Dying Baby Boomer food

......

Watergate salad

Well, meatloaf may die, but meatballs are forever.

OP they won't be missed. I haven't eaten meatloaf in a number of years, and it was turkey meatloaf. Never had the other 2.

Beef stroganoff

Fondue (Beef, Cheese, whatever . . .)

Buttery pensions

I never had a chiffon cake, fluffy or not.

Good riddance to the list so far.

None of these dishes are baby boomer food. They were around long before them. They will never die and if economic conditions get worse they will make a big comeback.

Shit on a shingle?

Stuffed Peppers made with Minute Rice and Ground Beef. My mom made this twice a week. All those simple carbs and saturated fat! It's a miracle I've made to 65 without a Coronary bypass or Type 2 Diabetes. I would feed it to our dog and she would get explosive gas later that night usually.

R10, remember, the stupid simply label anything older than them as “boomer” even if it is from the 1960s or the 1660s

R13 it doesn't help when the Boomers try to take credit for everything, including all of the gains and riches which were accomplished before their time.

What gains and riches?

My Lai Lasagna

Kent State Corpse on a Stick

Beef-a-Roni, Rice-a-Roni, Hamburger Helper.

Agree that none of these foods are Boomer foods and most of the dishes mentioned hail back to the 20s and 30s.

Boomer foods'n'stuff:

Jiffy Pop Space Food Sticks Tang Sun-dried tomatoes Pesto Jello 1-2-3 Alfalfa Sprouts (for a short time) Tofu (ditto) Woodfired pizza Salads featuring arugula Biscotti Cheesecake A resurgence of fancy steakhouses Dove Bars Häagen-Dazs Frozen Yogurt Hummus

Mea Culpa - forgot formatting. ^

Jiffy Pop

Space Food Sticks

Tang

Sun-dried tomatoes

Pesto

Jello 1-2-3

Alfalfa Sprouts (for a short time)

Tofu (ditto)

Woodfired pizza

Salads featuring arugula

Biscotti

Cheesecake

A resurgence of fancy steakhouses

Dove Bars

Häagen-Dazs

Frozen Yogurt

Hummus

Minted Carrots

[quote]Tuna Noodle Casserole

I.e. tuna casserole.

I love sun-dried tomatoes.

You have an ancient soul, R24.

I’m only now noticing I haven’t been served these dishes in a long time.

I love meatloaf .

I'm a boomer and I'm off beef, pork, fast foods, BBQ, charred foods, empty carbs and highly processed foods for my health,

This boomer likes roast chicken, sweet potatoes, berries, acorn squash soup, roast salmon, ricotta, yogurt, hummus, oatmeal, leafy greens, carrot-ginger soup, turkey meatloaf.

The foods described upthread were from my parents' generation.

Tuna Noodle casserole is an easy staple meal for busy families. Also very cheap to make. Not going anywhere.

I'm not a boomer, but there is nothing better than a meatloaf, mashed potatoes and peas dinner every now and again.

Dying Baby Boomers are probably on an intravenous drip.

CRats

Waldorf Salad.

Bananas Foster.

I’ve been on a kick of cut-up hot dogs in a pot of baked beans dipped in Gulden’s mustard .Gulden's is hotter than…ah, ah, ah!

Waldorf Salad is from the 19th Century

Bananas Foster 1951

I associate Boomer food with the entire pre-made frozen food section of the grocery store. All of those frozen diet meals and Stoffers style stuff is iconic Boomer food.

It’s the Bananas Foster OCD troll.

[italic] What thread can I post today where I get to mention Bananas Foster? [/italic]

“What Happened to Desserts of the Past?”

“Does Anyone Remember Jello Salads?”

“What Did Your Parents Make For Dessert At Their Dinner Parties?”

“Name A Dessert You Dont See Anymore.”

“Let’s Be a 1960s Woman’s Magazine Dessert Recipe!”

“What’s Your Favorite Dessert that Contain Bananas?”

“What’s Your Favorite Dessert Named After Someone Named Foster?”

“What’s Your Favorite Food Named Barbara?”

“Which Dessert With a Barbara-ic Colonial History is Your Favorite?”

An actual retirement.

