My Milk Says I'm 36

Lately I've been thinking about how the time period we grew up in affects our eating preferences.  There are things like availability of ingredients and different methods of cooking but it seems like even more important are the food trends and just random circumstances that influence our preferences years later.

It all started with a gallon of milk.  You see I do about 99% of the grocery buying in the house and even when J picks something up it's usually with a specific list from me.  But I had had to unexpectedly go out of town for a few weeks and J and the Tornado were left to fend for themselves which required food which required a trip to the grocery store and the purchase of a gallon of milk.

Now I'm not much of a milk drinker but I do have a fairly serious Frosted Mini Wheats habit and after I'd been home a few days I made myself a bowl.  As I poured the milk in I knew instantly that something was wrong.  It didn't pour right and I knew as soon as I took a bite that it had ruined my bowl of cereal.  The flavor was weird and the milk coated the inside of my mouth.  I suffered through that bowl and checked the label of the milk as soon as I finished (I'd already checked the expiration date so I knew it wasn't that) and sure enough there it was - 2%.  I was born in 1980 and somewhere in the time I was developing taste buds and milk preferences everyone became afraid of fat and by the time I was 10 all the milk that could be found in my house and my friends' houses was skim.  To me milk is supposed to be colored water that wets the cereal and basically nothing more and for it to have flavor or texture is just plain wrong.  It tastes like drinking straight up cream.

To J a child of the 70s milk is supposed to have flavor and texture - he grew up on whole and only switched to lower percentages in his late teens.  His taste buds were well developed long before everyone became afraid of fat.  That being said he has his own fear - the casserole.  You see while I grew up in the fear of fat he grew up in the dawn of the Cream of Chicken Soup can and the rise of the casserole.  To him and his older brother it was a scary time.  Everything was casseroled and there was one particularly loathed dish that they both swear was made at least once a week called Hamburger Bean Pie.  This featured ground beef, some tomato paste, canned green beans, and little biscuits baked on top.  To this day both he and his brother are deeply suspicious of ground beef if not in hamburger, meatball, or meatloaf shape.  His brother won't eat food that is mixed together and J doesn't eat anything that is called a casserole.

My dad who grew up in an earlier decade will only drink "fresh" milk.  When he was a kid the price of milk was controlled by the state dairy board that kept the prices artificially high.  My Grandmother who had 4 teenage boys would use her Army widow status to go to the commissary on a nearby Army base and stock up on food - but especially milk.  What wasn't drunk in the first few days would go in the freezer to come out at a later time.  Apparently when frozen the milk fats separate and when you pour a glass from a half thawed gallon of milk you only get the skim as the fats are still solid and then because some of the skim is gone when the milk finally does completely thaw the texture is off.

How have eating trends and other circumstances of your childhood affected the way that you eat or think of food now?

I'm linking up with Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads