If It Wasn't Meat, What Did They Eat?

tina_malteser

Awww FPK That was lovely...Thanks for sharing x:T

FairyPrincessk

Will definitely pass on your comments, she has gotten herself an iphone recently--so newfangled to me, but it means she gets her e-mails instantly.:D

Patchwork_Quilt

Thank you FairyPrincessk, that was absolutely fascinating! And thank you too, to everyone else who's shared such lovely memories. Certainly, the Dandelion and Burdock seems familiar - and being sent back to the shop to reclaim the sixpence on the bottle! We used to get ice-cream from the van too, in a blue plastic bowl for 10p. Obviously, cornets were too expensive! It was slathered in pink 'raspberry' sauce that had probably never seen a piece of fruit!

One thing that strikes me is how much effort our mothers put into our meals. Everything was made from scratch and ingredients were bought frequently. Working mothers must have had a really hard time of it. Nobody really wants to come home from work and start making pastry and peeling spuds - which is why we all eat rice and yogurts - but they must have had to do it. I've also noticed that Dads got the largest share of the meat or the top of the milk! One of my favourite - and most annoying - phrases from memories of my Grandma is "Have the men had enough meat?" It was important to keep them stoked up in the days when there was one breadwinner but now it's just as likely to be the women as the men. I can't imagine blokes demanding an extra chop these days!

Thank you again for the trouble taken to post these interesting memories.

Mojisola

Patchwork_Quilt wrote: »

Certainly, the Dandelion and Burdock seems familiar - and being sent back to the shop to reclaim the sixpence on the bottle!

We always had Tizer as our treat.

We also used to spend some time at the end of days out at events going round picking up the bottles other people had left behind and reclaiming the money.

One thing that strikes me about those days is that there were lots of ways of making the good bits like meat go further - whether it was serving up a big Yorkshire pudding to fill us up, putting plenty of pearl barley in the lamb stew, beans in with the beef and loads of stuffing in the hearts and belly pork.

[Deleted User]

I can remember buying from David Griegs in the mid 1960s a big slab of fruit cake that you could buy as though it was cut from a long bar. I think it was called Kensington cake and a lb cost 2/6d and a slice went into my OH lunch box every day when he went off to work as he loved thick dark fruit cake .When we finally got a mortgage and moved from South Norwood to Dartford in 1971 I have less available cash so I taught myself to make it and would make a big fruit cake on a Sunday that went through the week in his lunch box to fill him up along with a sandwich and an apple
The thing I loved best was the gold top milk from the milkman, I think it was jersey milk and almost yellow at times and very creamy and as a child my brothers and I took it in turn to have the 'top of the milk' on out porridge or cornflakes.I now have semi-skimmed and think longingly of the days when I was rake thin and Mum would buy Gold top to fatten us all up.She never minded how much milk we drank as it was good for us,plus of course we had a third of a pint at school every day

meritaten

Yes JackieO - it was Jersey milk which came in the gold top bottles! we normally had silver top which would be 'full fat' milk today. Gold Top was for 'special occasions'! I can remember how creamy that milk tasted!
Do you remember those tall bottles of Steri? or Sterilised milk? my aunt used to buy those and I think it was because even in the summer they took far longer to go 'off' - but tea made with it tasted awful to me!
Then there were those who didn't buy doorstep milk and instead used condensed or evaporated - in tea or babies bottles! just think of the outcry now - but many a babe was raised on Conny milk!

Butterfly_Brain

Thank you for that FPK it is lovely to hear how people in other countries coped x
I remember having beef, pork or lamb much more often than a chicken, chickens were really expensive in the 60's. Lamb was imported from New Zealand then and a cheap roast :eek: sadly not now, I rarely buy it unless it is on offer and it is one of my favourite meats
Everything was fried in lard
I remember:
Egg and chips
Mince and tatties
shepherds pie Made with left over Sunday roast
macaroni cheese
tinned spaghetti on toast
bubble and squeak with fried egg and beans
steak and kidney pie
casseroles with more veg than meat
sausage toad
Liver and bacon with onions and mash
cheese and onion pie with chips and beans
ham and boiled egg salad and a cake of some description every Sunday tea time.
Tinned peaches or fruit cocktail with evaporated milk for dessert on a Sunday or Arctic roll or trifle,
I remember using the toasting fork in front of the fire as well
Cream crackers with jam as a treat

Tiglath

My Mum grew up in the 1930s and they were very poor, so the only meat they had regularly was the rabbits Grandad trapped. Occasionally Great-Grandad would give them some pork from his pig farm, and a piece of beef would be stretched very thinly. They grew their own fruit and veg, and ate a lot of potatoes, bread and flour-based things with jam. Lunch tended to be a lump of cheese and a raw onion or carrot. To the end of her life, Nan's biggest treat was a tin of condensed milk scoffed with a spoon. I remember her feeding us sugar sandwiches in the early 70s, and was fascinated watching her try to munch through whelks with her dentures as a Friday night treat.

craigywv

my gran,i was born in the 70 s wouldgive us sugar sandwiches ...............i hated them....to this day i cannot eat sugar if i can see it like on donuts etc, also she had no fridge hers was out in the yard in a big cupboard and jelly was put on windowsill with a saucer on it memories xxxedit...just seen your post TIGLATH re the sugar sarns cross posting lol must have been a 70s thingxxx

craigywv

BAGGY...you mentioned fancy restaurants doing old fashioned food, well 1 of our more fancy restaurants in town center is doing as there main meal CHAMP which is mashed spuds and scallions if your from Belfast your brought up on CHAMP ,and they charging a fortune for it!!!! also have seen liverand onions on same menu !!!!!!!!!FAIRY P that was a lovely post great info xxx