I love getting a fresh perspective on new things. If someone younger makes a suggestion or offers a new way to do something, I listen and incorporate it - if it will work and give them proper credit. If it doesn't work, then I explain to them why it won't work in this particular situation/company and they appreciate the feedback and opportunity to learn and contribute. The worst thing you can tell someone is that we do it this way because it's always been done this way.

That’s right R40. I’ve varied my Bananas Foster recipe over the years thanks to suggestions by young people.

Mmmmm...bananas...

Whole Foods hot food bar has meatloaf.

I always take the younger guy’s perspective into account during Dad/son roleplay.

It’s a win win!! 🥵

🤣 I posted that in the wrong thread at R40 🤣

Someone is very bored on a Sunday.

[Quote] [R13] it doesn't help when the Boomers try to take credit for everything, including all of the gains and riches which were accomplished before their time.

Chicken Marbella and Pasta Primavera

[quote]it doesn't help when the Boomers try to take credit for everything, including all of the gains and riches which were accomplished before their time

They don't. You are a troll pulling shit out of your ass.

I never had any of these. My parents were immigrants and these are such white American dishes. I want to try meatloaf one of these days, but I've never got around to it. The other two sound gross.

Cole slaw and its squeaky, horrible texture. It’s disgusting boomer food that I hope goes the way of the dodo 🦤. Just make a good salad instead!

I’m in my 20s, and I love a good meatloaf. Not sure if I’d make it for myself but my mother (late boomer) makes a good one—my grandmother’s recipe.

[quote]All of those frozen diet meals and Stoffers style stuff is iconic Boomer food.

My landlord is 84 (Greatest Generation, not Boomer) and lives on these. I asked why he would ever want a frozen tuna casserole and he replied these are the foods he grew up with.

I occasionally make meatloaf. The leftover slices make for great sandwiches.

I normally eat very healthy, but it’s fine to make comfort food. Watch Ratatouille, you’ll understand.

Anything in sensible portions.

Crockpot chicken and dumplings.

crockpot

Cole slaw has been around forever and has cousins in Latin American cuisines.

Spring Field Greens

Mesclun Salad

Baby Spinach

Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing

Quiche was huge in the 80s with all the Boomer yuppies. Don't hear much about it now.

[quote]Cole slaw has been around forever

Yep, when the Dutch settled new Amsterdam they brought cabbages with them because they survived to ship journey well and would provide sustenance until the colony could be self-sufficient. They made salad out of it, koolsla, “cabbage salad.”

Many of the people who came to the colonies or later the USA passed through New Amsterdam/New York and picked up this simple meal for the same reason — cabbages travel well. For instance, the Finns who blazed so many trails across America took koolsla with them. (That’s why the log cabin became quintessentially frontier-American — it was Finnish.)

Now, in food courts around the world, there are American food outlets that serve Cole slaw and it’s gone global.

(And so Cole slaw is definitely not boomer food, and definitely not on its way out.)

Steak Ums and Pop Tarts

Speaking as a real boomer, we did too much pasta.

If somebody opened a restaurant specializing in these items, I’d eat there every day. The could call it “Boomers.”

And I suddenly have an urge for tuna noodle casserole.

[quote] Quiche was huge in the 80s with all the Boomer yuppies. Don't hear much about it now.

I miss quiche. What's not to like about it. A pastry crust. Scrambled eggs (protein), and cheese.

Trader Joe’s quiches are terrible.

I don't know when it was developed, but pesto was huge in the '80s among boomers. Too perfumey intense so I kind of hated it. Now you can scarcely find it on any restaurant menus.

Meatloaf will never go away, just as meatballs and hamburgers never will. It's apex comfort food. Our local coop has at its hot food bar. The thing that has changed is that people are now adding sautéed vegetables and spicier versions of the tomato sauce/ketchup. The meatloaf I remember from my 70s childhood was a pretty tasteless slab of meat no matter where I ate it.

Whatever op eats

Hummus is not Boomer food. Neither is biscotti. (Both are classics, actually.) However, hummus came to popularity during the Millennial age, I'd say. Biscotti came to popularity maybe during Gen X.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Swedish Meatballs

Mud Pie/ Dirt Cake

Sloppy Joes

Chicken Kiev

Spinach Dip in a bread bowl

The McRib

Hot Buttered Cheerios

Bisquick Cheeseburger pie

Orangina

Sex on the Beach

Tiramisu

Seven Layer Dip and Taco Salads

Blackened Cajun…everything

Pesto…everything

I've literally gone to a party recently and seen at least five of those items.

