At the risk of starting a “Yeah, we were so poor that ...” contest, boxed mac and cheese would have been a treat in our house at times. In our most desperate periods, we cooked bulk macaroni and mixed it with condensed tomato soup and would have only that for days. We also made milk from huge bags of milk powder and mixed it with water. That stuff was awful. My life is comfortable now, but you never quite forget being poor.
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Ever have hot dog gravy? It was the ultimate. Way better than milk on stale bread.
Lol! No I haven’t ever had hot dog gravy, nor milk on stale bread. Molasses on bread was a treat for the 6 children in our house. Neither sound appealing, but I’d never been a big fan of any kind of gravy until I went to New Orleans and ate at K Paul’s Restaurant. He is/was a famous chef from the television and he had one employee whose total job was to make gravy all day long. They called it ‘debris’, which is why I didn’t recognize from the description on the menu that it was gravy. I was going to send it back but decided to try it first. That was the first time I’d ever eaten gravy that I liked, which is a bit of an understatement. It was to die for! I’m certain no hot dogs were used in that recipe.
Me: "Mom! I think the milk is sour...it's lumpy!"
Mom: "No dear, it's fake milk, those are powder lumps, just stir it, that stuff can't ever sour."