food and childhood

Spaghettios! I loved them as a kid, especially with the hot dogs. The other day I woke up craving the O's again. But the last time I had them they were Just disgusting. Sweet tomato sauce and crunchy hot dogs. My sister who works for an organic prepared food company informed me that Annie's made a good "O". After a visit to my local Hippie grocery I picked up a can of tomato-n-cheese bunnies. It was a little harder to find a hot dog with out mechanically separated animals, and settled on Hebrew Nationals. Fine dogs, nice snap and great over the fire.

Funny how some of the breakfasts food that were the morning ritual just don't do it for me. Pancakes, are off my list. Due to the mush factor of the the larger fluffier variety. Yet corn meal mush is still a favorite. Which brings me to my almost favorite breakfast quickie food, which in my family was known as Gas house eggs and later as Toad in the hole. As shown right with a few rashers of bacon. I have no idea why my family calls them toad in the hole. The English have something called a toad in the hole which looks like this odd mix of a Dutch baby/German pancake according to wickipedia I lifted the picture from says:

"..A traditional British dish comprising sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with vegetables and gravy. The origin of the name 'Toad-in-the-Hole' is vague. Most suggestions are that the dish's resemblance to a toad sticking its little head out of a hole provide the dish with its somewhat unusual name."

It actually looks great in the picture, and I think I will try to whip up a batch. One can't Go wrong with sausage, Usually. I had bangers in England and they had the flavor of wet paper dipped in pork juice. Those freaky Limeys also cut the crust off toast. Fried tomato and thick slabs of smoked ham make up for it sometimes.

I am still left with the question of correct name for "toad in the hole" I have heard "Popeye egg" and "Eggs in a basket". Gas house eggs under a variety of names has also shown up in books and songs but in the movie "Moon Over Miami" (1941) with Bettey Grable the G.H.E. egg turns up, and with dresses by Travis Banton the film is worth the viewing.

Lunch and breakfast, what about dinner? Has any of the odd things I was fed come with me through the centuries? I never had the chance at many popular prepared foods. We had few canned foods and the barest of refined sugars. My child hood dinners were consistently the meat and potatoes of the 50's. Once in a blue moon The Mom prepared S.O.S. and there was once in a while a hamburger helper type noodle box meal. If we had a baby sitter we were allowed to chose a frozen meal for dinner. My sister would always choose the beanie weenies with the corn and the chocolate fluff pudding cake. I would always choose the turkey dinner with stuffing and cranberry apple thing. I am quite sure I would still eat them if they still tasted the same.

But those staples of my child hood don't taste like that. Skeddi-ohz are not what they were when I was 8, a tomato sugar syrup and some frankensausage in a can. the tinned beef used to make S.O.S. is not easy to find. Finding a hot dog with out sodium nitrate is near impossible (even Gartners adds nitrates!) finding the weiner with out Monosodium glutamate has gotten dramatically easier as the years go by. Things change and things stay the same. There may be nothing nothing better than a simple roast beef with potatoes and carrots.