Do you have a lot of Boomer friends and/or live in the Midwest, R70?

Nouvelle Cuisine technically predates boomers a bit but it flowered internationally in the 80s. It's still in European lux restaurants under new trendy names.

For some people, hummus is home cooking and not tied to a particular generation. Ditto for biscotti. Same is true if you grew up in a diverse urban area.

The quintessential boomer sandwich of the 70s was sprouted whole wheat bread with sunflower seeds, dijon or horseradish mustard, red onion, sharp white cheddar or Monterey Jack, alfalfa sprouts, some non-crappy lettuce.

Fish Sticks

Believe it or not Target used to have a great quiche.

Tiramisu is still on the menu in restaurants.

Shake 'N Bake Chicken/ Pork Chops

Pot Roast

Rice Pilaf

Does the OP mean "Food Fed To Baby Boomers By Their 'Greatest Generation' Parents, ca. 1947---1967"; or "Foods Originated BY Baby Boomers Once They Turned 21"?

Because there is a major difference in agency, OP. Mostly we Boomers ate what we were given, including in school cafeterias.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but there are a lot of dishes pictured on the Internet attributed to us that we never even heard of, never mind consumed. [See: Aspics, Revolting]

R76 That's true, but it was EVERYWHERE in the 80's.

Does pot roast ever go out? It's on most home menus.

R73, You're nuts. Try Summer Bologna, Toasted Cheese, Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, BLT, Fried Egg, Tuna Salad.

We don’t have “toasted cheese.”

We have grilled cheese sandwiches. I hate them. My millenial son loves them and makes them all the time.

Tiramisu was to the 80's what Mochi ice cream was to the 90s

Keep dreaming, r31. I'm 1949, age 74. My mother lived to 91.

But you keep eating your processed canned sodium!

[quote] We don’t have “toasted cheese.”

My mother always called them this and I hated it. Sounds so fucking low rent.

R82, Tomato, tomahto. Paragraph 3:

r71, some but not exclusively at all, and this was indeed in pittsburgh (don't call them midwestern though)

Hot buttered Cheerios???????

What the fuck???

Indeed, R88. It was actually pretty tasty. Makes a good movie snack, like popcorn.

Jello concoctions with savory ingredients. Think lime jello mold with tuna salad in the middle. Yuck!

That's the parents of boomers r90.

When I was a kid, my favorite treat was a chocolate soda. Back then (1960s), most drug stores featured soda fountains. That's where you went for ice cream sodas, which were heavenly. Today, pharmacy fountains have vanished, of course, along with my beloved chocolate sodas. There was one ice cream shop in our town that still made them for old-timers like me but the old-timer who made them died last year and the youngsters can't get them right and don't really understand what they are . Actually, it is rather sad to be old and to have the things and foods that comfort you become extinct.

R81, Fried bologna? Seriously. It's always a mistake to assume life outside your little lily pad is the same everywhere.

Many more articles about this online.

Profiteroles

I’d say in the future we’ll see meals that are more single dish, or finger foods like appetizers. At least in my life experience, I find I don’t eat entree and 2 side type meals unless it’s a special occasion.

Baked potato skins loaded with cheese and bacon were the rage appetizer at parties. California pizza. Tex-Mex. White chocolate and raspberry coulis. Pasta Primavera. Frozen yogurt. Chicken Marbella

I used to love fried bologna sandwiches with French's Mustard on white bread, but as an adult when I think about what bologna is I can't eat it. I'll go long stretches without eating hot dogs for the same reason, but for some reason I can eat an all beef hot dog on occasion.

R68 How old are you? I lived through the 80s in NY and both Hummos and Biscotti were well available and trendy. Even when I went to visit my parents in DC my mom would buy Biscotti to have on hand.

Yes, they have been around forever but so are many of the foods people are mentioning on this thread. I believe the jist is "what foods were trendy during this era?" Vodka was big in the 90s and very early aughts. It was also popular in the 50s and early 60s, and yet it's been around for years. Bourbon was huge in the 70s and the 40s and now it's popular again. Many of these things are cyclical. Various Pestos have been around for hundreds of years but the pine-nut/basil/parmesan Pesto was trendy in the 80s and early 90s.

