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“Bread, however, is their chief food. It is cheap; they like it; it comes into the house ready cooked, it is always at hand, and needs no plate and spoon. Spread with a scraping of butter, jam, or margarine, according to the length of purse of the mother, they never, tire of it as long as they are in their ordinary state of health. They receive it into their hands, and can please themselves as to where and how they eat it. It makes the sole article in the menu for two meals in the day. Dinner may consist of anything from the joint on Sunday to boiled rice on Friday. Potatoes will play a great part as a rule, at dinner, but breakfast and tea will be bread.”
― Maud Pember Reeves, Round About a Pound a Week

“Two months later, Gail brought Bill home to meet her parents, and Beryl, a nervous mama having heard so much about the gallant Navy boy, served up her best pot roast with onions, a heap of buttery mashed potatoes with Gail’s favorite gravy, and boiled carrots for Sunday dinner. Before dinner was served, they sat on the porch and made homemade ice cream together. Gail sat on the ice cream bucket while Bill churned—abiding the flirting of Baby Lou and worldly Laila, though married with a baby.
The Navy boy couldn’t care less about the two sisters because he was busy pouring ice cubes and salt into the bucket, soon hidden again under Gail’s skirt.
Coalbert, the working boy, accompanied by his cute girlfriend, Ivy, wasn’t going to be outdone by a crew cut. He started making pig squeals and then said, “Come on, piggy, I wanna kiss you!� This was the story that humiliated Gail the most. She hated when Coalbert told stories from their Arkansas childhood.
“What’s with him?� Bill looked at Gail.
Coalbert took over and explained how Gail had fallen in love with the baby pigs they had bought to ward off starvation in Western Grove. “She’d run chasing them through the mud and shit, ‘Come on, piggy, I wanna kiss you!’�
Gail got off the ice cream bucket and walked into the house. Bill laughed and stayed on the porch with Coalbert and the sisters, shooting the breeze and catching up with stories to embarrass Gail.”
― Lynn Byk, The Fearless Moral Inventory of Elsie Finch