What Did People Eat In The 1950's

Mrs_Arcanum

Itismehonest wrote: »

Sausages & saveloys, too. Oh, & who remembers 'crackling'? The bits of batter that broke off during frying. We used to buy 6 penneth of chips & thruppence worth of crackling They stopped chip shops selling it, I believe

We called them scramps. Even in the 60's the chippy was still the only fast food place with 100yard long queues on a Friday and a bag of chips was 3d with proper vinegar that made your lips white. :rotfl:

Many people grew their own veg with the green-grocer supplementing this. Meat was delivered by the butchers boys on bicycles and towns had proper fish-mongers.

THIRZAH

I was born in the 1950s.My family were farmers too and we ate quite large meals.

Breakfast was always cooked-either eggs, bacon with tomatoes or mushrooms or sometimes porridge. Followed by toast and home-made jam.

Mid-morning we'd have coffee and usually a piece of cake. We children would take a couple of plain biscuits in a paper bag to school to eat at break along with our school milk.

Our main meal was lunch time-always meat and veg followed by a pudding.

If we were hungry when we got home from school we'd have a piece of cake.Then we'd have high tea-something cooked with bread and butter followed by more cake.

My parents and grandparents would often have a little something-cheese or leftovers before they went to bed.

All our veg were home-grown as was most of our fruit- we might get a few tangerines at christmas or have tinned fruit for Sunday tea.All cakes were home-made.

We rarely ate fish. There was no fishmongers in the village. We'd occasionally have smoked haddock for tea on Thursdays if my mother had got the bus into Ely on market day.

We only had sweets twice a week. We got sixpence pocket money-three pence on Tuesdays and thee pence on Thursday and would be allowed to call into the village shop for sweets on the way to school. We were expected to eat the sweets at break instead of biscuits

[Deleted User]

Roast Dinner on Sundays, Bubble and Squeak and Cold Roast Meat on Mondays, Shepherds Pie on Tuesdays(Leftover roast meat in this),Macaroni Cheese on Wednesdays, Stew on Thursdays, Smoked Haddock and Mash with a Poached Egg on Fridays, and Cowboys Dinner (Bacon, Potatoes and Baked Beans) on Saturdays. Breakfasts were usually porridge or Toast and Tea. Supper was usually Cheese on Toast or Luncheon Meat sandwiches. Most of the veg was home grown by Dad in the garden and very little was commercially made. We always had a Sunday Tea (cold meat and salad, and tinned fruit and evap milk) and rarely had puddings except on Sunday when there might have been a fruit pie or crumble and custard. Biggest treat of the week would be going to the local bakery just before closing on a Saturday for a bag of 'Stale Cakes' for very little money as they were closed on Sundays. We didn't do so badly did we? Portions were generally quite a lot less than we are used to today.

oldtractor

Scratchinhs from the chippie and "Scollops"--big rounds of potatoes dipped in batter and fried.
Vapo milk on tinned fruit and jelly. And tinned cream sometimes.

mardatha

I don't do lunch, I just do dinner..and at teatime I do tea
I mind at my granny's you were allowed bread & butter or bread & jam but NEVER both. It still bugs me today and she died in 1955 :rotfl:
I think a meal felt like a meal instead of now when I watch my grandkids chomping away on crisps and biscuits and jam pieces non-stop all day. Your stomach would never get peace eating like that, can't be good for you.
I think also there is a lost art of pie making, they could make a whole family meal out of a couple of rabbit legs for instance, minced and mixed with tons of veg and suet pastry.

juliethemuse

yet another variation of scraps (bits of batter that break off) we called them scrumps.
my nan used to cook from scratch , i used to love visiting her as her food tasted so much better than my mums.
she told me she would cook 'washday dinner' on a Monday. i think this was leftovers. because when she had finished her washing in the dolly tub there was no time to cook a proper meal.
her homemade egg custard was lovely, yorkshire puddings with home made jam, homemade rice pudding. ooh i feel transported back in time, i wish she was here today - mind you she'd be 112 now.

chirpychick

juliethemuse wrote: »

yorkshire puddings with home made jam

REALLY????? I thought Yorkshire puddings were a savoury roast dinner food, i have never heard of them with jam????

juliethemuse

yes and they were flipping gorgeous everything she cooked was lovely though.

manchestermargo

As a child of the 50's I remember going to my grandparents and having bread and butter with tinned fruit salad!!

Dripping on toast with a sprinkle of salt, sugar "butties", chicken was a real treat to have for Sunday roast. I remember we always had a capon for Christmas, never a turkey.
Lard was used for chips, pastry etc. Certainly don't remember olive oil being used for cooking. Do remember my mum warming some and pouring it down my ear as remedy for earache!

I am sure people then had weight problems but certainly not in the numbers we have today.

MM

HeatherintheHills

Breakfast was porridge with a dollop of jam or golden syrup during the week and maybe eggs and bacon on Sundays.

Dinner was at lunchtime, HM soup then mince & dumplings, onion and tatties, spam was still big on the menu, fried and served with deep fried chips. Mostly it was slices of boiled meat such as a ham joint or whatever the butcher had cheap that week, with pease pudding, spuds and whatever fresh veg was in season. We had steamed puddings at the weekends when dad was home.

Tea was sandwiches (if the sliced meat needed using up) or eggs and soldiers (toast), spam fritter sandwiches or sardines or mackerel followed by fruit, tinned unless there was a seasonal glut and fresh fruit was cheap. If we had been good we were allowed condensed milk on the tinnned fruit. Dad had his cooked meal when he came home from work and took a sandwich for lunch.

We drank water, sometimes tea, I don't remember juices being offered very often but milk was often forced down our throats. There were no fridges, just the marble slab and the meat safe (a box with fly proof mesh kept in the outside pantry, so in summer milk was often on the turn before it arrived on the doorstep - yuck. I still remember my first taste of fresh, chilled milk, so different from the sickly stuff I'd been used to in the 50s.

Hight tea on Sunday afternoon was a big spread when the visitors made an appearance and the cake stand came out. Cream cakes and biscuits (rarely) were home made, one cream cake each and no more, but we could fill up on Gran's rather solid fruit cake if we wanted. Grandad had hens so eggs were fairly plentiful for us.

Shopping was done daily so as not to miss the bargains as the butcher/fishmonger/greengrocer went to market every morning.

Summers were simple salads of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, radishes, cress or spring onions, home grown, with boiled eggs, grated cheese and very occasionally, sliced ham. Salad cream! Not sure when that came in but I think it was around by the late 50s.

Mostly what I remember is that food got very boring as we would have variations on the same menu for days at a time, sometimes weeks if it had been a good harvest for something.

A lot depended on where you lived. Where I was brought up mushrooms were very scarce, I was 16 when I tasted my first and I'll never forget it :rotfl: