Remembering the food of my childhood

[dem in texas]

22. Our family meals were similar

In the late 1940's and early 50's, money was always tight, but we had home cooked, nutritious meals. Everyone (all 9 of Us) would have a small portion of meat, a large serving of potatoes or pasta, a cooked vegetable and salad or coleslaw. Supper was at 6:00 PM, no leftovers and you'd better be there or you would be eating a mustard and bread sandwich. We had desserts on Sundays. Usually pie (try cutting a pie into 9 equal slices). Only exception was for birthdays or holidays when my mother would bake some sort of cake.

My mother bought huge bags of apples, oranges or grapefruit and we always had fruit to eat. Plenty of cantaloupe and watermelon in the summer. We drank milk in the winter and iced tea in summer(no sugar). No soft drinks.

We carried our lunch to school, a sandwich (PBJ, baloney or on occasion, tuna fish), small snack sized bag of chips, a piece of fruit and 4 or 5 plain cookies.

All of us were very healthy; not fat and no cavities in our teeth.

My mother told me in 1938, when she was pregnant with my older brother, she went to the county farm agent and got pamphlets on food and nutrition and used these as guides for meal preparation. She did this because her mother (my grandmother) had pellagra in her youth.