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The Economics Behind Grandma’s Tuna Casseroles

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jmyrlefuller:
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/friday-food-post-the-economics-behind-grandma-s-tuna-casseroles

by Megan McArdle
October 5, 2015

 I was born to be a food snob.

I grew up on New York’s Upper West Side in the 1970s and 1980s, in the afterglow of the food revolution that moved the city, and then American food, away from bland mid-century concoctions toward something spicier and more diverse. And I was born to a woman who took all that very seriously.

the great blessing of my life is that my mother did not let me become a food snob. She was from a small town in middle America, and she did not view this as any great handicap. Nor did she look down on the culinary tradition she inherited from her mother, a “good plain cook” of the miracle-whip-and-white-bread Midwestern persuasion whose pie crust was infallible. We did not mess around with limp chicken breasts and cans of Campbell’s Soup, but I have eaten plenty of Jell-O salad, and liked it. (On summer days, I still occasionally crave shredded carrots and crushed pineapple embedded in orange jello made with ginger ale. Don’t sneer; it is delightful and refreshing.) Apples, bananas and raisins, dripping with Miracle Whip, were served as a salad in my house, and one of my favorite dishes from my grandmother was ground meat and pasta shells in Ragu. I still bake out of the Betty Crocker 1950 cookbook, and have never found a better guide to the classic American layer cake.

So I’m always a bit bemused when I read articles pondering why our grandparents cooked such dreadful food. True, reading about your grandmother’s idea of what constituted a nice Asian meal is a bit lip-puckering. But why are people forced into flights of fancy to explain why our near ancestors ate like this?

1. Most people like what's familiar
2. A lot of the ingredients we take for granted were expensive and hard to get
3. People were poorer.
4. The foods of today’s lower middle class are the foods of yesterday’s tycoons. (somewhat related to 2.)
5. More bad cooks actually cooked back then out of necessity. Today, they just order out.
6. Most immigrants that came here prior to the modern era came from cold climates with limited palates and variety.
7. Entertainment was a greater part of the meal back then because we didn't have instant gratification at our fingertips.

(Full story at link.)

mountaineer:

--- Quote ---The same people who chuckle at the things done with cocktail franks and canned tuna will happily eat something like the tripe dishes common in many ethnic cuisines. Yet tripe has absolutely nothing to recommend it as a food product, except that it is practically free; almost anything you cooked with tripe would be just as good, if not better, without the tripe in it.
--- End quote ---
Quite agree. Food snobs are tiresome - and I have a culinary arts degree. I received a free subscription to Food and Wine magazine, and laugh at every issue. The most recent edition contained "These Icy, Creamy, Chewy, Dreamy Desserts" from Asia. The recipes contain few ingredients I could find within 50 miles (minimum), for example, butterfly pea flower powder, peeled and pitted longans in syrup and  agar-agar powder. No, thanks, I'll just bake some oatmeal cookies.

 My parents were young children during the Great Depression and I grew up hearing stories of the neighbors who had nothing for dinner but popcorn and how my mother and her siblings considered saltines in milk a wonderful treat. Although my mother was a more adventurous cook over the years, trying new recipes whenever possible, the go-to meals were always familiar and as inexpensive as possible. And that's fine with me. My meatloaf tastes like hers, and I like it.

Elderberry:
Now for me it wasn't my grandmother, it was my Mom. We ate lots and lots of tuna casseroles. She also developed a taste for lamb when she served in France during the "Big One", so we ate a lot of lamb chops. But I think she liked BBQ Chicken the most. But we also ate Spam. That I haven't eaten since I left home.

Free Vulcan:
After the Great Depression yes. Before, not so much.

Have alot of Grandma's old cookbooks and recipes from other ancestors. Meat, vegetables, and dessert mostly, similar to how they ate in Europe.

roamer_1:
Here it is:


--- Quote from: the article ---In 1950, the answer was “because we’re not made of money.” A restaurant meal was a special treat, not a nightly event, and prepared foods were not so widely available, in part because women tended not to work, but also because food processing technology was so advanced. So women had to cook whether they liked it or not.

--- End quote ---

I have made the trip BACK to that... and in the course of it, have become a really good cook of what many would consider every-day fare. Chili. goulash, spaghetti, meatloaf... Nothing special - But in this day of instant and perfect gratification, that is exactly what makes it special.

Somewhere in the process of instant gratification, we have entirely lost so very much. Just anticipation - The smell of supper on the stove in the middle of the day - It is one of the very BEST things about going back to scratch cooking... and it lingers. There is an ambiance that gathers in a kitchen well used. A smell that hits you when you walk in the door, even when the kitchen is idle... And cupboards full of awesome treats - It costs nearly nothing in time to make a double batch of cookies compared to a single batch... Which puts a full cookie jar in the cupboard with little effort... And I will take a proper Nestles Tollhouse Chocolate Chip cookie, or a chewy Oatmeal Raisin cookie over anything snackey you could offer me from the store or bakery.

Bottled fresh from the garden - SO much better. Fresh cackleberries from free ranged chickens - SO much better.

In it all is an entire economy - A different way of doing from today. And I now know that folks put up with mundane, crappy food in the illusion of convenience. I cannot believe I ever ate Hot Pockets, and thought they were good.

It's a lie.

Tuna fish casserole? BRAVO!

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