Growing up in the late 40's and early 50's life was pretty basic and simple. I was born at the end of WWII and my parents survived The Great Depression. We didn't have a lot but we lived a great life. My parents bought a tiny little house in the "country". The part of Queens that we moved to was on the very edge of the "city line". Two blocks away was the end of New York City and the beginning of Nassau County. (Nassau County was beyond the country, it was practically the wilderness.I think there may even have been sightings of Big Foot in Nassau County back in the 50's.) My dad owned a car and we even owned a TV set. We were living like kings !
But food was a different story. Because we had my 2 grandfathers living with us my mom had to stretch her food budget to accommodate four adults and one child. She was a master at creating wonderful meals from practically nothing. Back in those days she would buy chicken wings, ox tails and tongue because they were all cheap cuts of meat that no one else wanted. (Remember that the next time you are paying a $1.25 for one chicken wing.). She made the best ox tail stew that I absolutely loved. (I wish I had her recipe although I doubt I could afford to buy ox tails these days. ). My dad would go fishing in the summer so we always had fresh fish to supplement what my mom could buy at the store.
Every Sunday we would have a "fancy" dinner with some sort of roast or "good" meat and potatoes and vegetables that we had grown in our tiny garden during the summer. Because meat was so expensive we often had stews, soups and the most horrid meal of all . . . HASH !!!
I HATE HASH !!!! Say the word "hash" and I break out into a cold sweat and run to my room screaming, "I'm NOT hungry!!!!!"
Hash was one of those things that I could count on my mother making at least once every two weeks. I would see her take out the old meat grinder that clamped on the edge of the kitchen table and I knew what was coming. All of the left overs from the previous week would get mashed into the meat grinder and get ground up into a most disgusting mess that my mom would then fry up with some potatoes and present it to us for dinner. My dad and grand fathers LOVED hash. I would gag and slide under the table with hopes of escape before I was forced to put any of that nasty mess into my mouth. To me hash smells and looks like dog food. You can put gobs of catchup on it, mix it up with eggs and serve it on a silver platter but I still will NOT eat it.
Enter into my adult life these two men . . . Husband and The Man. Guess what their favorite food is ??? YUP! Both these guys love hash. (Gag me with a spoon!). Husband would always get hash and eggs when ever we went out for breakfast. The Man does the exact same thing.
When hash is served in a restaurant it ALMOST smells and looks like something eatable but when I buy a can of it for The Man . . . THAT is a whole other ball game. Being the good person that I am I DO purchase small cans of the nasty stuff as a special treat for the poor guy but as soon as I open that can and I get a look at the clotted mess of stuff in the can and smell that God awful smell all I can think of is, "DOG FOOD". (Along that same line I will not eat "chunk light tuna" because THAT looks and smells like cat food. My BFF Jeanne will back me up on that one. It's solid white Albacore tuna or nothing for us!)
Call me a snob or what ever but I stand firm on these two food items. I will eat just about anything including octopus, squid, moose and venison but if you hack up any one of those things and grind it up with what ever else goes into the making of hash I will not go anywhere near it.
The strange thing is I LOVE corned beef, which most canned hash is made from. The Man HATES corned beef but loves hash. Go figure !
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