The Research Kitchen of the Virtual Man
Tom, the virtual man, posted about white-trash cooking, sending me on a trip down memory lane. ugh. creamed tuna on toast. hated it! and some gawdawful concoction my mother [who was not known for her cooking] invented, called "goup." i recall it as catsup and macaroni. yuck. last and least, tamale pie. yak.

tom wrote back to say he enjoyed his mom's chipped beef with peas on toast for breakfast, and "goop," with the variant spelling. maybe it tasted better without the "u." who knows? goup is goop - not good.

as i recall chipped beef on toast is popularly known as "shit on a shingle" and i like that as much as i like creamed tuna on toast...and goop? ok, goop, goup, either way, i imagine it came about during the depression. i know my mother was raised during the depression [born 1925]. my dad was born in 1919 and made a show of "wiping his plate" with a slice of bread every night, a habit i believe was also fostered during the depression. my dad wanted for more growing up than my mom. no matter how bad the food was, we could not get up without reciting, "Thank you for the nice lovely dinner may I please be excused?" which eventually we could say in a split second without a breath, let alone any real gratitude.
we had to eat everything set before us before we could leave the table, and i have carried the memory of sitting alone with a pile of disgusting mashed potatoes and gravy long after they'd gone cold and congealed grease. this is why my kids were never made to finish their dinner if they did not want to. but if they wanted desert bad enough they would finish their dinner; that was my catch.

- posted by barbara @ 11/15/2002 05:20:00 PM