Did your family take road trips? Back before seat belts were mandatory, and the 55 mph speed limit? Richard Ratay did, and wrote about it in Don't Make Me Pull Over: an Informal History of the Family Road Trip. There are chapters on the history of the U.S. highway system and the support system that grew up around them, as well as what it was like to be a family of six stuffed into one car, with all the necessary luggage, snacks, blankets, etc. that were needed. From leaving home at 3:30 am (to avoid rush hour traffic in Chicago) to their dad, who, if he had his way, would not even have to stop to refuel, the trips were always an adventure. Learn about the advent of drive through eateries and how the station wagon got that name. (The Ratay family never had a station wagon, in spite of it being a big family). Airline deregulation changed everything, and afterwards, the author says, they would "make a trip, but not a journey." Hmm.

Do you remember salads, on a proper salad plate, of 'something' in gelatin and plopped on a leaf of iceberg lettuce? Did you know it was a fad from times past? Seems fruits and veggies were considered messy and needed to be confined. In the fifties baby food (pureed) was used to make 'jiffy' gourmet dishes. There was a popular buffet offering called Fruit Cocktail-Spam Buffet Party Loaf. So many of these fads sound awful, but reading about them was fun in Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads, by Sylvia Lovegren. Photos would have been nice. Anything in aspic still makes me shudder.

Reading Hermit With Dog