The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
What are you watching these days?
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on December 11, 2020, 12:52:46 pm ---The Midwest is better these days regarding seafood, but back when I was growing up, you'd be lucky to find even frozen fish, except for Gorton's fish sticks. ot pinch each other or the handlers with their claws.
--- End quote ---
How could I forget fish sticks, and fish filets! :o The Mrs. Paul's brand was big where I grew up, or maybe that's just the brand my mother bought. I didn't hear of Gorton's until I was grown up.
But fish sticks are good! I actually get hungry for them every now and then. Put catsup on them and eat them with mac and cheese. :D
An old friend once told me that was what his Catholic mother served every Friday, fish sticks and mac and cheese.
southendmd:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on December 11, 2020, 03:24:02 pm ---
An old friend once told me that was what his Catholic mother served every Friday, fish sticks and mac and cheese.
--- End quote ---
Same here! Except we had Mrs. Paul's with frozen french fries.
We alternated this with Stouffer's mac and cheese during Lent.
CellarDweller:
I can remember being served fish sticks for a little while on Fridays, and then one night mom served the fish sticks, and I bit into one, and it was green inside.
:o
Everyone freaked out and they were collected and thrown out, and that was the last time we had fish sticks. :laugh:
The only time we had fish after that was when we went out to a local Arthur Treature's Fish & Chips restaurant.
Of course, after I grew up, I went back to eating seafood, usually when I go out. I do have some frozen shrimp, sticks and scallops in my freezer as we speak.
CellarDweller:
While this may make some people shudder, I've been watching Hallmark Christmas movies since the day after Thanksgiving.
I don't get to see very many of them, and since I'm working from home, I am able to watch a lot more, and I've seen 44 so far.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on December 11, 2020, 12:52:46 pm ---The Midwest is better these days regarding seafood, but back when I was growing up, you'd be lucky to find even frozen fish, except for Gorton's fish sticks. Canned tuna was also available and that was about it. If you wanted to eat seafood, you had to go to a restaurant.
--- End quote ---
I sometimes think your experience of the Midwest was somewhat different from mine. But I bet fish sticks were the main form of seafood in them days anywhere in the country that wasn't near an ocean. Quick shipping might not have been available, and I don't think Americans in general were very sophisticated eaters in general. Thank goodness for Julia Child and Alice Waters!
Every spring my parents would get a big bag of smelt -- little fish that rushed through northern rivers in the spring, cooked breaded and fried. I never hear of them now, so maybe they were overfished. We ate fish, like walleye, caught by people who fished, like my aunt and her partner. My mom sometimes made scallops but I didn't like them (not until recently, in fact). When I was about 18, my friends and I started going to what I then regarded as fancy (chain) seafood restaurants, and those all-you-can-eat crab leg places became a trend.
But food everywhere is more sophisticated these days. The only place I've been that stands out as being much more sophisticated than other cities is New Orleans. In regard to food, that is, not necessarily anything else.
I also think Catholics may have a different experience of fish. My friend who spit out the smoked fish spread grew up Catholic and I think hated fish for that reason. My folks was atheists (or agnostics, or Unitarians or whatever), so we didn't even do Lent, let alone fish on Fridays.
Oh, I just remembered one thing, though. When I lived in Duluth, MN, in the '80s, an upscale Italian restaurant opened with interesting food like carpaccio. But they had a billboard that -- I can't remember the exact wording but it was meant to reassure potential customers that not all their food was weird and foreign. So they had a picture of a steak. But the weird and foreign Italian food was ... spaghetti and meatballs. :laugh:
Sorry, Chuck. I think even Duluth residents of the '80s were pretty familiar with spaghetti, if only thanks to Chef Boyardee! :laugh:
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