A new 'tougher' thread... and so it continues

anguk

mardatha wrote: »

Oh thank god I'm not alone then Anguk - a poor wee orphan adrift in this sea of people who eat weird stuff like courgettes & aubergines & chilli & curry. To me, aubergine is a 60s posh bathroom suite and nothing else!
Ginny I hope he gets sorted out on friday!
I'm one of the brainy girls who never took cooking. But I bet none of you would have guessed
:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Nope you're definitely not the only one. I do like cooking though, it's just I don't like some of the food I cook. Luckily my OH will eat anything except olives and he and DD love spicy food but while they eat their curries & chilli I'll just have some soup or cheese on toast.

I think a lot of it is down to living with my grandparents when I was young, I was brought up on "traditional" food, the type you see in the wartime recipe books. Tonight we're having cottage pie for dinner.

Edit: I've just realised it's pancake day so we may be having those instead.

rachbc

mardatha wrote: »

I'm one of the brainy girls who never took cooking. But I bet none of you would have guessed
:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

ha ha - in my school the brainy girls did latin instead of sex ed...won't tell you which one I did!

Winchelsea

Hester said

"For those who don't like the way bodyparts start deteriorating after 40, spare a thought for those of us over 60, crumbling teeth, can't see, can't hear & worst of all I'm growing a beard, oh & I have a gammy knee, though that was caused by the little darlings at work smashing me to the floor whilst playing silly beggers."

Seventy's no better I can tell you Hester! I have real problems with walking up hills now - have to stop every few minutes to draw breath and find a bit more energy. Hard to take when you're used to zooming everywhere. Only a few years ago I was still running.

In my 60s I had a pacemaker put in, cataracts removed from both eyes, creaky knees, the lot (including the advent of the dreaded whiskers, which I'm fighting a losing battle with!).

Oh well, at least I'm still able to get out and about - and can use the internet. Started using FB at 69 to keep in touch with my younger friends and am now FB friends with my 88 year old cousin! Life's OK really!

greent

rachbc wrote: »

ha ha - in my school the brainy girls did latin instead of sex ed...won't tell you which one I did!

In my school you did needlework and cookery or Latin, with the first two subjects being considered as the lesser choice. Nowadays I wish I could use a sewing machine rather than conjugate Latin verbs:D:D

mama67

I went to a girls grammar school in the 80's and took both Latin and Needlework, but for some weird reason we weren't allowed to take cookery and needlework together.

Although that was probably not a bad thing as my efforts at school were usually atrocious but I could make the self same thing using the school recipe at home and it was alright.

prepareathome

In my grammer school in the '70s we had to choose between science ( chemisty, physics, biology) home ed ( cookery, needlework) and art - so if like me you loved chemistry and physics but also enjoyed needlework and cookery you had to chose - I opted for chemistry and physics reasoning my mum and grandma had already taught me to cook, knit and sew so could teach me more. One thing though my school was a great one for after school clubs, you think of it they had a club for it and they did have a cookery one, where we used the home ed kitchens to cook up everything from scrambled eggs to 12 course banquets ( they were very crafty they got us to do these when the headmaster was entertaining important bods from government, royalty ( only minor) foreign dignities, etc. I wonder what they thought knowing their grand meals were cooked by 12 - 16 year old girls. Latin of course was considered nessesary for everyone doing science. School wasn't private, just common and garden Grammer but it had made itself stand out in doing for others - we were asked to take part but it was optional and I have very happy memories of visiting elderly living in one room tenaments listening to their life stories while doing so cooking and cleaning for them, Going to orphanages spending time playing with the children and we always had two boys home at ours every Christmas. We would go there and help the children with their homework, play with them and then do story telling - they were in big wards not just a few to a room and all they had was a bedside cabinet that had all their own things, everything else including clothes was shared. We also went to hospitals every Christmas and decorated wards and sang carols. I also got to see a lot of films free as we would go to do a collection for some charity or another, a short film about it would be shown before the interval about the charity then we would get up and collect. We used to bring some of the children to the school so they could play tennis as school had its own tennis courts, swimming pool, hockey pitch and of course the big field for football and athletics

