Po' Folks food stories-Post 'em here.

[youthere]

Let's have 'em. The cheap eats you lived off of when you were a kid, or starving student or starving adult.
A mainstay in our house was what my mother called yap-yap. She'd cut up potatoes and onions and boil them in water and serve it like a soup with lots of salt and pepper. Sometimes (usually close to payday) she'd brown a pound of ground beef.

For a "snack" my brother and I would toast saltine crackers on the stove burner and put ketchup on them.

When I was in college there was the mandatory starving student ramen noodle marathon.

When my husband and I first got married we lived on what I called the "White Diet". Rice, potatoes, and macaroni. Combined with a dozen eggs and a block of Velveeta, it usually saw us through the better part of the week.

I am amazed (and ashamed) at the amount of food I throw away now. I try not to deliberately waste food, and I work hard to use up leftovers but it still seems as though we throw away so much.

[GOPisEvil]

1. Fried bologna slices.

Mom would cut little slices so the bologna wouldn't curl as much. She'd serve it with some mustard, often with potatoes and a can of green beans or something to round out the meal. :D

[youthere]

3. Oh I remember fried bologna!

It was actually good when it got all crispy around the edges.

[GOPisEvil]

5. Damn straight!

In fact, I want to try it with some "real" bologna or maybe mortadella. :9

[Roon]

2. Macaroni and ketchup for dinner

Hot chocolate and toast for breakfast.

[Blue-Jay]

4. Damn. Did we grow up in the same house?

For a while, liver & onions was a once a week delicacy.

[youthere]

7. Oh god..

the dreaded Liver and Onions...
I can still smell it.

[LTR]

16. I got off lucky

My mom hated liver. Unfortunately, my dad loved the shit, and he even brought home fuckin' beef heart once. That was perhaps the most disgusting thing I ever attempted to eat.

[youthere]

26. My dad was another liver-lover...

my mom didn't Love it, but she didn't hate it either, so since it was cheap we ate it a lot. My dad tried to feed us tripe once but mom took one look and said "hell no!"

[Redstone]

23. The rule in our house was that if you didn't like dinner, you could go to bed hungry.

Many's the night I chose hunger over liver.

Redstone

[youthere]

44. We were a clean plate house. You ate it all, like it or not.

I gladly would have chosen hunger on liver nights.

[Blue-Jay]

29. I kinda liked it, until I found out what a liver is.

Then I got a little disgusted.

Still, eating "on the cheap" made me a better person I think. We were poor, but in retrospect, we weren't dirt-poor. Mom still lives in the house where I grew up. It's a tiny little ranch on one acre that sold for 10K in 1964. Now, it's worth a *lot* more.

I'm starting to get a little nostalgic right now, so I'm gonna quit this thread and call my mom.

[Roon]

13. It always ruined my day

When I came home from school and saw liver thawing in the sink.

[youthere]

20. When you were called to dinner it was like a death march.

Ack.

I still won't eat it, even though people keep trying to convince me to try it again.

[Roon]

I'll never eat it again

No matter how hungry I am.

[emmadoggy]

42. I haven't had it in years now, but

I loved liver as a kid! :yoiks: I know this will sound insane, but (back then) I would actually prefer to have liver over steak or round steak (blech!) Honestly, even now that would probably be my preference.

I know I am in a very tiny minority! :P

[ruiner4u]

43. Ive never had liver... But Im curious to try it...

then again, a few weeks ago I was curious what a turnip tasted like.. cooked it up and couldnt stand it...

[youthere]

6. Sort of like a goulash..

we used to put ketchup on macaroni and cheese. In fact I still do sometimes.

[Roon]

15. We had ghoulash too!

Doctored up with spices.

[unsavedtrash]

8. shit on a shingle, ramon noodles, potted meat, pasta with butter stirred in,

and soup beans with cornbread.
The only of those I still eat ---> soup beans and cornbread.

[youthere]

10. Yes! Yes! I loved Shit on a shingle!

I haven't thought about that in ages.
When we couldn't afford the "beef" for the S.O.S., my mom would use a can of peas, or asparagus instead.

[Nickster]

33. You know how you eat so much of a certain food that you can't even think about it anymore? Well that

's how I feel about S.O.S. LoL.

[Catshrink]

9. PB&J

The best! Also, a lot of scrambled eggs.

An old boyfriend used to make "awful spaghetti" -- ramen noodles and ketchup. :puke:

[youthere]

11. Good old PB&J.

or just J. or just PB. You go with what you have.

[Catshrink]

12. I still eat it...

I have a toasted PB&J for breakfast quite often -- and for supper if it's close to payday and I'm running a bit short. It's my dog's favorite food, too.

[LTR]

14. Hell, I could make a mean ramen soup!

Add Packet, water, and some kind of pepper sauce (preferably the big plastic bottle with the rooster on the front that you could steal from any Asian restaurant or find in any Asian food store). If I really felt fancy, I'd get scallions or chop up peppers. It's actually pretty damn good, particularly if you suffer from sinus issues.

Going back to the Asian food store thing, it's amazing the cheap stuff you can find if you're a starving college student. Nowadays, people have it easy with stores like Aldi around.

And if all else fails, the cheap mac-n-cheese is almost as good as Kraft, if you make it right.

[youthere]

18. Cheap mac and cheese got DH and I through the lean years...

Occasionally we'd color our "white diet" orange and throw in a can of tuna or some chopped bologna.

[Strawman]

17. I thought you meant the restaurant

There was one on the east side of the Detroit area. Never went there. Think it was a regional or national chain.

As for cheap homemade eats, homemade pizza slices on toast was and is my favorite. Having it tonight in fact. Two peices of whole wheat toast, some turkey pepperoni, sauce, and cheese.

