Tag: food

Boomers Had “Family Recipes”

If you have been watching any of the food competition shows that appear on multiple networks these days, you know they generally fall into two categories: professional cooks and home cooks. When you get into the home cook category, a common thread that appears in these shows is that sooner or later, the competitors are asked to present one of their favorite family recipes. That got Mister Boomer thinking: if he were involved in such a competition, what would he choose?

Mister B does not profess to have a favorite dish from his childhood, let alone a cherished family recipe. To be sure, there are boomers who do, and many who, in fact, are still cooking recipes that have been passed down for generations, as their relatives came here from “the old country.” Yet in Mister Boomer’s experience, many of the “family recipes” that boomers may remember were of more recent lineage.

For example, as Mister B executed the mental exercise of running through some usual dishes served in the Boomer household, it was easy enough to trace the bacon slices cooked into pancake batter recipe from the side of a Bisquick box. Pork chops with mushroom gravy came from a Campbell’s soup can. Even his mother’s baked beans and hot dogs recipe came from the side of a jar of B&M Baked Beans.

When it came to the holiday season, Mister B does have some nostalgia for cookie, cake and pie recipes, but he knows that these, too, came from packages, not from his ancestors. His mother’s Banana Cream Pie recipe was on the box of Jell-O pudding. Her Pineapple Upside-Down Cake recipe was printed on a Duncan Hines cake mix box; her “from scratch” shortcake biscuits for Strawberry Shortcake came from a Bisquick box as well.

Recipes on food packages began to appear during the Industrial Revolution, when mass-production of food items became a reality. Companies began hiring women to create recipes made with their products for this purpose. The idea was to get consumers interested in trying their product. Then the recipes had to keep changing so consumers would continue to buy the products, in order to try these new recipes.

Very possibly the most famous food packaging recipe ever was for the Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie. The recipe was created by two chefs at the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts back in 1938. Nestle printed their recipe on the back of its chocolate chip bags, and it has become the quintessential chocolate chip cookie recipe against which all others are measured.

Food packaging recipes during the Depression helped home cooks work within their limited budgets to stretch meals for families. During WWII they were altered to fit into food rationing requirements, such as substituting oleo margarine or shortening for butter; and molasses, sorghum, honey or maple syrup for granulated sugar. The parents of boomers grew up on these recipes, and a good many boomers that Mister B speaks with remember these types of recipes in their childhood as well.

Mister B note: This video is nearly 13 minutes long, but it’s amusing:

The heyday of food packaging recipes occurred during the prime boomer years of the 1950s and ’60s. There are many videos and such available these days that make fun of Tiki-inspired dishes and strange combinations of foods that might turn up in a packaging recipe. Take a look at what you have in your cupboard now; you just might find a few recipes there to try on your grandkids.

So, the question is, boomers, is that nostalgic or even cherished memory you have of a favorite recipe a genuine family heirloom, or did your mom find it on the back of a box, package or can?

 

Boomers Loved “Ethnic” Food

The dictionary defines “ethnic” as relating to a population subgroup within a larger dominant national or cultural group. Since the vast majority of boomers grew up in families that were first or second-generation immigrants, ethnic was a term for any food outside of their own family’s fare, or the American cultural food norms that began to coalesce after the War. Prior to WWII, food across the country depended very much on the geographic region where one resided. These regions became known for particular cuisines, dependent on the types of food that could be grown, raised or caught in the area. The interstate highway system, proliferation of packaged and frozen foods, and blending of families from different regions eventually morphed into an American cuisine primarily focused on meat, dairy and starches.

Yet even in specific regions, foods were inevitably influenced by the groups of immigrants who moved to those areas. Immigrant entrepreneurs opened restaurants but quickly found that family recipes were often out of step with American tastes. At the same time, ingredients that were in abundance in their former countries might now be unavailable or cost-prohibitive. Consequently, adaptations of family recipes formed what boomers knew as “ethnic” Italian, Chinese, German, Irish, Greek or other cuisines. Boomer foods had been Americanized.

As of this writing, St. Patrick’s Day is near, and once again, corned beef and cabbage dishes will be served up in Irish and non-Irish establishments from coast to coast. Yet the dish did not exist in Ireland as boomer Americans came to know it. More than likely it was developed in the U.S. from an Irish dish called colcannon, which mixed potatoes, cabbage, carrots and leeks or onions.

So many dishes boomers ate and learned to love, both at home and in restaurants, were American versions of recipes that may have gone back centuries in another land. Here is a list of just a few popular dishes:

General Tso’s Chicken — not Chinese. This sweet and spicy chicken dish more than likely originated in Taiwan in the 1950s by Peng Chang-kuei, a chef who fled mainland China after the Chinese civil war that put the Communist Party in power. Peng later moved to the U.S. and opened a restaurant in New York City. General Tso’s Chicken became a popular item on his menu, and word spread across the country.

Chicken Parmigiana — not Italian. It was in the U.S. in the 1950s that breaded and fried chicken (or veal) with tomato sauce and melted Mozzarella cheese first appeared. Regions of Italy served a similar layered eggplant and tomato sauce dish, not as a dinner entree and not with a meat, though occasionally with regionally-produced cheese.

French Fries — not French. Lengths of fried potato sticks called frites originated in Belgium (not France) in the 1600s as a replacement for fish in winter. Soldiers stationed in Belgium in the aftermath of WWI heard Belgians speak French, and attached the French name. While French fries are forever associated with catsup as a condiment in the U.S., in Belgium it is more often served with mayonnaise or various vinegar-based sauces. Likewise, French Toast is not French. More than likely, it originated in ancient Rome, where leftover or stale bread was soaked with milk and eggs, then fried in oil and eaten with honey. A similar sweet breakfast was made in the Netherlands, where it was often eaten with cinnamon and sugar. In France, leftover or stale bread was soaked overnight in cream, or cream and eggs, to form a custardy dish that was baked and eaten as a dessert.

Burritos — not entirely Mexican. The American version of a burrito — a flour tortilla stuffed to overfilled capacity with meat, cheese, beans, vegetables and more — had its origins in San Francisco in the late 1960s. In Mexico, the burrito was served in various regions as a smaller corn tortilla wrapped around beans, chicken or pork (not beef), salsa and sometimes local cheese and vegetables. Most of the food boomers knew as Mexican developed from Americanized Tex-Mex dishes in the 1960s. Fajitas is another example of a style of cooking adapted through Tex-Mex filters. It was not seen on restaurant menus before 1969, when it appeared in Texas as a version of what boomers know today.

What was “ethnic” food to your family, boomers?

Additional reading on this subject by Mister Boomer:

Boomers Ate Chinese Take-Out

Boomers Loved Italian-American Food