Throwback Thursday #58 – Family Meal Rituals

Thank you for sticking with us after our short absence last week. We are back and raring to go! This week we are going to delve into what mealtime was like in your home.

This week’s prompt is: Family Meal Rituals

I will give you some questions to help you along. Or, free write if you would rather. You can either respond in the comments or link back to this post. My response will follow.

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Let’s start at the top of the day, breakfast! Did your family have a sit down breakfast or were you more grab and go? What beverages were served at breakfast? What was your favorite (and/or least favorite) breakfast meal?

Did you snack before the mid-day meal?

Lunch for most children was eaten at school with the exception of weekends, holidays, or summer vacation. At school, did you buy your lunch from the cafeteria, or did you pack lunch? In high school, were you allowed to leave school grounds during the lunch period?

For times when you had lunch at home, was it sandwiches, leftovers, or a newly prepared meal?

The evening meal is usually the most formal meal in many homes. Did your family sit down together and enjoy the evening meal or were you more of a TV dinner in front of the TV family?

How did your weekend meals differ from your weekdays?

Who did most of the cooking in your household? Did that person also do the meal planning and grocery shopping? Were you taught to cook or were you shoo’d out of the kitchen?

Did you have dessert served at your meals? If so, what types?

Who cleaned up after meals? Was it a shared responsibility between men/women, girls/boys or was it delegated based on gender?

How about late night snacks? Okay or discouraged?

Were dining manners stressed in your household? No elbows on the table, no hats at the table, no belching, please, thank you, and may I be excused?

Did you have occasions where you had large family gatherings for meals? What occasions?

Did you say grace or have a blessing before meals?

Now for the fun part. What dishes are you glad disappeared over the years? What dishes have you carried forward into your own home?

BONUS: Care to share any favorite family recipes?

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My fondest meal memories were from the time we lived in the Valley at my paternal grandparent’s home. When we were going to school, we almost always had a hot breakfast, especially in winter. It was a long cold bus ride to school.

Hot breakfast could be scrambled eggs with oven toast, ‘hotcakes’ as my grandmother called them, oatmeal (with raisins yuck), or worse yet, corn meal mush which I hated. But, we were taught from an early age to eat what we were given or go hungry! My favorite was hotcakes (pancakes) because my grandmother made her own syrup and it was always served hot! Even though I lived in southwest Virginia, I never even heard of grits until I moved to Ohio, so we never had them.

In elementary school, we bought lunch at school. Our school cooks were local women who were excellent southern cooks! Meals were good and I recall them only costing a quarter (25¢). They were so good even the local business people from town came to school to eat lunch! The price may have had something to do with it, too.

Dinner (or supper depending on the area of the country) was a family sit down affair. My grandmother had a large table with a bench across one of the longer sides of the table and chairs around the remaining three sides. I only remember having meat on Sundays although we may have had chicken more frequently than I remember. There was always a pot of pinto beans during the week with fresh cornbread or biscuits. We grew and canned all our own vegetables so they were always plentiful.

Canning and preserving took a great deal of time and hard work in the harvest season. Everything was preserved — corn, tomatoes, cucumbers into pickles, beans, relish (chow chow is what we called it), grapes (jelly and wine), strawberries, peaches, apples, and finally root vegetables were stored in the cellar.

My grandmother and my mother did all the cleanup work and the dishes. I do remember my grandmother teaching me how to wash dishes in boiling wash water and boiling rinse water. Glasses first, then plates, silverware next and pots and pans last.

We had a lot of family gatherings at both grandparents houses. They usually occurred in the summer. Folding tables were brought into the yard and topped with gingham tableloths. Fried chicken, potato salad, coleslaw, biscuits, banana pudding, and a cake or pie of some sort. A watermelon was lodged in the creek between some big rocks to cool. These were some of the best times of my life. Sometimes I feel like Jack Nicholson in “As Good As It Gets”, “Good times, noodle salad.”

My maternal grandfather was a carpenter and he made a huge dining room table. There were so many meals around that table. If the whole gang was there, the kids were relegated to the living room to find a seat on the piano bench, the couch, or one of granddaddy’s handmade rocking chairs. If you got there too late, there was always a step on the staircase!

When I was older, we moved to Ohio. Mom still cooked most of the meals, but when I was in high school, I cooked quite a bit more. I also cleaned the kitchen a lot more, too. Mom and Dad both worked so I learned to cook rather quickly. We still ate our evening meal together at the table. At breakfast everyone was on their own. I remember a lot of buttered toast dipped in hot cocoa – my favorite breakfast!

My Dad’s specialty was frying trout in a cast iron skillet on his Coleman stove. Later in life he grilled a lot, but not much that I recall growing up. When he retired, he made custard pies for Thanksgiving and made freezer strawberry jam when he could get strawberries.

Throughout my life, we ate casually on weekends it was normal to have PB&J, or tomato, lettuce, cucumber, or onion sandwiches. I still love all of them today.

I’m glad I no longer have to eat corn meal mush. I miss my grandmother’s pancakes with hot syrup, though. I loved it when we made ice cream with an old crank churn. I remember adding ice and rock salt and churning for what seemed forever! In the winter we made snow cream when we had a big snowfall!

Today I still make my grandmother’s cranberry jello salad at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have family recipes for carrot cake, a single layer cake with broiled nut (I prefer black walnuts) icing, ginger snaps, and of course angel biscuits and idiot rolls. If anyone seriously wants any of them, I will gladly send them along.

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