I remembered a story my late father-in-law told me about Brussel sprouts. Back in the 1940's, when he was a 1st year cadet at the Citadel Military Academy in Charleston, SC, he was at mess when a large bowl of boiled BS's was being passed down the table. He didn't like BS's and politely said "no thank you" and passed the bowl on. This was observed by his Company Commander. The bowl was ordered to be placed in front of him and he had to eat every last one!

You'd better eat everything on your tray too!

Deployed in 2001 or 2002 to Vietnam to recover MIA/POW remains.

Vietnamese food is pretty good, but they are really proud of their dog. As in they eat dogs and advertise it. There are entire sections of Hanoi that have puppies on the plate in the diner.

My father is an awesome cook, he didn't really start cooking until I was in my 20's and in the military.

My mother is a very average cook and a great baker.

We ate a bit of offal as a kid, but it wasn't all the time. I am fairly certain we didn't have a lot of money, but I wouldn't say we were poor. Don't remember any meals that were just Mac-N-Cheese and the like. My father hunted and fished but he was a police officer, then federal agent and was gone a lot .

My neighbor here grew up in rural Alabama, and he told me if it wasn't for school he wouldn't have ever eaten.

I remember a Navy friend telling me that she was so poor they had a can of raw pumpkin as a meal one time.

My grandmother was a great cook.

As far as brussel sprouts go, I concur roasted with oil, salt and pepper is good.

I use bacon grease, salt, and pepper. Then the last 10 minutes I'll remove them toss in pecans, and bacon I cooked earlier.

A good recipe for brussel sprouts although it doesn't sound like it is very good. Chop up several slices of bacon, halve the brussel sprouts, sautee with a bit of brown sugar + black pepper added. Sounds like an odd flavor combo but is actually quite good.

NC,

My 65 year old black coworker considers a similar recipe with molasses to be heaven.

Same principle really. I never would have thought to try it but saw it in a bacon cookbook. Its worth a try.

Oh + speaking of Spam, before the virus slowed down public gatherings we had here in Austin an annual "Spamarama" that involved all kinds of bizarre feats with spam apart from just cooking, like spam tossing, etc. after the Scottish games. It was always a hoot.

I will dice up Brussels sprouts to go into a big pot of soup , but otherwise they go over the fence to the sheep.

They really are proof that God has a sense of humour