I remember these foods fondly, even the ones that I don't remember fondly, if that makes any sense. It was pretty basic stuff for the most part, but I grew up healthy and strong and I never had to take Flintstones Chewables or anything. I invite my sisters and parents to help me out, since I have a memory less reliable than an '85 Plymouth Omni when it comes to my childhood. Also please everyone comment with you memories of childhood foods. 

Memorable Dinner Entrées -The Good, the Bad, and the Goulash:

Creamed Chip Beef on Toast. This is the first that comes to mind. I liked this, even if I sometimes acted like I didn't. I desperately crave some this very moment.

Back in the days before recycling was a common word, we always used the Armour Sliced Dried Beef glass containers as our "everyday" glasses. I honestly didn't know that everyday-type glasses were manufactured and sold for that purpose until I started visiting friends' houses. I thought they only came from Armour or from McDonald's promotions with movie tie-ins.

Summer Chicken. My mom has a few dishes that are seasonal. Not all of them were so easily identified as seasonal in the title. This was an electric skillet meal of chicken legs and thighs browned, then finished in a sour cream sauce with fresh peas. I don't remember ever not liking this, except during the late 80s when chicken skin replaced salt as THE THING THAT's KILLING YOU. I think the sour cream gave way to some sub-standard imitation too.

But the seasonality of it added to its allure. This was also a time-consuming dish, meaning it was usually a Saturday or Sunday thing, I think.

Mom, may I have this recipe?

Kendall Central School's Sloppy Joes. This was actually a home-cooked meal. I am not sure how the story goes, maybe Mom only liked the sloppy joes at school and got the recipe from one of the kitchen ladies, she graduated from the same school we went to. Anyway, I have never had a sloppy joe as good those at school and at home until the ones that Chaley made for Kelly and me about a year ago.

Mom, this recipe too?

Pork Chops vs. Smoked Pork Chops, i.e. PURE EVIL vs. The Stuff of the Gods. I think normal pork chops were usually done a la Shake 'n Bake, which actually sounds good to me now, but I didn't care too much for it then. But smoked pork chops are one of the things that I worshiped as a child and now don't care if I ever have again. I remember gnawing the bone almost to the marrow to be sure I got all of the meat.

Pepper Steak. This dish was why I didn't try an actual steak until I was 12 or 13. When I was a kid, cooked peppers tasted like vomit to me. Come to think of it, they still do. And on top of that is the thin sliced beef that I think ends up actually getting steamed by the peppers, making it rubbery. That one was not one of my favorites. It seemed to me a great way to ruin white rice, which I loved with just butter, salt, and pepper. When forced to eat this, I would either feed it to the dog (Shane, a Great Dane/German Shepard mix, I poop you not!) under the table or toss it behind the stove, which got me in a lot of trouble one summer.

Goulash. I think my biggest problem with this dish was that its heavy-rotation period coincided with the "SALT WILL KILL YOU" craze, so it tasted to me like canned tomatoes and ground beef in oatmeal. But then again, Kelly's mom made it for us a few years ago and I still didn't like it much even though I could salt it all I wanted. I may have just been being picky because you're allowed, and even encouraged, not to like things at their house; and you don't have to eat it anyway. You can sometimes even get KFC as a reward for not liking something. 

Lunch Foods:

Grilled Peanut Butter Sandwiches. I have been delighted in finding out as I've grown up that this is not that common. It is heaven to eat. Fluffernutter sandwiches are for spoiled, sugar-crazed suburbanites who wouldn't know a good thing unless it was advertised on Saturday morning cartoons by a 12-foot walking pitcher who crashes through walls, and to this day, I have never had one. Grilled peanut butter sandwiches, conversely,  are only for the truly special, like me and my sisters.

One trick my mom has is to slather a light coat of mayonnaise onto the grilling side of bread instead of butter for grilled cheese or grilled peanut butter sandwiches. The egg and little bit of sugar in the mayo help form a crispy, thin layer that my mouth is watering thinking about right now.

Breakfast!!!! 
 
Breakfast has long been my favorite meal.

Crepes. Nothing defines my family better than Saturday Morning crepes. Dad found this blender recipe in probably 1979 and started a tradition of making dozens of crepes on a Saturday.

Everyone had their own freakish silly thing that they put into a crepe, like sour cream (blech, Dad), or peanut butter (WHAT ARE YOU THINKING, CHALEY?!?!), even pickles, Mom!. But JJ and I know that the only true crepe is enjoyed with brown sugar and melted butter. All others forms of the crepe are an abomination.

By the way, for those who don't enjoy fine French delights on Saturdays as my family, they're pronounced either "CREE-pea" or the more proper,  "hrep," with the beginning "h" sounding as would the beginning of a loogie-hock. Proper French, you know.

Scrambled Eggs Super-Dee Duper. This is what Dad and I  would make while watching Bugs Bunny cartoons on the Saturdays we couldn't do "hreps" because there weren't enough people. Crepes are a bit like playing a board game with just two people; you can do it, but it seems stupid the whole time.

