Family Eating Versus Dominant Corporate Eating Versus My Eating

I grew up in a white upper-middle class family in a town in SW Florida. Upper class in the sense of having more income than 90% of Americans and 98% of the world, but middle class class since my father still had to work, we were regularly made fearful of bankruptcy, and we were "normal" Americans - played baseball and watched TV rather than polo and vacations to Zurich.

Our family's foodways seem typical of dominant corporate white food culture. We ate a lot of fast food from McDonalds and Wendy's and Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. For a while my grandparents even tried to supplement their retirement as owners of a Burger Queen franchise. Since you don't see those around anymore you can guess how that turned out for them. When we ate at home it tended to be fast too. I must have eaten several thousand sandwiches of sliced ham or roast beef from the supermarket, some mayonaisse, and a little salt, or maybe an egg salad sandwich - same ingredients but boiled egg instead of meat. I remember feeling like people who made bologna sandwiches from brand name bologna were poorer than us. I also ate a lot of ice cream, yogurt, and cereal. I don't remember us making food for each other, even though there were 5 kids.

My mother cooked once every week or two - usually boiled white spaghetti, browned meat with bottled pasta sauce dumped over it. Sometimes similar ingredients but instead of red sauce and white sauce and some onion - which made it stroganoff. My father cooked once or twice a month - but pretty much never in the kitchen - he would use the grill outside to broil steaks, hamburgers, or hot dogs as befits a man. We generally ate on our own - sitting on the couch watching TV shows like Star Trek or MacGyver. The occasional "family dinner" around the dinner table I remember as having lasted too long when they lasted more than 10 minutes and often leading to arguments.

I remember one effort my mom made for a couple weeks - she bought a wok and tried to get us to eat stir-fries and eat together regularly at the table. We hated it and she gave it up pretty quickly.

Today I eat differently from corporate dominant white culture. I often make food for my partner and eat together. I've been vegetarian for 18 years. We buy our food from a food coop which carries a lot of organic and local food. I eat more fruits (4-5 servings a day) and vegetables (4-5 servings a day). We drink a smoothie in the morning and usually eat a salad in the evening along with our other meals.

I can still see some vestiges of my old habits - I still eat sandwiches quite a bit, generally cook single pot meals rather than elaborate multi-course meals, and don't enjoy sitting at a table.