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

Florenceem

Patchwork_Quilt wrote: »

I was reading recently that we all eat too much meat and that back in the Olden Days meat was such a luxury that families could only afford a chicken on Sundays. It set me wondering what people ate instead. What was the daily menu? Would it be any good going back to it?

I grew up in the late 1960s, early 1970s and meat was definitely on the menu in our family. We had toast and cereal in the morning, a school lunch containing some sort of meat pie or casserole and then a cooked tea in the evening. This revolved around mince, mostly, with ghastly smoked haddock on Friday. Even on Saturday we seemed to have corned beef hash or bacon.

Has anyone else got memories going further back that do confirm people only ate meat once or twice a week or is this some sort of guilt trip arising from the questions that have been asked about the quality and price of meat recently?

I was born in 1950 - we had meat dinners nearly every day - sausages/liver/heart/stew - containing steak & kidney. Sometimes Mum made a steamed bacon/onion pudding - the smell as it cooked was wonderful. We had either lamb/beef/pork/chicken on Sunday. Fish day was either smoked haddock/sprats/herrings or kippers. Only one wage coming in the house - not a high one either - Dad drove a bus.

Helen2k8

westcoastscot wrote: »

editing to add: Cobbetts Cottage Economy is a great book about living and gardening in earlier times, when the staple was beans grown in the garden.

Just downloaded that, free from Project Gutenberg.
He doesn't like tea, spuds, or school much does he! :rotfl:

Pitlanepiglet

This is so interesting, thanks everyone for sharing.

I was born in the late 60's, my Mum wasn't at all domesticated and from what I remember food was very much meat and two veg but she also embraced convenience foods which were very much seen as saving women from slaving for hours in the kitchen. I don't remember much of what we ate, I remember tins of soup and long spaghetti in those blue packets.

After Mum died I lived with my Nan and that was very much meat and two veg but she had worked in catering for years and didn't have much interest in food. I didn't learn to cook until I left home at 18 and taught myself via Delia as I'd worked out that it was cheaper.

Whilst we ate meat regularly portions were certainly much smaller.
I had school dinners in junior school, big aluminium trays of food, some good, some very gloopy!

Patchwork_Quilt

Thank you to everyone who has contributed! As I suspected, it was just a load of nonsense, at least for this generation, to say that no-one ate meat regularly. It has been interesting to see, however, that chicken really was a luxury and people were eating beef and pork instead. Red meat is definitely out of favour now. I also think it's interesting to see how many of us were eating offal - I remember Mum's liver and onion casserole with tiny bits of bacon floating in it - and how many people have said that their portions of meat were a lot smaller than we have today.

One other thing that made me smile was the number of people who said they had tinned fruit and Carnation. Was anybody else forced to eat bread and butter with it? I could never see the point as a child but I understand now that Mum was trying to make sure every corner was filled before we left the table.

I think the last thing I've noticed from everyone's posts is how much pastry we were all eating. Meat seems to have been stretched further by putting leftovers in a pie with veg and potato, or made into a quiche. When we were all walking to school and walking to the shops every couple of days I suspect the fat was all used up. To this day, I still remember the huge slabs of meat pie we had for school dinners. It didn't matter that the veg with it was overcooked or that there was hardly any meat inside the pie. With a pool of hot gravy, it tasted lovely!

Thank you all.

ladymarmalade

It's surprising really how many of the meals you all used to eat contain rich and fatty ingredients! It just goes to show how our lifestyles have changed. Most are nowhere near active enough to eat stew and dumplings/hash/roast dinners etc every day.

meritaten

Like some of the others I was born mid-fifties and tbh, I think we eat LESS meat now! my dad was a miner and the size of his plate of food!!! it was enormous! mum thought nothing of giving him two or three chops with a mountain of mash, veg and gravy! in fact I am sure Dads plate was actually a meat dish!
mum was an indifferent cook - not at all adventurous. a typical weeks menu might look like this
Sunday was Roast day - Beef, lamb or Pork (but never in summer months - she wouldn't buy it if there was no 'R' in the month!) savvy as even in the late fifties butchers shop windows were not refrigerated!
Monday was often Stew - the roast wasn't big enough to Stretch and would only do for one meal and perhaps a sandwich for dads supper. it would be Corned beef stew and was just potatoes onions and sliced carrots simmered for an hour and one can of corned beef added towards the end. (I hated it - it didn't taste of anything much).
Wednesday - she would make pastry and use the drained veg and corned beef to make pasties - ok with liberal application of brown sauce! you had those with chips.
Thursday she often did egg and chips or sausage and chips or sausage and mash with fried onions (no gravy).
Friday we may get lucky and have chips from the chippy - Dad had a fish and us kids got a pasty.
Saturday - Saturday night Dad used to take me down his sisters - she was a professional cook and we used to get lovely steak and kidney pies, or Quiche or something we had never tried before - mum would stay home to 'Prepare the veg for Sunday'! Lmao - honestly!
once a month we got faggots from the local butchers - served with tinned marrowfat peas, vinegar and white pepper. I think that was a Thursday.
Notice how many evenings we had chips? mum was wedded to the chip pan - and the chips were done in Beef Dripping!

