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Pizza rolls, Steak-umms, and Chef Boyardee pizzas were basically survival food in the 80s as many of us were left to fend for ourselves for days at a time durin
by rgrieselhuber 4y ago
Pizza rolls, Steak-umms, and Chef Boyardee pizzas were basically survival food in the 80s as many of us were left to fend for ourselves for days at a time during the school week.
- leetrout 4y agoBuddy the chef boyardee pizzas are a sham today. I _loved_ them. Today they do not even include cheese in the box. I wish they would sell the sauce with the mini pepperonis in a jar by itself.
- rgrieselhuber 4y agoWhat a scam. That cheese was critical. Agreed on the sauce and the mini pepperonis.
- datavirtue 4y agoI had generic wheat flakes, and if I was lucky, 2% milk.
- tomrod 4y agoThat is my latchkey experience as well.
- JackFr 4y agoMustard sandwiches.
- bandyaboot 4y agoNow that’s austere. I usually at least had some bologna I could slap in there.
- jhbadger 4y agoExactly. These were foods for US "latchkey kids" in the 1970s and 1980s, not "midcentury" (think Mad Men early 1960s) foods. During this time the rise of having two working parents (or because of rising divorce rates, a single working parent) combined with inflexibility of employers to allow "flex time" as they often do today, meant that many children often had to prepare their own meals. So simple frozen foods were common as even a grade school child could prepare them.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rufus_foreman 4y ago70s was not latchkey kids. I was a kid then. We roamed the streets. 80s? I don't know, wasn't like that for me. I knew some kids maybe where it was like that for them, I felt sorry for them. From my perspective, obviously a limited perspective based on the time I grew up, the 1970's was the best time to be a kid in the history of kids. We roamed the streets, 10 years old, running wild in the streets.
- germinalphrase 4y agoI was 10 in the 90’s, and it was the same. Maybe it’s regional.
- terran57 4y agoMy mom worked a split-shift (3 hours in the morning, and 5 hours in evening Wed-Sun). My dad was in the army and was deployed to far-away lands for a significant portion of my life between 8-16 years old. My mom hired a couple of "minders" - but the first one made a baby in our bathroom with her boyfriend, and the second one did nothing but watch TV and sneak some shots of whiskey between TV shows (on the three networks then available). Long story short, I was left to my own devices a lot. My mom tried to make dinner for me - but sometimes (being a growing boy) I was just really hungry - so chef-boy-r-dee pizza was a staple - at least until I learned that one could phone in an order for pizza and have it delivered! Now we were cash-poor, so when wanted spending money, I'd have to go house-to-house to ask if they needed their lawns mowed. I'd get somewhere between $5 or $10 depending on the lawn size and would use the money for pizza delivery once or twice a week. Pretty amazing to think about it - a kid between 10-15 years old being left alone for hours a day and having to go house-to-house to mow lawns for extra money! (let's not forget it was the 70s so things like bike helmets, seat belts and non-smoking areas didn't exist either).
- rufus_foreman 4y agoTen dollars for a lawn?
- booleandilemma 4y agoLol, for my generation it was hot pockets.
- ethbr0 4y agoThat jingle will forever be seared into my brain. Well played, marketing.
- rolenthedeep 4y agoI grew up in the 90s, and I've never heard of Chef Boyardee pizza. It sounds dire
- nullstyle 4y agoYou would be totally wrong. My Mother's pizza is famous amongst my friends and family. It is started from the chef boyardee pizza kit and surprisingly little has changed in her version. My brothers and our childhood friends are all in our 40's and 50's now, have had pizza all over the world, and momma pizza still ranks.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rufus_foreman 4y agoWait until you find about Imos.
- ethbr0 4y agoI was dragged there by some work colleagues in Kansas City. They were super excited and insisted we go. The conversation went like this "This pizza isn't really that good." "I know! That's the great thing about it!" Imosholm syndrome is real.
- grogenaut 4y agodidn't know there was an imos in KC. like 50% of the STL locations are bad the other half amazing. How was the kc version? With imos you can't go in expecting anything, just enjoy it for what it is.
- ethbr0 4y agoI think there was one. We drove halfway across town to get to it. It was definitely "different."
- 4y ago
- jerbearito 4y agoWere they frozen pizzas or kits that you had to prepare?
- rgrieselhuber 4y agoKits. That was the fun thing about it, you'd mix the dough, and add the cheese and sauce. If you were lucky, there were some leftover scraps in the fridge that you could use to add as toppings. Learned the basics of making pizza that way.
- Gordonjcp 4y agoWhy couldn't you just make some food?
- rgrieselhuber 4y agoThere were usually never any other ingredients in the house and we'd never learned how to cook. YouTube wasn't a thing yet.
- Gordonjcp 4y agoBefore youtube was invented there were these things called "books". Also, most things come with some sort of cooking instructions, like pasta or rice or whatever. Is it unusual that my parents (and pretty much all my friend's parents) made sure we grew up knowing how to cook and eat really good food? Maybe it's a UK vs US thing, maybe it's because the nearest "convenience stores" were a couple of hundred miles away.
- cratermoon 4y agoIn the US, girls learned how to cook, starting with Easy-Bake™ Ovens. Boys learning to cook? Sissy stuff. Boys learned to heat up pizza rolls and play CoD.
- Gordonjcp 4y agoDude how are you going to get a girlfriend if you can't invite her over and make her dinner?
- ashwagary 4y agoGirls can eat pizza rolls.
- cratermoon 4y agoThat's why nice sit-down restaurants with tables for two exist.
- maxerickson 4y agoThey aren't the same thing because they are quite a bit more costly, but a butcher somewhere in the region makes circular frozen sliced steaks for sandwiches. So much better than Steak-umms. Similar to what you would get from a butcher for frozen philly cheese steak sandwiches, but not the same.