-a bowl of white rice with milk, sugar, and cinnamon,
sometimes with
-oven-warmed saltines with margarine, or -a burner-warmed white flour tortilla with margarine,
which my mother referred to as "buttered crackers" or "buttered tortillas" respectively.
In my house Velveeta WAS cheese, and margarine WAS butter. I think I must have been 8 or 9 before I realized that butter or cheese actually existed in their true forms, and that discovery was made at a friends' house.
On the other hand, my mother did have good taste in peanut butter, as it was generally Adam's all the way through my childhood, spread liberally on the occasional Saturday breakfast of Krusteaz pancakes with sausage, bacon, and Mrs. Butterworth's.
Cold cereals with milk were also eaten, but usually only on weekday mornings when our mother was too busy to cook, or a couple hours after breakfast to hold over until lunch.
My brother and I were pretty lucky with food, as my father was an avid fisher, hunter, and gardener, my mother was way into baking and preserving, and they both were big on cooking. Coming from a farm family, my dad had lots of contacts in the meat, poultry, and dairy industry, so what we couldn't grow at home or kill in the wilds, we could get fresh from the farm, ranch, dairy, or warehouse, usually at a crazy discount. Grocery stores were mostly unknown to us, and our concept of a normal meal usually revolved around what we knew was ready to hand in our huge meat freezer, our bomb shelter full of canned goods and homemade preserves, our garden full of fresh vegetables, or our apple, cherry, and apricot trees when in season.
Tupperware. Almost forgot about the Tupperware. Until I was well into my adolescence, it seems damn near everything we ate was served in or eaten out of Tupperware, or promotional items from restaurants and convenience stores.
I think my mother still has the Coca-Cola/Godfather's Pizza drink pitcher we got in, like, 1981 or so. The glasses to complete the set met their fates one by one over the years, the last of the four possibly making it to the 1990s, but one cannot be sure. As for the pitcher, we drank Coca-Cola out of it at times, but it was mainly used for sun tea.
Why is this relevant to Saturday morning cartoons? Because when we watched our favorite shows, we were well fed, and at least in terms of being fed, we felt secure and cozy, and that enhanced our viewing enjoyment.
Despite this, we were often jealous of other kids for having all the fancy junk food that we never got to have, but looking back on it, I'm kind of glad we didn't get to have it. It's probably the main reason I made it through my childhood mostly getting three squares a day and not getting fat like most of the rest of my friends.
no subject
-a bowl of white rice with milk, sugar, and cinnamon,
sometimes with
-oven-warmed saltines with margarine,
or
-a burner-warmed white flour tortilla with margarine,
which my mother referred to as "buttered crackers" or "buttered tortillas" respectively.
In my house Velveeta WAS cheese, and margarine WAS butter. I think I must have been 8 or 9 before I realized that butter or cheese actually existed in their true forms, and that discovery was made at a friends' house.
On the other hand, my mother did have good taste in peanut butter, as it was generally Adam's all the way through my childhood, spread liberally on the occasional Saturday breakfast of Krusteaz pancakes with sausage, bacon, and Mrs. Butterworth's.
Cold cereals with milk were also eaten, but usually only on weekday mornings when our mother was too busy to cook, or a couple hours after breakfast to hold over until lunch.
My brother and I were pretty lucky with food, as my father was an avid fisher, hunter, and gardener, my mother was way into baking and preserving, and they both were big on cooking. Coming from a farm family, my dad had lots of contacts in the meat, poultry, and dairy industry, so what we couldn't grow at home or kill in the wilds, we could get fresh from the farm, ranch, dairy, or warehouse, usually at a crazy discount. Grocery stores were mostly unknown to us, and our concept of a normal meal usually revolved around what we knew was ready to hand in our huge meat freezer, our bomb shelter full of canned goods and homemade preserves, our garden full of fresh vegetables, or our apple, cherry, and apricot trees when in season.
Tupperware. Almost forgot about the Tupperware. Until I was well into my adolescence, it seems damn near everything we ate was served in or eaten out of Tupperware, or promotional items from restaurants and convenience stores.
I think my mother still has the Coca-Cola/Godfather's Pizza drink pitcher we got in, like, 1981 or so. The glasses to complete the set met their fates one by one over the years, the last of the four possibly making it to the 1990s, but one cannot be sure. As for the pitcher, we drank Coca-Cola out of it at times, but it was mainly used for sun tea.
Why is this relevant to Saturday morning cartoons? Because when we watched our favorite shows, we were well fed, and at least in terms of being fed, we felt secure and cozy, and that enhanced our viewing enjoyment.
Despite this, we were often jealous of other kids for having all the fancy junk food that we never got to have, but looking back on it, I'm kind of glad we didn't get to have it. It's probably the main reason I made it through my childhood mostly getting three squares a day and not getting fat like most of the rest of my friends.