Moms today are exhorted to play classical music for their newborns and limit “screen time” to an hour a day, but Moms in the ’70s must all have had the same play book, er, cookbook.
Better Homes & Gardens back in the ’70s must have suggested that choosy moms serve liver and onions once a week or risk causing their children to be anemic. Over a dinner tonight of goulash (a heritage recipe if there ever was one — macaroni, hamburger and tomato sauce — specifically chosen by my step-daughter as her birthday meal), my Beloved and I reminisced about loved and hated meals from our childhood. We discovered our mothers — living two states away from each other — both found it necessary to serve liver and onions regularly.
Oh, that was a sad night each week or two to gather around the table. The liver had an awful texture and the flavor was repulsive. Yuck.
I’d be shocked to hear of any mother today who made liver for the family table in the last week. I know I’ve never prepared it or ordered it in my adult life.
I remember another Better Homes type of recipe my mother might have served as a side dish — canned peaches and cottage cheese (infinitely better than liver!).
Who imposed this standard on Moms in the ’70s?
eW.. my stomach turns just thinking about it.
I have the same memory…ugh! It must have been something about the 70s. I’d never even contemplate serving that to my family!
Oh, yes, I do indeed recall choking down the weekly dose of liver!
My mom, bless her heart, was a wonderful mom, but not much of a cook. My dad grew an extensive vegetable garden every summer, but mom reduced them to well-boiled vegetable pulp (steamed veggies were decades in my future at that point). My sister and I used to eat the large leaves of fresh lettuce … with white sugar poured over them. Not the best training in eating right and, sadly, not a skill I ever managed to acquire.
Oh, YES! Sugar on lettuce — even as a child, I knew better, but ate it anyway!
Ah, we weren’t alone, then!
The amount of sugar we used to put in iced tea was even more indecent. Usually so much it wouldn’t all be dissolved, and there was a sugar layer at the bottom. These days, I don’t even like lemon in my tea: give it to me straight!
How did WE, of all generations, grow up skinny? Although I know it is even more prevalent to drink sugar, these days, really, instead of pop, we had Kool-Ade, right? A cup of sugar in a half-gallon, as recommended, equals 2 tablespoons per 8 oz. serving. IS THAT RIGHT? I CANNOT BELIEVE THE MATH! Having that twice daily was, um, amazing? Or something!
Sadly, in my case, I didn’t (grow up skinny). A life-long battle, the success of which seems to depend on having either a workout partner or a dog to walk. Currently without both, so the battle isn’t going well.
Atkins works for me . . . Ar-r-r-rgh!
I think I was born a bit late to be subjected to weekly liver, but I don’t think one should knock liver and onions entirely. With a little effort this flavor combo can be incredible. I like to use chicken liver and stuff it in ravioli.
Mmm, pasta makes everything better. I think you may have a point about the chicken liver though — distinctly different from beef liver, to my palate.
Ah but I loved liver and onions although we added bacon to the mix with gravy and potatoes!! Yummmm still love it today although my children aren’t as keen.
One of my other not so favorite recipes from the 70′s that was served several times despite the wailing from my brother and I was a creative dish with canned salmon shaped into conical towers and a white gravy poured over it and then garnished with peas. The issue for me was that the canned salmon, when chewed had these crunchy items. I now know that it was vertebrate of the fish. YUCK! My little miniature schnauzer seemed to enjoy both the over cooked liver laced with onion and bacon as I slipped off the plate while Mom wasn’t looking! TOUCHE, Ma!
Liver and onions and – I’m not lying – creamed peas! Although we didn’t have it often, my parents loved this meal and we learned to tolerate it. Better than the SPAM we had once a week. Now that is one food item that should be illegal!
Don’t hate on the SPAM.
A couple of the comments here reminded me of the other end of the liver spectrum: pâté and leverworst! Or what I usually just refer to as ambrosia!
70s? That sounds right out of the fifties. Maybe they got the idea from chooser moms of the 50s. Yuck to liver. I also hated, still do, canned fruit cocktail. Little mushy cut up fruit in sugar water.
So Moms in the ’70s were serving stuff THEIR moms served them, but Moms today aren’t? Maybe the demise of liver and onions in the current age has contributed to the obesity epidemic. Maybe?
Well, I loved liver, but my mom was a good cook. The onions and the liver were julienned (sp?) and quick fried, and yes, Wyrd Smythe, in bacon grease. And the gravy — ah! — Any occasion for mashed potatoes, for us, was a celebration.
And we loved creamed peas. Mmm.
Actually, liver is still the drug of choice for curing anemia, but it is definitely a sign of the times that liver is out of fashion: as a filtering organ, it is considered by many to be unsafe to eat, nowadays, due to toxins in the feed for the animal.
Organically raised beef liver, however, is still very much IN. A friend of mine who suffers drastically from anemia eats it weekly, as in the good old days, to keep up her health.
And it works far better than iron pills.
Since I lived back then seem to remember the doctors would recommend it for iron.. Thank God my mother hated it with a passion so I was never made to eat it but what were served is way different from today. I remember getting bowls of stewed tomatoes (canned), cream corn was a biggie usually scrotched so I have never touched it since moving out and most if not all vegetables were the canned kind. Sliced bread, veggie, meat and potatoes and fast food was a rare event – water or milk to drink nothing else.
Oh my goodness. Yes, liver was served weekly, almost, in our home in the 50-60′s. I am so thankful it was discovered to be a culprit of inducing high cholestrol. Even though your uncle claims to love it, I have a great excuse not to prepare it. And, honestly, what cook wants to even think of preparing it!
Beef liver is lower in choleserol than eggs, slightly higher than butter. Hmm. Let’s see — liver sliced very thin, dipped in egg and breaded, then sauted in butter, anyone?