TTC

[Arete]

A deep fried Mars bar is on my bucket list. Maybe I'll hate myself the day after, but I have to try it at least once. :dance:

[lizziesmom]

A deep fried Mars bar is on my bucket list. Maybe I'll hate myself the day after, but I have to try it at least once. :dance:

We have a local hot air balloon event in our city every August. The last time I went there was a vendor selling fried Twinkies, fried Snickers, fried pickles in addition to his funnel cakes. One of my friends (ironically, a diabetic) bought a fried Snickers and insisted I have a bite. OMG -- sugar overload. I don't know how any of those choices are remotely appealing.

[Sobeknofret]

We have a local hot air balloon event in our city every August. The last time I went there was a vendor selling fried Twinkies, fried Snickers, fried pickles in addition to his funnel cakes. One of my friends (ironically, a diabetic) bought a fried Snickers and insisted I have a bite. OMG -- sugar overload. I don't know how any of those choices are remotely appealing.

Fried pickles are good... :lol:

[Flossie]

OK, haven't been able to get here a lot lately, so I had to read through the entire thread before I posted. Here goes:

The American cereals I've seen kind of horrify me. The are neon bright, and advertise things like marshmallow or candy pieces. I can't imagine giving my kids that for breakfast, and if I did they would think their real mum, with her no sugar before lunch rule, had been abducted by aliens and replaced with a suspiciously lenient substitute. Pop tarts would be the same.

Years ago I did daycare in my home, and at first I served breakfast as a sugery cereal with toast. It was what I grew up on, and the parents also seemed to accept that as a matter of course. Then one day a father asked me "What the hell are you feeding my son? I changed his diaper and his poop was blue!" Since I was feeding up to ten kids cereal each morning I'd started buying the big bags of the cheaper cereals, and the dyes were making the kids stools colored. It shook me up. I tried to serve healthier food after that and not only were the kids not thrilled, the parents weren't either. They were worried that their kids wouldn't eat enough during the day and would have huge appetites when they got home. Sometimes you just can't win.

I have a recipe for boiled dressing somewhere, courtesy of a depression era grandmother. I tried it once, I think I messed it up, because it was really bad. I wonder if you subbed cornflour for the flour it would be better? It's really just a savoury custard with vinegar and mustard, but no milk.

...People used to have to do so much with so little and I am sure a lot of modern "large family" recipes are born out of depression/wartime restrictions...

People got very creative at feeding their families during the Depression. My former FIL was lucky enough to grow up on a farm where they were able to grow a large part of their food, and keep chickens and cows. They also lived near several lakes and streams that provided fish. He said the country folk often fared better in the lean times because of the ability to grow, catch, and hunt a lot of their food. However, even then there were times when feeding the family was difficult. One time when he was a kid, his mother boiled some potatoes, mashed them, flavored them with cod liver oil and mixed an egg or two in there for a binding agent. Then she shaped that into patties and used the last few slices of bread to make dried bread crumbs. Coated the patties with the bread crumbs, fried them up and there they were. He said that it actually tasted pretty good, although it could have been that they were hungry enough to find almost anything good.

[alchemy]

Speaking of depression era ingenuity, has anyone ever heard of, or made, a Mock Apple Pie?

http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2011/11/a ... ssert.html

I just can't imagine, but it seems many people actually like the thing.

[jenny_islander]

The large poor families I know of generally took in assorted cousins, etc., who were even worse off. Or what would be several households at a better economic level have crammed themselves into one dwelling to save money. Or Grandma is the only day care around because all of the moms are working umpteen crappy jobs, and she can EITHER look after all those kids OR shop outside the food desert.

[Flossie]

As for the Jello debate, I can't think of any Jello recipe that I've ever had that had veggies in it. I guess it just isn't done in my circle.

However, I do have two jello recipies that some might be interested in.

Take one packet of unflavored gelatin and mix it with 1 cup hot apple juice and stir. When the gelatin is thoroughly incorporated with the hot apple juice, add a cup of cold apple juice. Stir and refrigerate. After about an hour, add a chopped up apple and stir, then let the jello finish setting. Not the healthiest thing, since apple juice is considered to be 'liquid candy', but at least there are no dyes and stuff.

Like maraschino cherries? Get a small box of cherry flavored jello, the kind that only uses 1 cup of hot water and 1 cup of cold water. Add the 1 cup of hot water and stir to mix. Drain a small jar of maraschino cherries, reserve the cherries, save the juice. Put the juice in a measuring cup and add enough cold water to measure 1 cup. Add this to jello/hot water mixture and stir. Put in the fridge for an hour, then add the marashino cherries that you have halved or quartered. Stir the jello mix up again and chill until set. Enjoy. Not healthy at all, but very tasty.

