Saturday, July 2, 2016

Reconstituted.

Does anyone still make orange juice from frozen concentrate?

Do you even know what I'm talking about?
When I was a kid in the 1970s, my mom made breakfast for me, my older brother, and my older sister every single day. And except for special occasions when she made us pancakes or French toast or Cream of Wheat, breakfast consisted of the following, going clockwise from the lower right:

One bowl of cold cereal;

One portion of canned fruit;

One glass of milk;

One glass of juice.

Plus a generic One-a-Day vitamin from Walgreens.

All served in Tupperware dishes.



These, Drunkards. Exactly the hell these.

Sometimes we had orange juice. Sometimes we had Welch's grape juice. Sometimes we had apple juice, or even (my favorite) pineapple juice. But always, my mom made our morning juice from cans of frozen concentrate.

In a Tupperware juice container, OF COURSE.
As a grownup, I've carried forward many culinary delights from my own childhood. Cream of Wheat. Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Homemade spaghetti sauce.

But not sauerkraut. That shit can die with the past, honestly.

What the f*ck even, amiright?
Anyway, I have many fond memories of helping my mom make juice from frozen canned globs of concentrate. Were they better? Were they cheaper? Were they somehow morally superior to cartons or cans of prepared juice?

I have no idea.

Myself, I might keep apple juice or cranberry juice in my fridge. It comes in plastic bottles, pre-made and already constituted.

I don't provide my Precocious Daughter with a regimented, predictable breakfast every day. I don't think either of us would tolerate that shit. She feeds herself, and I'm grateful that she does.

Not an admission of anything. Just saying.

Me, I remember frozen globs of fruit juice concentrate.

Just wondering if anyone out there still uses such.

For nostaglia reasons.

Let me know, OK?

4 comments:

  1. We occasionally still make it, but not often. I remember as a kid popping open the can to make it, and always taking a bite or two of the concentrate.

    May have been a weird kid though.

    ReplyDelete
  2. We occasionally still make it, but not often. I remember as a kid popping open the can to make it, and always taking a bite or two of the concentrate.

    May have been a weird kid though.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The concentrate was yum. Grape juice was the best, though. And now we know that it's almost as healthy as red wine, so yay Welch's!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I still occasionally make it from concentrate. I've never really bothered to check but I think it's cheaper. And there's the nostalgia.
    The important thing is it sounds like you and I had almost identical childhoods. The Tupperware cups really take me back.
    Also my mother enhanced sauerkraut by adding caraway seeds and a roux to turn it into a weirdly striated mush.
    Yes, it was the most horrible thing ever.

    ReplyDelete

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