Breakfast classics from your childhood

[Dolomite_supafly]

If there was one staple I almost always had for breakfast was something my mother called milk toast. And the ingredients as you might guess was milk (real milk) and toast along with some butter (real butter) and pepper. The milk was heated in a pan as the toast was being made. And then the heated milk was poured over the toast. Most times I got 2 pieces but sometimes I would get 3 or even 4 but most times just 2. It was what I ate almost every day of the week for breakfast.

What I always remembered most about this was the film that seemed to develop on the milk as well as the edges of the toast that were black from being burned. It seemed like the best part of the whole thing was the burnt edges that had been saturated with milk. I like those burnt edges so much I saved them for the last bites.

And when my father felt like having the same thing I got a real treat because he would add a can of salmon to the milk as it heated up. It seemed like the best thing in the world at the time. I was always glad to get this because it was obviously something special because only my father got his milk toast done this way.

I would always wake up at 5:30 so I could watch the stooges. They were on a 4th channel that only came in during the hours of darkness for some reason. My morning ritual was get up and get dressed while watching the Stooges. My mother would make milk toast and I would eat it while I watched the last half of the show before going to the bus stop.

I have been telling my wife I was going to make some because it has been a long time since I had any milk toast. Well I made some this morning. I made it just like my mother would have made it for me as a child. The milk was out of date and the bread was already begining to stale. I poured the milk in a pan then added my butter and pepper. Slowly heated it while the toast was being made. I guess the new toaster we have is better than the one back then because I couldn't seem to burn the edges like my mother did 30+ years ago. And although I didn't have any salmon to add or burnt edges, it did bring back memories of my childhood.

And as I sat here eating milk toast at 5:30 for the first time in a very, very long time I can't seem to find the Stooges much less that 4th channel.

So what are some of the things you remember about breakfast as a child?

Dolomite

[Timestepper]

Mom worked days and Dad worked nights, so he'd be getting home about the time Mom was getting ready for work. Mom would leave for work and Dad would be stuck with the job of getting his sons (five of us) up and ready for school. Dad was great at making breakfast as long as you wanted fried eggs, hash browns and redeye gravy - he'd tell us that we could have our eggs any way we wanted them as long as that was the way he making them that morning. I think he made the best hash browns I've ever eaten although back then we didn't call them hash browns.

Maybe the best part of the morning routine was when Dad, who'd been up since the previous afternoon, would start hollering at us to get ready for school and things would come out kinda' tired and funny, like - "The bus'll be here in 10 minutes, so get in there and brush your hair and comb your teeth!" or "Dammit, put the books down, grab your cat and get your butt to the bus!" One morning he was especially tired and we'd been especially rowdy and he finally looked at my oldest brother and said, "Tell the bus driver that I'll give him ten bucks if he doesn't bring you guys home tonight!"

...TS...

[peejman]

When I was a kid, breakfast through the week was most always cold cereal of some sort. On particularly cold winter mornings, mom would fix oatmeal. On the weekends she'd fix a big breakfast... pancakes, waffles, or biscuits, eggs, bacon... I do the same thing for my boys now.

A couple favorite memories... a fried egg on toast. Quick, simple, yummy. Mom's home-made blueberry sauce. We had several blueberry bushes and every now and then she'd put blueberries in the pancake/waffle batter and then pour some blueberry sauce over them. mmmmmm...

[BrasilNuts]

99% of the time it was cold cereal.

Sometimes we would be out of cereal so my mom would make cinnamon toast, bread with a small square of butter in each corner and one in the middle with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on then baked in the oven for about 4 minutes.

Like Dolomite, most times I got 2, but some glorious days I would get 3 or 4.

I still make them for my son.

[daddyo]

My mom was Suzy Homemaker, so we always had a good breakfast before going to school. Many times it was scrambled eggs and sausage or bacon and toast. Fresh, hand-picked tomatoes from the garden.

That was also back when Coble Dairy would deliver milk to your door, and that's what we had to drink. None of this low fat or 2% stuff - we had real, whole milk in our glass or on our cereal. Sometimes it would be oatmeal with fresh fruit and cream to pour on it. Sometimes pancakes with maple syrup and Tennessee Pride sausage, or, if we had been to see the grandparents recently, it would be spicy homemade pork sausage from Papaw's farm.

