Random Mondays ~ Making Do or Doing Without

 

     Last Thursday, I decided to make spaghetti for dinner.  Mind you, there was only a small window of time before I had to leave for work.  Anyway, put my groundbeef on, chopped up my veggies, mixed them in the beef, put the water on to boil for my pasta.  Reach for the spaghetti, and there is none.  No!! There has to be somewhere in the cabinet. No such luck!  By this point, my path was plotted.  There was no turning back!
A lesser person might have chucked everything, and left.  Not me, - never have been much of a quitter.  Me, I make do!
     When I was raised, you learned to make do with what you had, or you very often did without.
Some might say I took the low ground, but however you look at it, I made my spaghetti, albeit with elbow macaroni, instead of spaghetti.
As a matter of fact, that was how my mother made hers.  Never noticed our spaghetti was different until I went away to college.  And the only real difference was the way it looked.  It tasted pretty much the same.
My son glanced in the pot as it was cooking, asked what it was, then made a face.  Later, he told he'd been surprised at how good it actually was.
     Looking back, I can remember several things that we ate, cooked with, or used that weren't textbook, but different.  Most of this was out of necessity.  Other times we were simply making do.
For example, we used shortening & lard for frying, instead of oil.  Our salads consisted if lettuce & tomatoes with Mayo.  Bottled salad dressing was another thing I never had til college.  We used canned Mackerel in lieu of canned Salmon.  Ate lots of Smelt Fish, as opposed to Catfish.  We slathered our sandwiches with Sandwich Spread, not Mayo.  Used Pet Milk not cream in our coffee (still do), oleo margarine instead of butter (still do).  Didn't have a toaster, so we put margarine on the bread, and toasted it in the oven.  Used detergent to wash dishes, -there was no dish washing liquid. Ring any bells, strike any chords?
     And, no, this was not The Stone Age....:-)