiest bit of pork fat, we had them with hot dogs, hamburgers, Vienna sausages, or sandwiches.
Soups—At dinnertime, we sometimes had condensed tomato or vegetable soup.
Hot dogs—Most times eaten in the regular fashion: on a bun with onions, chili, and cole slaw. Another way was the way my father made them. He called it “pig-in-a-blanket.” The hot dog was cooked, then placed on a thin square of dough, wrapped at an angle, and baked.
Hot dog chili—People did not make their own chili when I was a child. Chili was unknown to us until we had it on hot dogs at places such as S.H. Kress’s lunch counter or when Daddy got it from that beer joint at the corner of Coxe and Patton avenues.
Fruit cocktail—Sweet with heavy syrup and pale bits of fruit, this was most often an addition to jello. As a dessert it was served alongside a slice of pound cake.
—Mountain Born written by Jean Boone Benfield
It’s always interesting to learn of other people’s food memories.
Benfield was born and raised in the Asheville area of Western North Carolina which is about two and half hours from Brasstown. She is also much older than I am, but I enjoy seeing the similarities between her store bought food memories and mine.
Light bread was definitely a weekly staple in my growing up years and still is today in my household.
Spam was something Granny and Pap had rarely. We have it even less often. In both instances I would say sometimes someone takes a hankering for Spam and that’s when it’s purchased. The most common way of eating it for us has always been to fry it and then add it to light bread smeared with mayonnaise.
Granny made salmon patties often when I was growing up. It was on her regular rotation of supper meals. I always liked them, though rarely have made them myself.
Pork’n’beans have always been part of my foodways. There was always a can or two in Granny’s cabinets and the same is true for mine today.
I can’t remember the last time I ate a can of soup, but we often had canned vegetable beef available for eating when I was a girl. Granny eats canned tomato soup when she wants something quick and easy.
Hotdogs and hotdog chili have been part of my entire life. I love a good hotdog with ketchup, chili, and slaw. Hotdogs in general make me think of two people.
One is Charles Fletcher. All you long time readers will remember Charles. He was a dear friend to me and we met because of the blog. When he was drafted for World War II he discovered hotdogs and became totally enamored by them.
The other person was named Nicholas. Sadly he’s no longer with us, even though he was younger than me he’s gone from this ole world.
Nicholas’s father was Granny’s first cousin and he needed emergency heart surgery. There were no immediate family members available to keep Nicholas who was about four or his baby brother who was less than two years old.
Granny volunteered and suddenly we had two more children at our house! Nicholas was big enough to really miss his parents but we all tried to entertain him. He slept with me. His lovey was a cloth diaper that he pulled between his teeth as he slept fitfully. The only thing Granny could get him to eat was cut up hotdogs with lots of ketchup.
Fruit cocktail was one of Paul’s favorite things to eat when we were children, only he called it fruit cottontail. I never cared for it much, but Matt was like Paul and loves it still. Granny was eating some to try and get to feeling better when I left her yesterday evening.
I hope you’ll share your food memories of the things Benfield spoke of too.
Last night’s video: No Telling What We’ll Do Next.
Tipper
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Tipper, watch you cook all the time and it never fails to make me hungry. I also was born in appalacia but grew up in northern Ohio but my mother cooked southern. She made the best fried chicken and fried okra. May I make a suggestion when you make chicken and dumplings? Put a turnip in the cooking water along with onion, carrot and celery. It gives everything a lovely flavor. I did not learn this from my mother. It is something I discovered on my own as I cooked for my family. Another thing, my mother always told me when I cook green beans is not to stir them, stirring breaks them up too much and you get a lot of shellys. Course you may like a lot of shellys. We did not. Keep up the good blogs. I enjoy you and your family. God bless you.
I have some very fond memories of a small country store as well. But most of my memories involved a local store called Houchens. The store which is now owned by IGA is still very much the same as the one from my childhood. I don’t shop there all the time but when I do I feel like I am walking beside my mom as I did when we bought what we needed for our large family. She is gone now as well as dad but her memory is so strong in that store.
Rice with milk and sugar and cinnamon. It is still one of my favorites.
