• Soapbox@lemmy.zip
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    5 days ago

    Church potluck every Sunday when I was a kid. A whole buffet line of jello based not dessert dishes. Usually peas in green jello, shredded carrots in orange jello,or hotdog in jello abominations. If not jello, there were at least 10 mayonnaise based atrocities.

    I ate a lot of dinner rolls.

    • socsa@piefed.social
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      5 days ago

      I still can’t do potlucks because my parents forced me to eat all sorts of random bullshit at the church potluck, because they felt like being seen eating someone’s dish conferred some weird church status.

      “Go over and tell Miss Borley how much you liked her chicken liver and salmon casserole.”

      On the other hand, this also contributed to my powerful disdain for church, so I guess that’s something. The only way out is through… a senile lady’s disgusting casserole, or something.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 days ago

      In defense of my old church:

      Pizza biscuits.

      Get Pillsbury biscuit dough, slap down one, slap down mozzarella, marinara, pepperoni/sausage, slap down another biscuit over top, do this 12 times, cover and bake.

      Sorta like a poor man’s calzone… or, arguably, they’re just super sized pizza pockets.

      Don’t pair well with grape juice imo, but they were honestly pretty good.

      We did eventually get an Italian soda station bar type thing, no clue if we just aped that from the Mormons or came up with it independently.

    • hansolo@lemmy.today
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      5 days ago

      I’ve always thought this was some sort of mass hysteria. Who ate any of that stuff and thought “oh, hell yeah, so good”? Who would make it twice? Let alone more?

      • Soapbox@lemmy.zip
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        5 days ago

        I once read a theory that those recipes were a form of protest by women in the 1950s-60s. "I can’t get a divorce, have my own bank account, or get a credit card? Then enjoy this jello, mayonnaise hotdog salad motherfucker. "

      • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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        5 days ago

        I’ve always figured it was a remnant from the depression that overstayed it’s welcome. A lot of those horrid old recipes feel like some of the old depression recipes with too many resources, like buying up all the potions ingredients in Skyrim to make random shit. Hope you like 33 flavors of damage stamina and damage health.

        • hansolo@lemmy.today
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          4 days ago

          WWII for the canned food. That’s why them and Boomers hold onto a bunch of food items that only happened for 15-20 years.

          • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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            4 days ago

            I feel like the food rationing for some things during WWII wasnt enough of a large scale change from the depression era rationing to be notable. Regardless that’s still about 15+ years of food scarcity to have a major cultural impact especially since much like right now the buildup to the great depression fully stetting in started as early as 1925 in some areas.

    • Yosmonkol@piefed.social
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      4 days ago

      I must have lucked out, the oddest thing at my childhood churchs’ potlucks were the ambrosia/watergate salad where they used ingredients that they liked instead of what the typical recipe calls for, or waldorf salads which had just a little too much mayo and not enough whipped cream.

    • Zephorah@discuss.online
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      5 days ago

      Apparently I missed out. Post church social time was coffee and pastries. The big meals were normal (turkey with mash, green beans, and cranberry sauce, for example).

      But I’ve read the cookbooks.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Y’all’s churches were weird. Growing up catholic in a German part of America we just did fish fries with beer battering and pig roasts, both with copious beer, though the kids had to stick to a single sip of wine. My wife’s catholic upbringing was more Italian American and her church did meatballs in tomato sauce.