Typical American Meals especially 70's and 80's
- Thread starter Sabre
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Many dinners were a piece of chicken or pork, floured and browned in butter and peanut oil, hit with some herbs and a splash of white wine, either brown rice or barley underneath it, steamed vegetable like broccoli or asparagus, and a salad with a vinaigrette.
Comfort food meals were often eye of the round steaks heavily peppered, doused with brandy, and finished with cream accompanied by cottage fries and a wedge salad.
Another favorite was roast chicken.
Comfort food meals were often eye of the round steaks heavily peppered, doused with brandy, and finished with cream accompanied by cottage fries and a wedge salad.
Another favorite was roast chicken.
Grew up on a farm so the typical meal was beef (round steak, minute, steaks, hamburger) or (pork chops and loin) typically floured and fried, with potatoes boiled and buttered, green beans, cranberry beans or lima beans (from the garden and canned). We did not raise chickens so that was a rarity on the table as was fresh fish, although frozen fish sticks and mac n cheese was a staple as well. Spaghetti red was a special meal or a meal when we had guests. We also had venison and squirrel when in season. Mom cooked everything in pork lard from the processed hogs, we typically had a 5 gal tub of it in the fridge.
Awful, rock-hard, leathery pork chops. A dried up baked potato.
Tater tots and fish stick, also dried to a crisp.
Went to work the day I turned 16, left home when I was 17. Then I had to buy food, and found it was good after all.
I did live on Space Food Sticks and Carnation Instant Breakfast Squares, now that you nostalgics are bringing it up.
And I drank Tang, of course. I still have the Lunar Rover.
AA
Tater tots and fish stick, also dried to a crisp.
Went to work the day I turned 16, left home when I was 17. Then I had to buy food, and found it was good after all.
I did live on Space Food Sticks and Carnation Instant Breakfast Squares, now that you nostalgics are bringing it up.
And I drank Tang, of course. I still have the Lunar Rover.
AA
It was the floundation of many diets at the time.
Pretty much this only replace the flounder with bass out of the cattle's drinking hole LOL
My folks were both well on their way by 1920. In our house, "Great Meals from the '70s" were the same thing they ate for the 50 years before that. 
Dad hated fish but loved TO fish, so the rest of us had trout once in a while and Dad would make clam chowder, which Mom only liked occasionally. When I hit my teens I was playing soccer and rugby and racing bicycles. Mom complained regularly that it was like feeding three other people just to get my dinner on the table.
Fried chicken (in lard, natch) was good. With boiled potatoes, cream gravy and a salad. Bread was white until Dad discovered that bread with most of the real grain left in it was good, too. Steaks were hammered flat and fried until crunchy. Hamburgers were broiled. Pork chops, occasionally a pork roast. Most of the food was made from scratch; Mom didn't like all the crud they put in mixes and such even in those days. Now "all the crud" looks like health food by comparison.
I remember a '70s cookbook of quiches and fritattas. I think the sausage strata recipe was the only one Mom ever made out of it, but I remember sausage strata with a mild shudder because it was about once a week. Somewhere in there she acquired a microwave oven and we went through the usual learning curve with that thing.
It was what was eaten in a fairly well-organized farm family. I have to say in all honesty that I was never forced to gag down anything that I didn't like. The rule was I had to try it, but Mom knew that tastes mature just like bodies. Consequently I like beans and vegetables of all kinds. I just don't cook them for very long.
When Dad developed colon cancer, he was put on a special diet after his second surgery: white bread, well-cooked veg and not too many, well-cooked meat -- we joked that 20 years before it was what he ate every day, but then everybody got "healthy" and now what he was eating was only available with a prescription.
O.H.
Dad hated fish but loved TO fish, so the rest of us had trout once in a while and Dad would make clam chowder, which Mom only liked occasionally. When I hit my teens I was playing soccer and rugby and racing bicycles. Mom complained regularly that it was like feeding three other people just to get my dinner on the table.
Fried chicken (in lard, natch) was good. With boiled potatoes, cream gravy and a salad. Bread was white until Dad discovered that bread with most of the real grain left in it was good, too. Steaks were hammered flat and fried until crunchy. Hamburgers were broiled. Pork chops, occasionally a pork roast. Most of the food was made from scratch; Mom didn't like all the crud they put in mixes and such even in those days. Now "all the crud" looks like health food by comparison.
