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

Pee

My family were farmers, so they have always eaten lots of meat however it isn't what I would call meat. Liver, kidneys, fat bacon... A chicken was a huge treat years ago. beef was actually cheaper.

Greying_Pilgrim

FairyPrincessK that was a very interesting post, thank you. I wonder if you would be interested in The Food Programme that will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday (4th March) at 12.30pm as it is exploring the foods of the Southern United States - you can shout at the radio if they get the details wrong!

Not strictly about meat, but as Dandelion & Burdock and Tizer have been mentioned - what about Lucozade - in a glass bottle (pimply IIRC) wrapped in orange cellophane :eek: can you imagine the costs of that lot now?? Mind you, as has been mentioned, the sixpence (2 and a half pence) for returning the bottle was always a treat.

We had the same format in meals as has been mentioned - roast on Sunday, cold on Monday, bacon on Tuesday, Cottage pie on Wednesday.......... My sis-in-law was horrified when she first started dating my brother that he could tell what was for tea by the day of the week:rotfl: My mum had been taught 'good simple cooking' at school, but I don't think she liked cooking that much. Had we been a more affluent household, I definitely think that she would of embraced the whole 'convenience' sector much more wholeheartedly. As it was, we were poor-ish - but didn't realise because everyone around us was exactly the same - but there were still alot worse off than us. We had loads of vegetables - Dad grew all his own (I too remember alot of cabbage and hard-as-bullets ie big & old broad beans!) and when we got the 'allotment' (actually a disused teeny bit of a field) we had chickens (for eggs) and one year 2 pigs. Mother was delighted when they got butchered........not :rotfl:

Happy times.

Greying

meritaten

I love cooking and from starting secondary school at 11 and having cookery lessons (tho I did learn a lot from my nan previously as we lived with her for about 6 or 7 years), I did do a lot of cooking at home. Casseroles and dishes such as Cheese and Potato pie (mum had her 'repertoire' of about 10 dishes and just recycled them weekly) and wasn't interested in food either - but I wasn't allowed to cook 'foreign muck'! no curries, no Chinese or French food either! I did manage to sneak in Croque Monsiur by calling it 'fried ham and cheese sarnies'!
Beef Bourgignon was simply beef casserole with red wine. but it took a battle to get her to buy the ingredients for any special dish! so mostly I had to work with what was in the cupboards and fridge and 'adapt' recipes. Great training for married life really!
My OH was another one who knew exactly what was for supper by the day of the week! yet his mum knew how to make loads of things - she just went for 'easy' options I think.
Dad grew lots of lovely veg in the garden - and in his greenhouse. so for most of the year we were very well fed for little money! I still remember how to 'string' onions - until dad discovered it was easier to use stockings or legs of tights - I can remember walking into the shed and thinking some stupid woman had came through the roof! he had stuffed a whole pair of tights with onions and nailed them to the ceiling!

Salz

Am I the only one who had to eat Luncheon Meat Fritters
Chocolate Crunch and Pink Custard every Friday for school dinner pudding
Meatballs
One of my favourite's was gammon and egg mornay - boiled egg and potato in cheese sauce popped in the oven for 25 mins. Still one of my favourite meals today.

Mojisola

Salz wrote: »

Am I the only one who had to eat Luncheon Meat Fritters
Chocolate Crunch and Pink Custard every Friday for school dinner pudding

Oh, Spam fritters! You've brought it all flooding back. :rotfl:

We always used to have that pink custard with stodgy chocolate sponge pudding at school. Heavens knows what went into it to make it that colour. Mind you, I preferred that to the frogspawn and goat's blood (tapioca and red jam).

[Deleted User]

Spam fritters and conny-onny sandwiches my late half sister used to make for her son, and I and I thought it was the best food I had tasted ,only because my Mum would never cook it ,to her it was 'junk' food but to me it was ambrosia.
We drank quite a bit of Lucozade as my Dad was a chemist, and would bring it home from work if one of us were sick along with Robinsons Lemon barley water which we drank made with hot water if we had a cold.Searching for empty bottles was a great source of income for lots of kids 2d for a small beer bottle 3d for a bigger one and 4d for an empty cider one.Tixer and lemonade bottles was always 3d.But for 6d you could go to Saturday morning pictures at the local Gaumont and 3d bought a Palm toffee bar (banana split) which was almost guaranteed to remove any stray wobbly teeth or fillings.On Saturday afternoons if you got bored (not something that happened very often when I was small) you could go to the local big store (Cheismans ) and in the basement there was a whole deptment of televisions to watch.
No one I knew, apart from my rich aunt in Glasgow owned one, so there would be a long line of small children sitting on the floor waiting for Billy Bunter to come on the screen after the sport.These t.v. were huge mahogany things with tiny portholes for the screen.Now and again around 5.00p.m. the manager would walk along turning them off and there would be a big outcry from the children
" Aw go on Mister leave it on for a little while longer" if he was in a good mood he would, and we would watch in awe at the brand new invention that would one day transform all our lives.My late Dad wouldn't have one in the house as he said it would rot your brain and the wireless was far more instructive for children.
I think I left home before I had a t.v. of my own to watch so missed quite a bit of it.The other invention that facinated me was a biro pen, as most pens were Conway-Stuart fountain pens or the horrible ones at school that always had crossed nibs:):) I recall my Dad bringing one home from work and it was fantastic that you didn't have to fill it up and it just wrote so smoothly on the paper.I think he paid about a tenner for it which was very expensive in those days and now you can get throw away ones in Barclays bank :)
I remember going to the local post office to refill my fountain pen from the inkwells there as I hadn't got any ink or cash to buy some on the way to school.School ink was rubbish and clogged up your pen
Weird how such small things meant so much to people in those days, life certainly has changed in the past 60+ years

FairyPrincessk

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

FairyPrincessK that was a very interesting post, thank you. I wonder if you would be interested in The Food Programme that will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday (4th March) at 12.30pm as it is exploring the foods of the Southern United States - you can shout at the radio if they get the details wrong!