Try cutting up your potatoes small and fry them until they start getting soft then add diced spam and onions and finish cooking them. Can’t beat it with some whole kernel or cream style corn and of course corn bread
I remember the 441 Flea Market just above Dillsboro. Padgett McCoy had a hot dog stand there. It was a special treat to get to go there. He had the best hot dogs and chili and get it with a Pepsi on crushed ice. Bologna was another staple for us. I remember going into Harold’s Supermarket to get our necessities. Granny had milk and butter she sold. I didn’t like that rich tasting milk. I had my eye on the mechanical pony every time. Sometimes I would get to ride, oh what a treat that was for me. I can barely remember Bradley’s General Store in Dillsboro. They had bar stools at one time and those big jars of candy. I sure miss those days.
This list of foods is pretty much what I had with my grandparents during the months other than summer, with the addition of fried bologna and pinto beans. But in the summer, it was almost all vegetables in season. Fried okra and squash. Fresh tomatoes, green onions, cantaloupe and of course corn every which way. Maybe some salt pork. Add fruit off the trees and peach and berry cobblers. I ate like a king (country king) as a child and didnt even know it.
I grew up in Raleigh in the era when corner grocery stores were common and supermarkets were just appearing. I remember Red Bird Vienna sausage but had not thought of them in years. I’ve also eaten brains and eggs but don’t remember the brand.
I now live in central Texas. We have groceries delivered by Walmart, but we also shop at Aldi’s and HEB. There are several things I grew up with and dearly lover are not available to us here, probably because it doesn’t sell well.
I dearly love Neese’s liver pudding. It’s something my Pa would buy on those Saturdays that we would spend all day fishing in rented wooden boats on lakes around Wake County. He would buy cheese cut from the wheel that he called rat cheese, a box of saltines, Vienna sausage and liver pudding. I could never wait until lunchtime and would usually be allowed a saltine or two with liver pudding and rat cheese about midmorning.
Another favorite of mine is Mrs. Fearnow’s Brunswick stew. It’s not sold here either, but I’ve learned to make a very close imitation. I make a huge batch then freeze it in vacuum bags.
My Mother was a great cook. With 9 kids of her own and neighborhood kids always in our house, she was a magician at stretching food. Pa grew a vegetable garden until he was almost 6 despite not having space at our place. He would make arrangements to use vacant lots around the neighborhood.
The one thing I never learned to make that Mother made at Christmas was boiled custard. It was the base for her egg nog – which never contained alcohol. I would eat it until it made me sick. I’d do the same today though it’s been half a century since I had it.
I had to look up that boiled custard. I had never heard of it. I love custard.
Pork & beans and fruit cocktail are the only two mentioned that were around much at our house growing up. Those two featured one way or another at church dinners. Mom liked to mix fruit cocktail in jello. I still like it that way but rarely ever have it. I also like it with cottage cheese but I reckon I learned that at school as we never had it at home. I have moved on from P&B to ConAgra’s Ranch Beans or Bush’s various Grillin Beans flavors. As I’ve posted before, we had
so few store-bought foods as a regular thing growing up that I didn’t become especially fond of any, not even Moon Pies.
So many of these foods were regulars for me as a child. I don’t recall eating SPAM until I married my husband, and then it would pop into the weekly meal rotation, my husband was a bigger fan than I was. If we were hungry, and our budget was tight is was always great to have SPAM on hand! It is amazing how much you will depend on foods that aren’t your favorite in times of need and hunger.
Love the memories and ideas you share!
Wonderful memories! I grew up with most all of those foods ! I especially love that this was the post this morning because today would have been my Dad’s 89th birthday ( He passed away last year ) and he LOVED Spam ! (And he got a lot of flack for it ) Thank you for sharing !:) Love & prayers for Granny & all !
Hi Pretty Lady, I am praying for sweet Granny and for all of you. How I appreciate you and have come to love your family thru enjoying your videos and blogs. It is an extra pleasure to get to see those baby boys, if but from behind. WHAT A DARLING DUO they are.
