the changes in foods since your childhood? doesnt taste the same as it use to?

[ChiTownScion]

When most people "camp" they are doing it at a luxury place with things like potable water, pit toilets, and they aren't doing it for months on end. It gets a little old lighting a fire in a downpour, scrounging for wood the second time that day, washing your dishes in a creek, and storing your perishables in either the cooler hanging from a tree or the cooler weighed down in a creek. I've been doing it for 5 months 3 days a week, and let me tell you, after three months I was tired of it.

I figure that my family eats out once a month. I know some people who eat out once a week. I need that break once a month.

When my husband and I did a road trip out west we ate out 3 times during a three week trip. Totally justified. I've never had good luck getting home cooked meals through an airport or always getting a hotel with a kitchen, etc.

We've been married almost 30 years, but we both still like to have date nights every weekend where we'll do dinner and a show. And occasionally, if my wife has a full schedule of patients all day and has an hour or two of charting that gets her home late, we'll break down and hit a local family run restaurant for dinner.

We had our kitchen redone in 2012: totally gutted the old one and essentially removed walls to create an open area. My wife had planned her dream kitchen for years, and we even ripped the floor down to the studs. One man did the work, and he's a classic old world perfectionist craftsman. Our dining room became a pantry, our one bathroom became the dish washing area, the living room with microwave and refrigerator became a kitchen--- it was an unholy mess. And it went on from January 2 to the end of April.

Just about every meal during that time, we ate out. Very little fast food, but the local Asian, Italian, and Mexican restaurants got a lot of business from us. Both of us working full time, we had no desire to subsist on canned food, and even cleaning plates was a nightmare. So, no apologies for dining out all of that time at all, but we did appreciate the new kitchen once it was finally done.

 

[Matt Crunk]

Just about every meal during that time, we ate out. Very little fast food, but the local Asian, Italian, and Mexican restaurants got a lot of business from us. Both of us working full time, we had no desire to subsist on canned food, and even cleaning plates was a nightmare. So, no apologies for dining out all of that time at all, but we did appreciate the new kitchen once it was finally done.

From the time we got married in 2000 until we relocated out to the country in 2010, my wife and I dined out for probably 95% of our meals. Usually it was fast food for lunch then dinner at a fine restaurant. By a conservative estimate we were spending $50 to $75 on average, per day dining out. Times that by at least five, but usually six, sometimes seven days a week, and it's not hard to figure out how our dining budget far exceeded our house payment and utility payments combined. It was not until we moved some 30 miles outside the nearest city did we start dining at home on a regular basis. Man, when I think of all the money we could have saved.

To tie this in to the original post, Home cooking it one thing that still tastes just like it used to, especially when we go from my mother's old recipes.

 

[green papaya]

yes, good home cooking still tastes just as good as the good old days, home garden grown veggies, fresh caught fish from the ocean

 

[Fastuni]

So, no apologies for dining out all of that time at all

Just to avoid any misunderstanding: My criticism was first and foremostly directed at large fast food chains. Not restaurants or smaller family-run venues.
While I greatly prefer home-cooked, I also then and now eat out. But since at least five or six years I have not visited a fast food chain. There are so many alternatives.
May have much to do with acquired taste. Anyway I can't stand the smell of these places.

Sheeplady, by camping and travelling I certainly did not imagine half a year in the wild or travelling by plane (nationally).
And "road trips" in the US and Germany are admittedly entirely different affairs.

 

[ChiTownScion]

To tie this in to the original post, Home cooking it one thing that still tastes just like it used to, especially when we go from my mother's old recipes.

My mom was Irish, Matt, and although she'd cry foul if I said it, she was not a great cook. I think that the dear woman could burn Kool Aid, to be honest. Dad, on the other hand, was a firehouse chef, and I still recall his home made breads, soups, and beef rouladen with great fondness. Thankfully, my wife is a terrific cook, and the new range that we installed allows her a lot of creativity in trying new productions.

But you're right: cooking anything from scratch is always the best way to assure tastiness.

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

Of course cooking is not always possible and "eating out" on business trips is often the only option. But ALL the examples on the first page were from fast food chains and really unhealthy stuff. If you find this observation offensive please be careful in the internet. It's full of people who might...disagree with you. :eeek:

 

[LizzieMaine]

My mom was Irish, Matt, and although she'd cry foul if I said it, she was not a great cook. I think that the dear woman could burn Kool Aid, to be honest. Dad, on the other hand, was a firehouse chef, and I still recall his home made breads, soups, and beef rouladen with great fondness. Thankfully, my wife is a terrific cook, and the new range that we installed allows her a lot of creativity in trying new productions.

