I was only about three months old, so I do not remember this baby bottle road trip myself — but I have heard the story my whole life.

Late autumn or early winter, 1976. Mom and Dad packed my older sister and baby me into their burgundy 1967 Cadillac Eldorado and left our home in St. Catharines, Ontario, for Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

It was a proper family road trip.

Cape Cod was the main destination, but they also visited Long Island, New York, where my Grandma Turner’s brother, Uncle Johnny, and his wife, Aunt Dee, lived. They also spent time at Long Beach, Massachusetts.

Mom had only recently gone back to work after having me. I was still tiny — roughly three months old — and traveling with an infant in 1976 meant doing things very differently than parents do now.

A Baby Bottle Road Trip in 1976

There were no portable bottle warmers plugged into USB ports.

No insulated bottle systems.

No convenience-store microwaves at every stop.

And apparently, when I got hungry, there was no warm place nearby to heat my formula.

So Dad did what Dad would do.

He pulled over, opened the hood of the Cadillac, and put my glass baby bottle directly on the hot engine block to warm it.

Which, if you knew my father, makes perfect sense.

Dad had already earned his engineering degree before Mom and Dad were married in 1971, and he worked at General Motors in St. Catharines, eventually becoming a head mechanical engineer.

Faced with a cold bottle, freezing weather and a hot engine sitting directly in front of him, he apparently saw a perfectly serviceable piece of heat-transfer equipment.

Mom and I have laughed about this story for years.

Not because it seemed particularly strange at the time.

That was simply what you did.

You used what you had.

You figured it out.

And in our family, apparently, you warmed the baby’s bottle on the Cadillac engine.

A Burgundy 1967 Cadillac Eldorado

Mom remembers the car clearly.

It was a burgundy 1967 Cadillac Eldorado with matching burgundy leather inside, a square rear end and hidden headlights.

Big, dramatic and unmistakable.

Apparently, it was also capable of doubling as a bottle warmer.

I can picture the whole scene even though I have no actual memory of it: that enormous burgundy Eldorado pulled over somewhere along the route, cold air outside, Dad under the hood, Mom waiting with a hungry baby, and a little glass bottle of formula slowly warming against the hot engine block.

It is one of those tiny domestic moments that would never make it into a family album.

Nobody thought to photograph it.

Nobody wrote it down.

It was just life.

Nearly fifty years later, though, it is exactly the kind of story that tells you something about a family.

Family Road Trips Before All the Gear

I asked Mom what my sister ate on the trip.

She laughed and said she really does not remember.

They probably stopped somewhere to eat along the way.

That, too, feels very 1970s.

You stopped when you needed to stop, ate where you found somewhere to eat, and kept driving.

If the baby needed a bottle in the middle of nowhere, you opened the hood.

There is something wonderful about that kind of practicality.

Not because everything was easier then — it was not.

Traveling with a baby in cold weather, in a two-door car, with glass bottles and formula, was not particularly convenient.

People improvised.

They solved problems with whatever was nearby.

And sometimes the solution was a Cadillac engine.

The Food Memories That Become Family History

This story always makes me think about how different food and family travel are now.

Today we pack coolers, insulated cups, portable warmers, snacks separated into compartments, thermoses, wipes, chargers and half the kitchen.

Back then, Mom and Dad packed the kids into the car and headed for Cape Cod.

Somewhere along the way, Dad heated my formula under the hood.

Then off they went.

I think that is why these small food memories matter.

They are not really only about food.

They are about who was there, what the weather was like, what car you were driving, who held the baby, who opened the hood and who figured out how to make things work.

Somehow, a glass bottle of formula warmed on the engine block of a burgundy Cadillac becomes part of the family history.

I have heard this story my whole life.

Even though I was far too young to remember it myself, I can see it perfectly.

If you enjoy stories like this, explore more Real Food Memories from Cooking With Kimberly.

Do you remember your parents or grandparents improvising something like this on a family road trip?

What was the strangest or most inventive way food was cooked, warmed or served in your family?