On Saturdays it would always be a full breakfast and then my brother and I would watch Roy Rogers and Gene Autry on TV.

It's clogging my arteries just thinking about it, but, man, it sure was good stuff.

[Oh Shoot]

I didn't know scrambled eggs were actually yellow and not gray till I was about 9, 'cause they always put pig brains in em.

- OS

[Guest President Fernatt]

My favorite was always breakfast rice. It is soooo good! Basically a soup-type consistency, white in color. I think my mom soaked the white rice in milk and cream overnight then in the morning add more milk and cream, butter and sugar, then put it on the stove top til it was warm. Sounds kinda odd but I'm telling you it is what oatmeal and grits SHOULD taste like! The more sugar the better!

[Guest NYCrulesU]

GI Joe, Mr. T and Cap n Crunch cereal...and they all tasted exactly alike....but try telling that to an 8 yr old.

[Guest bkelm18]

A cut up banana in a bowl of milk with lots of sugar.

[Guest President Fernatt]

I didn't know scrambled eggs were actually yellow and not gray till I was about 9, 'cause they always put pig brains in em.

- OS

While I'm sure that was incredibly good for you...it's still sick! Definitely a generational gap right there

[Caster]

I can remember how I hated spending the night at my grandmother's house. I was MADE to eat this the next morning. This sucks!

[Dolomite_supafly]

While I'm sure that was incredibly good for you...it's still sick! Definitely a generational gap right there

No it isn't. A tablesppon of brains has about 2,000% of your daily cholesteral requirements.

Junch » Weird Food » Pork Brains in Milk Gravy

Brains were also a staple of mine during the fall when we helped kill hogs. I can remember it being cold out so we would stand in the the guts to warm our feet.

Another staple I forgot about was rice, milk and cinnamon. Because rice took so long to cook it was rarely fresh. Most times it was leftover from the night before. It was dried out a bit and crunchy but still good. And it had cold milk over it.

Dolomite

[Dolomite`s Breezy]

We usually had toast and an egg or milk rice.. also grits... but German grits are way different than the American version.. its a lot sweeter..

Not so different than American Breakfast after all..

But pig brains? I would not even feed that crapp to my dogs..

[Guest db99wj]

Cold cereal. Fruit Loops, lucky charms (would attempt to eat all the crunch pieces and leave all the marshmallows until the end), Frosted Flakes, Apple Jacks. Eggo Waffels with Mrs. Butterworths and real butter (my dad ate these for years at lunch and will kill us if we had eaten the last one!). At my grandparents, eggs, bacon etc, but what I remember most was two things. Saltine crackers, peanut butter with a large marshmallow on top, toasted in the toaster oven. Man they were good, my mom will make them for me and my kids ever so often, I've made them on occasion. The other breakfast at my grandparents was rabbit. We would go there for the weekend, play with these floppy ear bunny rabbits, there would be 10 or 12, all night until time for bed. Then wake up in the morning to the smell of something wonderful. Homemade biscuits, milk gravy and fried rabbit. Talk about heaven on earth for breakfast! And we had a few less rabbits to play with that day!LOL!

[Oh Shoot]

...But pig brains? I would not even feed that crapp to my dogs..

Do you eat bologna, spam, vienna sausage, deviled ham?

Hey, I eat pork roast, so if I'm gonna eat a pig's ass I'll eat his brains too!

- OS

[BigPoppa]

I didn't know scrambled eggs were actually yellow and not gray till I was about 9, 'cause they always put pig brains in em.

- OS

My maternal grandmother regularly served me scrambled eggs and pork brains on my visits there. Not until years later did it strike me how disgusting that was.

[Oh Shoot]

My maternal grandmother regularly served me scrambled eggs and pork brains on my visits there. Not until years later did it strike me how disgusting that was.

Also grew up eating souse meat, my granddaddy's fav.

No real difference tween that and boloney, spam, etc, 'cept you get to see the various pieces, nicely held together with the jellied fat, which is probably brains too, as it's also called head cheese:

- OS

[Guest President Fernatt]

No it isn't. A tablesppon of brains has about 2,000% of your daily cholesteral requirements.

Junch » Weird Food » Pork Brains in Milk Gravy

Brains were also a staple of mine during the fall when we helped kill hogs. I can remember it being cold out so we would stand in the the guts to warm our feet.

Another staple I forgot about was rice, milk and cinnamon. Because rice took so long to cook it was rarely fresh. Most times it was leftover from the night before. It was dried out a bit and crunchy but still good. And it had cold milk over it.

Dolomite

I assumed pig brains would be full of good fats and proteins but apparently they aren't as healthy as I imagined

[jcj]

No it isn't. A tablesppon of brains has about 2,000% of your daily cholesteral requirements.

Junch » Weird Food » Pork Brains in Milk Gravy

Brains were also a staple of mine during the fall when we helped kill hogs. I can remember it being cold out so we would stand in the the guts to warm our feet.

Another staple I forgot about was rice, milk and cinnamon. Because rice took so long to cook it was rarely fresh. Most times it was leftover from the night before. It was dried out a bit and crunchy but still good. And it had cold milk over it.

Dolomite

Dietary cholesterol isnt as evil as its made out to be. I'd eat em, just without the gravy.

[Guest Old goat]

we were poor, had dried peas for breakfast, glass of water for dinner(lunch) and let them swell up for supper.

Brains and eegs, yum, buck was for special mornings. usual eggs from the hen house, fried "streak of lean" biscuits. sometimes a little sugar on the plate, pour hot, strong coffee over it and "sop" with biscuits

Edited February 3, 2012 by Old goat

[gunrunner32]

I don't remember what day to day breakfasts were for my sister and I growing up, I would assume cereal or oatmeal since it was quick and easy. Mom was only 22 by the time my sister came round and I was 5 then, so she looked for simple things. Now she's a chef and works as a flavor scientist in Cincinnati. on weekend when dad wasn't working he would make, my favorite still, biscuits and gravy. Homemade gravy and the cheap pilsberry blue can biscuits. Some days he would take the same biscuits and use a syrup lid to punch out the centers and fry them in a pan of oil, throw them in a brown paper bag filled with sugar or powdered sugar and we would have doughnuts.

If I was at my grandparents house I would usually be out garage saleing with grandma so we would hit up a mcdonalds or something, if I went to work that weekend with my grandpa I would get something at wherever he was getting coffee that morning. If I was there and we stayed at the house grandma would make eggs and bacon or grandpa would make saltine crackers and milk.

Now for my daughter I make scrambled eggs, some bacon, put that on a begal with cheese, throw it in the George Forman and have some breakfast sandwiches. My wife likes them a lot too, mainly because she doesn't have to cook or do dishes that morning.

[ls3_kid]

Country Ham, Biscuits n' Gravy, Eggs, Bacon, and my personal favorite Red Eye Gravy with biscuits.

[enfield]

Who remembers fried mush, scrapple and salt fish (yes, fried, salted cod fillets) for breakfast?

Or was that just a West Virginia po' folk thing?

Oh, that reminds me of a delicacy I learned to love in Michigan - kippers.

Kippers are smoked herring. Fry one in an iron skillet with a little lemon juice and onion slices and you had one of the best accompaniments to a cold 6 pack imaginable.

I haven't seen a kipper in a store (Michigan or anywhere) in many years.

Edited February 3, 2012 by enfield

[china coaster]

Our farm was a dairy farm when I was a kid. We'd come in from the barn and have some type of pork with eggs, biscuts and gravy. We kids drank milk strait from the barn that had part of the cream spooned off after sitting over night. Brains and eggs were only eaten at hog killing time when fresh. A favorite Sunday breakfast in the summer was fried chicken,fried corn,sliced tomatoes,biscuts and gravy.

[laktrash]

I grew up on a small farm so we had all the regular stuff fresh milk,eggs,pork and gravy, etc. no pig brains. Funny I remember the real treat was french toast. I guess I didn't realize what was really good at the time. Do remember picking out crappy cereal to get the best toy and you had to eat it like it or not.