Jeepers not thought of all this in years, looking back I wonder how I had time to do any studying. I was also a member first of brownies, then guides and Tawny Owl at the brownies, member of the Girl and Lads Brigade, member of the Womans Junior Air Corp - run at the school, When I think now I think the children in the orphanage had more belongings than me, yet I had two parents and lived with them so thought myself so lucky and so sorry they didn't have their own rooms yet I was eldest of 5 and we all shared a tiny bedroom that just had room for two sets of bunkbeds and one single with no room in between and hardly had any toys as both lack of money and space stopped our parents buying any and any wealthy members of the family who bought us a toy were soon told how a piece of clothing would be better in future. We had two sets of school uniform and 3 outfits for out of school and that was it. When cleaning out dads place last summer after he died I found my Sindy doll, it was the only doll I had, my uncle bought it and bits to go with her when I was 5 and I remember mum and dad not looking amused her, but like most girls my age then I so wanted one, well some wanted a tressie but I was not fussy on her, and I loved her. I used to knit her clothes or sew them out of scraps, never had a house or things like that for her although uncle wanted to buy them, but got told no. The worst part was having two sisters younger than me mum insisted all my toys had to be shared but dad understood how I felt ( he was eldest of 4 boys and had had to share where as mum was youngest and totally spoilt so she never understood about sharing) and when mum went on about me giving her to sisters he would take her and hide her till mum and sisters stopped asking me to then out she would come again. Dad had carefully wrapped her and put her away at sometime and I had forgotten about her and now I have her back as good as new. Another memory I remember at 14 mum bought me my first pair of trousers, this was 1970 and oh how I loved them, dad was not amused to him woman wore skirts, another thing was my first mini dress, it was for a disco at school ( up till then school dances held every December were more like a prom, formal evening wear had to be worn and dancing was waltzs, Gay Gorden oh cannot remember the others but all formal types not disco) dad gave mum £10 for my dress and even in 1972 it wasn't that much and I found one I adored but it was £16 so mum had to ask if she could use the phone to call dad to see if she could use some of the housekeeping money towards the dress. I got it and it actually was used on and off for the next ten years as it was the smock type and was perfect as a top when I was expecting, it was varying shades of orange with big flowers all over it, then it looked great, so got my moneys worth out of it. My very first date ( I had been a real tomboy and always had plenty of boy friends but never had wanted to date any, although always was asked to dances by some boy or other) was a dress I borrowed from a friend of mums a long pinefore, and the boy, believe it or not he had been one of my teachers, I had just left school and we both were members of a religious social club and he asked me to the dance that was being held, while at school he never said a word, but admitted afterwards he had always fancied me. I was nearly 18 then and he was 25. I remember coming home all excited being asked out by a man not a boy and in a total flutter as to what to wear, but modern dress had passed mum by, but her friend loved modern clothes, although once mum hit her 60's she suddenly became more modern and dressed in fashionable but suitable for her age in fact she used to tell me I was to old fashioned

Oh gosh sorry I have rambled on, but all of a sudden all those memories have flooded back.....

katieowl_2

Preparedathome, I cannot tell you how many times I've got to the bottom of your post and read "Stopped smoking weed" :eek: :rotfl:
Gets me every time.

I remember those days you mention...I was 13 in '72 and remember lusting after hot pants, and short skirts and not being allowed, as we still lived with my gran and I had to dress in a way she approved of. To this DAY the feel of crimplene, if I accidentally touch it (in a charity shop usually) makes me cringe. There was a shop round the corner from where we lived that sold crimplene dress lengths off cheap. Gran was a fab seamstress, and the things she made were technically perfect, just so old fashioned (modest she would have said) and my skirts had to be longer than knee length - if I rolled my skirt up like a lot of the girls did a school, I had so much material round my waist, I looked like a right fatty. I died a thousand deaths with the navy blue crimplene blazer she made me for school - it was a totally different colour and material from everyone elses. Scarred for life I was! Hardly surprising when I got off the lead, I was a wild child

