What was your childhood diet?

pinchingpenny

Amazing thread!

I was born in '88,
I was a very fussy eater so this takes into account my personal limitations as well as what my parents would choose to give me.
Breakfast would be cereal with milk. Nothing sugary allowed, though coco pops were a treat in the school holidays!
Lunch was a sandwich- peanut butter or cheese were about the only thing I would have. Plus an apple and something like mini cheddars or mini packs of biscuits.
Dinner was usually something along the lines of homemade chicken in breadcrumbs with oven chips (or.. alphabites anyone?!) and veg, which was usually carrot for me! We also sometimes had fish fingers, pork chops, grilled barbecue chicken. We would have chippy dinner once a week (sausage and chips for me!) and pizza once a week (my favourite!)
And a roast dinner every Sunday.
I also remember often having a weekend lunch of 'salady things' eg, cucumber, tuna, ham, tomato, cheese slices, crackers, grapes etc.
I was pretty squeamish about certain foods touching each other and wouldn't have any kind of sauces with different things mixed in!

andygb

I was at primary school in the mid sixties, and the school food was boiled to death. I hated swedes (the vegetable not Sven Goran Ericson's lot:)), and they served them about every other day. Potato had lumps in and wasn't seasoned, the desserts were awful - gypsy tart, sickly lemon meringue, chocolate pudding with green sauce:eek:.

Food at home was pretty bland, but the roast dinners were very good, and one of mum's specialities was braising steak with onions.
However, Friday was always gammon and pineapple with chips night. The gammon was unsmoked and was studded with cloves, and for me this was one of the most inedible meals. I never liked a mixture of savoury and sweet, so what was my dessert (pineapple ring - courtesy of Mr Del Monte) doing on top of my gammon:(
Sadly as the years went by, more sweet stuff was finding its way onto the main course - sickly sweet orange sauce ladled over a very dead duck, thick, sweet, syrupy lemon sauce over dried our chicken breast, unbelievably sweet mint sauce attempting to cover the evidence of a murdered breast of lamb (which had obviously been sponsored by Pirelli or Dunlop). At Easter and Christmas we had the inevitable turkey or capon sharing the plate with dessert - peach halves (Mr Del Monte's finest again;)) filled with the sweetest cranberry sauce you could imagine:( All the vegetables seemed to be covered with gallons of honey, so much, that I thought we had Winnie the Poo coming for dinner:)
At about the ahe of 12, I think they started to get a liking for takeaways - Chinese takeaways, and yes, you have guessed what sort of thing they went for - Lemon chicken, sweet (sweet, sweet, sweet) and sour (no - sweet, sweet, sweet!) prawns and pork balls deep fried in batter -uuuuurgh!
This had an adverse effect on their weight, and they all put on stones of MSG! I was fortunate that I did a lot of sport and running around, and I would often miss out on the oriental delights and make a sandwich.
I was 20 when I tasted my first takeaway curry, and that was a very important moment in my life, as it signalled a parting of the ways as far as home cuisine and I were concerned:)

happy_to_be_thrifty

the only thing i remember about food was in the 70's although my husband had a good job, i would be borrowing pototoes by the end of the week. the menu was dominated by cost. Now i buy what i like and thank god for it

chocky

I was born late 1950's. My mum hated cooking and I can remember having egg & chips a lot of the time - in fact something with chips most days. A roast on Sundays though with sausages instead of a joint. For pudding on Sundays, a real treat was soda float - cream soda with ice cream in. Wednesdays was always sausages & beans in a can, while we watched a zoo programme? on tv, with Johnny Ball? Maybe someone else remembers that in more detail?

Molly41

I have written about my childhood diet before - it was dreadful and I was force fed food I hated. My parents were born pre-WWII - so had and still have that mentality.

However my Dad did grow all his own veg and one of my child hood delights (and still is) was going up the garden and picking and eating (as I picked) peas, carrots, beans and even raw brussel sprouts. I loved vegetables and still do.

I had a vegetarian phase when I was 14 ish which caused consternation. I remember eating a lot of cottage cheese with my vegetables !