Again, I enjoyed your post. We usually had mackerel patties, perhaps because it was cheaper. I still prefer the taste as it is a bit stronger than salmon, though I like both! As for fruit “cottontail” lol, we sometimes put it in jello or had a dish of it. Back in those days we seemed to always have a dessert. Anyway, I was raised by grandparents and a maiden aunt. She loved me so much. Altho she loved the few cherries in the fruit cocktail, she always picked them out for me to eat. Also, when she made a big pie or two, she used a doll pan of mine and made me my own tiny version at the same time.
Grandma Amy made this dish she called “poor do.” She was born in 1888 and wasted nothing. I was had a corn cob doll dressed in a scrap of purple silk. I have no idea where that came from. But back to food, she would take left over cornbread, and crumble it up into a cast iron skillet when bacon had been fried. When she had a good amount stirred up, she’d add boiling water from the teakettle into it, add salt and pepper and let it get really moist. Then after putting it on our plates, she would make a well in it like like you do with mashed potatoes so you can add gravy. She would then pour extra bacon grease into hole and let it pour over the sides. This was a stick to your ribs hearty part of breakfast, especially in the winter months. I sure would like to fill my heart in that old homeplace again with my long passed on family, and fill my belly with that good eating again.
I know you would have tried it! Thanks always for stirring up sweet memories.
what sweet memories. thank you for sharing
A person is hard-pressed these days to find a store that still uses a “butcher knife” to slice bologna, hoop cheese, etc. There was a family run store near me that was still slicing meat and cheese with a knife up till about 2010 when the older members got where they weren’t able to run the store and the young’uns wouldn’t run it. It was the quintessential-real-deal-old time country store when I was growing up. They sold hunting license, shells, bait & tackle, groceries, gas, had drink boxes inside and outside just as the kerosene tank/pump were from time to time. Then there was the giant pot-belly stove that emitted the sulfur smell from coal which was at first foreign to my every day life, but the store was located much closer to “coal country” than where I was raised. I rarely smelled coal burning growing up. People burned almost exclusively wood instead of coal and this backwoods icon was close enough to the coal fields/underground mines of the “Blackwater seam” of Alabama to make it feasible to burn the black gold in the cast iron heater that was the centerpiece of the store in the winter months and a cold dark-black contraption that just sat catching dust during the warmer months.
This video by Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver puts me to a mind of the store I am referring too.
https://youtu.be/o5KhMIht3qY
Jeffery, I remember those country stores like you wrote about. One butcher knife used to cut boloney and cheese and not wiped off in between, men sitting around those large pot bellied stoves drinking cokes (any soft drink) eating packs of peanuts or Lance style crackers (Nabs) often times sitting on turned up wooden Coke cola crates. Some of the stores had their stoves inside a sand pit. I also remember the men showing the upmost respect for ladies and children, any off colored conversations or jokes would immediately stop if a lady or child came in the store. Nowadays many women don’t even respect their own self. How many remember the square box style kerosene tanks with the hand cranked pumps?
After exploring newspapers,com for a while I have surmised that Laster’s Store was on the Old Leicester Highway somewhere between Woodfin and Sandymush but most likely near Craggy.
My parents grew up out in the country in NE MS, although my Mother’s parents were from SE TN. They all knew how to grow their own food and put it up and also raise cows, chickens and hogs. And would butcher the hogs once cold weather set in. And they had bee hives for honey. They only went to the old country store for coffee, flour, sugar, spices, tobacco, mayo, vienna sausage, canned salmon, and potted meat. I think my Mother was the greatest cook ever, she could take a top round steak, bake in oven with mushrooms, onions, and brown gravy. It was always tender and easily cut with your fork. Her baked turkey, chicken, fried squirrel, fried rabbit, with biscuits and milk gravy were fantastic! My mouth waters just thinking about her great meals. I am not the cook my mother was but I keep trying:) I do remember my Mother saying her Daddy would buy hoop cheese at the country store and that was a treat for her and her 10 siblings. She always had vienna sausage, and potted meat in her pantry. I loved it when I was growing up and my boys loved it too, until they got older and read the ingredients:) I still make the salmon patties and my family loves them but I don’t think they taste as good as Mother made them.
