1950's style recipes needed

Penelope_Penguin

mummytoash wrote: »

yeah. the only condition for the money is that all meals need to be 1950's style. they say that might get me n ds to eat better plus i love a challenge.

We don't eat a 1950s diet, and definitley eat well Take a look at the Menuplans threads, and you'll get loads of ideas of healthy balanced diets, without a historical restriction. AFAIK, the 1950's wasn't a decade reknowned for its food

Can I ask what sort of food you eat now, that your parents judge to be so bad

Penny. x

HariboJunkie

Weren't the 50s the decade that gave us the TV dinner?

So go out and stock up on some Findus crispy pancakes.

mouseymousey99

I've got a Good Housekeeping cookery book published in 1951 (it was one of my mums wedding presents) beleive me you really don't want to be eating that!! Rationing just coming to an end & everything is margarine and offal. Its a fanstastic book, the adverts are super dooper but the food? I think you may get a shock...

cheerfulness4

Think Olliebeak has just given me my menu plan for the week.

Must say I've been following the various threads mentioned above and was confused wondering how someone can have 'an empty freezer' and no money one day and then 2 days later masses of meat and veg.
My freezer never seems to self fill in that way.

rachbc

How bizarre that any parent would put conditions on what their grown up child should eat! Given you have a full freezer nd store cupbaords from previous posts I'd decline any offer that came with strings attatched.

However if you do want to eat '50's' style then I imagine its pretty similar to what most people eat anyway in terms of fresh home cooked 'simple' food - though possibly without some trend ingredients or thai curry! Meditterean food was just coming in to our counsciousness as pp pointed out so pasta would still be an option or in fact I guess you could make pretty much anything on the basis that thai people probaby still ate thai curry in the 50s!

[Deleted User]

My menu in 1967 was more or less the same throughout the week.I had a husband and children so here it is
Sunday leg of lamb, about 4lb in weight ( 17/6d(85p) roasted with yorkshire. spuds,greens and carrots.Stewed apples and custard for pud.
Monday, cold lamb, mash & pickles & rice pud
Tuesday sliced cold lamb simmered in the oven with gravy,blancemange
Wednesday,Rissoles (made from scraps or lamb mixed with saxo stuffing and beaten egg and fried in a pan) with chips and peas. jelly & evaporated milk for pud
Thursday the very last bits virually scraped of the bone from the leg of lamb made into a curry and bulked out with vegetables ect, Banana custard for pud
Friday, Fish and chips (Home made, not bought) and peas, semolina pud
Saturday for lunch we had sasage & Mash and onion gravy and for tea usually sandwiches, and a Victoria sponge cake which I had baked and maybe some jelly for the kids
breakfast was usually porridge in the winter and cornflakes in the summer
Salad in the summer was a treat as there was not as much about as today
Sunday breakfast was usually kippers or boiled egg and toast.
I had £8.10.00 (£8.50) a week housekeeping and bought for four of us out of this .We lived in a room and kitchen and had a small water heater on the wall for hot water,we shared a toilet with two other families,but had no bath. And no central heating or double glazing it was a big draughty old flat.I used to walk nearly five miles a week pushing my children each way in the pram to my sis-in-laws for a bath on a Wednesday I hand washed most of the stuff and used my scrubbing board for my husbands collars and cuffs on his shirts. The childrens nappies went into a big black cast iron pot on the gas stove to be boiled up every two or three days .I had a fridge with a very tiny freezer bit that could only hold maybe a packet of peas, so most of the veg was fresh bought every two or three days
I had no microwave, or washing machine, and to have a holiday was a dream We would go out for the day on the bus and take a sandwich and a flask with us. My kids never ate crisps or junk food as I couldn't afford them.The only junk food shop then was a Wimpey bar anyway.I had a large apple tree in our back communual garden and we were allowed to pick what we wanted so the children ate quite a lot of apples.If we went out to the countryside on the bus we would always take a carton to see if we could pick some blackberries. I lived in this flat for five years until we scraped enough together to move to Dartford from Croydon to buy a house.This was a huge barn of a place in comparisom to our flat but at least we had our own bathroom and a proper bath to use when we wanted to.Went from paying 4 guineas a week to £60.00 per month mortgage.My husbands take home pay in 1971 was £112.00 per month so we were just as broke but we had got on the ladder at last by buying our own home It cost £6850.00 which seemed a fortune in those days but somehow we managed.I seem to have been frugal for most of my life, but it didn't bother me at all. Most of my friends were in the same boat so I didn't feel different in anyway at all.

kjmtidea

I found that really interesting JackioO

thriftlady_2

I have book called The Green Food Bible by Judith Wills which I recommend;) In it she compares of a typical day's food of a family in the 1950s with that of a family today.