But you're right: cooking anything from scratch is always the best way to assure tastiness.

My mother was, and is, a horrible cook -- I was consistently underweight as a child largely because I couldn't stomach her food. When I started eating most of my meals at my grandmother's house, I finally started to gain weight.

One time Ma dropped her copy of Fannie Farmer into the soup pot. It was the best thing she ever cooked.

 

[sheeplady]

Sheeplady, by camping and travelling I certainly did not imagine half a year in the wild or travelling by plane (nationally).
And "road trips" in the US and Germany are admittedly entirely different affairs.

You can totally do road trips here without doing fast food, but they are definitely not as easy as in Europe. In Europe it is very easy to find things like a small baguette, hunk of cheese, and a small amount of fruit in a small grocer that won't cost you a fortune. When I've traveled in Europe I have never found it difficult to find these things in a grocery store, and I've typically been able to have a feast for two for well under 5 euros- bread, cheese, and fruit.

In the U.S. it can be difficult to find unsliced and/or small loaves of bread in some grocery stores and cheese typically isn't sold in small hunks. Most mainstream grocery stores sell mainly large (huge to be honest) loaves of pre-sliced bread and their cheese is either in large blocks or pre-sliced- and again- sold in huge quantities. The problem with buying these things in the U.S. becomes storage if you're on a road trip. I'm not going to throw out three quarters of a block of cheese or 9/10s of a loaf of bread, so then I have to stuff it in my car- which means carrying ice, which means a cooler, which means a lot of space.

If you can find good quality bread and cheese in smaller sizes, it is very expensive for the American wallet. We are used to cheap food prices, so when you can buy a pre-sliced loaf of bread for $1.50 and an unsliced loaf half the size for $5, you get sticker shock buying the $5 bread, because you know in your head the price difference of almost $8.50. That's assuming you can find a grocery store here that sells such things. Typically such products are only available in either bakeries or stores with an actual in-house bakery. If a regular grocery carries these things they tend to be huge stores in which you have to invest 45 minutes tracking such things down. And you won't find anything but sliced bread in most very rural small grocers. The same 5 euro meal here in the U.S. would cost me close to $15 to $20 dollars at my local grocery store, because the type of cheese and bread is so much more expensive.

Growing up, my parents and I always did "baloney" parties when we took day trips. When I was very young, and such things as a full deli still existed in a lot of small grocery stores, we'd buy a small amount of baloney, a small loaf of bread, some fruit, and two sodas and that would be what we ate. Slowly the small store deli's disappeared, and we were left buying a tub of baloney and a loaf of bread that we'd have to freeze most of it because it was so large. Even with the cooler, the baloney would go bad it seemed and then we were stuck eating off tasting baloney for a couple of days later.

Now a lot of those smaller rural grocery stores have been run out by Walmart supercenters, which vary vastly in quality. The walmart closest to where I live always has the smell of rotten fruit in the grocery section (I'm forced to go there rarely for things, and you can smell the grocery section half a store away). I know that other Walmarts are much better, but I could not stand the idea of getting my food from a place that smells that rancid, and our local Walmart has really ruined my perception of all Walmarts. I'd rather eat McDonalds.

 

[2jakes]

The watermelons, peaches & cantaloupes don't taste the same as it used to.
I'm comparing to the ones sold in grocery stores today & the fruits that my folks
would buy directly from the farmers back then. My guess is that there wasn't much
chemicals/hormones pumped into them but just naturally grown.

I used to love drinking "Ovaltine" chocolate powder drink. The chocolate "powder"
came in crystal grains . A very distinct "acquired" taste which I enjoyed as a kid.
That's gone.

There are still a few individual eating places I enjoy. But for the most part it's
mostly chain food restaurants which I try to avoid.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Slowly the small store deli's disappeared, and we were left buying a tub of baloney and a loaf of bread that we'd have to freeze most of it because it was so large. Even with the cooler, the baloney would go bad it seemed and then we were stuck eating off tasting baloney for a couple of days later.

The "valu-sizing" of food products is a real problem for those of us who live alone. I go thru one loaf of bread a week -- and if the smallest loaf I can find in the store is designed for a family of four, it's going to go moldy before I can get halfway thru it. There's one bread company in the state that produces a "regular" sized loaf -- what used to be the standard loaf before the Boys From Marketing decided that breeders were the only people who mattered -- and there's only one store in town that carries it. If they don't have any left when I'm shopping, I go without bread until it's back in stock. I refuse to waste money on gigantic "family size" quantities of food when all I need is a little bit.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Before my housemates moved into my house I was eating out practically every day because I found that cooking at home just for myself was costing just as much as going out to eat and more often than not the leftovers ended up going to waste.