The Silver Palate Cookbook and the Moosewood Cookbook were staples in the early Boomer homes I babysat in during the 80s.

Vegetarian Epicure, too.

Pre-internet, the regional differences in food--particularly urban vs. rural/small town areas--were much more pronounced. Some folks replying here are boomers; some had boomer parents, which accounts for some of the differences. I had Tom Colicchio's charred ahi tuna with a rare pink center at the Quilted Giraffe in 1980 and the K-Paul blackened redfish around the same time. Both were delicious but are not as popular as they once were.

[quote] We don’t have “toasted cheese.” We have grilled cheese sandwiches. I hate them. My millenial son loves them and makes them all the time.

"Grilled cheese" doesn't even make sense. A grill implies grates. These sandwiches are best described at griddled.

Also, what's to hate about grilled / griddled cheese? It's just bread, cheese, and butter.

Hot bacon dressing

[quote]Quiche was huge in the 80s with all the Boomer yuppies. Don't hear much about it now.

Food that defined a childhood

Fuck Gen-Z. These are good.

Ah, The Quilted Giraffe. Indochine. Montrachet. Aquavit.

I can’t imagine meatloaf disappearing. It’s like potato salad. I make it differently every time but it’s always good.

makes me want to try them again

You’ll take my stroganoff out of my cold, dead fingers.

Don't, r109. I did so you don't have to. They're about 40-50% fat. And very hard to get off the paper dividers. The "steak" will break into a gazillion pieces no matter how frozen or defrosted it is.

Thanks R111 I won't. Maybe I'll just go to White Castle for a couple of sliders.

A lot of these lists of classic Baby Boomer meals presume you grew up in a non-ethnic home. My acquaintance with some of these foods is only via Stouffers frozen foods. My mother would nevr make anything like that.

R93, I didn't say "Fried Bologna." I said "Summer Bologna," aka "Lebanon Bologna."

R93, I didn't say "Fried Bologna." I said "Summer Bologna," aka "Lebanon Bologna."

I have no idea what that is and neither I nor my family would go near that shit. California avocadi and cheese sandwiches, you bet.

MARY.

R93, "Associated with" is not synonymous with "originated during."

R93, "Associated with" is not synonymous with "originated during."

Deli meats.

R93 et al., I APOLOGIZE! I was trying to DELETE the web link, but it posted TWICE no less before I could finish deleting!

Trying again. Operative words = "late-century favorite":

Double poster, you're a genius. A generation feasted on Lebanon bologna sandwiches and not alfalfa sprouts and crunchy granola. Right you are. Good night all.

Here. "Improved California Veggie Sandwich Like many 70s and 80s kids, I grew up on a lot of hippie food. We ate lots of lentils, endless pots of bland brown rice, some oddly rubbery pan-fried tofu with soy sauce. To be fair, my mom is actually a spectacular cook; there was just something about the “health food” of that era that invited blandness.

One of the staples of this type of eating, in CA at least, was the veggie sandwich—or what I used to call the “sprout sandwich.” This combination of avocado, cheese, vegetables, and endless amounts of sprouts, served (always) on rough whole wheat bread, was so common here that when the rest of the country started making it, people called it a California Vegetable Sandwich."

The NYT calls it the rainbow sandwich.

R120, a good cold cut sandwich never goes out of style.

Random notes:

Tuna noodle casserole? You may as well arrange a nice garnish for a plate of dog sick.

Quiche is fantastic. Yes it came upon Americans like a sneak attack and was suddenly everywhere. For years. But it's former ubiquity doesn't refute that it's an easy and delicious food item to throw together or to have on hand.

I'll also defend alfalfa sprouts as an excellent green ingredient and interesting crunchy texture in sandwiches. The very much diminished popularity wasn't helped by all the bacterial scares and recalls. It's not something I would order in a restaurant that I didn't know to be truly scrupulous about freshness and sanitation -- if you could find it on a menu.

Pomegranate arils may be out of time range, having become faddish when this generation were solidly in adulthood. They area delicious, though, and also subject to sitting on supermarket shelves too long. Much better to take your own from the fruit rather than a plastic cup.

