Remembering the food of my childhood

[japple]

9. Fried Spam with cheese on top was occasionally on our table, but we were a military family so

we learned to like it. We ate a lot of canned vegetables and canned fruit, esp. fruit cocktail. How we hated the grapes that came in fruit cocktail, but we fought over the single cherry in each can. Bread was either Wonder Bread or Colonial Bread. Our family moved to Germany in 1959 and we were in heaven with all of that good German bread, salt rolls, butter and cheese.

Mom and Dad both came from farming families and they planted a garden most years when we lived stateside. During the summer we had homegrown tomatoes, okra, squash, beans, watermelons, but we didn't get a freezer until Dad retired.

I remember that ice cream mostly came in pints and quarts. Some of the quarts (at least the ice cream that Mom bought at the base Commissary) came in long rectangular cartons and was served in slices. There was not a huge flavor selection back in the 50s 60s or 70s.

Soda was a rare treat. But we did have Koolaid fairly often in the summer. Orange juice meant Tang which we loved if we could make it ourselves using 3 times the amount called for in the directions.

Mom was a great baker and all of our treats were home baked cookies, pies, cakes, with the exception of Nabisco graham crackers. Cheese was Kraft or Borden sliced American. Soup was Campbells tomato or chicken noodle.