[August]

OK, haven't been able to get here a lot lately, so I had to read through the entire thread before I posted. Here goes:

Years ago I did daycare in my home, and at first I served breakfast as a sugery cereal with toast. It was what I grew up on, and the parents also seemed to accept that as a matter of course. Then one day a father asked me "What the hell are you feeding my son? I changed his diaper and his poop was blue!" Since I was feeding up to ten kids cereal each morning I'd started buying the big bags of the cheaper cereals, and the dyes were making the kids stools colored. It shook me up. I tried to serve healthier food after that and not only were the kids not thrilled, the parents weren't either. They were worried that their kids wouldn't eat enough during the day and would have huge appetites when they got home. Sometimes you just can't win.

People got very creative at feeding their families during the Depression. My former FIL was lucky enough to grow up on a farm where they were able to grow a large part of their food, and keep chickens and cows. They also lived near several lakes and streams that provided fish. He said the country folk often fared better in the lean times because of the ability to grow, catch, and hunt a lot of their food. However, even then there were times when feeding the family was difficult. One time when he was a kid, his mother boiled some potatoes, mashed them, flavored them with cod liver oil and mixed an egg or two in there for a binding agent. Then she shaped that into patties and used the last few slices of bread to make dried bread crumbs. Coated the patties with the bread crumbs, fried them up and there they were. He said that it actually tasted pretty good, although it could have been that they were hungry enough to find almost anything good.

That's a real thing. We eat them a lot, and they've been commercialised and are sold frozen as 'tater tots'.

Does full circle mean the thread is done?

[August]

I call bullshit on the statement that seems to imply the poor have a ton of kids here. In NJ, there was a stat that came up a few years ago that mothers on WIC in this state had a average of 1.7 kids. That isn't "a ton" by anyone's definition. If you have kids on WIC in this state you qualify for Medicaid, that qualifies you for free birth control (once again, specific policy of this particular state). Most of the women avail themselves of it. While state to state coverage may vary, I can't imagine that any state that has mothers in poverty who participate in government programs who have a ton of kids as a given.

The poor mothers with a ton of kids usually have something else going on, like fundie religious convictions or addiction issues. You need another factor to start straying into tons of kids territory.

Maybe more kids than you can afford is better phrasing? Medicaid is in no way like my rich private insurance. Provided you can find a provider getting and actually getting there are not straightforward.

[Shoes Grace]

Two words: public transportation.

In most of the USA it doesn't exist. If it does, it's limited in area or hours. Check out my state, New Hampshire. For the most part if you don't have a car you are shit out of luck.

I live in an area I suppose you could call suburban, a residential neighbourhood on the north edge of a Midwestern capitol city. While there are two gas station/convenience stores at the top of my street (a 10 minute walk), where I could buy some foods in a real emergency scenario (sudden snowstorm, zombie apocalypse), I'd pay the same price for a quart of milk as paying for a gallon anywhere else. The nearest grocery store, Aldi, is 2 and a half miles from my house, but I could shave a few minutes off if I chose to take the four lane road with no sidewalks.

The nearest bus stop is two miles from my house, but it runs a limited schedule- 5 stops during the week and none on the weekends, I can't actually determine when it goes by the posted stop nearest me. And that's a vast improvement from two years ago when the nearest bus stop was nearly three miles (located at the next nearest grocery store). It's plausible, but it's not convenient. Neither my husband nor I could use it reliably for work.

[greentree31]

Can we have a thread dedicated to fundie and fundie like recipes? We could call it Fundie Favorites. Those brave enough could try making some of the recipes and review them.

[jenny_islander]

Maybe more kids than you can afford is better phrasing? Medicaid is in no way like my rich private insurance. Provided you can find a provider getting and actually getting there are not straightforward.

And again, it isn't as simple as "don't have more kids than you can afford." We planned to have as many children as we could afford and still put something away for retirement. Then the economy got bad and it we adjusted it to, "Hopefully these kids will want to help us out in our old age." And after my husband's employer had let the freeze on raises drag on for years and my husband had been applying for every job that would actually keep us out of the hole for years, the state's WIC guidelines were revised to reflect current realities--and now we qualify. WIC saves us about $550 per year, money that we need to keep our 9-year-old car from dying on us, since we can't even dream of replacing it anymore.

So now we have more kids than we can afford. Should I send my youngest son back?

[August]

And again, it isn't as simple as "don't have more kids than you can afford." We planned to have as many children as we could afford and still put something away for retirement. Then the economy got bad and it we adjusted it to, "Hopefully these kids will want to help us out in our old age." And after my husband's employer had let the freeze on raises drag on for years and my husband had been applying for every job that would actually keep us out of the hole for years, the state's WIC guidelines were revised to reflect current realities--and now we qualify. WIC saves us about $550 per year, money that we need to keep our 9-year-old car from dying on us, since we can't even dream of replacing it anymore.

So now we have more kids than we can afford. Should I send my youngest son back?

