FLDG Challenge: Prepare a dish from the year you were born

Foods “invented “ in 1953, gets better. From lists Jeff linked us to I can add cheese whiz and instant iced tea to the tater tots. Dinner sure is lookin’ good.
Oooooj. I can add Swansons frozen turkey dinner,! And stretching a couple of years I can add green bean casserole (apparently this still appears at Thanksgiving tables?)

When were home pizza kits first marketed? These contained flour, a packet of dried yeast, and a can of pizza sauce. You mixed up and kneaded the dough, rolled it out, put on the sauce and any cheese or toppings you wished, then baked it in your oven. Chef Boy-Ar-Dee and Jeno's were two brands I remember. They disappeared when the technology for frozen pizza was developed.

-Paul W.

When were home pizza kits first marketed? These contained flour, a packet of dried yeast, and a can of pizza sauce. You mixed up and kneaded the dough, rolled it out, put on the sauce and any cheese or toppings you wished, then baked it in your oven. Chef Boy-Ar-Dee and Jeno's were two brands I remember. They disappeared when the technology for frozen pizza was developed.

The Chef Boyardee pizza kit, made by the Boiardi family, went on sale in 1955:
http://www.grandvoyageitaly.com/cucina/ ... -pizza-kit

It is still made today, though it has changed a bit:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Chef-Boyarde ... z/10308555

Nice short history of the family:
https://www.npr.org/2011/05/17/13639804 ... f-boyardee

Jeno's goes back to the same era, though I can't find anything as exact:
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/1385679 ... pizza-mix/

Jeno Paulucci is a force of nature. An article in Inc. Magazine from 1986 says he's 67 (then), moved to Florida from Minnesota, and is still hard at work. He is responsible for Chun King products, which he sold to R.J. Reynolds, who killed it. He then founded Jeno's line of Italian goods, which he sold to Pillsbury, who killed it. And on and on:
https://www.inc.com/magazine/19860601/37.html

Finally, everything old is new again... and again... and again...
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12398

Swiss Steak is teed-up for tonight!

Swiss Steak is teed-up for tonight!

Is chipped beef (aka sh*t on a shingle) later in the week....?

I think that is in period too.

[Jenise]

Jeff, we loved it and have been craving it ever since. I am truly grateful to have discovered via this process that the dish I spent my life hating was an aberration and the dish it really is/can be is something I adore. I do highly recommend sirloin tips aka thick tri-tip slices over rump or any of the traditional 'tough cuts', but all the same: beef + tomato + onion with no further embellishment is a magical combination and that old joke about shoe leather applies--cooked that way, they would be good too. Next time I might throw in a few dashes of cayenne pepper, though.

I bought a very pretty top round roast, cut it into 6 slices, jabbed them a while with a serving fork and proceeded as Alton Brown suggests: dredge and brown, then long simmer with tomatoes, fennel (no onion in this household!), celery, and a handful of add'l seasoning.

I also threw in a carrot because I like carrots.

ETA: And that was really yummy! A lean, and therefore tough cut of beef, but good enough cut into steaks and simmered for 2.5 hours. Great sauce. Served with some simply sauteed vegetables and, in Barb's honor, little red potatoes pan-fried in the last of my goose fat.

Swiss Steak is teed-up for tonight!

Is chipped beef (aka sh*t on a shingle) later in the week....?

I think that is in period too.

I like SOS.

Tonight, I made cornmeal mush and scrapple to fry up tomorrow morning for breakfast (which will also have fried eggs). Luckily, it didn't take too long to find my manual meat grinder, which is a 1955 vintage Rival Kitcheneer Meat grinder/salad shredder. Still works great

[Jenise]

Hurray, two satisfied customers on Swiss Steak! Interesting prep with all the vegetables. The recipe, from an insurance pamphlet printed in 1953 I found inside Bob's mother's cookbook, only specified tomatoes and onions, though an optional carrot was mentioned. Love carrots but didn't want to turn my dish into a stew--the onions would melt and I pictured a gloriously smooth sauce because I used tomato sauce instead of whole tomatoes. And that IS what I got. Loved it.

Make that three. I had Swiss steak a couple of weeks ago, the second time this year.

[Jenise]

Last night, harkening back to an earlier post in this thread, I made Slumgullion, aka Beefaroni. The sauce was a simple quick sauce of ground beef, allowed to stay in large clumps because that makes fun bites, 1.5 onions, garlic, pureed tomatoes and fresh tomatoes seasoned with black pepper, Mexican oregano and red chile flakes. This simmered for about half an hour and then was combined with giant sized rotini (like 1" x 4", Italian import, found at Grocery Outlet, never seen anything like them before) and baked until the sauce returned to bubbling and the rather thick layer of parmesan I put on top had turned the pasta edges crusty. Wonderful!

How does this differ from American chop suey (aka Johnny Marzetti)?

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I'd say they're cousins, but mine's the city cousin (lighter, more onions, more spice) vs. Johnny's country cousin (the dish originated in Columbus, Ohio). A JM would typically be under a thick layer of cheddar cheese, just for starters. And I wouldn't even call mine a casserole so much as a pasta dish that was finished in the oven just long enough to turn the parmesan into a crust.

