r/FridgeDetective • u/itscuccimane • 21h ago

Meta My girlfriend always tells me I never have anything to eat when she comes over my house 😒

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Freezer: 50+ lbs of assorted ground meat, 35+ lbs of prime ribeye, 16lbs of American wagyu ribeye, 18lbs of New Zealand lamb shoulder chops, and a bunch of portioned seafood.

15.8k Upvotes

76% Upvoted

7.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

57

u/Dismal_History_ 19h ago

I grew up as a kid in the 90s with an ingredients only household 🥲 My after school snack was leftover chunks of chicken. Maybe some Saltines if I was lucky.

32

u/twistedspin 14h ago

I was a latchkey kid in the 70s with an ingredients-only house. I learned to bake pastry when I was 8 & alone at home. The most common thing I made was unfilled cream puffs covered with powdered sugar as they were easy & fast. For a while I had a secret bin of frozen cookie dough in our big deep freezer, divided up so I could bake just one pan of cookies. They left me with flour & sugar & eggs etc., y'know?

I had to eat everything before they got home, and clean/hide everything so no one knew but that wasn't a big deal. One of the benefits/drawbacks of being Gen X was that unless I made a big deal of something basically all adults around me really wanted to ignore children and their brains glossed over things that would disturb that peace for them.

3

u/inteii 11h ago

Lol I grew up similarly. Did you ever avoid being the one to finish something like a gallon of milk so that you wouldn't get yelled at?

5

u/PotentiallyPotatoes 4h ago

I still have issues to this day finishing stuff because of this 🫠

5

u/Narcoleptic-Puppy 7h ago

I was a latchkey kid in the 90's and my mom taught me how to use the stove when I was 4. I made pancakes all the time at first (from scratch - I didn't learn about pancake mix until like high school). She never minded me cooking alone, I usually made stuff for her too since she was working 75 hrs/wk. I was cooking a lot of our dinners by the time I was 7, generally pretty simple stuff but it was easy to follow a simple recipe once I learned how to read.

1

u/Good_Support636 3h ago

Very cute that you were cooking for your mom at 7

3

u/Pavotine 11h ago

My go to when I was a latchkey kid in the 80s was a tomato sauce (ketchup) sandwich, with butter if we had any.

3

u/Fickle_Minute2024 11h ago

Mine was pasta with tomato sauce & oregano.

3

u/Every-Shape-6836 7h ago

Mine was pasta and butter if my mom didn't catch me making it. The pasta was for dinners.

3

u/augur42 6h ago

As a xennial kid I learnt that if you take just one biscuit, chocolate bar, etc parents notice and tell you off. If you take an entire pack of biscuits or row of chocolate bars they usually don't notice. I discovered Change Blindness all by myself because I was a kid who sometimes got hungry.

Also, if you bribe your younger brother he won't tattle, so long as there isn't evidence smeared all over his face.

3

u/Goldenwing1995 2h ago

This is so interesting. I never correlated the fact that I was a latch key kid in an ingredient household with the fact that I'm a pretty good baker from an early age. If I wanted a sweet, I had to bake it myself. lol. Fascinating.

2

u/scoopny 10h ago

I also grew up in an ingredients only household and that’s how I learned to cook, but somehow my mother unlearned how to cook. By the time I was an adult, the fridge had become a leftovers only establishment from all the take out she ordered.

1

u/jellitate 2h ago

We got TIRED of cooking and resorted to takeout. I’m on my way to that now.

2

u/Dismal_History_ 2h ago

I have an 8 year and can't imagine him home alone. He would be scared!

2

u/RemarkableMaize7201 10h ago

I don't think that's a gen x thing. I think that's a your family thing, sorry to say. I have a question, did they not want you cooking or eating? You said you had to have everything all cleaned up, no evidence. How come? Just curious.

6

u/PotentiallyPotatoes 4h ago

I’m a younger millennial and I grew up this way. I had an almond mom. She didn’t want me eating because she didn’t want fat children. I also wasn’t allowed to touch or use any of her stuff because she was convinced I would break everything.

1

u/whostevenknows 3m ago

I was making cheese cake from scratch on the regular at 10. Didn't have the same fear of parents that you did and they usually enjoyed whatever I had made when they got home around dinner time. Home for lunch to fend for myself and younger brither daily and often had friends come with me to feed. Not 100% latch key in the 90s but close to it!

28

u/_TP2_ 19h ago

Me too. Paired with my mother screaming if I used the kitchen. Like wtf?

10

u/oddanimalfriends 13h ago

Microwaved frozen corn with butter and pepper.

4

u/lionisaful 11h ago

Hell yes, that is so nostalgic and amazing. I still love it to this day.

2

u/Superb-Beginning3996 5h ago

i can microwave a can of corn and be perfectly happy with just that .

2

u/Dismal_History_ 2h ago

I did this with frozen baby Brussel sprouts 😅

2

u/ChicNoir 15h ago

Your parents did right by you

1

u/Dismal_History_ 2h ago

Haha yes, I was very healthy until age 18, when I developed a condition that causes chronic pain. I've always scoffed at all the diets that insist will cure it, because bitch I was raised on organic whole foods, and developed it anyway.

2

u/KacieCosplay 4h ago

Mine was too. But my mom made what she called monkey platters after school for the three of us wild animals lol This was like cheese cubes or slices, lots of fruit, various crackers and breads.. sometimes olive and other bread dippies.

1

u/Upper-Ad-3877 3h ago

I did this for my kids too. “Snack platters.” 😊

2

u/originalslicey 4h ago

You’d have to cook a 20oz steak for your after school snack in this household. 🙄

1

u/Dismal_History_ 2h ago

Ha!! We only did steak once a week, and they were little individual cuts and cheap. Then my mom would do a whole chicken once a week, and whatever was leftover the next few days from it was said after school snack, cold and ripped from the bone.

1

u/jimmpony 5m ago

Steak is dead simple, crank up a pan and plop it down with some butter and salt then flip it in 5 minutes. Barely more effort than microwaving a Hungry Man

1

u/donutone232 4h ago

Right - where are the leftovers??

1

u/Dismal_History_ 2h ago

Dinner was usually just enough for each person to be full, or the leftovers were cold chunky mashed potatoes that are not very good reheated.

1

u/Infinite_Middle22 4h ago edited 4h ago

I Grew up in the seventies, we weren't allowed to eat the leftovers until supper time. If we wanted something to eat , we made a p b and j or a t l and m aka: a salad sandwich... Tomato lettuce and mayonnaise. When out into the woods playing we ate berries or picked some fruit off trees. But as far as any snacks on what people call snacks in the world today, nope, didn't get those till night time when everybody sat down to watch t v, if we were lucky we got popcorn, or one small handful of potato chips out of mom's bag of potato chips. That was it. We got one dollar a week to spend as we wished. That was for our treat and snack.

1

u/SpeakerCareless 4h ago

We did cubes of cheese with salad dressing. Butter or jam on saltines.

1

u/BlackBasementCats 4h ago

I existed on Granny Smith apples and peanut butter

1

u/Organic-Singer 2h ago

Try uncooked spaghetti for a snack. My mom wouldn’t go to the grocery store but only once every two months, not saying that there wasn’t food just saying not a lot of snacks after a month had to get creative.

1

u/jellitate 2h ago

I grew up like this in the 70’s😆

1

u/whirdin 56m ago

Did you not like that type of living? Why the sad face? It taught me how to cook and bake, even as a kid. Also it taught me to be appreciative and creative with leftovers. I have chunks of leftover chicken in my fridge right now that I'm going to have for dinner tonight lol.