The modern family's eating habits are pretty extreme and don't reflect the way my family eats nor I suspect the way many other old-stylers' families eat. However, it does serve to highlight how much modern eating habits have changed in the last 50 years and especially how complicated they have become.

This is a summary of the two menus -

1950s family

Breakfast
Eaten altogether at the table. Milk from the milkman, bread from a local bakery, hm marmalade and eggs.

Lunch
children- a school lunch cooked on the premises of mince, veg and mash, stewed apples and Birds' custard.
Father -packed lunch of cheese and pickle sandwich, hm fruitcake plus a flask of tea
Mother -the same at home

Evening meal
Eaten together at the table. Lamb stew-scrag end of lamb, dried haricot beans and lots of veg. Plum crumble with top of the milk.

Bedtime- a milky drink plus a digestive

Drinks -tap water, tea and squash
Fruit and veg would have been seasonal and local

2000s family

Breakfast
son -cereal bar plus strawberry milkshake consumed on the way to school
daughter- black coffee
father -boxed cereal with south African blueberries
mother-latte and blueberry muffin on the way to work

lunch
son-packed lunch packaged cheese and breadsticks, packaged 'mini fruit', pack of dried fruit, crisps, juice carton
daughter- chips from the chippy, cola, chocolate bar
father -pub lunch of reheated ready-meal (from Brake Brothers or similar) wine
mother -supermarket Thai chicken salad eaten at desk

Evening meal -eaten by individual memebers at different times
son- frozen pizza-throws half away
daughter- ready-meal of chicken tikka masala, tub of chocolate mousse, kiwi, diet cola
parents -Chinese takeaway, wine

Notice the amount of packaging involved in the food day of the modern family and the complete lack of anything prepared in the home also the complete lack of communal meals.

rachbc

JackieO - add a zero to your figures (oh and don't forget to quadruple the house price and add a zero) add in a washing machine and my life ain't that different to what you describe, certainly til a few years ago I took my son to afreidns house to bath him as we only had hotwater from a heater above the kitchen sink...it wasn't just in the 'old days' that life was tough - its tough for a lot of poeple now!

Reverbe

kunekune wrote: »

Please forgive me if I'm wrong, but I am beginning to feel very puzzled about mummytoash. Are you real or are you a journalist seeking stories? We've had three separate threads in recent weeks, in which the type of problem you have with affording food, as does the budget, keeps changing but it is always a real challenge. Given that you've started threads on this board before, I can't see why you started by asking whether you've come to the right place.

I have to say I have searched this users posts and there does seem something a bit funny and rather inconsistent to me as well. Perhaps this is some local paper journo who has been set tasks. I cant see them posting on any other threads nor commenting on other posts or replying or thanking and the details on their family and reasons why they have to do this etc are sketchy to say the least...:rolleyes: I note also that once this was brought up they have made no reply nor addressed your comments kune...:whistle:. if I was a mod I'd be inclined to look into this to see if they are using mse and its posters as cheap and easy fooder for a book or column.

Another thing that makes them seem not genuine is how fussy the eaters are - if the 4 adults won't eat roast chicken why is mummy buying a whole chicken? Why would anybody buy things that they don't like or won't eat. I don't like gravy for example and you will never catch my buying it especially when money is short.If they are short of money genuinely then one would eat soup even if one wasn't keen on it as it is cheap and healthy. Unless you are allergic there is no reason not to eat things just cos you are not as keen on them. To go round saying people WONT eat things without giving a good reason why they don't is just a bit un-credible.

If mummy toash really wants to save money, may one suggest 1 not using texts and 2 not having extra adults and others around to eat. Your priority when on a low income is to feed your own family not others....:whistle:...:whistle:This poster mentions twice in her posts about feeding extra people - one mentions 2 extra adults and extra kids and in another mummy posts that her hubby has texted her that she will have to feed FIVE extra people. Mummy if you are genuine I suggest you have a good word with your husband about your income and feeding other people who are not part of your normal family setup...Surely they can feed themselves on their own income. :whistle: