If it all goes to hell, I'm getting some chickens

Poached Scrambled eggs in the pot

Unlike many people who go to college, I actually ate really well as a student thanks to the meal plan included with my financial aid, and the extremely high quality of campus food service. My workstudy job was in the college's whole foods, semi-vegetarian cafe. (I discovered hummus and tabouli there, tantamount to Sapphic experimentation, really.)

I never once ate ramen.

As a child, however, my household was heavily dependent upon the generosity of the state. We frequently ran out of money towards the end of the month before the next AFDIC check arrived.

This led to a game of "how to create a tasty meal out of whatever random assortment of ingredients is on hand," which remains one of my most useful skills. Because of the ad hoc nature of this exercise, I have no memory of any one particular concoction that increased in frequency as cash dissipated from the pocketbook.

Bisquick, in all its protean glory, was probably involved.

We also benefited from the bounty of our Southern California yard which included grapefruit, navel orange, meyer lemon, fig, apricot, and pomegranate trees on a scant third of an acre. I remained scurvy-free.

The one dish I have fond early and enduring memories of is scrambled eggs and toast. It's cheap, full of protein, and satisfying day or night. Given bread and eggs as a base, there are a lot of amusing variations—fried egg sandwich, folded omelet, toad in a hole, egg salad sandwich—so it doesn't get monotonous.

I was able to start cooking eggs for myself before I learned to read (also before I was able to tell whether the stove was still hot or not, but I'll save that for the "What is your most painful childhood injury?" prompt), so I'll never be vegan and I'll never feel comfortable if there isn't a carton in the fridge.