Praying for Granny to feel better. Tell her I asked my Sunday School class if any of them knew the song, Thank You Lord, and sung what I knew. Their were quite a few of them that had grown up singing that song and thought it was in an old hymn book.
Good memories of food growing up. My father worked six days a week and on Friday nights he would stop at a small fried clam stand and bring home a couple of quarts of these delicious delights. Now where we lived there fried the whole clam not just the strip. About once a month on Saturday mornings before my father left for work HR would make crepes for us. These very thin pancakes were filled by us kids with brown sugar, rolled, and then maple syrup poured over them. I started cooking Boston Baked beans for the family when I turned 18. It took about two days to get the soaked beans, brown sugar, salt pork, onion, dried mustard, and molasses baked in the oven for at least 10 hours, checking to make sure the beans didn’t dry out. When I made them for my kids they would soak up the sauce with my home made biscuits. Finally my families’ New Year’s meal was French Canadian pork pie with beans and sliced beets. My father made it the best. Diane, my wife, has introduced me to southern cooking with her chicken yellow rice, her hominy and hamburger, her fried cabbage, and her biscuits and gravy. She now uses your recipe using just flour and cream and they are wonderful. Praying for Granny. Have a blessed fay.
All of this stuff listed is a staple in my pantry. I know a Charles Fletcher, he is a pastor at Dyson Grove Church here in Johnson County, TY. I love to hear the Fletcher Family sing. Sweet Granny I hope she gets to feeling better. She may be low on Iron. I was low on iron and felt weak as pond water. My Dr put me on an iron supplement and I perked up right away. I died from Cardiac Arrest in my back yard in April, 2023. The Messiah sent me back here and said HE said He would come for me when He is ready. I also have Liver Disease. a spot on my brain – right frontal lobe – is gone (black on the scan) and stage 3b kidney failure. Prayers are very welcome and I am truly blessed To have stood in Paradise even if it was only what seemed like a couple of minutes. I pray for Y’all and Granny continuously. Praising GOD, our Father, in all things. May HIS Will be ours. I love Y’all.
Barbara-I will keep you in my prayers! We appreciate your prayers!!
Yes, all the above! Mom shopped at the Superette Store and bought everything mentioned except bread, she made her own. I married a vegetarian decades ago, so rarely buy any meat except hot dogs. I’m like Matlock, I love my hot dogs, although today I buy turkey wieners as I don’t eat pork. I loved spam growing up, we ate it with mayonnaise and pickle relish. We had Campbells tomato soup when we didn’t feel great and now it’s still the first thing I grab when I’m feeling sick. Good memories, but sadly most of the corner stores have all but disappeared. Praying for Granny!
Hello! I’ve noticed, over-and-over here, that Spam (with or without something pickled) is generally mentioned by readers of the South, as “sliced, skillet-fried, and eaten on bread with mayonnaise. Until Tipper made mention of it in a video and, even much more, all the recalling here, I had never heard of eating Spam on bread! I am from The Northeast, and any mention of Spam in conversation over the years has been of eating it in the way I knew of (during stretching-days!) as a kid:
Mom would slice the Spam (after much jarring it to come out of the can!), and fry the slices in butter. As soon as she had the slices browned on the outside, she would sprinkle brown sugar over where the butter was “pooled”. Once the sugar & butter were combined, Mom would add canned pineapple “tidbits” (strained) to the pan. Both, the pineapple pieces and the Spam ended-up “browned”, and all was “pineapple-ey” and, combined with that smokey-‘ham’, the meal (with whatever else — mashed potatoes + coleslaw, or baked beans and a vegetable) never felt like it was “stretching”!
I never wanted to eat any meat, growing-up (I was made to “eat a few bites…or you’ll never learn to like it!”) and have been a *Vegetarian all my adult life, but Spam in (this) way is definitely a least-hated meat in my memories.
*[I never did “learn to like it”!]