I don't dislike a good meatloaf, but haven't thought to eat it in this century. It's something I want to make myself or from a trusted restaurant or friend, not the Good Housekeeping/Betty Crocker sorts of down-market recipes with their suggestions for filler ingredients.

I still make meatloaf a few times a year, served with mashed potatoes and a side salad or green veggies. This is a good basic recipe that you can customize using ground turkey and/or whatever chopped vegetables you have on hand. Someone upthread mentioned the Silver Palate Cookbooks. Their Market Street Meatloaf is the best, but it is a bit time consuming.

I think the trick with some of these foods is preparation. In this day and age, it’s about simple and fresh ingredients. We don’t want to eat canned veggies cooked to oblivion, weird gravy or jello that has chicken salad in it.

And neither did Boomers post childhood.

Salisbury Steak

Chicken Pot Pie

Chicken Fried Steak

Chicken fried steak is regional food, not generational.

[quote] Grilled cheese" doesn't even make sense. A grill implies grates

Grilled cheese was routinely cooked on grates in luncheonettes and coffee shops (pre Starbucks) where it was a staple food along with hamburgers and hot dogs, which were also grilled on grates.

Those savory jello salads were the forte of baby boomers parents.

Food companies made horrendous recipes which they stuck on the back of packaging….which were then picked up in cookbooks and women’s magazines to fill space.

Kraft used to sponsor some tv shows like Suspense Theater and they would have commercials showing ridiculous concoctions with cheese, pasta and marshmallows. The6 were selling their products in these recipes.

Libby’s used to make recipes with their canned fruit in just about everything.

Thought.

Hot dogs and beans.

Speaking of Kraft Suspense Theater, the opening credit sequence was very scary to a small child. The dark figures, the Psycho-like music….

Hungarian goulash

Strange recipes with canned fruit? Do tell.

Looks disgusting 🤮

Chicken fried steak is regional, although i's basically a hick version of weinerschnitzel.

Here’s s Del Monte canned fruited ham

Has anyone mentioned Shepherd's Pie? I still make it in cold weather. I've even substituted meat with lentils and beans. Good hearty winter food.

Can't imagine Sheperd's Pie being a dying boomer food. There are winter meals and summer meals. Shepherd's Pie is a good, hearty, winter food, along with beef stew, chicken soup, etc.

Hairy assholes

Yes r143. Any kind of stew is good in winter.

But every once in a while I do it without meat.

Absolutely, r145. Lentil stew/soup; xxbean soup; kale/white bean soup; lemongrass, etc.

It doesn't need to be meat-based for me. I tend to only eat meat twice a week at this point anyways.

[quote] A lot of these lists of classic Baby Boomer meals presume you grew up in a non-ethnic home

Everyone has an ethnicity. You mean people who were raised by parents that have no ties to or knowledge of their ancestry.

Yeah, I especially love the white beans.

I grew up in a suburb outside of Boston, and Bailey's ice cream parlors were in Boston, Cambridge and in the suburbs. Bailey's was famous for their ice cream sundaes, but when I was in my twenties I ate at their Harvard Square location daily because my office was nearby. In addition to a standard order like a tuna sandwich, you could get a cream cheese sandwich on date nut bread, which I still think about. There were so many other great breakfast/lunch places in Harvard Square at the time, like The Tasty, and the roast beef place whose name I forget.

Pork chops and apple sauce.

Apple sauce

This is a fun thread.

Please DO NOT think that potato skins with bacon, cheddar and sour cream are dying. Heaven!

I love meatloaf and I love stuffed peppers, but my stuffed peppers are made with ground beef, and lentils and brown rice, among other things. Very spicy too. I love them.

Stuffed cabbage is dead. and good riddance.

The store bought graham cracker crust pie shells that Mom filled with vanilla instant pudding and canned cherry pie filling and then a glop of Cool Whip. Ugh. As a kid I loved it.

Other than those various Jello abominations, I don't think most of this stuff dying at all, you just don't hear about it as much.

[quote]Stuffed cabbage is dead. and good riddance.

Around here there are a number of restaurants that have stuffed cabbage on their menu, including a diner (available as Polish stuffed cabbage) and a couple of Turkish restaurants (available as etli lahana sarma).

