From the Howard Courant-Citizen April 23, 1953
I would sure like to pay these prices now, but I don't want the wages that people were earning back then.
Seeing as how I wasn't around back then (Tee Hee Hee!) what exactly is a "tube" of fancy solid tomatoes???
;D ;D ;D :angel: wheeeeeew, didn't think I was gonna be able to restrain myself from feeding Joanna a line about what a "tube" of tomatoes was. Sometimes it is just so hard to be serious.
here's my serious side, and I believe I'm right, cause I was just a kid myself then. Tomatoes were sold 3 or 4, lined up, and wrapped in a tray (not styrofoam), thus the name "tube". If this in incorrect, please enlighten me also.
Well, it sounds right anyhow, but I'd have probably believed any story you cared to spin. I kept picturing a tennis ball can filled with tomatoes. Or maybe a caulk gun loaded with a tube of tomato sauce. Now, wouldn't that be handy to decorate your meatloaf with?
Note that while I was writing this, I received a warning there were two other replies addressing the same topic before I could finish mine and that I might want to review my response. I left it as is to support Flo's comment.
Speaking as a teen age after school grocer in the 1950's, a tube of tomatoes was four or five small but same-size tomatoes fitted in one row in a small elongated box made of light and thin cardboard. Although not round, grocers called it a tube.
Top of the tube was open except for about an inch around the end tomatoes giving the tube some strength. The entire tube was covered in cellophane preventing one from thoroughly examining the tomatoes but giving a view of what was inside. This was probably one of the first efforts at pre-packaging.
I left the grocery business in 1963 and now that you mention it, I don't seem to recall these tubes in the stores nowadays--but then again, the wife shops for produce while I roam the store looking for other more fattening stuff.
They come now in a styrofoam tray wrapped in clear plastic, but the best one are found on a green bush and picked after they are ripe.
And to think I was not sure if I should post this or not.
I want to know what nasty part of the steer does "boiling beef" come from and what would you do with that?
Well, you notice Boiling Beef was a lot cheaper than the rest of the meats advertised.
I think it was what some folks call soup bones.
One purchased these bones which still had bits of meat attached. Boiling these, perhaps in broth, made a meaty soup or stew to which potatoes and other vegetables were added.
As I recall, there was another use. Some people having large dogs would buy for a pet treat.
The meat manager was usually on salary plus a small percentage of the profit he generated for the store. He made money any way he could. Even so, seventeen cents a pound seems a bit stiff.
A limited quantity could probably be purchased at Batson's.
Quote from: W. Gray on June 05, 2007, 08:54:36 PM
As I recall, there was another use. Some people having large dogs would buy for a pet treat.
In England "dog bones" used to be free for the asking, I remember in the early 60's my Dad was not working for some reason and a couple of times we went to the butcher and asked for bones for the dog which my mum then turned into soup for us. :)
Today, I made a point of going to the produce section and look for tube tomatoes.
The tubes at King Soopers (Dillions to you flatlanders) were three in a clear stackable elongated plastic form fitting box, which enabled the tomatoes be viewed top, bottom, and sideways. They also had four tomatoes in square clear packs plus miniature tomatoes. Blueberries, raspberries, etc., were in the same type of clear plastic boxes.
Amazing what I missed over the years without taking a specific look.
That reminds me of how much I miss beef neckbones and ox-tails for stews and soups. I don't know where those have gone and am afraid to ask. I have also been nursing a hankering for beef heart, baked with dressing. Heart is not likely to be available ay Hy-Vee or Dillons, so I guess maybe a drive over to the meat market in Desoto is in my future.
Oxtail and soup bones are still available --- boiling beef was chunks of beef trimmed from the nicer roast - and could be roasted -boiled-ground up for beef patties or just about anything you wanted to do with beef. John West used to give you bones for your dogs -- or your soup kettle, whichever way you preferred to use them.
The prices of groceries were cheap - and the wages weren't high, Janet girl, but there was not the added taxes on everything back in those days - so your money went just about as far as it does now. I planned a buget each week and could buy all the things I needed to cook three meals a day -- I did not use any prepared items at all--- everything was from scratch... and I allowed $10 to $15 dollars a wek for groceries. We never lost a pound -- so the food was good and plentiful.