I did learn to cook at school and via my grandmother and for that I am very grateful. I make (with help as I am disabled - I shout instructions at my husband or children) my favourites of pineapple upside down and a mocha sponge that my mother adores. It pleases me to make it for her :T

lillibet_dripping

chocky wrote: »

I was born late 1950's. My mum hated cooking and I can remember having egg & chips a lot of the time - in fact something with chips most days. A roast on Sundays though with sausages instead of a joint. For pudding on Sundays, a real treat was soda float - cream soda with ice cream in. Wednesdays was always sausages & beans in a can, while we watched a zoo programme? on tv, with Johnny Ball? Maybe someone else remembers that in more detail?

Animal Magic with Johnny Morris - he did all the silly voices as if the animals were 'talking' to him. Ah, children's tv - now that's another thread entirely!!

fragrant1_2

I was born in 1962 our meals were mostly good home cooking , things like roast chicken,toad in the hole ,gammon and occasional "fast food", fish cakes - at times cheese and beans!!
Usually things like rice pudding and fruit cocklai with evaporated milk.

All tasty and home cooked.

YUM YUM YUM

andygb

chocky wrote: »

I was born late 1950's. My mum hated cooking and I can remember having egg & chips a lot of the time - in fact something with chips most days. A roast on Sundays though with sausages instead of a joint. For pudding on Sundays, a real treat was soda float - cream soda with ice cream in. Wednesdays was always sausages & beans in a can, while we watched a zoo programme? on tv, with Johnny Ball? Maybe someone else remembers that in more detail?

Yes, egg and chips seemed to be a "staple" meal in our house, never accompanied by ham (that would have been a different dish - ham and chips;)).
We had beans on toast, and - wait for it - SARDINES ON TOAST (OR PILCHARDS:eek:) - I cannot look a sardine in the eye now:D

We had the soda (from a lorry, and you used to get pennies back on the bottle) and ice cream float, and another two fizzy drinks which were popular - Vimto and Dandelion and Burdock.
We also watched the great Johnny Morris in Animal Magic, as well as Blue Peter - John Noakes (and Shep the dog), Valerie Singleton and Peter Purves.
This was part of my childhood diet.

jap200

Born in 1968 to conventional parents, but my Mum left my Dad and turned all 'hippie'. She discoved vegetarianism and the Cranks recipes in particular.

We had chickpea and other bean stews and lots of things my conventional friends thought were weird. We grew lots of veg in our big back garden. She also cooked with dried soya chunks (they look like chunky dog food when cooked and are very chewey).

For packed lunched I often had home-made wholemeal rolls (like rocks) filled with alfalfa sprouts, together with a jar of homemade yogurt.

We had goats at home which I learned to milk and we only ever drank unpasteurised goats milk. My mum tried making goats cheese and butter - without success! My Mum used to take one of the goats on a lead to collect me from primary school sometimes (wearing her kaftan of course).

It all sounds ridiculously healthy doesn't it? It probably was, but I can't stress enough how I absolutely hated being so different from all of my friends. How I envied my best friend Katherine with her sandwiches made from 2 white slices of Mother's pride and a square of processed cheese!

The upside though is that neither me or my sisters have ever had any fillings in our teeth in our lives (all of us are now over 40).

piggielady

I was born in 1963. My parents divorced when I was 8 and money was incredibly tight. My mum always cooked - one of her specialities was spaghetti flan and chips! Homemade flan case, layer of cripsy bacon bits, covered in a tin of spaghetti topped with grated cheese and heated in the oven. It must have been her own recipe because I have never come across anyone else who has ever eaten it ...

I remember she always baked on a weekend; such delights as scrunch - flapjack made with cornflakes and oats - oh all sorts of things - does anyone remember Bufton Square from the Jimmy Young cookbook (I think). We were lucky because my friend who's mother bought buns was only allowed one bun after tea and we could have 2 or three!

Penguin biscuits were a treat - only at Grandma's though.

Sunday lunch - we never had a roast, but we loved bacon and egg, chips, mushrooms, tinned tomatoes and a special gravy made from the bottom of the frying pan with a bit of tea from the pot swilled round it - complete with tea leaves!! Oh, and bread and marmalade after to kill the grease.

Oh happy days!