 

[sheeplady]

The "valu-sizing" of food products is a real problem for those of us who live alone. I go thru one loaf of bread a week -- and if the smallest loaf I can find in the store is designed for a family of four, it's going to go moldy before I can get halfway thru it. There's one bread company in the state that produces a "regular" sized loaf -- what used to be the standard loaf before the Boys From Marketing decided that breeders were the only people who mattered -- and there's only one store in town that carries it. If they don't have any left when I'm shopping, I go without bread until it's back in stock. I refuse to waste money on gigantic "family size" quantities of food when all I need is a little bit.

Even with a family that loaf of bread is too large. I can't imagine how many sandwiches a person has to go through to get that bread all used up. They have to have a family of four that eats two slices of toast each and two sandwiches a day to get through it. I know you can freeze bread (we used to buy "off" bread at a distribution center as a kid) but it takes up a huge amount of freezer room (if you have a modern freezer). Besides, modern sliced bread seems to be mostly "air" and you're not getting that much nutrition for your money.

I don't normally buy bread anymore. I use my bread machine, or buy "bread alternatives" most of which has been naan as of late. I get the naan from an Indian grocery and it's about as cheap as a loaf of bread, and it all gets used up.

ETA: I find the "family size" things to be discouraging. I think it normalizes waste, and I hate waste. It's one thing if food goes bad and you can't eat it. But marketing products that you know are just going to be wasted, buying those products and throwing it out as if it is normal, and then making it our culture it is disgusting.

 

[Fastuni]

One of the blessings of Germany is undoubtedly the wide range of excellent breads - particularly if one wants grey or dark bread.
At almost any place it is possible to find a bakery nearby and also the chain-grocery bakeries and re-baked goods are mostly quite good.

During all my stays in the US I struggled desperately with finding good bread (at reasonable prices). I failed at finding a bread that wasn´t overly fluffy, soft and dissapointing.

But speaking of waste... that´s a huge problem with many German bakeries (not to mention factories). While the bread units they offer for the consumer are small enough to be eaten without waste, they produce deliberately much more than needed. Mostly because of marketing concerns... costumers apparently want always ¨full aisles¨ and therefore a large portion of a days produce is wasted. The unsold bread is used en masse to feed pigs or dried to be used as burning fuel. :eusa_doh: Just produce less!

A small upside is that often bread can be bought at reduced prices - and I am a ¨bread freezer".

 

[Dan Allen]

I was a "army brat" in Germany in the late fifties and early sixties. After returning to the states the main thing we missed was the breads--especially the black breads and those hard little brotchen. On another note, I have had grave concerns about the direction our society has taken ever since they changed the Dr. Pepper formula. I have been told that Canada still has the original however that my be just urban legend.

 

[LizzieMaine]

7up is another drink that's been buggered up by the Boys. About twenty years ago, they decided that people prefer sweet to tart, so they made it much sweeter -- with the result that what used to be one of my favorite beverages is now repulsive.

7up used to have lithium in it, but that, so far as anybody can remember, didn't affect the flavor. It just made you much more relaxed as you drank it.

 

[Dan Allen]

If it still had lithium in it you would have to show ID and it would be "rationed", thanks to the meth cookers.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Lizzie couldn't you put half the loaf in the freezer for later? That is what I do.

You are right about 7up. Now I hop it up with the juice of half a lemon per glass. Or lemon and lime. Tastes good in hot weather and I am getting my vitamin c.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My freezer is a 12" by 13" box. Just big enough for a couple of ice trays. Plus frozen bread always has that freezer-y taste.

There was a chest freezer in this house when I moved in but I got rid of it -- I never ended up using the stuff in it before it got mangy.

 

[sheeplady]

Vintage freezers weren't made for modern gluttony.

 

[Stearmen]

My mother was, and is, a horrible cook -- I was consistently underweight as a child largely because I couldn't stomach her food. When I started eating most of my meals at my grandmother's house, I finally started to gain weight.

One time Ma dropped her copy of Fannie Farmer into the soup pot. It was the best thing she ever cooked.

that was my mother. I did not gain much weight until I was an adult! Ironically, my mother became a pretty good cook for about a decade when I wasn't there much. Sadly, the last few years of her life, I was the cook, she was very finicky, I would cook meals from scratch that others raved about, all she wanted was Hamburger Helper, and Mac & Cheese with a can of chile in it!