What Did People Eat In The 1950's

Mojisola

Haffiana wrote: »

Does anyone remember tiger nuts from the sweetshop?

That's brought back a memory! I used to love tiger nuts.

maryb

Fruit Salad chewy sweets. Four for a penny. I'm old enough to remember buying just one with a farthing

Kiwisaver_2

Farway wrote: »

I can still remember my Mum's number as it was very important not to forget it & lose out on divi

Me too, my Mums number is imprinted in my brain and I can remember collecting the little blue tickets that you got from the Co-op milkman. I can remember having to take them to the shop to what I suppose would be the equivalent of a Customer Services office.

The Vesta curries, were definitely a Dad's only treat in ut house and I was always envious of these exotic things. My parents used to go out quite a bit to 'Dinner and Dances' and always would come back and tell me about the food they had. I can remember my mum trying to describe a Prawn Cocktail me and it was years before I found out for myself what one actually looked and tasted like.

We kids never got to eat out or went to cafes, mother always had sandwiches and a bottle of squash prepared to take out with us. However my OH who is a bit older than me and from an inner city background tells me all kinds of tales of going to cafes or the pie and mash shop after school to eat and having fish and chips on a regular basis. So I think a lot does depend on where you come from and not so much due to a lack of money as far as I can figure.

manchestermargo

I am sure I remember my mum "selling her divi number" (we were very hard-up).

Slightly off topic I remember the coal man delivering bags of coal, and coal bricks and also going round to the next door neighbours with a bucket and asking could mum borrow a bucketful of coal until the next deliver!

MM

Farway

quintwins wrote: »

i never knew about top& tailing tho thank you for that, do i need to do that if they eat them raw? seems like alot of work.

No need for eating raw off the bush, but if in bowl with cream etc then the remnants of the hard stalk & "furry" blossom end will be a PIA that, like fish bones, put your family off them forever

Even strawberries require "top & tailing" well topping really

mardatha

My dad, and all the neighbours, were miners, and it took me until after I was married to realise that you had to pay for coal! LOL

Mojisola

There are a different types of gooseberries - some are only suitable for cooking/jam making/wine making/etc. If you try to get your family to eat those, they'll be put off gooseberries for life!

Isis_Black

Sorry cant find the post mentioning the post war kitchen book by marguerite patten - I found it today in the works for £2.99 :-)
There was another book too of hers called we'll eat again at £2.99 as well
Great views of the war time and just after :-)

chef002

Some interesting stuff here - I was born in Manchester in 1949 and then the family moved into deepest Lancashire around about 1957. We got our first fridge in 1960.

There was obviously nothing like as much variety around. Greengrocers started to get refrigerator cabinets in the late 50s. This gave us frozen peas, ice-cream and frozen fish. Frozen chickens started to appear shortly afterwards. Prior to refrigeration bacon was either heavily salted or heavily smoked. Not everyone's cup of tea. Shop sliced boiled ham was eaten a lot - in sandwiches, salads and with boiled potatoes. We ate lots of New Zealand lamb - always a shoulder badly roasted at the weekend - OK when hot but otherwise not. We did routinely get lamb loin chops. The usual minced beef, sausages and lambs liver featured in the regularly repeated menu.

From talking to chums of my own age brought up in London I get the impression that they ate a lot better than we did - probably more money around. And, ah, you didn't turn up at relatives for a meal without the customary tins of corned beef or salmon and fruit and evaporated milk.

It was all pretty grim really.

[Deleted User]

phew, just finished reading this thread! I am also in my late 20's and a lot of this stuff is familiar to me. I remember when I was about 4 years old, watching my Grandma mince meat with her mincer in the kitchen and had no idea what she was doing. She and my Mum laughed because I didn't realise where mince came from. The tragic thing is there are probably people older than I was who have no idea where mince comes from! The supermarket with their pre packaged potions of ready butchered meat has a lot to answer for! Both my Grandma and Great Aunt cook everything from scratch and still have high tea. My Great Aunt, however has fully embraced foreign foods and is quite partial to a curry even at 97. My Grandma doesn't like pasta, Chinese foods or curries one bit. My Dad still eats spam on toast or luncheon meat sandwiches. There is still a coal man who does the rounds near to my Dad's house, as there are a lot of houses who still have a coal fire in the lounge round there! Does anyone know where I can buy gooseberries round Salford/ Manchester? They seem to have completely gone out of fashion and I love gooseberry crumble! My Great Aunt used to make it with Gooseberries her friend grew on the allotment and she would serve it with Nestle tinned cream