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cyclonefence

(4,483 posts)
Wed Apr 8, 2020, 11:42 AM Apr 2020

"Discovering" new foods

A long time ago, I read an essay by Russell Baker how his family first encountered spaghetti and struggled with how to eat it. I was surprised--I come from a family which for generations was not exposed to new foods and who treated them with suspicion, but which had always afaik eaten spaghetti--and no, we're not Italian.

I asked my mother, and she said they'd always eaten spaghetti with meat sauce when she was growing up.

I've been trying to think of foods I take for granted that were introduced to my family during my lifetime, and the only one I can come up with is pizza.

When I was little--5 or 6 years old--I was taken for the first time to a bowling alley. No one in my family bowled, and I, and probably they, had never been in a bowling alley before. The bowling alley served snack-ish food like hot dogs, but somehow my parents had learned that it served pizza. They must have been told by someone else that it was delicious because they were not adventurous enough to have sought it out on their own. Anyway, pizza slices in that bowling alley were my (and I'm sure my parents') introduction to pizza. My mother began to buy the Chef Boyardee pizza kits in a box for a treat.

Let me stress how frightened of unfamiliar foods my parents were. One Christmas about ten years ago, they complained sneeringly that someone had sent them a smoked turkey breast--which they threw away!

Did your family come late to a food we now commonly eat?

17 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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"Discovering" new foods (Original Post) cyclonefence Apr 2020 OP
Not really an answer to your question, Lindsay Apr 2020 #1
Our church got a new minister and we took him out for his first pizza ever. He was from brewens Apr 2020 #2
Isn't that funny about pizza and bowling alleys! cyclonefence Apr 2020 #16
I don't recall that we had pizza at home, The Velveteen Ocelot Apr 2020 #3
Italian was the only "ethnic" food my parents would eat Freddie Apr 2020 #4
My introduction to Chinese food cyclonefence Apr 2020 #7
I think you're right cyclonefence Apr 2020 #15
Considering my grandchildren Freddie Apr 2020 #17
I didn't eat spaghetti, pizza, rice, Lars39 Apr 2020 #5
O my cyclonefence Apr 2020 #8
I grew up in west Tennessee Lars39 Apr 2020 #10
We had a friend who was a college student in Japan cyclonefence Apr 2020 #12
I can't imagine how hard that was. Lars39 Apr 2020 #13
My husband's family are SUPER WHITE and live outside Grand Rapids, MI Coventina Apr 2020 #6
For heaven's sake cyclonefence Apr 2020 #9
We grew up eating pretty much everything. SeattleVet Apr 2020 #11
Wow--you are one adventurous eater! cyclonefence Apr 2020 #14

Lindsay

(3,276 posts)
1. Not really an answer to your question,
Wed Apr 8, 2020, 11:53 AM
Apr 2020

but you triggered a memory talking about pizza. My mother got a recipe from a friend at work, so my first (and best!) experience with pizza was home-made. I was probably about 12 at the time.

However, my mother insisted pizza was a snack, not a meal. The most delicious if calorie-laden snack ever! So until I grew up and started buying pizza on my own, that was the family rule.

The other part of the family pizza story was that my father had spent some time in NYC before I was born, and had eaten pizza and raved about it. But we never had it at home until after he had passed away and my mother had a chance to try somebody's home-made pizza.

Thanks for stirring a quirky long-sleeping memory!

brewens

(13,392 posts)
2. Our church got a new minister and we took him out for his first pizza ever. He was from
Wed Apr 8, 2020, 11:57 AM
Apr 2020

South Korea and went nuts over it! It was in a bowling alley too. they still have great sandwiches and pretty good pizza. I almost never get pizza there these days. We now have a couple better options, but for back in the mid 70's, it was as good as any you could get that we knew about.

I remember those boxed pizzas real well. It was similar to the pizza we had for school lunches. It almost wouldn't qualify as pizza today, but it was better than canned spaghetti at least.

cyclonefence

(4,483 posts)
16. Isn't that funny about pizza and bowling alleys!
Wed Apr 8, 2020, 04:08 PM
Apr 2020

I'm sure it arrived in the US in other venues, but why bowling alleys? Seems to me it would make your hands too greasy to bowl!

The Velveteen Ocelot

(115,267 posts)
3. I don't recall that we had pizza at home,
Wed Apr 8, 2020, 12:04 PM
Apr 2020

but that was because my mom thought it wasn't healthful - too greasy. Otherwise we were pretty open to various kinds of food; I don't remember that anything was ever rejected for being too unusual.

Freddie

(9,231 posts)
4. Italian was the only "ethnic" food my parents would eat
Wed Apr 8, 2020, 12:07 PM
Apr 2020

Mexican or Chinese, nope. In fairness I think that was most of that generation, they’d be 97 and 90 if they were still with us (RIP).
Food preferences are often generational. My Millennial kids love sushi, no thank you.

cyclonefence

(4,483 posts)
7. My introduction to Chinese food
Wed Apr 8, 2020, 01:17 PM
Apr 2020

came after I was married, and I bought a "Chinese dinner kit" from LaChoy at the supermarket. It didn't kill us, so eventually we went to a Chinese restaurant, and a love affair began.