Anyway, Scrambled Eggs Super-Dee Duper got their name from the Dr Seuss book Scrambled Eggs Super. As you can imagine, it was an excuse to put everything imaginable into eggs, which made it a perfect end-of-week catch all for left overs and half onions. No two Scrambled Eggs Super-Dee Duper were ever the same.  

Cereal with Sugar as the Third Ingredient or Lower on the List. The reason for this is that ingredients are listed in order of prevalence in a product, so if it's farther down on the list, the product has a lower sugar content. The people at General Mills and Kellogg's got smart, though, and started to come up with different names for sugars, so maybe it would be third, fourth, and fifth on the list, looking better, but actually having enough sugar to keep a tantrum going for weeks. I remember getting some kind of cereal that fit this description, but my Mom is really smart and caught on quick when she saw the paste-like consistency of the leftover milk. So the rule became third ingredient and the only one sugar on the list.

Raisin bran fit this description and I loved it. JJ didn't care too much for it, I think she was a Rice Krispies gal.

One day she was watching me eat it and said, "Mom, do you think it's okay that Chuck eats raisin bran? I mean look, the raisins are covered in sugar."

I'd have felt less betrayal if she had snapped my kitten's neck. We all knew that JJ was the tweaker who caused the sugar rationing in our house in the first place with her occasional saccharine-induced tantrums, Mom and Dad were just being fair and applying the sugar rules even to those of us (Chaley and me) who could hold their sugar.
 
Mom won me over forever (as if she needed to) by summarily dismissing the thought of raisin bran not being okay in our house.

Weird Snacks:

Sliced, Salted Apples. Don't knock 'till you've tried it. A light salting on apples brings more flavor to your tongue.

Graham Crackers with Butter and Sugar. This still makes me happy. It reminds me of the time between when my kindergarten bus dropped me off and when my sisters got home; the briefest hour of my life when I'd have my Mom to myself.

Over-the-Stove Popcorn with Real Butter in a 5-Gallon Container. It isn't what but where. We would take this to the drive-in movies sometimes, or out into the "back 40," which didn't yet belong to us, with the Farmall tractor and the snowmobile trailer attached, where we three kids, Mom, Dad, and Shane would lay under the stars on the flat trailer bed and look for the faint boomerang of passing satellites and the occasional shooting star. I haven't stayed still long enough to see a satellite since then.

When Mom was "Phoning it in":
 
Chef Boyardee Pizza in a box. This was what we'd do on a Saturday night, I think especially if we had a babysitter. It was the first cooking experience I ever had. It tastes like Solid Gold to me.

K&K Pizza and Wings. I remember when Buffalo Wings became a thing and spread out our way from Buffalo, NY and then across the country. The Western New York regional wings are different than the national kind, more saucy and the sauce is more buttery. K&K pizza was never great, but it was all there was without a 50 or more minute round-trip, but the wings were always good. I remember when they started to serve them with celery and carrots, then with blue cheese dressing. I like the wing-wings. Dad always liked the leg-wings. I think mom was a wing-wing person too. JJ and Chaley, I don't remember. Kelly and I are not chicken wing compatible, since we both like wing-wings.

Mother's Lib'. The ultimate, unapologetic phone-in. These evenings were when we were on our own to fend for ourselves with whatever we could find in the kitchen. Often when mom had a "Life Ladies" function at church or bell choir practice, sometimes because two of the three kids were missing. I'd usually cook an omelet or sunny-side up eggs, or dad would cook for us. As I got older it may have been Kraft Mac & Cheese or grilled cheese. One thing my mom always said about me after about age 9 was that I'll never starve. I didn't cook anything too complicated, but I could always cook myself something.


Side Dishes:

Dillie Beans. My Mom's awesome pickled green string beans. I've seen them for sale at farm markets for $9.00 per 8 oz jar. I bet they aren't nearly as good.

Overnight Salad. This was our summer dish-to-pass for several years, meaning we always had some left over in the fridge from Memorial Day through late August. It was a layered chopped lettuce and pea salad in about a 3-gallon Tupperware container with, maybe a Miracle Whip-based built-in dressing. It was supposed to mature overnight before serving, making it a great make-ahead, but it was even better after two or three days. I think it had bacon too. Sometimes I could snag some bacon while mom was making it.

Mom, recipe?

Fruit on Iceberg Lettuce Leaf. I hated this. Still do. It was either fresh apple slices or a canned pear, sometimes orange sections. I just felt like both the fruit and the lettuce were cheapened by the affair. I usually forgave and ate the fruit, but never forgave the lettuce. Still haven't.

Waldorf Salad. Hate it. Something about Miracle Whip on fruit disgusts me and makes me wonder if the inventors really came from "The Greatest Generation" after all. Same goes for Aunt Doris' pink salad with the Jello, cottage cheese, and Cool Whip.

Foods Mom Gave Us When We Were Sick:
 
Ginger Ale. We never had soda, or "pop" as we all called it back then, in the house except before or after we hosted a party. So it was a treat when you were sick to get ginger ale.

Oyster Crackers. Bland and easy on the stomach. They still make me think of being home sick from elementary school.

Siblings, help me out.