OOh yes. That combines two of my favourite things: food history and shouting at the radio!:rotfl:

I recently discovered a programme called Supersizes go and Supersizers eat and watched the lot on youtube in a couple of weekends. Unfortunately they mostly focused on what wealthy and elite people ate, but it was still fascinating.

suki1964

We also had an vegetable garden and greenhouse. Mum was a very keen gardener and dad got roped in. He grew potatoes,cabbage, sprouts,lettuce , tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet corn and the dreaded marrow :eek:

I still hate marrow to this day

They were huge things, and mum cooked the life out of them and served them stuffed with mince

The soft drinks lorry used too come weekly. We had lemonade, orangeade, dandelion and burdock and cream soda. The cream soda was served with a dollop of ice cream in it - ice cream sodas

Cola wasn't allowed and I don't think I had a coke till I was in secondary school.

Mum also got a freezer. A huge chest freezer (70's) Her and the neighbours would club together for half a pig or a whole lamb and the meat was shared out and kept in the freezer. Same with frozen convince food. The only freezer shop was Bejam and peas would come in 5lb boxes, same as fish fingers, so they were all measured out to smaller amounts and sold to the neighbours

Jackie O, we also learned to write with ink, but with cartridge pens. It was a great honour in school to be given a pen instead of a pencil. If you couldn't keep your handwriting neat, then the pen was taken back and the shame of having too use a pencil again

I remember the lucozade sold in the bottle with the orange film. It was sold in the chemist as a health drink. We were never allowed it but I remember taking it to my grandad in the hospital

The milk was delivered early morning by the milkman in his electric float. Silver top everyday except Saturday when we had a bottle of gold top delivered for the rice pudding Sunday

Sundays were so different. Nothing was open, it really was a day of rest for everyone. The newspaper shop opened till 10 and that was it. Tv also never started till tea time so it was the radio As kids if it wasn't raining then we were expected to be outside Dads would all be working on their cars, us kids on our bikes and mums and whichever kids turn it was to help, getting the lunch. We all three of us were given jobs around the house from the time we could walk, from emptying the waste paper bins, cleaning the bathroom, washing up after dinner, to hoovering and ironing once deemed old enough

savingqueen

I have loved reading this thread - thanks everyone!

I was born in late 60s to old fashioned parents. We had no car and a tiny fridge with an icebox. Food was shopped for daily (apart from Sunday), bought from local shops - we had a butcher, baker, greengrocer, general store a few minutes away and a corner shop (expensive and grumpy shopkeeper) which I would be sent to if we ran out of something essential. Milk was delivered by the milkman. Then on a Saturday we would go to a big market. In the 70s Dad starting grew veg in the garden and then got an allotment later so we had plenty of carrots, cabbage, lettuce, toms, peas. I can remember Dad carrying a big sack of potatoes home on his shoulder before he got the allotment.

We always had a roast on Sunday, I remember chicken sometimes but probably more likely beef or lamb. Dinners were meat and veg with potatoes featuring nearly every day. Bread and butter often appeared to eat with dinner.

Common meals were chops, sausage and mash, toad in the hole, shepherd's pie, steak and kidney pie, corned beef pie, egg and chips and the dreaded liver and bacon. Mum's cooking was ok but she stuck to the same meals, never used a receipe book or cooked anything remotely exotic of "foreign". No such thing as children's meals and we wouldn't dare complain or leave food.

School dinners were cooked at school and again fierce dinner ladies made you eat everything up. To be fair some children were really poor and that was their main meal of the day and the lunchtime staff knew that. I actually loved most of the meals even the spam fritters, spam pie, watery cheese pie etc. Everything except the torturous (sp?) liver and boiled cabbge. I can still remember how the canteen smelt. I loved the big bowls of sponge puddings and custard. In one year, our fab eccentric teacher would run down to the canteen before afternoon lessons and grab any leftover puddings to share out. Some kids would wolf them down even after their school dinner.

Mum baked Sunday afternoon and her baking was definitely better than her cooking. She baked rolls, scones, (sweet) mince or jam tarts, sponge puddings, rock buns, fruit cake and other cakes I can't remember now all from a little well thumbed Be-rol (I think it was called?) booklet passed down from an eldery relative. Also made her own sausage rolls and pasties. We had a sandwich and whatever mum had baked at Sunday teatime. It was heaven!

Packets, tins and jars were not often used for main meals. I can remember angel delight, blancmange, jelly, dream topping, packet trifle and tinned fruit though. I prefered mum's sponge puddings, apple or blackberry pie or crumble and custard. Occasionally had a block of icecream kept in the icebox or a really special treat, an icecream from the icecream van in the summer.

Banana slices coated in sugar and put into sandwiches were a Sat treat or just sugar sandwiches! Drank tea from being quite young but we never had coffee in the house.

I was a sickly, weedy child until I had my tonsils out at 9 and drank tons of lucozade (recommended by docs etc) with the cellophane wrapping. I also had terrible teeth despite cleaning them and visiting dentist regularly, I had several fillings as a child. Grew up with a very sweet tooth and also have several fillings now.

I could write about this all day, better stop now!
sq:)

Mojisola

savingqueen wrote: »

Mum's cooking was ok but she stuck to the same meals, never used a receipe book or cooked anything remotely exotic of "foreign".

My Gran was like this - she was a very good cook but did everything by feel and experience - a handful of that, a "good pinch" of this (as apposed to "just a pinch"), add enough milk until it feels "right", beat it until it's ready(!) and so on.