[GOPisEvil]

19. So did I at first.

My parents took me there a few times. I liked that they had RC Cola in bottles that were kept on ice in barrels.

[Redstone]

21. We had Government Surplus food for school lunch, and sometimes at home, too.

I like the cheese from those big blocks. Not so much the baloney. And good GOD, is there ANYTHING worse than powdered eggs?

And, beleieve it or not, I still like S.O.S. But with lots of white pepper nowadays.

Redstone

[youthere]

22. The government cheese was actually good....

My brother and I used to love to just eat a huge hunk of it.

[Redstone]

27. And like you said, the baloney wasn't so bad when fried. Neither is SPAM.

Redstone

[GOPisEvil]

24. The "government cheese" made the best grilled cheese sandwiches!

When I was a teenager, I worked for the Boy Scouts at a summer camp. We received USDA Commodity Foods to use in our dining facility. On our off days, we'd always make ourselves grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. So good! Also the "government" peanut butter and grape jelly (in the #10 cans) were good, too.

[prole_for_peace]

34. i LOVED government grilled cheese..

i don't know what it was but that was the BEST GRILLED CHEESE EVER!!!

[Redstone]

37. Let me guess. On white bread, grilled with lard instead of butter.

That's the way we had it.

Screw the Health Nazis, lard is THE substance to fry with!

Redstone

[GOPisEvil]

38. Lard has less saturated fat than butter.

Plus, true Mexican refried beans are made with lard. I can tell the difference.

[Redstone]

40. And it aint' REAL fried chicken unless it's fried in lard. Not to mention

what you need to use to make the best biscuits!

Redstone

[youthere]

45. but of course...

any other way would be blasphemy!
Thou shalt not blaspheme the government grilled cheese!

[Gormy Cuss]

41. I have a surplus food cookbook

All kinds of nifty recipes for that cheese (and yes, it was good stuff) and powdered eggs and canned meat in gravy, the truly vile powdered eggs, peanut butter, rolled oats, rolled wheat flakes, oh the memories.

Contrary to my mother's assertion, even ice cold from the fridge the reconstituted powdered milk did not taste like milk. Ever.

[youthere]

46. Oh my dad used to try that bullshit with us too..

"You can't even tell the difference". Bull. He'd even try to mix the powdered stuff half and half with real milk to try to trick us into drinking it. It never worked.Bleh.

[GenDem]

25. Miracle whip on Wonder bread -- a favorite from childhood.

Favorites from the early family years --

-Frozen minced fish sticks and tater tots

-Boxed scalloped potatoes and spam

-Creamed tuna and peas on toast

[GOPisEvil]

28. Lest we forget spaghetti and Ragu!

Spaghetti is REALLY cheap and a jar of sauce lasts a long time too. Sometimes even today I make a batch of pasta and just toss it with butter and herbs.

[Karenca]

30. Mayonnaise sandwiches on toasted white bread, ketchup sandwiches

on plain white.
Cucumber, tomaoto and mayo sandwiches on white.
Spaghetti and ketchup.
Sheets of home-made egg noodles, before they were sliced into noodles.
Bologna potato chip sandwiches.
Fried fish roe.

[Robb]

31. Rice + beans + vitamins = nutrition!

Notably, my ex-wife had won the vitamins on The Price is Right. :rofl:

[Hugin]

32. One of my all time favorite TV/Movie scenes is based on this topic... LOL!

I don't even remember what I saw it in... (Doesn't that always happen?)

Anyway, there were these two young men who were roommates. One comes into their apartment
and sees his friend is kind of down and he asks why... The distressed roommate just mumbles,
"Now, I've *got* to marry her." The first roommate presses even harder for an answer, thinking maybe his
friend has 'gotten in trouble' with a girl. Finally the distressed roommate comes around somewhat and
says, "I've *got* to marry her... Last night we were hungry and the only food in the apartment was
a sandwich slice of chicken, a couple of bags of airline peanuts, and some bean sprouts and she made
a terrific stir fry which could feed at least four people!" as he rushed out the door to find her.

I laughed about that one!

One of my favorite scenes.

[youthere]

48. I remember that scene...

I can't remember the movie either.

[NNadir]

35. I lived on rice and mushrooms for about two years.

Occassionally I had vegetable soup from cans.

I had no car and lived on a bicycle, but my bicycle was stolen.

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

[youthere]

51. Do you ever eat it anymore?

[NNadir]

52. Yes. Luckily I love mushrooms and I love rice.

It was a great way to starve.

[SPKrazy]

36. Pasta and Spam

and ranch dressing on the pasta!

and some kind of veggie

yum

[Scout1071]

39. Chef Boy-ar-dee pizzas

Fake mashed potatoes.

And ramen. Lots of ramen.

[youthere]

50. Those pizzas weren't half bad.

and we used to love to make a bowl of potato buds and stir in a chunk of cheese.

[asthmaticeog]

47. Cracker soup.

My college GF taught me this move, which apparently her parents ate when they were dead broke: saltine crackers dissolved in a pan of skim milk over low flame. Astonishingly tasty. Also filling enough. Predictably enough, though, it was pretty drowsymaking.

[youthere]

49. Sounds a bit like rivel soup...

my mom used to make that when we were sick. It was a pan of hot milk, then she'd take some flour and work an egg into it until it was crumbly and then stir it into the milk until the egg was cooked. It would make the milk a little bit thick, and there would be these little dumpling-like things in it. She'd serve it with a little bit of butter and some sugar on top. It always tasted so good after you'd had the stomach flu and you were finally able to eat again.