I love seeing all the prices of things "Way Back When"
I bought a lot of things from A G Food Market
Wow, Jo, maybe that's another difference between Elk and Douglas counties. I have asked about neck bones and oxtails everywhere and mostly just got blank looks. There used to be a meat market in Lecompton but it finally closed. Now I have to go over to Desoto (on the edge of the dreaded Johnson County) to Steve's Butcher Shop to get anything like that.
When I was in California, I could always get that sort of thing at the Chinese supermarkets, but never anywhere else. My daughter just looks at me funny when I say words like "oxtail." Well, to be honest, she gives me those look a lot. ;o) My wife has some very old memories of things like that. Her parents, who grew up in Germany after WWII, can hold a right proper conversation about the cheaper cuts of meat, though.
I love Baked Beef Heart w/dressing. YUM ! Also we LOVE Beef Tongue. I cook it w/bay leaves and garlic and salt -- we both love it sliced cold with horseradish for sandwiches. I buy them from Deanna Jones - Elk County Treasurer - she and her husband have Steaks and More - and their meat is by far the best that we have had. She may have beef hearts too -- you might call her and that would give you the perfect reason for coming to Howard. See------- all this chit chat can be a wealth of info. When I talk about the things that I have cooked not only do people give me funny looks - a lot of the time, I am looking at their back as they quickly walk away. lol lol lol
Jo, you are a woman after my own heart. I grew up pretty darned poor and when we had meat it wasn't KC Strips. We had heart and dressing, brains and eggs, shepherd's pie, oxtail stew, creamed chipped beef on toast, and a lot of salt pork and beans, just for a few examples. I guess whatever food you grew up with is the food you wind up with a hankering for.
Over the years, I have become a pretty good cook, including some elegant French and Italian dishes. But more and more, I find myself wanting the comfort food of my youth. I put dried beef on a grocery list just tonight so that I can have SOS some morning after everybody else is out of the house.
;D
My mother could make a pound of meat feed 12 people, she cooked lots oxtail stews, stuffed hearts, liver and onions, boiled ham, stew made from bones not stew beef but she also made us eat tongue which I never liked but there our choices were to eat it for supper of get it back for breakfast. ;D
Quote from: kdfrawg on June 18, 2007, 06:48:48 PM
hold a right proper conversation about the che
usually the only time I hear anyone say "right proper" is when I am talking to someone from England :)
I have spent enough time in Great Britain and Europe that I picked up some of the phraseology. I also tend sometimes to spell the British way, like "grey" and "thourough" which makes people look at me a little funny. Then again, I should be used to people looking at me funny by now.
;D
Well, frawg... I was born poor- raised poor and honestly didn't even know it until much later in life. Were we happy???? Oh you betcha !! My Mama could take an old hen - and when it was put on the table -- all smothered in cream - with noodles on the side and mashed potatoes, green beans and her wonderful home made bread..Then a cake or pie --- you sure didn't think poor. She was an awesome cook. But my favorite breakfasts were fried mush with apple jelly --- pancakes with home churned butter and soft fried eggs -- or thick slices of home made bread toast - browned on top of the wood burning cook stove [ there was NO electricity } and hot mild w/ lots of butter melted init. But my very very favorite was -- right after we had butchered a hog - We had fresh pork tenderloin fried and then pure seperated cream poured in the skillet with the brown fryings from the meat and Mama's home made biscuits. Ohhhhhhhh me or my !!!
Holy Buckets --- I AM SO DARN HUNGRY It is all your fault.....whine whine lol lol lol
Well.....it shows that I did not proof read my last post. lol Hot milk on the toast not Hot Mild...
Jeepers
Then oh me -- oh my ~~~~~~~oh well, the ends of my fingers don't see too well, at times
Heck, Jo, you type just fine. Anyway, by now, I read fluent Typo. I know I make enough of them myself. And I'm with you on the hungries. All this talk about good food has got me about starving. We'll have to do something about that pretty quick...
Mother used to make us something that we called "Stick to My Ribs". I think she made it from eggs and sugar. We ate it hot like cereal and usually had it on a Sunday night. You could pour milk on it and put sugar and cinnamon on it, if you wanted. I haven't had any for a long, long time. Wonder if Mother could still make it? Wonder if I would still like it?
I can still make it and if I ever get my memoirs finished you will have the recipe for it.
YEAH!!!!!!!