Some of the other things mentioned in this thread are head scratchers to me.

Humus will always be on the menu of any Greek/Middle Eastern restaurant, just as I can get chicken pot pie or shepherd's pie at any pub/restaurant.

Literally every diner has meatloaf and some have stroganoff (although not on their regular menus but occasionally as a special).

Strangely, I've seen beef or chicken stroganoff at Brazilian buffets. For some reason, it's a thing there.

Now what I think of as dying foods are the aforementioned jello concoctions.

Or hot dogs & beans - especially baked beans with bacon on top.

Or Beef-a-Roni, Rice-a-Roni and Hamburger (or Tuna) Helper.

Sakad bars were a boomer thing and they're pretty much dead.

Boomer food is not 50s food although some boomers had it as kids. They might have even made things like Salisbury steak if that was a family favorite. Neither I nor my parents would have gone near that stuff, which they viewed as WASP cafeteria food.

The boomers had a comfort food revival in the 80s, which was essentially 50s classics revisited, so that may be where the confusion lies. It marked the comeback of retro diners and places like Johnny Rockets and the demise of things like carob and sprouts..

[quote]Strangely, I've seen beef or chicken stroganoff at Brazilian buffets. For some reason, it's a thing there.

Brazilian citizen here. We love stroganoff. It is served with rice and available at practically all pay-by-the-kilo lunch/dinner buffets (which are also extremely popular) throughout the country.

^ and it's great with French fries.

[quote] Has anyone mentioned Shepherd's Pie?

Why would we? Shepherd’s Pie has absolutely nothing to do with baby boomers. Its popularity is centuries old.

These threads are just ageism in disguise.

Fun fact: Boomers know how to cook; Gen Z's don't, without the help of TikTok and good luck, there.

Zucchini Bread

As long as there are people growing zucchini, there WILL be Zucchini Bread, no matter the age of the gardener.

Plus Zucchini Bread is fucking delicious.

That's like saying Banana Bread is dying. Silly. Next you'll say Strawberries and Angel Food (or Pound) Cake.

OP, this is World War 1 & 2 food, not Baby Boomer food.

Actually Angel Food cake is dead to me. I never liked it and my mean vicious, mentally ill aunt who though she was Martha Stewart served it all the time as if it was some fantastic thing! And she used a fucking box cake ...unless she picked up one at the fucking super markert. Fine. Angel food cake is triggering for me.

I've been living on Gerber Baby Foods of the 1960s for 30 years. I'm petrified that they're going to discontinue the liver, carrot, mashed peas and chocolate custard labels. Me make boom boom and it just wouldn't be the same with Heinz.

Chicken pot pies and TV dinners were popular among boomers in their youth.

r166 I used to eat the Gerber strained plums as an adult.

Then you know.

And so did everyone else who saw you from behind!

R166, R168, have you ever tried their Blueberry Buckle?

R167 their parents fed them that crap.

You can "a la king" all kinds of leftovers. Usually turkey and a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom.

Boomers didn't create this. We were subjected to it.

My mom used to make “chop suey” with the last of the thanksgiving turkey.

It went like this - leftover turkey, mashed potatoes, turnip and stuffing.

Turkey sandwiches

Turkey vegetable soup

Turkey chop suey

It was basically turkey shards, celery and gravy master over Minute Rice.

Sounds familiar r173.

But I still love Turkey soup.

I still make banana bread. I put chocolate chips in it, like a true fat whore.

[quote]Stuffed cabbage is dead. and good riddance.

Cabbage rolls? They’re good if you know how to season your food properly

[quote]As long as there are people growing zucchini, there WILL be Zucchini Bread, no matter the age of the gardener.

Zucchini has its roots in Mesoamérica of 7000 years ago, but the zucchini wr know was developed in Milan in the late 19thC and was reintroduced to the Americas via Italian immigrants from the 1920s. Zucchini be ame popular in WWII Victory Gardens in the U.S. but hippie recipes and then healh-conscious recipes of the 1970s made it very popular. I don't think it's anywhere near it's popularity of the 1970s. (Banana breads and carrot cakes have a similar modern history with variations on the chronology.)