I was born in the first half of the 1950s, in a small Australian country town. Some of my earliest memories of food feature my mother's much-valued pressure cooker. In particular, I remember a spaghetti in cheese sauce that she used to make for lunch. (My father didn't like it so it never appeared at dinner.) I don't have a recipe but from memory it involved breaking the spaghetti down into 3 to 4 inch lengths, and putting them in the cooker with a heap of grated cheese (Kraft processed cheddar), some milk, and I think a spoonful of Coleman's mustard powder. There might have been some cornflour or butter involved too but I'm not sure. Then, the lid would be screwed on and the thing was cooked in minutes. I also remember that I liked it.

[Jenise]

Matilda, that's the first time I've ever heard of cooking pasta in a pressure cooker. What an interesting thought. What was the texture like?

Btw, on a similar note, the other day I was scrounging for something to make for lunch. In 35 years of marriage I have never once made Kraft mac n' cheese, but in the last two years I did buy two boxes as emergency rations. A chance reminder that cream of broccoli and cheddar soup is a thing, and knowing I had a bunch of broccolini in the produce drawer caused me to consider the possibility of a lunchbowl wherein Kraft M&C would be combined with chopped oven-roasted broccollini. So I made it. And we loved it.

My mother often made mac and cheese, but always from scratch, never from a Kraft box. I wasn't a big fan.

One oddball dish I was fond of in the 1960s was teriyaki burgers. Some food company whose name I can't recall sold packets of teriyaki seasoning. You mixed this, and canned bean sprouts, into your ground beef, formed them into burgers, then pan-fried them as usual. The result had that teriyaki soy/ginger taste and some crunch from the bean sprouts. Apparently the concept wasn't popular because the seasoning product was discontinued.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

My mother often made mac and cheese, but always from scratch, never from a Kraft box. I wasn't a big fan.

One oddball dish I was fond of in the 1960s was teriyaki burgers. Some food company whose name I can't recall sold packets of teriyaki seasoning. You mixed this, and canned bean sprouts, into your ground beef, formed them into burgers, then pan-fried them as usual. The result had that teriyaki soy/ginger taste and some crunch from the bean sprouts. Apparently the concept wasn't popular because the seasoning product was discontinued.

-Paul W.

Mac and cheese didn't appear at our house at all. My introduction to the Kraft stuff came at the behest of someone I babysat for before she discovered that I could cook from scratch. I made it for the kids--and liked it! Authentic scratch versions I ran into afterward were largely disappointing--overcooked pasta, grainy sauce. Me no like.

I laughed at your teriyaki burger. And I don't shop that department myself so don't know, but I'd bet that a form of powdered teriyaki still exists. Have you looked for it?

No Kraft mac & cheese in my youth, either. Not quite sure why. I doubt Mom would have had any objections to it. (We had Spaghetti-Os and Chef Boy-ar-dee and all that.)

My only guess is that it is a residual Jewish thing: unless Dad specifically declared that we were having a dairy dinner, Mom did not use milky products in the meal prep or at the table. This was not iron-clad, for example, we had butter on baked potatoes but sour cream was "for goyim". I think it was just a habit leftover from her mother, who made a half-hearted effort to keep kosher. (Grandpa Dave, however, could not have cared less so Grandma Rose was not always successful in her endeavors.)

The mac and cheese that my mother used to make was just that--macaroni and cheese and milk, baked in a casserole dish. That would have qualified as dairy kosher, wouldn't it? Curious that sour cream would be considered "for goyim".

My mother often made mac and cheese, but always from scratch, never from a Kraft box. I wasn't a big fan.

One oddball dish I was fond of in the 1960s was teriyaki burgers. Some food company whose name I can't recall sold packets of teriyaki seasoning. You mixed this, and canned bean sprouts, into your ground beef, formed them into burgers, then pan-fried them as usual. The result had that teriyaki soy/ginger taste and some crunch from the bean sprouts. Apparently the concept wasn't popular because the seasoning product was discontinued.

-Paul W.

My mother always made Mac & Cheese from scratch. Probably a result of having 8 kids and not a lot of money. Although I like it (maybe not when she put a can of tuna in it) It was mostly mac and not a lot of cheese.

One of here specialties (OK, actually two) was "pork and Noodles. Recipe is simple One bag of egg noodles, one can of peas, one can of Pork (this pork was USDA pork given to low-income families), and one can of gravy. No one ever cared for the peas and my brothers dog who got leftovers always left them in the bowl (there's your sign).

The second dish my mother did well was "Lamb Fritters". My siblings were deeply divided on this. You either loved them or hated them. I loved them and decided that fate had given me the perfect mate when Katie did also. They are basically pancakes with poached lamb.

The mac and cheese that my mother used to make was just that--macaroni and cheese and milk, baked in a casserole dish. That would have qualified as dairy kosher, wouldn't it?

Yes.

Curious that sour cream would be considered "for goyim".

And butter not! That's why I said it was "residual" - not something they actually thought much about.

Matilda, that's the first time I've ever heard of cooking pasta in a pressure cooker. What an interesting thought. What was the texture like?

I haven't eaten it in more than fifty years, so I don't think I could possibly give a truthful comment. All I remember is, I liked it and ate it happily, so I guess the texture was ok. Kids don't like things that are too tough or too sloppy.