What Did People Eat In The 1950's

chirpychick

kittie wrote: »

scouring for recipes that only used up to one egg

please let us know if you find any

Itismehonest

mardatha wrote: »

Can you still get dripping?

I'm not sure if you can buy it.
There was a time fairly recently when you could get it in butchers & even supermarkets but it wasn't fashionable.

It's not always that easy to get it the old-fashioned way (from cooking a joint) either, as the fashion for lean meat has made most meat not only leaner but less juicy & tasty.

If you get a joint with enough marbling & fat then you can get as close to the old stuff as possible, I guess.

The "lean is better" is one reason that bacon nowadays tends to be nothing like the bacon we had in the 50s.

lizzyb1812

I'm sure there will be one or more here:

http://woottonbridgeiow.org.uk/recipes/wartime.php

This is part of a larger site - the section has recipes from the 1920s to the 1950s

ETA re dripping - a good proper butcher should have dripping and I think I've seen it in Morrison's

Toomuchdebt

If you have a decent Polish shop near you, you can get proper bacon And they also sell jars of sandwich dripping

WeegieWumman

manchestermargo wrote: »

. 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

In the 50's I didn't know anyone who cooked with olive oil other than Italians.
There certainly weren't as many people with weight problems. Firstly there was food rationing and afterwards when people ate large meals they compensated by carrying out more physical work in their daily routines. Women didn't have labour saving gadgets. Children played outdoors and there were no televisions and computers keeping families glued to their chairs all evening.

Itismehonest

Toomuchdebt wrote: »

If you have a decent Polish shop near you, you can get proper bacon And they also sell jars of sandwich dripping

Thank you. That's good to know.
Unfortunately, the area I live in hasn't become cosmopolitan enough to have any Polish shops. I don't actually know of any (what would you call them?) ethnic(?) shops within 50 miles of here.
The next time I'm in the county town I'll see if I can find one.

westcoastscot

Hi, Haven't posted for a while - life has gotton in the way!
We still pretty much live and eat the same way, except we have a little more so aren't constantly hungry!
We had cereal or porridge for breakfast, school dinners and then boiled egg and toast, or beans on toast, something like that for tea. We rarely had sweets except at christmas/birthdays - I got 2p (old money) and it had to buy sweets and Bunty comic, plus a "jubilee" from the ice-cream van once a week!
We had home-made bread and biscuits - were allowed 2 bisuits a day.
We still have rhubarb with sugar to dip, eat seasonally etc - the only real change is that we have lunch and dinner, rather than dinner and tea, so everyone gets a decent meal now we're all working.

Regarding recipes only using one egg - I've adapted loads of recipes to be egg free - the usual baking recipes - would be happy to share any if you wish - it's certainly much cheaper. The only thing I haven't managed is a decent carrot cake!

WCS

margaretclare

Food rationing went on until the mid-50s and that included sweets. 4 ounces of sweets a week. Can you imagine a modern child being told 'don't eat that all at once, it has to last you the week'?

Living in the country, my grandad's former workmates often used to bring a rabbit or two. I ate lots of stewed rabbit as a child. Any other meat was on ration. Chicken was rare because hens were kept to lay eggs and when they were beyond laying they were cooked, stewed. Veg was locally-grown, butter and skimmed milk from the local farm.

A TV programme last evening blames US politicians for changes in the way we eat, dating it to the 1970s - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01k0fs0

pws52

Toast done on the open fire then spread with dripping and sprinkled with salt.
Salt didn't come in prepacked but in a block and cut with a carving knife and rolled into small grains with the wooden rolling pin and put into a salt pot. Then you either took a pinch to sprinkle or used the salt spoon to put a small heap on the side of the plate.
Breakfast was toast. Dinner was dinner at school or at home, tea was always bread and butter served with the jam jar on the table (serve yourself)or lemon curd or golden syrup or mashed banana with milk and sugar or potted meat if it was butcher day,or sugar or crisps all to put on the bread.
Before bedtime...always a glass of milk.
Biscuits were a rare treat but homemade cake was a weekend treat.
Fruit tea was on Sunday....a tin of fruit with evap milk or tinned cream served with bread and butter.
Yorkshire pudding was served before the roast dinner with homemade strawberry, blackberry or raspberry vinegar.
Pudding...if Yorkshire pud wasn't being served, was also eaten before dinner. Egg custard, milk puddings, steamed puddings etc.
No ice creams....they were a very special summer treat.
No cordials, no pop....water to drink if you were thirsty.
Veg all home grown. I can remember Surprise peas being a treat when home grown weren't in season..possibly in the 1960s.
Hen run in the garden. Hens fed on scraps and meal.
Rabbits kept for meat not as pets.
Local farmer providing wild rabbits, pheasants and pigeon.
Nothing was wasted.
Sweets....what were they? They were a luxury.
Rhubarb dipped in sugar, orange segments dipped in sugar.
Batter bits from the chippy....only on holiday
Rice was in rice pudding so was a sweet....I didn't eat rice as a savoury until the late 1960s.

There we go...and believe it or not I still do some of the above but not the stuff with the sugar overload (honest!).

WeegieWumman

I've never tasted bread & dripping.
Coffee was quite dear and many people only took it occasionally and had instant coffee stirred into a cup of hot milk. My parents who had lived in USA & Canada served coffee on a regular basis and an acquaintance was shocked that we "acted miserable by making it with water!"
Still love rhubarb pulled from the garden and dipped in sugar