I grew up drinking mostly milk from our cow, which was usually a Guernsey or a Jersey -- fed on a combination of pasture and commercial grains. Pasteurized in the early years, but raw later on. Never really liked drinking milk. But man, my cousins loved visiting because they could have all the cold milk they wanted. Milk doesn't disgust me the way tomatoes do, or act as a near emetic the way olives do, but I just don't particularly like drinking milk of any variety, well, except for chocolate milk. But I love most of the products derived from it -- cheese, ice cream, butter, etc. With a family cow you really get used to how the cow's diet affects milk flavor -- the lush green grass in the spring was quite noticeable. And of course, I like milk with cold cereal but not with hot cereals. And our beef came from a calf raised to a yearling each year. Eggs came from the chickens, although they were the first to disappear in response to the convenience of the supermarket.

I was born in the early 50s and my folks were Californians from small-town Minnesota, so I'm used to the idea of very sweet dishes being considered okay at all meals. An example, my mom picked up from her Dutch-immigrant mother, a breakfast dish made from thoroughly dried out bread scraps, simmered in milk with cinnamon and liberal amounts of sugar. They called it (I don't know the Dutch spelling) stoot-uh-bray (phonetic) which I suspect meant something like stewed bread. Loved it and the many other fattening 30s concepts of what constituted a proper meal. A slightly less chocolatey version of homemade pudding over graham crackers was considered a perfectly acceptable lunch, Grandma called it cocoa-dope. And though no one pushed my mom to cook all our meals, it was clear she felt it a failure if any of us in our family of six found it necessary to prepare their own meal. Dad was a railroad conductor on 24-hr call. When he got called, she got up and prepared him a meal and/or lunch, regardless of time of day or night. He simply could not break her of this habit. But yeah, my folks and their folks definitely grew up on a diet resembling at least some of what the article referenced, and held similarly strong attitudes about the kitchen being the center of home culture. Sit down meals for the whole family were mandatory until such time as we left home. No TV or radio during meals, just conversation. Not such a bad deal, really -- three mandatory whole-family conversations a day -- two if school was in session. Occasionally I used to quickly walk the 600-yards home (from elementary school) for lunch. Some days I'd trade my homemade-bread sandwich for one of my schoolmates Wonder Bread sandwiches at the outdoor lunch tables of elementary school, both parties usually felt they got the better of the deal. Different times, different attitudes.