I recall zucchini bread was fucking everywhere in the 1970s -- and that the recipes typically involvef 1.5 cups or more of vegetable oil, a huge amount. And this for a bread/cake touted as healthy.

But the fact that something tastes good doesn't mean its popularity lasts forever. Look at pineapple upside-down cake:

All things are new again.

We enjoy the kitsch, the ease and the comfort with a lot of early and mid 20th century recipes. My partner thinks casseroles are both hilarious and worth working with. Sometimes we'll do the recipes as given, and other times we'll replace the canned and processed ingredients with something fresher. If I notice that my hair is taking a Mamie look, I'll switch to other cuisines.

A lot of the food referred to as baby boomer fare is a carryover from their parents' or grandparents' generations.

On the more serious side, snorting at James Beard, Joyce Chen, Leah Chase, and the contributions of Betty Crocker and Good Housekeeping to the development of basic culinary skills in American homes is mere arrogant pretension. Alice Waters cultivated baby boomers' attitudes about food more than the jokey a la King concoctions invoked for ageist ridicule.

Thousands of clueless "cooking hacks," childish "discoveries" and faux techniques made for clicks are less grounded in actual cookery than in ignorant rejectionism. Fine. As everyone's mothers in every generation has said to their teenagers balking at what has been plated, "Grow up."

[quote]Chicken pot pies and TV dinners were popular among boomers in their youth.

That's because Mommy, born in 1925, fed them it.

I stopped eating beef years ago; I miss meatloaf.

There are so many ideas in R177.

Whether they bear any relation one to another, I have no clue.

I made a tuna noodle casserole about a month ago and it was delicious. Two cans of albacore canned tuna, drained, cooked egg noodles drained, chopped onion, steamed broccoli florets, (optional) and about a cup or less of shredded cheddar cheese.I shred my own cheese, never buy pre shredded. Add a can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, add milk to thin it out to desired consistency. I mix all this together in a mixing bowl, then put it in my casserole dish which has been coated with butter. I add a few more chunks of butter strategically placed in t he casserole, and top it with more shredded cheese, and crumbled club crackers. Put it on the oven for about 35 minutes at 350 covered with tin foil. OMG it was so good. Don't forget the salt and pepper.

Chicken a la Queen

r176 - if you have people around you who grow zucchini, you're going to have zucchini bread. And maybe the recipe you're familiar with had 1 1/2 cups oil (which seems unlikely that ANY cake/bread would have that much oil in it, it would be soup), but the recipe I use (and my friends) does NOT have 1.5 cups of oil LOL. Nor does Banana Bread.

[quote]Stuffed cabbage is dead. and good riddance.

Not for Jews. It's one of my specialties and it's definitely a labor of love (a minimum 4-hour commitment) but always worth it. I add Moroccan spices and raisins to the meat and use a spicy/sweet marinara type sauce with currants instead of the traditional tomato juice. I usually serve it with apple and carrot tzimmes.

Do people still eat pancakes?

UK here.

Black Forest Gateau was extremely popular when I was a kid. It went out of fashion very rapidly.. Made from scratch at home it is still something I enjoy.

Hint: If you want to know what "1950s" foods Boomers grew up on, loved, and still hanker for, just take a gander at the Stouffers section in the frozen foods!

Meatloaf, Tuna Casserole, Stuffed Peppers, Mac and Cheese, Salisbury Steak, etc.!

I think that while people today claim they "love to cook" t hey often think cooking means doing something elaborate and fancy. What was interesting about the foods of the boomers in the 50's and 60's is that it was the mundane, every day cooking that working families survived on. Casseroles, meat loaf, etc. Todays working families rely more on prepared foods which were just beginning to find a place in every day eating habits back then.

When I saw the title of this thread I thought it was about some special food given to dying Baby Boomers.

r189 Hence R31

I haven’t seen tuna casserole, stuffed peppers or Salisbury steak in Stouffer frozen food section for 25 years. Their Lean Cuisines are concentrating on “bowls” now with faux Thai and faux Korean food. Maybe Lean Cuisines are big with Asians?

I miss one Stouffers Lean Cuisine - southwestern style chicken panini. Just the right size for a quick lunch. It was probably a lot more calories than they admitted because it was damn good.

I know Smart Ones makes tuna casserole.

r189 And, as for me, I thought the thread would be about consuming dying Baby Boomers as food.