The menu did change slightly in Summer - one evening we would have fried bacon and onions with lovely new potatoes and runner beans (in the early days the local allotment owners would go door to door to sell their excess. (I do this for OH sometimes - it wasn't a dish he was familiar with - but he loves it)
another evening she would do a ham salad (but the temp had to be in the upper eighties!).

Breakfast for me would be staring at a bowl of cornflakes and feeling sick, cos I had just had a cup of Cadburys' Drinking Chocolate forced on me (I have no idea why she thought it was the ideal breakfast drink).
Dad would have a boiled egg and soldiers and I got the white off the top of the egg sprinkled with a bit of salt.

Bro would have two or three Weetabix with cold milk and about a tablespoon of sugar!

snacks - You don't eat between meals! Biscuits were kept for the grown ups to have with a cup of tea at elevenses or for guests!
and yes Sunday tea was usually tinned fruit with evap milk and bread and butter (the combination still makes me heave now) Guests were eagerly welcomed by us kids as we loved tinned salmon sandwiches! and we had CAKE!

meritaten

meritaten wrote: »

Like some of the others I was born mid-fifties and tbh, I think we eat LESS meat now! my dad was a miner and the size of his plate of food!!! it was enormous! mum thought nothing of giving him two or three chops with a mountain of mash, veg and gravy! in fact I am sure Dads plate was actually a meat dish!
mum was an indifferent cook - not at all adventurous. a typical weeks menu might look like this
Sunday was Roast day - Beef, lamb or Pork (but never in summer months - she wouldn't buy it if there was no 'R' in the month!) savvy as even in the late fifties butchers shop windows were not refrigerated!
Monday was often Stew - the roast wasn't big enough to Stretch and would only do for one meal and perhaps a sandwich for dads supper. it would be Corned beef stew and was just potatoes onions and sliced carrots simmered for an hour and one can of corned beef added towards the end. (I hated it - it didn't taste of anything much).
Wednesday - she would make pastry and use the drained veg and corned beef to make pasties - ok with liberal application of brown sauce! you had those with chips.
Thursday she often did egg and chips or sausage and chips or sausage and mash with fried onions (no gravy).
Friday we may get lucky and have chips from the chippy - Dad had a fish and us kids got a pasty.
Saturday - Saturday night Dad used to take me down his sisters - she was a professional cook and we used to get lovely steak and kidney pies, or Quiche or something we had never tried before - mum would stay home to 'Prepare the veg for Sunday'! Lmao - honestly!
once a month we got faggots from the local butchers - served with tinned marrowfat peas, vinegar and white pepper. I think that was a Thursday.
Notice how many evenings we had chips? mum was wedded to the chip pan - and the chips were done in Beef Dripping!

The menu did change slightly in Summer - one evening we would have fried bacon and onions with lovely new potatoes and runner beans (in the early days the local allotment owners would go door to door to sell their excess. (I do this for OH sometimes - it wasn't a dish he was familiar with - but he loves it)
another evening she would do a ham salad (but the temp had to be in the upper eighties!).

Breakfast for me would be staring at a bowl of cornflakes and feeling sick, cos I had just had a cup of Cadburys' Drinking Chocolate forced on me (I have no idea why she thought it was the ideal breakfast drink).
Dad would have a boiled egg and soldiers and I got the white off the top of the egg sprinkled with a bit of salt.

Bro would have two or three Weetabix with cold milk and about a tablespoon of sugar!

snacks - You don't eat between meals! Biscuits were kept for the grown ups to have with a cup of tea at elevenses or for guests!
and yes Sunday tea was usually tinned fruit with evap milk and bread and butter (the combination still makes me heave now) Guests were eagerly welcomed by us kids as we loved tinned salmon sandwiches! and we had CAKE!