Oh, sorry, didn't realise you were a fifteen year old high school dropout who got no sex ed beyond "sex is bad, hmmm 'kay" and could get contraception because the nearest doc taking medicaid is three hours by bus away and only has an appointment five months in advance and has to pay 80% of the money she earns from her 25 hour a week McDonalds job to an even poorer woman next door who watches seven babies under the age of two at once. Bitch.

[Arete]

Wow, August, thanks for advancing the dialogue. Now that I know that everybody offering a slightly different perspective or experience than what you think is normative is a BITCH, I'm done. :nenner:

[Arete]

Oh, sorry, didn't realise you were a fifteen year old high school dropout who got no sex ed beyond "sex is bad, hmmm 'kay" and could get contraception because the nearest doc taking medicaid is three hours by bus away and only has an appointment five months in advance and has to pay 80% of the money she earns from her 25 hour a week McDonalds job to an even poorer woman next door who watches seven babies under the age of two at once. Bitch.

Just copying in case you're in the time window to edit. :disgust:

Edit to fix possesive

[ladyamylynn]

Who knew a tater tot thread would get so heated?

[church_of_dog]

Who knew a tater tot thread would get so heated?

Dunno, just about anything's better than cold tater tots :lol:

[ladyamylynn]

Dunno, just about anything's better than cold tater tots :lol:

http://instantrimshot.com/

[church_of_dog]

:clap:

http://instantrimshot.com/

:clap:

oh man, can't we have that as a smilie? a sound-effect smilie? i love it!

ETA: you know we want this one: http://instantrimshot.com/index.php?sound=crickets

[jenny_islander]

ISTM that the bootstraps crowd and the ultra-patriarchs often work from the same rulebook.

*It's possible to predict the job market accurately one/two/four/10/20 years from now;

*There is no such thing as a setback that makes it difficult for people to care for the dependents they already have;

*Everybody can be an entrepreneur;

*If you can't pay cash on the barrelhead for a house/an education/[insert expensive good here], you shouldn't have one;

*Only bad, unworthy people experience catastrophic illness or injury;

*If you're rich, you must be good;

*People are assigned their lot in life at birth and trying to change that is a slap at the rightful order of things;

*If somebody victimizes you, you must have set them off somehow;

*Logic and reason are traps, only listen to people who try to whip up your emotions;

*Shibboleths are the only thing that matters--real expertise is worthless without the right pass phrases;

*Women who have sex are scum;

*Only the good, righteous, comfortable people should be able to sit down and rest and have a little something nice sometimes.

[nelliebelle1197]

Wow, August, thanks for advancing the dialogue. Now that I know that everybody offering a slightly different perspective or experience than what you think is normative is a BITCH, I'm done. :nenner:

I am totally confused how this fun thread dissolved into this garbage of name calling. That really sucks, especially since it seems to be one person's temper tantrum.

[Blahblah]

Well I just made an orange and apple tea cake from scratch involving butter, eggs, flour, sugar, grated apple and orange juice, and now I'm eating it hot straight from the oven with a lovely cup of tea.

And because it's Friday we shall have takeaway for dinner and appease the offspring with something-and-chips.

[Rachel333]

Oh, sorry, didn't realise you were a fifteen year old high school dropout who got no sex ed beyond "sex is bad, hmmm 'kay" and could get contraception because the nearest doc taking medicaid is three hours by bus away and only has an appointment five months in advance and has to pay 80% of the money she earns from her 25 hour a week McDonalds job to an even poorer woman next door who watches seven babies under the age of two at once. Bitch.

[jenny_islander]

Well I just made an orange and apple tea cake from scratch involving butter, eggs, flour, sugar, grated apple and orange juice, and now I'm eating it hot straight from the oven with a lovely cup of tea.

And because it's Friday we shall have takeaway for dinner and appease the offspring with something-and-chips.

If you like corn bread, try making the Northern-style recipe (that's what I learned to call it--the recipe that uses some wheat flour with eggs and milk) in a muffin or gem pan, with sour cream or plain yogurt replacing some or all of the milk. The muffins or gems will be moist and tender, with a texture somewhat like pound cake, and they will stay fresh for days. This is a good way to use up the last odd bit of sour cream or yogurt--just spoon it into a measuring cup and fill up the cup with milk.

I made this recipe for tonight's farewell party at church. The sucky part about living here is that so many nice folks are only here for a few years--Coast Guard, Navy, federal contractors. We lost a young couple and their adorable happy little baby.

[August]

Because you can never ever say anything at all on the internet without some moron jumping in and saying "oh, so how about this case then, hmm?" God forbid she'd just say "yeah, it is harder to wait for a bus with your groceries and more children than hands". No, she goes into some sob story about how a discussion of the difficulties of kids and public transit means we think her children should be euthanised, somehow.