That sounds like the way it probably was for my parents growing up. My mother said getting an orange in a stocking at Christmas was a big deal. My grandmother grew corn and green beans and at them all time. From time to time she'd eat greens, turnip stew. Of course, she made corn bread, biscuits. Biscuits and honey was breakfast at my grandmother's house. She'd cook country ham and bacon, too. If my parents took her out, it was usually to the 'fish camp', which is what they call a fried fish place in North Carolina.But my mom was a little bit more international in her cooking. She would cook that very foreign dish, spagghetti. My grandmother did not care for that. I remember probably around 1980, my aunt had a taco kit. She explained to my mother that her kids liked them and how to cook tacos. I don't remember the first time I had Mexican food. Maybe I was twelve, away on a Bible Quiz trip. I remember eating pizza once in elementary school. My dad hated cheese, but eating out at Pizza Hut after church when I was in high school, he discovered he liked mozzarella on pizza and we ate a lot of pizza after that and started eating Chinese food.I always hated pinto beans and greens day either at home or at the school cafeteria. I still don't care for the plain pinto beans of the south, or did not the last I tried them. But Mexicans can cook the same beans, even without making them into that mashed up stuff, and make them taste good. I found turnip, mustard, and collard greens to be unpleasant and bitter and avoided them growing up. But overseas, I had a Chinese pickled mustard green soup with pork in it. My wife learned to make it. She might make that once a year. It's got a down-home flavor, sort of, but it's Chinese food and the greens are delicious if you pickle them with salt, sugar, and vinegar like that.My wife cooks food from 12or so different countries, but my kids haven't been exposed that much to some of the southern cuisine I grew up eating. We are in the south now, so maybe they will get the chance to be. My wife did learn to cook southern style green beans