The other day I was in the grocery store, probably the largest one in town, and it’s a nice grocery store. Vince wasn’t with me, which is unusual . . he seems to always be with me in the grocery store and I’m trying to race through and talk him out of putting a dozen of each item in our cart so being alone in the grocery store was kinda fun.
I don’t know why the thought entered my mind, but as I was walking through the big, newer grocery store, I remembered going to Piggly Wiggly in Many, Louisiana with my grandma . . when I was a little girl. I thought about how many of the things in today’s grocery store weren’t in the Piggly Wiggly in Many 55 years ago.
Back then, there were hardly any ‘heat and eat’ type items in the store, where it seems now there’s so much of that! The cereal aisle was way smaller than it is now. Does anyone have bacon and eggs and grits and biscuits for breakfast any more?
Seems like all the candy and junk food was right by the checkout where now it’s all over the store it seems. I looked at the pickle/olive section. 50 years ago, who would have thought there would be so many varieties of pickles, olives, BBQ sauce, etc.?
I wanted some frozen vegetables. There are rows of frozen foods but very little plain veggies. Most are the heat and eat kind of things . . vegetables in sauce, vegetables with rice, any kind and shape of chicken you can imagine, desserts . . does anyone make dessert from scratch any more?
Do you ever think of things like that when shopping? Do you wonder what grocery stores will look like 20 or 30 years from now?
None of this really matters and I’m not complaining but it just struck me as odd . . in an interesting way.
Pat Peele says
Food was FOOD then and good for us.
DonnainKS says
We have those foods for breakfast, but not all on the same day! Dessert when we have it, is from scratch. We just (together) made a Lemon Supreme Pie and invited company to help eat it. Now we are “hungry for” my Chocolate Eclair dessert! Deciding on several people to share that with. Just wish I didn’t have to dust to allow ourselves dessert! lol
Linda in NE says
People would be healthier without all the heat ‘n eat convenience food. The High Fructose Corn Syrup in almost all processed foods is scary enough without all the added fake flavors and unpronounceable chemical additives. I still like real ingredients to make my own most times. When I was grocery shopping in bigger store in another town on Tues. I actually found some BBQ sauce that doesn’t have any HFCS in it…made my day! I’m still looking for a recipe for a good homemade one.
Torina says
I remember having a milkman deliver milk from the local dairy and going to the farm to get more when we ran out. Grocery stores were smaller decades ago because there wasn’t as much ready made stuff. I miss the smallness.
TerriS says
LOL, Bacon, eggs, grits and biscuits were only for Sunday breakfasts when I was growing up and after I had a home of my own. The grits weren’t added until I was 17 and we moved from Michigan to South Carolina and my dad took a liking to them. They’re not on the menu at my house anymore, as my husband is from New Jersey and won’t eat them. The rest of the time it was oatmeal, cream of wheat, corn flakes. Cheerios or Chex. We love bacon, but we only eat it once every couple of months or so. When my kids were little people would laugh at us in the grocery store because the kids would walk down the cereal aisle picking up different cereals and asking “Mom, does THIS one have too much sugar?” We do use some convenience foods, but mostly it’s fresh from scratch for us. It’s less expensive and better for us, and we both like to cook so we share the work. Grocery shopping sure has changed though. Seems like Oreos were the same old Oreos for 50 years and then all of a sudden there’s 37 flavors!!
patti says
piggly wiggly! while my mom put groceries on the counter, i would squirm around the floor looking for loose yellow stamps that had fallen so we could add them to our stamp books! ahhhh, good memories.
Sharon says
Yes indeed people do still eat real breakfast here in the South. I cook cheese grits, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, tomatoes, biscuits, or pancakes almost every day of the week. Mostly though I just eat cereal (sugar must be the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd listed ingredient for me to choose it). I know you are probably thinking we must be the poster children for heart disease and obesity in Alabama but strangely enough we are not. I don’t think real food in reasonable quantities is as bad for you as some might have you believe.
Anita says
Some years ago we became enlightened as to how bad msg, aspartame, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, and hfcs was for us. I started reading the Nourishing Traditions book. I could only read a few pages a day because I felt so overwhelmed about how poorly I was feeding my family. The author wrote, “If it is extruded, don’t eat it.” So that was the end of boxed cereals and other things. Our nutritional life opened up to a world of new learning and better health for us and a bit more work for me — loaves and loaves of homemade bread – always trying new recipes; and have you ever had homemade soda crackers??? Oh my!!!Fresh homemade english muffins?? Oh my my!!! now we are learning about the benefits of fermented vegetables. I have been making sauerkraut for awhile now but my husband recently made a batch of fermented vegetables which is interesting and will take some taste acquiring but knowing the benefits outweighs the taste. And homemade apple cider vinegar is so flavorful and mild. So yes Judy, there are still those of us who cook from scratch. We may have gotten of the path but found our way back!
Anita
Kathleen says
I remember Piggly Wiggly! We also had a bakery, butcher, 5 and dime, drug store (with soda fountain for a time) just 4 blocks from the house I grew up in. The area looks so different now.
Laura says
Hubby and I both cook/bake from scratch (most of the time). Dad, who is in his mid-eighties and definitely remembers real food, used to eat an entire chicken by himself (obviously, in his younger days). He doesn’t really like chicken anymore…says it doesn’t taste like it used to. He is right. It doesn’t.