I was hoping for a lively discussion of appropriate sauces, and perhaps some well-considered pointers from DL's experienced oenophiles.

I found all three by Stouffer on Instacart, which provides groceries from multiple chains.

I get their stuffed peppers maybe once a year. Costco makes their own stuffed peppers, which are supposed to be good. I find my mother's tuna moodle casserole hard to duplicate without using canned soup, which I refuse to do. I do a tuna pasta salad instead.

How's Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, nowadays? The same as the '70s?

The only thing that makes the cream of mushroom soup tolerable IMO when I make the tuna casserole I add a bit of milk, some strong cheddar cheese, broccoli or green peas (frozen green peas) and chopped onion. I also use butter to coat the pan and put little chunks throughout the casserole.

R196, you could just make a white sauce (whole milk, flour, butter).

If you want to make old-school recipes without the canned creamed soup, just google white sauce aka bechamel sauce, and you'll get the same effect. Although I'm a (young) boomer, I never had stuffed peppers until I came across a recipe in NYT Cooking recently. They were good, and they freeze well. I do have fond memories of Salisbury steak. Not just from the TV dinner version, but from going to steak houses with my parents as a kid. If they didn't have Salisbury steak they'd have something called Hamburger steak, which was high-quality ground beef that was flame grilled or something. Anyway, it was ridiculously delicious. NYT Cooking also had a Salisbury steak recipe in the last year or two, and I made it and it was very tasty and a huge hit with my husband. But it was so labor intensive that I'm never making it again.

Here's a recipe for a chicken and rice casserole I fondly remember from childhood, that does not use cream of whatever canned soup.

Look, Stuffed Peppers are delicious, when done well. So is properly prepared Tuna Casserole.

Also, they are cheaply bought ingredients for very flavorful food for a main dish. Get fancy all you want, but these things are stick-to-your-ribs food.

Well, r191, maybe you don't shop where I do. In my section of eastern PA, those exact Stouffers frozen meals I mentioned are in abundance in Giant Food stores.

And right now in Wegmans, ready to order:

I'd like to try Costco's stuffed peppers because I heard they're good, but with the two of us there are too many. So can you freeze them? Has anyone tried freezing them?

Long Island iced tea

I always look at Costco food and wonder, “Can I freeze this? It’s too much food.” Then I don’t buy it.

[quote] Well, [R191], maybe you don't shop where I do.

No, I don’t.

I’m not in Pennsylvania and we don’t have Giant Food or Wegman’s.

[quote]So can you freeze them? Has anyone tried freezing them?

I make my own gemista and freeze them all the time.

R202 here. As I think about it, I'm thinking that maybe the best way to do this is to cook the Costco stuffed peppers first, then freeze them. I won't keep them longer than 2 months in the freezer, but that means we'll eat two immediately, then freeze the other four for twov more meals.

R194 You don’t have to get Campbells. Amy’s and Pacific Foods made slightly better for you mushroom soup.

At this point, the title of this thread asks me what I would feed a dying baby boomer food.

Budget Gourmet Swedish Meatballs, a pasta salad, and a bottle of Lancers wine.

R209. My mother thought Lancers wine was so posh! LOL! She kept telling us "it comes from Portugal!" like that was impressive. I loved that crazy lady SO MUCH! RIP, Mama.

R205, I took issue with both your tone and your implication that Stouffer's no longer sold those foods. J/S.

In talking about the California avocado cheese sprouts sandwich, I am referring to what adult Boomers ate in the 70s not the shit that their lazy mothers palmed off on them as a brown bag lunch when they were kids. Mine, however, would have died before buying Lebanon bologna.

So many variables in this thread--age, geographic location, ethnicity, economics.

Coq au vin made with an old rooster.

[quote] intook issue with both your tone and your implication that Stouffer's no longer sold those foods. J/S.

Stouffer no longer sells these foods in my area. That’s a fact. I have looked for them. They’re not here. They haven’t been here for years.

There are also far fewer weight watchers frozen dinner foods sold here than there used to be.

a lot of the foods mentioned are silent generation or WW2 generation. Boomers made things like quiche. Shit on a shingle was invented I believe in WW2. My dad remembers having it a lot during the war.