Two items my dad didn’t care for after he got home from WW II service were Spam and orange marmalade. I guess he’d had too much of those in his C-rations. Mom bought Spam regularly to feed two growing boys and, later a third. We loved it. My wife recently discovered Spam lite (smaller can and less sodium). Not bad at all. Speaking of smaller, we see 10-ounce packages of bacon in some stores, and I noticed that a new box of graham crackers had lost both weight and size and was made in Mexico. Two store-brand products–dill pickles and relish–were labeled “product of India.” Both are going back to the store for a refund, not because of origin but because they failed our taste test.
Every time the weight goes down the price increases. for years bacon only came in the one lb. size. Then the 14 oz. and the 12 oz. Now you report 10 oz. sizes. Was the price the same as the 16 oz. size was last year?
I used to like Spam fried crisp with a big slice of onion. Since I quit eating pork, Spam is one of the favorites I gave up years ago. I don’t know why we used to get so excited on daddy’s payday when my parents went to the store, as we didn’t expect much in the poke except an occasional stick of braided horehound candy. The stores they shopped were about the size of a country kitchen, which only stocked basic food items popular in our area. If mom had any extra money, she would buy a can of “mixed fruit” and maybe a can of potted meat for dad’s lunch. The mixed fruit was thought to be a cure-all for a sick child with no appetite.
J.B. Benfield’s memories are so close to what I remember. We lived in a very isolated coastal small Island community and had to be on utmost capable of looking after your own survival needs. The small grocer only got supplies once a month that had to come by a freighter ship via a couple days journey, weather permitting. – the only source for supplies for all communities and villages along the coastal shores. We only bought was what we could not grow, hunt or fish for ourselves. I remember Spam and another similar canned meat called ‘Corned Beef’ and it too, was used same as one used Spam. Fruit cocktail was another treat and used in salads or jello. And the Pork’n’beans. Thanks for the memories.
Food memories are so much fun! I love reading other people’s memories too. I think because food is something so universal, it is an easy way for people to connect. Even if I have never met someone, I bet we can find something in common easily if we talk food.
We ate spam as kids. Mom fried it and put it on top of mac n cheese. Yum! And we ate hot dogs that way too. She still does it like that for the grandkids.
Porkn beans was only used to make baked beans in my family. A very sweet baked bean casserole with bacon on top. It still tastes so good to me.
My dad had a thing for canned minestrone soup. I can’t see that in the store without seeing him on a cold day making that for us. I miss him so!
I know these are real simple foods, but it is the people they remind me of that make them more than what they are. Thank you for that time of remembering this morning.
I find so many similarities between your family and mine, I often wonder if daddy’s family came to Chappells, SC from the Appalachia area.
You were becoming a teenager in ‘83 and I graduated high school, so there’s a few years between us, but we too, have many of the same ways of thinking on life. Not all…but some.
Light bread, we call loaf bread, is always in our house. I like having many flavors of bread on hand.
SPAM was something daddy always bought and I do on occasion, in remembrance of him. I’m not really sure what it is so I’m just not that fond of it. It is considered a delicacy in Hawaii and sold in many flavors! I noticed last winter it was being sold in individual thick slices in a foil wrapper. The commercial says “Sizzle Pork and Meat” when advertising. Much like Vienna Sausage reads “mechanically separated chicken” on its label. Not appetizing to me.
Salmon Patties? Not for me. My mother cooked them for daddy an I cooked them for Gilbert, once. He complained about the bones. He went to tell he how his mother would take the salmon from the can and let it unfold to pull the small bones out. My mother just used a fork to mash it all together and I did the same. Key word here…Once. When I have to start pulling bones and skin and deveining and all that, I quickly lose interest in eating.
Mmmm. Pork and beans. Yes. Always. Any bread. Cheaper ones can be doctored up with molasses and bacon. The small Beanie Weenie brand is often eaten cold straight out the can by Gilbert and myself!
Canned soup? Only the cream versions used in recipes. I loved chicken noodle soup until Ramen came into my life in the early 80s; that’s what we eat, and often.
Hot dogs and chili have always been a part of my menu. Many times there are no buns, but there’s always loaf bread.