Anyway here is the red cooked pork recipe for those that want it. It's from a book called Cheap Chow (Kenneth Lo) which was published in 1976. You can still pick it up on Amazon (or you could last time I looked)

Red Cooked Pork

"For this recipe use hand, shank, belly, blade, spare rib joint, or chinese spare ribs, do not trim off the skin

4-5 tablespoons of vegetable oil
3lb (1.35kg) pork (one of the above)
4-5 tablespoons soya sauce
6-7 tablespoons red wine or sherry
6-7 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons sugar

Heat oil in casserole, add meat in one piece, and turn it over a medium heat for 5-6 minutes. Reduce heat to low, and add half the soy sauce, half the wine, half the water and half the sugar. Stir/turn the meat in the sauce a few times, close the lid of the casserole and put it in a preheated oven at 150c for an hour, turning the meat every half hour. Add the remainder of the soya, wine, water and sugar, turn the oven down to 140c and cook for a further 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours turning the meat three or four times.

By the time the meat has cooked for 2 1/2 - 2 3/4 hours the gravy should become quite thick and sticky, and the skin of the pork jelly like."

He goes on to say that 2-4 table spoons of this should be sufficient with 1/2 - 3/4 bowl of rice, and should be accompanied with a plain vegetable dish and that if one wishes to be extravagant you can eat 5-6 tablespoons with the same quantity of rice Also can be served with noodles. Serves 6-8

Here is my 2012 take on the recipe, as we are now used to the tastes of the orient as we were not back in the '70's add to the pan with the initial batch of wine/soy sauce a couple of thick slices of fresh ginger, a couple of chilli peppers, just deseeded, a couple of cloves of garlic, bashed up a bit and a good heaped teaspoon of chinese five spice powder, and a couple of star anise if you have or can find some.

The sauce will set to a jelly if you let the meat cool in it, and I usually do cool it before we eat it. I take some of the meat, slice it and add it to a veggie stir fry usually, just sizzling it to heat it through, along with a dollop of the jelly to make the sauce. We eat a little of the jellied fatty stuff. It tastes great but I'm sure it's not healthy so I try and pick a piece of meat that isn't too fatty to start with.

I'm just about to cook another piece tonight, as I want to experiment with cooking it in the slow cooker...I've always been a bit wary of cooking pork in a slow cooker in case it wasn't hot enough, but my slow cooker book has several pork recipes so I shall try!

Kate

elizabunny

shelley_crow wrote: »

My parents had a fetching 1970s champagne coloured bathroom suite, lovely!

I still have one -put in 1989, it's in pefect condition and we think it looks lovely:)

If it isn't broken then I won't mend it

Winchelsea

Oh PAH, what a lovely read! I'm 15 yrs older than you (was 29 in 1970), but it all seems such a familiar story.

We too did either Latin or Domestic Science at the grammar school, depending which "stream" we were in - no choice in the matter. Those considered more academic did Latin, like it or not. I scraped through my Latin O level, only learning anything because I fancied the teacher!

Latin had its uses in later life (medical terms, inscriptions on statues, crossword puzzles etc), but after I got married I had to teach myself to make clothes, household items etc, also any cooking that was a bit more exotic than my mum's repertoire. Dom Sci would have been good!

My dad too was shocked when I got my first pair of trousers!

lizzyb1812

katieowl wrote: »

I'm just about to cook another piece tonight, as I want to experiment with cooking it in the slow cooker...I've always been a bit wary of cooking pork in a slow cooker in case it wasn't hot enough, but my slow cooker book has several pork recipes so I shall try!

Kate

The pork in the slow cooker will be fine - I did a casserole with pork and dehydrated veggies last week. And I did a pork shank in it as well - 2 carrots an onion and the shank plus about 5mm water and it was fine.

Know what you mean about the crimplene. And a few years before that my mum, bless her, wanted me to have tartan ski pants to be different when I wanted plain blue ones like everyone else.

Gosh PAH, you're right - when they start the memories just flood back don't they?