I was raised on T.V. dinners because in those days, they were considered a well-balanced meal. And when I was sick, my mother fed me beef-barley soup and peanut butter sandwiches. That's about it for childhood food memories.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I was growing up, I was eating fast food every day. I'd drink soda non-stop, candy, just everything. It was horrible. My go-to was McDonald's, for sure.
Food as a hobby used to be an elite pastime, and it has become something that is totally ordinary for people of every background. In that way, we see the growing up of the American food scene: that it's okay to be a regular person and be really into food.
Food was always important in my family, but I didn't think of it as a vocation until a later point in life.
I had a great childhood, a very close-knit family. We were all overweight, and we had good times eating together, I imagine.
It was a real hand-to-mouth existence in those early days - I'd have whatever dry cereal there was in the house for breakfast, 30 cents to spend on lunch and a hot dog for dinner. I did that for years. So there was definitely a hunger in me, of various kinds, to succeed.
As I was growing up, all meals, including breakfast, were family occasions, and you all sat down to eat together - and you had to finish everything as well.
My mother always cooked, every day, proper food. We didn't have fast food. It was probably pretty much meat and two veg, but as time went on and new things came into the culture, she embraced all of that. I grew up with mealtimes and sitting around the table with proper cooking and eating.
I've always been a foodie. My grandmother got me hooked on cooking.
The first meal was an object lesson of much variety. My father produced several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking, from little tin cans that had printing all over them.
Growing up, dinner was when we would sit down, the whole family, and we would talk about our days and just create memories with one another. Now some of my favorite memories are eating and making food with my son.