Gourd Ahead And Make Fun of Me

One of the milestones you reach as a baby is when you move up from formula or breast milk to jarred baby food. Now, of course, the food comes in little plastic containers. When I was a baby, however, they came in jars.

It’s actually funny to look at that picture. I remember my parents talking about Blueberry Buckle! I see lots of “bananas” in the picture, which makes sense, because my mom told me I loved bananas and so did each of my children. We all loved carrots, too!

In doing a search for pictures, I saw the one below and was amazed at the stuff that was available to babies in the 70’s.

Bacon was in some of them!! I can’t imagine liking tuna as a kid, but Ella eats it in mac and cheese, so maybe it was popular.

There were some weird ones, though …

And I truly hope no good parent ever fed their baby this:

Here is one of my favorite personal baby stories:

When I began eating jarred baby food, my mom told me I loved squash!

It was one food she never had to fight me to eat. Now whether or not she fed me a lot of it because I wouldn’t eat other foods, I don’t know. What I do know is I ate a lot of it!

One day, my mom thought I looked very jaundiced. I was bright orange. She was so freaked out by it she took me to the doctor. Of course, the doc asked her what I was eating and when she mentioned squash, he told her that was the reason I was “jaundiced!”

For whatever it is worth, I still love squash! Growing up, my mom used to buy the frozen squash at the store. I remember it came in a package as a big frozen block!

She would throw some butter in a pan with the frozen squash and cook it up. I could eat a whole pan! As a matter of fact, when I moved away for a radio job on the west side of the state, that was one thing that was always in my freezer.

Since Ella started eating baby food, I have been looking in the freezer section of the grocery store for these blocks of squash, but have not been able to find them. I asked my dad about it and he said he hadn’t seen it in the store lately either. I’m not sure if they stopped making it like this or what. I can tell you I really wish I could find it.

They do have it “cubed” in the freezer section, and I am sure I could probably mash it up when it is cooked and it would probably taste the same. I just have fond memories of mom cooking up that block of squash for me.

I guess it is safe to say that I am “out of my gourd” over squash!