I remember a '70s cookbook of quiches and fritattas. I think the sausage strata recipe was the only one Mom ever made out of it, but I remember sausage strata with a mild shudder because it was about once a week. Somewhere in there she acquired a microwave oven and we went through the usual learning curve with that thing.
It was what was eaten in a fairly well-organized farm family. I have to say in all honesty that I was never forced to gag down anything that I didn't like. The rule was I had to try it, but Mom knew that tastes mature just like bodies. Consequently I like beans and vegetables of all kinds. I just don't cook them for very long.
When Dad developed colon cancer, he was put on a special diet after his second surgery: white bread, well-cooked veg and not too many, well-cooked meat -- we joked that 20 years before it was what he ate every day, but then everybody got "healthy" and now what he was eating was only available with a prescription.
O.H.
This was the one.
Yucky casseroles, etc.
AA
Yucky casseroles, etc.
AA
Large family so we did big pots of stuff.
Ghoulash anybody?
Ham hock, beans & cornbread
Jambalaya
Red beans & rice
Lots of hamburger helper
Tuna casserole
Beef Stew
SOS. (**** on a shingle)
Spaghetti
Beef noodle with mushroom soup from a can.
Ham & Potato soup.
Large family, large pots of food. The dinner bell only rang once and you got your *** kicked by your older brothers fighting for seconds.
Ghoulash anybody?
Ham hock, beans & cornbread
Jambalaya
Red beans & rice
Lots of hamburger helper
Tuna casserole
Beef Stew
SOS. (**** on a shingle)
Spaghetti
Beef noodle with mushroom soup from a can.
Ham & Potato soup.
Large family, large pots of food. The dinner bell only rang once and you got your *** kicked by your older brothers fighting for seconds.
Anyone else eat these abominations at holiday dinners? Great aunts and grandparents brought these to every friggin’ holiday dinner... until I was in my mid 40’s. 
even as a kid, I never really understood the Jello craze.Anyone else eat these abominations at holiday dinners? Great aunts and grandparents brought these to every friggin’ holiday dinner... until I was in my mid 40’s.
View attachment 1267976
Awful. No matter what you put in the Jello, it always tasted bad. Plain Jello is delicious. Why ruin it with veggies and meat?
Never seen meat in it, but I bet that is atrocious LOL
Anyone else eat these abominations at holiday dinners? Great aunts and grandparents brought these to every friggin’ holiday dinner... until I was in my mid 40’s.
View attachment 1267976
Ewwwwwwwww!
Like in National Lampoon Christmas Vacation ... Purina Friskies in it.
Clark : Aunt Bethany, does your cat eat jello?
Eddie : I don’t know about the cat, but I sure am enjoying it.
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Aunt Bethany's Jell-O : Christmas Vacation - Fictitiously Delicious
Aunt Bethany's lime Jell-o with "cat food" from Christmas Vacation. A fun way to celebrate the holidays! Trick your friends and family!
ficticiouslydelicious.com
AA
Soup Starter
Chicken cooked in cream of mushroom soup
American chop suey
Chicken cooked in cream of mushroom soup
American chop suey
Hot dogs and beans.
Pork chops and beans.
Beans and beans.
Shake-N-Bake chicken or pork chops.
My mother wasn’t a good cook but my father expected food on the table at 4:30pm every day when he got home and my mother did the best she could.
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Pork chops and beans.
Beans and beans.
Shake-N-Bake chicken or pork chops.
My mother wasn’t a good cook but my father expected food on the table at 4:30pm every day when he got home and my mother did the best she could.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
kelbro
Alfred Spatchcock
We mostly ate what we raised. Beef, pork, chicken and venison. Most veggies came from our garden. One that I just thought of that I haven't eaten in years is Tuna fish casserole. We didn't raise tuna, mushrooms, or potato chips so that was a real treat!
Fortunately, the cooks in my family never really got too enthused with the whole "jell-o salad" thing.
We would have Jell-o for dessert; usually just "plain", but if my mum was feeling energetic she'd make a "parfait" in those tall, thin glasses: scoop of half-formed jell-o, scoop of whipped cream, banana slice, repeat until you get to the top of the glass.
I wish she had just made pudding instead.
Now pudding is where its AT! lol
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