Where did you live and what did you eat growing up?

[Anonymous]

If you were white it doesn’t matter where you grew up, you were probably eating the same variety of bland church cookbook food mentioned in the last 2 pages. American cuisine was shockingly uniform. Food Network really opened up people’s eyes to better ways of eating and trying different cuisines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bethesda, but very bland food. Like my mom put chicken breasts in the oven with nothing on them. Tuna Casserole. Terrible.

+1 in the California Bay Area, of all places. I was born in '79. Tuna casserole was frequent, or plain chicken put frozen on the grill. Cheese tortellini served with garlic bread and a salad. In high school I had cheerios every morning and a cup-o-noodle or white flour quesadilla every lunch. The carb-heavy menu was definitely a consequence of my mom's upbringing (1950s poverty cooking) but I also have clear memories of poor produce quality and stinking aisles in our local grocery, so maybe the retail grocery distribution network was not really developed in the 90s.

When I was a teen my parents started to realize that we had great fresh seafood available to us, so we had fresh fish at dinner instead. Spicy marinades, even. And in college I lived in a farming town and ate amazing fresh produce all the time. The produce I bought in college was fresher and more varied than what I can get in the DMV today, but DMV groceries are better than what I remember from younger childhood.

[Anonymous]

Grew up in a very small nothing town in upstate NY with amazing Italian American food, and Greek and Polish.

So very good pizza/calzones/pastas like stuffed shells were always available. My dad was a huge buffalo wings fan so every once in a while that would show up in our house. Tangy.

Birthday dinner for everyone in the family was always at "Symeons" Greek restaurant, where we always ran into other people we knew also having birthday dinners. Very very yummy.

People in that town are also obsessed with a food called "Chicken Riggies" so that was a common party food. (A kind of pasta with chicken and a spicy creamy sauce. It's good.)

I swear, there is nowhere in DC that comes close to the level of pizza and Greek food. Maybe Greek Deli in Dupont.

My parents are Indian (Bengali) immigrants, so my mom cooked extremely delicious Bengali food throughout the week -- Dahl, chicken curry, puris, fried fish, etc. They also had lived in Scotland for a decade so they made a lot of British/Scottish food, like sausages rolls, "mince and tatties (ground meat and mashed potatoes)", a big breakfast with eggs and baked tomatoes and beans. She also grew to like chicken with barbecue sauce and potato salad? And filled in lots of meals with frozen chicken tenders or chicken patties. Also lots of homemade french fries.

[Anonymous]

African-American and grew up in Pittsburgh. Grew up in the 50s and 60s. Mother was a SAHM, so everything was made from scratch. Our diet ran the gamut, everything from chitlins, beans and cornbread, to steak, chicken, pork chops, hamburgers, hot dogs, leg of lamb, shrimp newburg, chop suey, matzo ball, soup, to casseroles. Most meals had a serving of meat, starch and vegetables, sometimes salad. My mother was an excellent cook and baker. We had dessert regularly. I now own a restaurant and bakery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you were white it doesn’t matter where you grew up, you were probably eating the same variety of bland church cookbook food mentioned in the last 2 pages. American cuisine was shockingly uniform. Food Network really opened up people’s eyes to better ways of eating and trying different cuisines.

Have you even read the replies? Plenty of us generic white folks grew up in areas with ethnic European food traditions. Italian, Irish, Greek, Polish, Hungarian. You had exposure to your family’s traditions, but also what was offered in the community. Not everywhere eats/ate bland church cookbook food.

[Anonymous]

NYC area. Both my parents worked and childhood dinner was normally boring easy stuff at home. We’d have more complex Italian/Polish/Greek foods at the holidays or when visiting extended family
Had close friends whose parents were French, German, Korean… always enjoyed the chance to visit them and try new things
Fridays, always pizza - slices that could be folded in half of course.

[Anonymous]

MoCo.

Syrian food.

Vegetarian food.

Steak + potatoes.

Fresh caught fish with rice.

Bad, wannabe Italian homemade marinara sauce.

We were an eclectic family.

[Anonymous]

Tidewater area of Virginia

-Mom handled weekdays and was a reluctant cook who to this day isn’t that interested in food, but she still fed us pretty well. The majority of what we ate was Southern-inflected, fairly classic American home cooking (sometimes lightened up a bit). Semi-homemade stuff like shake and bake or sloppy joes once or twice a week. Americanized ethnic food (taco kit, enchiladas with jarred sauce, pizza with crust from a mix) once a week.
-Dad took over on the weekends. Think roasts with homemade sides in winter, grilled chicken/steak/pork chops/fish/veggies in summer. He has always been an excellent home cook. He would try out new recipes from the likes of Bon Appetit often.
-School lunch was always packed: sandwich, apple or grapes, chips, packaged cookies like Milano or Oreos
-Backyard garden meant great summer produce, we would also get and cook fresh seafood pretty regularly
-We ate out about once a week: neighborhood seafood spots, Mexican (but only when dad had somewhere else to be), Italian/Mediterranean

[Anonymous]

Brazil. Lots of meats, fresh fruits and vegetables. Lots and black beans and rice with every other meal.

[Anonymous]

Born in 1970. Grew up in Michigan.

Dinners were the typical bland meat/veg/starch/salad. Bland oven baked chicken, meat loaf, cheap steak on the grill, hamburger meat with onions, pork chops cooked in a pan with just salt and pepper. Veggies were usually canned, unless it was broccoli with cheese sauce or cauliflower with browned butter. Salad was iceberg lettuce with "Viva Italian!" dressing. Starch, if we had it, was usually potatoes, but occasionally rice. My family was very fish averse but we did have fish sticks a few times. I don't think we ever had a dessert, unless it was a birthday cake or a grocery store pie for a major holiday.