I seem to have missed out Tuesdays - tbh It was usually either
some smoked haddock or we got a dish that hadn't been served in last weeks menu. Dad liked sliced corned beef and chips with a fried egg on top - so if we hadn't had corned beef in the stew or all the stew had been eaten - we got that!

apologies - I pressed quote by mistake and ruddy Win 8 wouldn't let me go back!

squeakysue

Love this thread!
I was born in 1980 and remember dinners being meat and two veg mainly. We had to eat what we were given, no fussy eaters allowed (unlike my kids!). We would have roast on Sundays, usually chicken, we would have scouse (lamb potato carrots onions stew), pea wack with bacon ribs (lentil soup), sausages, oven chips, fish, findus crispy pancakes, corned beef hash,tinned soup, beans/spaghetti on toast, sardines on toast. I remember puddings of angel delight, tinned fruit and evaporated milk, apple crumble and custard.

We had free school dinners, I would long for a plastic lunch box and plastic drink flask lol, school dinners in secondary were much better than primary so didn't have packed lunch envy then

I still cook practically everything on that list (except for crispy pancakes yuck!) but don't have puddings and have obviously expanded my diet since then, lots more pasta/rice/curry etc.

My kids were shocked when I told them I never had pizza till I was a teenager :rotfl:

westcoastscot

Helen2k8 wrote: »

Just downloaded that, free from Project Gutenberg.
He doesn't like tea, spuds, or school much does he! :rotfl:

No he doesn't! its a brilliant book - useful information and a really interesting read

Florenceem

meritaten wrote: »

Like some of the others I was born mid-fifties and tbh, I think we eat LESS meat now! my dad was a miner and the size of his plate of food!!! it was enormous! mum thought nothing of giving him two or three chops with a mountain of mash, veg and gravy! in fact I am sure Dads plate was actually a meat dish!
mum was an indifferent cook - not at all adventurous. a typical weeks menu might look like this
Sunday was Roast day - Beef, lamb or Pork (but never in summer months - she wouldn't buy it if there was no 'R' in the month!) savvy as even in the late fifties butchers shop windows were not refrigerated!
Monday was often Stew - the roast wasn't big enough to Stretch and would only do for one meal and perhaps a sandwich for dads supper. it would be Corned beef stew and was just potatoes onions and sliced carrots simmered for an hour and one can of corned beef added towards the end. (I hated it - it didn't taste of anything much).
Wednesday - she would make pastry and use the drained veg and corned beef to make pasties - ok with liberal application of brown sauce! you had those with chips.
Thursday she often did egg and chips or sausage and chips or sausage and mash with fried onions (no gravy).
Friday we may get lucky and have chips from the chippy - Dad had a fish and us kids got a pasty.
Saturday - Saturday night Dad used to take me down his sisters - she was a professional cook and we used to get lovely steak and kidney pies, or Quiche or something we had never tried before - mum would stay home to 'Prepare the veg for Sunday'! Lmao - honestly!
once a month we got faggots from the local butchers - served with tinned marrowfat peas, vinegar and white pepper. I think that was a Thursday.
Notice how many evenings we had chips? mum was wedded to the chip pan - and the chips were done in Beef Dripping!

The menu did change slightly in Summer - one evening we would have fried bacon and onions with lovely new potatoes and runner beans (in the early days the local allotment owners would go door to door to sell their excess. (I do this for OH sometimes - it wasn't a dish he was familiar with - but he loves it)
another evening she would do a ham salad (but the temp had to be in the upper eighties!).

Breakfast for me would be staring at a bowl of cornflakes and feeling sick, cos I had just had a cup of Cadburys' Drinking Chocolate forced on me (I have no idea why she thought it was the ideal breakfast drink).
Dad would have a boiled egg and soldiers and I got the white off the top of the egg sprinkled with a bit of salt.

Bro would have two or three Weetabix with cold milk and about a tablespoon of sugar!

snacks - You don't eat between meals! Biscuits were kept for the grown ups to have with a cup of tea at elevenses or for guests!
and yes Sunday tea was usually tinned fruit with evap milk and bread and butter (the combination still makes me heave now) Guests were eagerly welcomed by us kids as we loved tinned salmon sandwiches! and we had CAKE!

Angel cake or maderia?