Years ago, while attending graduate school in Springfield, (the future) Mrs. HM worked in an insurance salvage store part-time. It bought railroad cars full of stuff that businesses had declared a loss. We had everything from boots to lumber to bedspreads to toys to furniture. One big deal was the Winter in July sale, where we had winter coats out on the parking lot, hung up in semi trucks, for the shoppers to peruse. To steal a line from a country song, it was hot enough to make the devil sigh, working to hang coats in that heat.
Anyhoo... my boss, the owner, was a big bald man. He kind of looked like Mr. Clean, but without the pirate-y earring. He wasn't around all the time, but when he popped in, he would tell us stories about when he was a kid.
Owner grew up on a big farm, with a big family. They had to work all the time, raising cows and pigs and chickens and crops. His mom "didn't work," what with being so busy cooking all the time to feed that hungry family. Owner said they butchered their own livestock, and his mom was a good cook. But the very best meal, that he didn't get often, was SPAM!
You know, SPAM, the canned meat that is popular in Hawaii, that was mainly used for U.S. military rations in WWII. Owner said he LOVED IT! That it was so different from the wholesome home-grown foods that he was used to. It was a real treat when his father brought home a couple of cans of SPAM.
Heh, heh. I found this entertaining, because the off-brand of SPAM, like Hydrox Cookies are to Oreos, was a canned meat product called TREET.
2 comments:
I can understand that. When I was a kid, my dad would purchase a half of a cow. Well, actually he purchased a whole cow, with half expense paid by a friend, who housed said cow on his property and dad paid for half the feed etc. After butchering, we had half put in our freezer. There wasn't a lot of hamburger but there was a lot of roasts and steaks. I actually got sick of steak and roast that I begged for tuna fish sandwiches or just peanut butter sandwiches. I feel differently about it today, with the price of beef, but it was quite monotonous. Not to say my mom wasn't a good cook. She was very good, but we rarely had chicken or pork, although I do remember them getting a quarter of a pig one time, just don't really remember eating much other than pork chops a few times, maybe. I'm sure it had to do with what they could afford and buying and butchering was a lot cheaper than store bought. I probably would have rather had Spam too; except we never had it when i was a kid. Now we do have it occasionally. I like it sliced very thin and fried a bit to give it a bit of crispiness. Ha. Ranee
Rae,
We had a variety of meats. My grandma and grandpa had a pig farm, and butchered their own out in the front yard! Imagine coming face to face with a hog's head sitting on the wall of the carport! We also chipped in with the family to have a steer butchered, so many white packets of meat in the freezer.
My dad hunted quail and squirrels and rabbits. They DO taste like chicken, heh, heh! He ate SPAM every now and then. Farmer H likes his SPAM fried, with mustard and onions on a sandwich.
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