Clean Your Plate

People are heavier now than they used to be and to me that’s a mystery. When I think of all the bacon and eggs and pure suet devoured by my family of origin I really see why they all died of cardiac arrest.But food was different then, it's true. That classic Jell-O salad I referred to yesterday really was hugely popular. By the time the 60s were launched it had been sweetened with mini -marshmallows but a decade before that it was either the slimy syrup of canned fruit cocktail you saw imbedded there or the olives like these.  (Octopus eyes, eh?)It was no time to be young I can tell you. Children, powerless beings that they were, sat at the table and shut their mouths while the grownups droned on. Shut their mouths and tried as best they could to force down the food in front of them on account of all the starving children in (Europe, China Armenia -it depended on what country’s name your parents' parents drilled into their heads when they were young.)Everyone ate together and dessert was always served, though it was as likely to be what they called Fish-Eye Pudding as anything else.Fish-Eye Pudding was really Tapioca pudding with those little capsules of unchewable goo laced throughout it.We lived in fear for all our childhoods. What would they put in from of next? I live pretty fear-free now since I'm the one making the food. And when I go out I'm also safe. I don’t like carbonated drinks so I have no fear of the fast food joints and their super-sized calorie barrels. I'm not too crazy about any dish that makes me feel like an oil spill has occurred inside my mouth either so burgers and fries hold no fear for me.There’s really only one food that makes me shrink in horror and that is Creamed Chipped Beef. Sit me down in front of a plate of Creamed Chipped Beef and I’ll confess to anything rather than open my mouth.So…what vintage dish does that to YOU? Anything like the 10pm Set-Out you see here?  :-)