The topic of foods you have never eaten got me to thinking after reading some responses.We were so poor when I was a kid that we never went out to eat anywhere.I mean never.Every now and then mister Kelly would let me pick up trash at Kelly's hamburgers in eastlake and he would give me a burger,fries and ice cream cone for it but other that that I didnt know what it was like to go out to eat.The one story of my childhood that relates to this topic is when my aunt carried my mother and me to taco bell when I was a kid.In our house we had eaten tacos several times but they were made with white loaf bread instead of taco shells.The reason being is because taco shells cost alot of money and we only lived down the street from the Dolly Madison day old store in Gate city and loaf bread was like a nickel a loaf.Well anyway there we are at Taco Bell in eastlake and I ordered tacos because that was the only mexican food I knew of.My mom sat me at a table and when the food was ready she and my aunt brought it to the table and then returned to the front to get stuff like condiments and such.While they were up there I started digging in to my food and lo and behold there was these hard things with taco stuff in them where my tacos were suppose to be.I at that point embarrassed my mother by yelling across the restaurant "mom there is something wrong with these tacos!They are in something hard and not on loaf bread!Also the first time I ever heard the word sloppy joe was in the 4th grade.Up to that point all I had ever heard was the redneck name for it"spoon burger.If you guys have some stories lets hear them.

Spoon burger!!! HELLS YES! I love it! Way more descriptive of a sloppy joe.

First time my folks ever took me to Red Lobster (I think it was their 10th anniversary or something and my grandparents gave them some $$) I embarrassed them both. As we walked in I pointed at the lobster tank and screamed "HUGE BUGS". I was maybe 4 years old at the time. I think we ate at McDonalds that night.

My Mom tried to sneak liver over on my sister and I for supper one night by telling us it was steak. I thought it tasted really weird, but kept trying to eat it. My sister, being dramatic, bellered out crying about the taste. My Mom couldn't help but laugh and finally confessed to us. I've never cared for liver since!

I'd say that your Mom was a trooper for coming up with the idea of serving taco's on bread as a substitute. God bless those creative ladies who just took what they had and made something of it. You yelling your discovery out about the tacos was priceless and so innocent. There aren't many of us who cannot look back and see how far we have come. Blessings have certainly overtaken us.

We rarely to never ate out at restaurants, drive thrus and etc when I was younger.

At one point we were living in some lower income apartments and really just couldn't afford the whole family going out to eat. My mom was a single parent at that time. ( She didn't meet the man I call Dad until a few years later on)I was probably 8. One summer night, very late at night(10pm-ish), my mom and a friend of hers went to Taco bell, picked up tacos and brought them home. I think me and my brother may have had a couple of friends spending the night, I remember all of us boys outside riding bikes and throwing the football under the street lights.

I think that was the first time I had ever ate taco bell, when they asked what I wanted, all that I knew existed- mexican wise -was tacos. So I asked for tacos. Eating tacos , from taco bell, at near midnight was for some reason something that really sticks out to me from my childhood. We weren't very wealthy as a family when I was young, but at that time I felt like we had it "made".

I was probably in high school before Mom started buying actual hotdog and hamburger buns, We had always used loafa bread for those things. It took me a while to get used to all the bread that was used for hot dog buns.

I was fortunate as a young man and lived a pretty blessed life, however that was not the case after I got out on my own. At one time my first wife, our little daughter and I lived in East Lake and we had to really stretch our money. One of her favorite things to cook was macaroni with some salt, pepper and a can of tomatoes dumped in it. I still like that.

We would go for a week sometimes and have little more than butter beans, pinto beans, corn bread, macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and stuff like that.

We learned a lot about using coupons, making a list of everything we would eat that week and really budgeting our money when we went to the grocery store.

We eat like kings now compared to those days... I still like a good ol' pot of butter beans, crispy buttermilk cornbread and a slice of sweet onion...

There is a good Jerry Clower bit called "canned gravy" I don't know how to paste videos but you can find it on youtube.

Posted for RikkiV- I thought that was pretty good.

My momma made poor mans spaghetti when I was a kid when we couldn't afford hamburger meat. It's was spaghetti with just tomatoe sauce. Way before ragu came along. Bologna was the staple meat in our house.

When I was young - my dad would say, "We were so poor, that we were "PO" - we couldn't even afford the "OR" to make us poor." My sister is 3-years younger than me, and while my mom was at the hospital with my newborn baby sister - my dad and grandfather put a toilet in the storage room (enclosed back porch of a shotgun mill town house) of our house, so my mom would have a place to rinse the dirty baby diapers.

My mom and dad worked their asses off to provide much better for my sister and I than they had growing up, but for several years when I was young - it was tough times around our house. However, everyone else was so poor, to be honest I really don't feel like I missed out on anything. When I was about 12 or so, things got much, much better - and we were at least middle-class.

I remember eating fried deer steak, mashed potatoes, milk gravy, and pinto beans almost every single night. Lunch at home was typically, bologna sandwiches or if it was during school whatever they had at the cafeteria. Breakfast was normally two cans of whop biscuits and/or fried potato cakes (from the left over mashed potatoes from the night before).

The funny thing is - my favorite meal is fried deer cube steak, mashed potatoes, milk gravy, and pinto beans. My favorite sandwich is a fried bologna sandwich and I love Pillsbury buttermilk whop biscuits (the cheap 4-pack that you get at Wal-Mart). And my whole family loves fried potato cakes from leftover mashed potatoes.

We had a dish my mama called "hobo dinner." Hamburger patties, potatoes, carrots, onions all put in one pan and baked in the oven. Damn good. I'd start talking about hobo dinners at school and other kids just look at me like I was out of my mind. I thought everybody ate hobo dinners and knew what it was.

Of course I thought everybody called their little buddy a "noonie" too cause that's what my dad told me to call it. Kids at school gave me hell about that too.

I was weirdo who played with his noonie and ate hobo dinners.

My mother used to make this every Sunday afternoon. She added onions and canned tomatoes from the garden. I'd love to have some right now.
Man I sure wish she was still with us.

Most of the food, meats included, that we ate were raised by us and my grandpa.
We had a pretty big garden and also raised pigs, chickens, and a few head of cattle. I don't remember having fast food until I was about 14. We didn't have money or fancy clothes , but we always had food on the table. I don't know what we would have done without my grandpa.

Love me some fried mashed tater cakes !

Man My grandmother could make a feast of squirrel. We had fried squirrel, squirrel and dumplings, squirrel and rice. Being poor didn't mean you had to go hungry. We had a garden and lots of fresh vegetables that we ate and some we froze for meals later.

I've eaten many hobo dinners as a kid. My wife thought I was out of my mind the first time I cooked them for her. She'd never seen anything like it. She loved it once she tried it though. Come to think of it, I haven't had one in a while...might just have to have one this weekend.

Made em tonight with a left over grilled pork chop.

Pea patties at the end of the month when my Dad was in Nam. Even a hobo dinner's were after the 1st of the month!

The fried potato cakes from the left overs the next day was great. My mother would dice up onions into them. What we had that was called a salad was mustard greens and radishes dropped in hot grease in a cast iron skillet and then we salted them before eating. You should have seen my eyes the first time I gazed at a salad bar and dressing. I would love to have me some potato cakes right now.

Loved me some fried potato cakes. As a kid I liked em better than the mashed taters.
On fried stuff, we had fried salmon patties as a kid too.

My dad always said, "We were so poor we couldn't pay attention". My parents sacrificed a lot to make sure we my sister and I had it better. I don't remember getting to eat out a lot growing up but I remember playing on a football team where the coaches would take us to Hardees if we won. We only 3rd grade but I remember getting a hamburger and coke was a huge treat. We played extra hard for those burgers.