When we veered from this formula, it would be chili and corn bread, tacos from an Ortega kit, spaghetti with bottled sauce and frozen-section garlic bread, or maybe a lasagna if it was a special occasion.

We didn't always have breakfast, but when we did we had cereal (Count Chocula, Fruity Pebbles, instant oatmeal), or toast with butter and honey or butter and cinnamon sugar.

Lunch was tuna straight from the can with salt and pepper. Alphabet soup. That bologna loaf with olives in it. That kind of thing. If my mother was feeling energetic we might have English muffin pizzas.

If my mom went out, we'd eat tv dinners or, if lucky, order a Domino's pizza. Or maybe she'd get us Burger King. We very rarely ate in restaurants but I remember the occasional trip to Ponderosa Steakhouse or to Red Lobster where, being fish averse, we'd all order popcorn shrimp and dunk it in lots of cocktail sauce. Special occasions were at a place called Godfather's Pizza or a chain Mexican place where everyone ordered chimichangas. There was an amazing sub place in town, but my mom usually only got one for herself and I only got some if she ate half of it and put the other half in the fridge and I got to it before she did.

Always had a pitcher of Kool-Aid in the fridge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Grew up in a very small nothing town in upstate NY with amazing Italian American food, and Greek and Polish.

So very good pizza/calzones/pastas like stuffed shells were always available. My dad was a huge buffalo wings fan so every once in a while that would show up in our house. Tangy.

Birthday dinner for everyone in the family was always at "Symeons" Greek restaurant, where we always ran into other people we knew also having birthday dinners. Very very yummy.

People in that town are also obsessed with a food called "Chicken Riggies" so that was a common party food. (A kind of pasta with chicken and a spicy creamy sauce. It's good.)

I swear, there is nowhere in DC that comes close to the level of pizza and Greek food. Maybe Greek Deli in Dupont.

My parents are Indian (Bengali) immigrants, so my mom cooked extremely delicious Bengali food throughout the week -- Dahl, chicken curry, puris, fried fish, etc. They also had lived in Scotland for a decade so they made a lot of British/Scottish food, like sausages rolls, "mince and tatties (ground meat and mashed potatoes)", a big breakfast with eggs and baked tomatoes and beans. She also grew to like chicken with barbecue sauce and potato salad? And filled in lots of meals with frozen chicken tenders or chicken patties. Also lots of homemade french fries.

Fellow upstate New Yorker here! My family (white) almost always ate home cooked food from scratch. Somewhat meat and potatoes — roast chicken, flank steak, Mac and cheese were staples — and nothing hot-spicy but we had an enough spice cupboard that my parents used in their cooking regularly. Lots of fresh vegetables and fruit from the local farms and for a while milk delivered from the local dairy that still did a milk run in the mornings. My grandmother and my mother were adventurous cooks who loved collecting new recipes so sprinkled in between the split pea soup and leg of lamb were spaghetti sauce from my grandmother’s Italian neighbour and the zaru soba from my mom’s Japanese roommate in college and the fried rice from a Chinese friend they knew in Vancouver and shish kabobs from my dad’s Turkish colleague.

Almost all the local restaurants are Italian and they were great! We all went to Alteri’s for parties. It never occurred to me that this wasn’t normal American cuisine until I went to college. Another staple I miss is summer chicken bbq. Any organization that raised money (boy scouts, churches, volunteer fire fighters, local VFW, the school) would do a chicken bbq and some point and they were always delicious. Usually came with coleslaw and corn on the cob and a white bun.

Now I want stuffed shells AND chicken bbq.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in Massachusetts in the 80’s.
We ate a lot of Italian food although we aren’t Italian- spaghetti and meatballs, stuffed shells, fettuccine Alfredo, pizza, calzones, etc. All homemade sauces and meatballs, store bought pasta and dough.
We ate a fair amount of seafood but limited to local haddock, cod, scallops, clams.
Frequently on rotation was shepherds pie, pot roast, roast chicken, beef stew, pork chops. A lot of potatoes and vegetables for sides.
We never ate rice of any kind. School lunch was the only time I ever had rice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you were white it doesn’t matter where you grew up, you were probably eating the same variety of bland church cookbook food mentioned in the last 2 pages. American cuisine was shockingly uniform. Food Network really opened up people’s eyes to better ways of eating and trying different cuisines.

One thing I have noticed being an Appalachian, we all eat home produce in the summer. Green beans, summer squash, sweet corn, tomatoes, cucumbers and onions in vinegar. All of it with cornbread. So, no, American food is not that uniform and some of us are still eating like our great grandparents did.

[Anonymous]

Upper East Side. Gourmet food every single night, typically cooked by my father. Lots of fish, pasta (from Hazan’s cookbook), homemade stuffed pizzas, fancy chicken dishes, etc. Never hotdogs or Mac and cheese.

[Anonymous]

Grew up in DC in the 70s. Food at home was generally meat and potatoes, Jewish version, as my mom followed her mother's cooking. Some 70s-trendy things, like when she got a wok and developed the habit of making what we called "stir-fried leftovers." Sloppy Joes out of a can, beefaroni, and frozen tacos were real treats. Occasionally she would attempt something out of Julia Child for a dinner party. We had fondue once or twice a year. Dinner out occasionally was old-school Chinese (Moon Palace, Yenching Palace) or fancy old-fashioned French. And then in the late 70s the first Ethiopian restaurant opened in DC and our horizons expanded considerably.