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

Dunroamin

Another child of the 50s who remembers not only that chicken was a luxury but that beef was cheap. "Oh no, not beef again!"

FairyPrincessk

I wonder if the meat comparison would stack up differently if you asked people who weren't OS? What I mean is, I know a lot of people (myself included) on this board who eat meat less frequently than what is expected--for example, my OH and I have it only two to three times a week, and that includes fish. It also tends to be sort of an accent, although I try not to pad it out with as much pastry and bread and gravy these days!

It is fascinating to me that chicken was the luxury in Britain, whereas chicken was far more common for my great grandparents. I know they did sometimes butcher cows--my great grandmother was a tiny woman, barely five feet tall and used to struggle to reach the packets of meat down at the bottom of the chest freezer:rotfl: I'm not sure when they got the freezer--will have to ask my mum or my grandma, as we still have pieces of furniture in our family called a "safe", short for food safe which was used before refrigeration. Being so rural, I'm sure they got electricity fairly late, and I suspect ice delivery wouldn't have been possible for the old ice boxes. This must have affected meat consumption as they didn't have much pork which could be cured.

System

Born in '62 i remember eating.

Liver
Sausages
Belly Pork
Egg chips and peas
Stew made with neck of lamb (which me and my bro used to call Glush)

I remember trying brains once but wasnt a fan.:rotfl:

Dunroamin

FairyPrincessk wrote: »

I wonder if the meat comparison would stack up differently if you asked people who weren't OS? What I mean is, I know a lot of people (myself included) on this board who eat meat less frequently than what is expected--for example, my OH and I have it only two to three times a week, and that includes fish. It also tends to be sort of an accent, although I try not to pad it out with as much pastry and bread and gravy these days!

I'm not eally OS, I just happened to wander in here and we eat meat or fish every day (often twice a day) as the main component of the meal. Even when we've been short of money that was the case, we just ate cheaper meat.

Mojisola

FairyPrincessk wrote: »

It is fascinating to me that chicken was the luxury in Britain, whereas chicken was far more common for my great grandparents.

We had relatives in the country and only had chicken from them because we couldn't afford it otherwise.

A few days before Christmas they would kill a chicken for us, sew it into a hessian feed sack with a paper address label sewn onto it and take it down to the local railway station (this was pre-Beeching) and give it to the guard. They'd send a postcard a couple of days earlier telling us which train they were using (no-one had home phones) and my Dad would go up to town to meet the train and bring our chicken home.

It's making me feel very old, thinking how life has changed so much!

The Irish side of the family used to receive a goose from their relatives. By the time it arrived from Ireland, it was well past it best. That didn't worry anyone because the goose would have been "stuffed" with a bottle of poteen - the bottle was removed, the smelly goose thrown out and a taste of old Ireland enjoyed on Christmas Day.

Dunroamin

Judi wrote: »

Born in '62 i remember eating.

Liver
Sausages
Belly Pork
Egg chips and peas
Stew made with neck of lamb (which me and my bro used to call Glush)

I remember trying brains once but wasnt a fan.:rotfl:

We still eat all of these, don't you?

FairyPrincessk

Does anyone know why was beef so much cheaper than chickens to raise? Or perhaps it was just that poultry was kept for eggs? I suppose keeping the cows for dairy my grandparents wouldn't have butchered them often and perhaps dairy cows are as desirable for meat once they're past their milking years? I know battery farming of chickens has contributed to making them very cheap these days!

I've heard stories about sending chickens on trains! It must have been so exciting going to meet the chicken train!

FairyPrincessk

Oh, also forgot that chicken livers were fried and my grandmother still makes something called giblet gravy when she cooks a chicken. If she's making something where giblet gravy isn't needed, then the giblets are frozen for another time. I must confess that I've never been brave enough to try it, but my uncle loves it.

Mojisola

FairyPrincessk wrote: »

Does anyone know why was beef so much cheaper than chickens to raise? Or perhaps it was just that poultry was kept for eggs?

Before the late 50s/early 60s, most chickens were dual-purpose breeds. They laid reasonably well and still laid down some meat that made them worth eating - as long as they weren't too old when killed.

People had been experimenting with breeding a meat-only bird since the 1930s, particularly in the States. In the 1950s the fast-growing broiler was introduced from the USA. "Improving" the breeding has continued and most chickens are now only around 40 days old when they go for slaughter. That is a phenomenal growth rate and explains why chickens don't taste like they used to.

Intensive housing as well as the new breeds made it very economical to produce huge amounts of chicken which were cheap enough for the ordinary person to buy regularly.

Dunroamin

FairyPrincessk wrote: »

Oh, also forgot that chicken livers were fried and my grandmother still makes something called giblet gravy when she cooks a chicken. If she's making something where giblet gravy isn't needed, then the giblets are frozen for another time. I must confess that I've never been brave enough to try it, but my uncle loves it.

Dropping in here has been an eye opener - I thought everybody used the neck and giblets to make gravy and fried the liver!