I'm not sure my husband had ever had Chinese food, either, although he grew up in Philadelphia. I was from Southern WV. Interestingly, we both had professional cooks in our backgrounds--my grandmother cooked (and did everything else) in the railroad hotel her stepmother owned, so she cooked plain, delicious and plenty of it. His grandmother was the family cook for one of the Biddle branches, and she cooked elegant but dull. She was famous for stretching strudel dough until it covered the round kitchen table.

I'm not sure my parents ever did taste chinese food, not even LaChoy.

cyclonefence

(4,483 posts)
15. I think you're right
Wed Apr 8, 2020, 04:05 PM
Apr 2020

about food preferences being generational. Plus there's the factor of instant (or near instant) communication these days. I believe my parents would have learned about pizza a lot sooner if they'd had Instagram!

Freddie

(9,231 posts)
17. Considering my grandchildren
Wed Apr 8, 2020, 04:14 PM
Apr 2020

I think that generation will grow up only eating chicken nuggets and fries.

Lars39

(26,093 posts)
10. I grew up in west Tennessee
Wed Apr 8, 2020, 01:47 PM
Apr 2020

Dinky town.
My dad wouldn’t eat rice until he was about 72. He was stationed in Japan immediately after the signing. Food was very scarce. He also wouldn’t eat soup unless he knew exactly what it contained.

cyclonefence

(4,483 posts)
12. We had a friend who was a college student in Japan
Wed Apr 8, 2020, 03:57 PM
Apr 2020

when WWII broke out. He was impressed into the Japanese army, and he told my dad that toward the end they were actually counting out individual grains of rice to feed their soldiers.

He also said that he knew Japan had lost when he saw the quality of the paper the US was dropping (propaganda messages) over Japan--any nation that could afford to throw away such heavy paper could not be defeated.

Coventina

(26,844 posts)
6. My husband's family are SUPER WHITE and live outside Grand Rapids, MI
Wed Apr 8, 2020, 12:23 PM
Apr 2020

His grandmother never had Chinese food until she was in her 70s (she's now in her 90s).

They got their first Mexican restaurant in the area (if you can call it that, this Arizonan laughs at such a gringo-establishment, think Taco Bell as an Applebees) and they all raved about how they had "exotic" food now.

cyclonefence

(4,483 posts)
9. For heaven's sake
Wed Apr 8, 2020, 01:19 PM
Apr 2020

Actually, I don't think my parents (died at ages 90 and 84) ever tasted Mexican food, not even Taco Bell! That's another one I never tasted, I think until my son made me try some--I must've been 35 y.o.

SeattleVet

(5,468 posts)
11. We grew up eating pretty much everything.
Wed Apr 8, 2020, 03:31 PM
Apr 2020

Italian on my mother's side; Manx-Irish on my father's side. Mother grew up in Westchester County, just north of NYC, and my father grew up in (extremely) rural Eastern Tennessee.

When my mother was a kid and they would go to the beach, the kids were sent out onto the rocks to gather mussels, and they would be called names and derided for eating the 'garbage of the sea'. (Later in life after everyone found out how good mussels were, she could rarely afford them!) So, from that side we learned to appreciate a lot of things...snails, calves brains, tripe, squid, tongue, sea urchin, lamb's head, kidneys, liver, 'sweetbreads' (pancreas), heart, etc. Still love them (at least, what you can get - some things are no longer available for human consumption).

From my father's side we learned to appreciate different cuisine - squirrel, mud turtle, grouse, pheasant, rabbit, venison, dove...my grandfather used to hunt on the hillside across from the farmhouse and the freezer was usually well-stocked with game.

My wife's family is Chinese (her parents were born to Chinese immigrants in Hawaii), and when I go to some of our local places I really like to get many of the 'not to Western taste' items...chicken feet, pigs feet, sea cucumber, or other random things. When we visited China 15 years ago we made it a point to try to eat in the streetside hole-in-the-wall places when we could, usually just pointing to something and getting it. (That's how we got to have deep-fried squid arms on a skewer, painted with some hot sauce).

I used to go to some of the restaurants in Chinatown in NYC when I lived there and ask about the specials that were on the strips of paper on the walls, only in Chinese. Some places would explain the dishes, and I got to try a LOT of really great things. A few of the places would just dismiss my request with "Not to Western tastes" - those were the places I only went to once.

When we were in Hawaii last year I had no qualms about picking opihi (limpets) or pipipi (tiny black snails) off the rocks and snacking.

When I was stationed in Germany, before I learned enough of the language to get around very well, I'd go into a gasthaus or restaurant and just point to some random item on the menu. I was almost universally pleasantly surprised.

I can't think of a single food that I have ever refused to try at least once. There are a (very) few things that I prefer not to eat again, but can't think of anything that I'd flat refuse. (I've even had <gasp!!> pineapple on pizza. Will probably never have it again, if I can help it, but at least I tried it!)

When pizzerias first started getting going in the US shortly after WWII, Mom and Dad thought seriously of going back to Tennessee (they met in Bristol, in college) and opening one - they figured it would be a hit with the college students.

cyclonefence

(4,483 posts)
14. Wow--you are one adventurous eater!
Wed Apr 8, 2020, 04:02 PM
Apr 2020

It makes sense given your family background. I'm truly envious.

My mother ate raw oysters, which puzzled me until I recalled that she went to nursing school in Baltimore.

My father told me he learned to drink martinis from Myrna Loy and William Powell.

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