What Did People Eat In The 1950's

Itismehonest

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

Mind you, the odd pint of cockles or winkles would occasionally make its way home, immersed in eye wateringly strong vinegar, to be consumed at the kitchen table with the aid of pins and copious quantities of ground black pepper.

But never eels, never pie and mash/liquor, never fish and chips - 'cos they were 'common' and she wouldn't allow common food indoors. But other families would have them.

Oh "groan" ....... whelks. _pale_
I'm sure they were the basis of "Chew everything 100 times" which we used to be taught. You had no choice, the darned things were like rubber.

[Deleted User]

I was 12 when rationing finished and I can remember my Mum bursting into tears and throwing the ration books up in the air.Even without rationing there always seemed to be shortages of stuff,but we never went hungry.
Breakfast was porridge, made with water and sprinkled with salt and if you were lucky the 'top of the milk' .Apart from Nestles tinned cream, Gold top milk was the nearest most kids came to fresh cream.

In the summer it was cornflakes (always Kellogs with a funny cut-out mask on the back of the box for children ,free toy ) or if you were lucky Weetabix,but my Mum said cornflakes filled you up more.

I came home for lunch as the school dinners were awful, and I hated them and would rather walk a mile and a half each way at lunchtime and usually it was a sandwich ,cheese or Shippams meat paste and a slice of cake or if Mum was flush I might get a split cream doughnut of the bakers van if she was in a good mood .I can remember 'Dunkies' which were the first ring doughnuts on the market but my favourite from the bakers van was a 'London Cheesecake' which was a square puff pastry with shedded coconut covered in icing and a dab of jam in the middle I haven't seen one of those for years.
Dinner in the evening was almost always meat and two veg with the emphasis on the veg and to a lesser extent the meat.

Mondays: was always cold meat (left over from sunday ) with mash and branston pickle(it was wash day so Mum only had to peel and mash the spuds.

Tuesdays: spam fritters (sliced spam dipped in batter and fried with HM chips and peas

Wednesdays: Bangers and mash and cabbage with onion gravy

Thursdays: sliced corned beef, egg,chips and tomatoes

Fridays was almost always fish and HM chips Mum used the same fishmonger for about 20 odd years and she would ask him what was the freshest and would point out which bit of fish she wanted .He was always very polite and called her Mrs Bearn and she called him Mr Brooks.

Saturday: was sometimes liver and bacon with mash and cabbage in the winter and salad (from the garden ) in the summer
Salads were normally lettuce tomatoes beetroot and cheese or egg as the main bit of the salad Sometime if they had grown ok we had sliced up spring onionswith a dollop of Heinz salad cream on top

We either had HM soup plus dinner or dinner plus a pud but never the three altogether.With your salad you had bread and butter We had a very large garden so grew a lot of the veg and soft fruit ourselves My Mum if she had a glut of tomatoes would chop some up and sprinkle a bit of sugar over them and I still think of it as a summer treat instead of strawberries
Pudding were usually semolina,rice or tapioca (I hated the last one) or often because we had a big apple tree we would have apple pie or crumble and sometimes rhubarb and custard.

We also had tinned prunes and custard as a pud now and again but not often as my Mum didn't like us children to eat too much tinned stuff.No in-between snacks at all,crisps (smiths ) were to my Mum a waste of money as she said there was hardly a potato in a packet and at 4d (2p) a time didn't fill you up, and only a biscuit with a cup of tea.You never ever helped yourself to food food times were almost set in stone breakfast at 8,lunch at 12.45 dinner in the evening at 6.30 when my Dad got home from work.If you came home from school and was hungry you might get a slice of bread and jam or an apple .Few other fruits like bananas or oranges until they became more plentiful in the mid 1950s.I was quite lucky because my Dad was a dispensing chemist and would bring home bottles of lucozade with a yellow cellophane wrapping around the neck that i would save to make decorations with at Christmas.
Christmas Dinner was nearly always one of our chckens that myDad would kill for the table I never tasted turkey until I was married in 1962.

One thing my Mum was always insistant on was that we never ever ate in the street God knows what she would make of the take-away society of today.She never owned a fridge ,freezer,microwave or washing machine but managed to bring up three children healthy, clean and with a respect for their elders (or else:))
But thats how Mums were in those far off days She worked tirelessly indoors looking after us all and looking back I feel sure she did without a lot of things so her children could have what she considered was the best she could.
I can never remember being cold, hungry or unloved which isn't a bad thing to say

WeegieWumman

Until I was 13 or 14, my father didn't come home from work during the day which meant that we had our main meal (dinner) in the evening. In fact, I had originally thought that families who had dinner in early afternoon and tea in the evening were quite 'swanky'.

[Deleted User]

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Before people were crammed into high-rise flats most people had a garden.

The lucky ones had a garden. Most people lived in back to back terraced houses in smoky towns. No room for hens, rabbits or veg. Life really was a hand to mouth existence. Speaking of my own family and that of dh, we had parents with aspiration and who embraced the good education that we were given. They didn`t have time to read to us or with us but we all (dh was also one of 7 children) went on to do well. I suppose we were hungry for change and wanted an escape from poverty. Don`t think snotty nosed ragged children because we were looked after beyond expectations. It was such a difficult life for our parents but almost blissful for us children when we played out day after day

THIRZAH

I still can't eat in the street. It was a strict school rule-no eating in the street in school uniform. DDs used to tease me that I expected my old headmistress to appear if I ate chips while walking along.I do occasionally eat ice-cream outside at the seaside but prefer to sit on a bench while eating.

We rarely ate tinned food in the 1950s apart from tinned fruit for Sunday tea in the winter. My father "inherited" a dislike of tinned food from his father who refused to eat anything from a tin once he got back from the trenches in WW1-don't know how they managed during the second world war!

Mrs_Arcanum

chirpychick wrote: »

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

My Dad always had leftover Yorkshire pud with golden syrup.

This nostalgia has got me rummaging through my Mums Cordon Bleu cookery course from the end of the 60's when people were still having trouble buying fresh garlic & the only pasta you could buy was spaghetti. :eek:

debbiedebt

Can anyone remember the "Corona man" who delivered fizzy pop in the 50's.

We didn't have any but my friend did and I always envied her!!

mardatha

We used to get that, but I dont like fizzy juice and never took any. I wonder how much sugar was in it !

meg72

chirpychick wrote: »

Hi,
I couldn't see if this had been asked before but I was wondering, does anyone here know what people ate in the 1950's type of era, (that is my inlaws and grandparents era but they haven't been much help).
Or if you don't know then maybe you could point me in the direction of a book?
I know there was less (or practically no) snacking so 3 square meals a day, what did these meals consist of? Do you know what kind of portion sizes they would have?

Im just curious really, but surely people like my grandparents knew how to spread their money and make the most of what they had and so if there is anything I can learn to help us then that would also be great

Hope a few people can help.

Thank you in advance.

For anyone looking for a book, the Post War Kitchen is available in the Works, 2.99.

Itismehonest

debbiedebt wrote: »

Can anyone remember the "Corona man" who delivered fizzy pop in the 50's.

We didn't have any but my friend did and I always envied her!!

Yeeesss! :j Corona was my treat.
I didn't really eat many sweets & didn't like tea or coffee, & I was allergic to milk, so we had the Corona man.
The lorry had tilted crates along each side, each crate with a different flavour in.