Fruit Cocktail? Always in the house growing up. Us kids would get in trouble for eating it all. My mother loved it with jello or cool whip. It was her favorite and when she’d go for some and it would all be gone, boy would she get mad. We shopped once a month so she’d buy many cans and stack them in the cupboard real neat like. Us kids learned to pull the back ones up front so it always looked full. We’d often rinse the cans and throw them up into the loft of the washroom so she’d not see the empty can in the trash; or we’d flush it if she came home before we’d finished eating it for fear of being caught with it. Good thinking on our part as it’s like I said, she got mad. We didn’t like her mad. I rarely buy fruit cocktail these days. I like fresh fruit.
I enjoyed last nights video! Looking forward to your next 30 year project!
I was curious though…will that wooden retaining wall be ok next to the stove? I imagine it gets pretty hot.
KatSC-I’m sure Matt will keep a good eye on it 🙂 Thank you!
I remember dad buying pickled pigs feet, and different types of canned smoked fish and oysters. But the food I remember best that he would fix was his spaghetti sauce, roasted chickens on the grill, round steak which could be tough but tasted great and his hamburgers. Wow!! And he made fruit cocktail cake which was really good too!
Most of our food was from scratch growing up , but we had a few things from cans too. My mama buys spam about every week at the grocery store. She says it’s convenient and a source of protein for someone who has trouble chewing meat. She slices and fries it and eats it for lunch on light bread with mayonnaise and lettuce. When I was growing up we ate a lot of potted meat for our lunches during the summer. Mama always put it on toast with mayo for us. I loved it back then. I haven’t eaten it for years.
I buy canned salmon all the time. I love to fry salmon patties and eat them cold dipped in honey mustard.
I always keep a large can or two of Bush’s Baked beans in the cabinet. I will add some chopped onions, brown sugar, crumbled bacon and lots of black pepper and bake till bubbly…tastes like homemade. In my daddy’s last few years, he would eat the same thing for lunch every day…Bush’s Baked beans and Vienna sausages…and a spoonful of chow chow.
I always keep cans of chicken noodle and tomato soup. I make homemade chicken soup when someone is sick, but if it’s me that’s feeling bad, I open myself some Campbells chicken noodle. I also love tomato soup and grilled cheese on a cold fall day. Yum!
When I was growing up, my mama often made hotdogs and home made chili on Saturday afternoons. Saturday was grocery day and she would make something quick for dinner on that day. Often it was hotdogs, but sometimes it was coldcut subs, which I loved too and still do. We have a little dairy king that is about a half hour drive that sells the best hotdogs and chili ever.
I don’t like fruit cocktail. I like fruit in a can but not that. It doesn’t taste the same. It’s so cute that Paul called it fruit cottontail. One of my little granddaughters loves cheeseburgers from McDonalds. She is 7 and to this day, she asks for a cheeseburger from Old McDonald’s. No one ever corrects her. It’s too sweet.
I live (and grew up) in San Diego, California. My mom was a wonderful cook. I remember my dad loved spam & my mom would fry it up for him on occasion, but us kids never took a liking to it. Mom would make a delicious salmon loaf (similar to meatloaf) with canned salmon & a homemade white sauce to go over it. We thought fruit cocktail was yummy…on its own, in ambrosia on holidays, or added to jello salad. On cooking “days off” or when we’d go camping, there were delicious chili dogs. Fun food memories:)
We love SPAM too, often with eggs grits and gravy, etc. I look for these country stores when traveling. Not so many nowadays thanks to Dollar General, Walmarts, etc. I see some featured on the Appalachian Chanel that are still around.
When I was a girl my mother made angelfood cake occasionally with the tube pan turned upside down on a glass Dr Pepper bottle. I loved it! In my child’s mind, that was what manna surely was like lol. So for every birthday that’s what my cake was. One year Mom ruined it with an orange glaze (horrors lol). I guess she was trying to be fancy. These days I buy one most summers and eat with fresh strawberries. Praying for you all & checking each day for updates on Granny. Send her our love from upper middle TN.
I appreciate the stories. One might not like a particular food till they see another way to cook it.
Love you all prayers for Granny.
We love fried spam with mustard and tomato on a sandwich. Another favorite is breading the spam with a little cornmeal and frying in some oil. Add some soft fried potatoes and you’ve got a quick meal. My husband’s grandmother told me to try the cornmeal breading version many years ago. She said that was a staple for her growing up.
I am still praying for Granny and for you.
What was shared this morning reminds me of a company store where a coal miner could spend his SCRIP (he was not paid in money but mining company paper) to purchase staples, etc. I recall a terrific sliced bologna and a hearty round yellow fat cheese sliced from the Bishop Company store. Mommy made a many salmon cake as we call them here and I eat a right many today. How can you go wrong with something so quick and inexpensive to feed a family? I’ve put away a million cans of Van Camps Pork n beans in my life and just so yall know the FIRST ITEM EVER BOUGHT WITH FOOD STAMPS WAS A CAN OF PORK N BEANS IN ALDERSON, WV many years ago. I’m moving today. I’ve been staying with a friend about 12 days after my house sold. So this morning I’m going to Marion to unpack and spend my first day and night in the country of southwest Virginia near Mountain Rogers. It’s been rough and I hope the next time I move is to the grave and I mean it… at almost 60, this is tough stuff, but we hillbillies can do it!!! God bless granny and I hope she feels better. It’s allergy time and I’m a’ sneezing and a’ blowing. Get better today Granny and here’s love and many prayers for good health for you all!!!
Wonderful memories from you both on store bought foods.
Tipper, it’s always a treat for me to read the recollections of your readers and especially their memories of the meals they had. The two I remember that my mother cooked a couple of times a year were a pot roast made with carrots, potatoes and cabbage, and a stuffed baked chicken. Boy, that bread stuffing was a real treat. I remember her cooking the giblets with celery and chopping them up for the stuffing. It seems we always had the stuffed chicken at Christmas. She would also make a delicious carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. She was not an imaginative cook most of the time, but I really liked those two options.
In my area, it was C&K Grocery. It was a true old fashion country general store that sold a little bit of everything. Latter on it was more of a hardware store, it was said if “James (the owner) didn’t have it, you don’t need it.” The amazing thing was the price, it was often cheaper than the box stores in town. When growing up homemade hotdogs was the food we ate on special occasions. Today I eat food like mentioned except for Spam, I like Treat better. The old country store always had Viennas and rat cheese, I love both along with deviled ham and potted meat-just enjoy and don’t read the list of ingredients. We only went to the big city of Greenville, SC twice a year, Grandmother and Granddaddy would go with us. This was back before Malls and the stores were still on Main Street. My Grandmother was going to get a dozen doughnuts from the bakery at Woolworth’s dime store even it nothing else was bought on our trip. I can be pretty lenient on brands of some items but for me it is Armour viennas and Van Camp pork and beans. Anyone remember Red Bird viennas?
As soon as I saw Coxe and Patton Avenues I knew we were in the middle of Asheville.
Of course I remember Red Bird Vienna Sausages, Libby’s too. I worked 37½ years for a grocery distributor in Hickory NC. I started in 1977. There ain’t many things people eat that I haven’t eaten or stacked off a truck and in a rack or out of a rack onto a truck. Ever eat Rose Pork Brains?
Ed, I remember them but have never been hungry enough to eat them. The same goes for sardines. In the past, a dearly loved pastor at my church would joke about eating seafood lunches-sardines, soda (sody) crackers and rat cheese. I had forgotten about Libby Viennas.
You got that right, Randy – “just don’t read the ingredients”! All these foods were part of my childhood. Thanks for the Monday morning chuckle…
A lot of people poo poo Spam, and my Hubby is one of them. My friend, who lives in Day, Florida, a town of a few…The Brewer Lake Baptist Church, a Post Office and a caution light and my friend decided to make and can some Spam from scratch. Contrary to popular believe it does not have ‘yuk’ in it…a ham quarter, some cured ham and potato starch. We ground it up from scratch, carefully packed it in pint jars and pressure cooked it…ya have to be careful to get all the air pockets out and PCed it for, I believe 90 minutes. It is some of the best I have ever eaten. And the best thing is that we know what is in it, not as a lot of people say all of the hog. Tell Granny hello and I am praying for her. God is in control.