What was your childhood diet?

raphanius

i was born in 1967 and grew up in a very old style household - parents had grown up through the depression of the 30's and rationing was the backdrop their early married years. processed food was very rare in our house. most meals were home cooked such as:
liver and onions
mince and onions
homemade beef burgers
plate pies (bacon and egg, cheese and onion)
quiche Lorraine in summer with salad
macaroni cheese
shepherds pie
rubber chicken
pork and lamb chops
home cooked chips and fried egg
most meals came with mash and lots of veg (dad was a keen gardener so that helped the budget)
i remember mum cooking offal like heart and tripe to save money in the 70's but i wouldn't eat it.
puddings were stodgy fillers:
queen of puddings
lemon meringue pie (greens mix)
bread and butter pudding
rice pudding
tapioca and semolina
trifle for posh occasions
jelly
apple pie
treacle tart
sweet treats were home made. mum baked:
flapjacks
banana bread
lemon drizzle cake
St Clements cake at Easter
mince pies at Christmas
the only cake i remember being shop bought was 'angel cake' a very sweet pink and white layered confection.
dad made bread though the year and fudge at Christmas.
we kids were encouraged to cook and bake from an early age. we had to in some ways because all the cupboards had were ingredients!
mum even pressed her own ox tongue a few times which was both revolting and impressive, made her own jams and pickles when fruits were glutting.
extras included pancakes, apple or sweetcorn fritters, homemade lemonade and homemade soup.
we ate well and never felt deprived. Christmas was special because that was the only time we got Quality Street, nuts and fizzy pop.
the only read shudders i get when i think back are for the aforementioned offal and spring greens.

squeekymoo

B1958
Mum was a good cook but we never had rice or pasta except pudding rice.
Breast of lamb rolled and stuffed or just served roasted as lamb 'waistcoats' with roast pots , 2 or 3 veg and gravy with mint sauce - this was a favourite of mine but so fatty.
Neck of lamb stew called bony dinner with beads (pearl barley) served with dumplings and mash (I presume this was to eek out the meat). dad didn't like mash so any dishes involving mash he had a couple of potatoes taken out before they were mashed (either with marge or milk).
Shepherds pie made with beef mince, carrot onion celery with gravy and a tin of baked beans stirred in (I still do this but with quorn mince as I am veggie now).
Boiled bacon with carrot and onion, mash and pease pudding
When we got our chest freezer mum got half a pig including the head, trotters and tail which she boiled to make brawn I think only she ate it. I also remember her making tongue and seeing her skin it and curl it into a cake tin with a weight on to press it - again only mum and dad ate it.
We didn't have a lot of offal as mum didn't like it so only did it occasionaly for dad
We did have curry which was nothing like the takeaway ones and served with potato not rice
We would only have pudding on sunday which was home made sponges, crumbles, baked rice pudding etc sometimes stewed fruit or prunes and custard, wet sand and jam (ground rice or semolina with either jam or muscavado sugar).
i do remember going to visit nan in southampton and being given 2 lobsters which were scrabbling around in the boot and boiled in the copper. (the journey home took about 2-3 hours with me and my sister top n tailed lying across the back seat and my younger sister either on the parcel shelf or in the footwell - no seat belts or booster seats in those days!)
Occasionaly we would have aunties and uncles for sunday tea when we would get winkles and prawns form the van who came around on sunday afternoon, or have tinned red salmon and cucumber sandwiches, homemade cake and tea.
- on saturday we had the pop van and we could get 2 glass bottles of pop, cream soda, cherryade or limeade were favourites (mackintoshes pop with a black stone screw stop - mum would tell you off if you put it between your teeth and twisted it as it made a noise and made your teeth black and probably ground your teeth down)
I never ate an olive until I was in my 20s but my son was eating them when he was 18 months or so.

My food is still home made and served with 2-3 veg but has become more diverse with different ethnic foods. Both my children cook - my son will sometimes call me from uni to aks how to do some dish or tell me he has cooked something nice.

This post has bought back so many memories not just food related so thanks to the author

squeekymoo

Just remembered we were not allowed to say we didn't like something untill we had tried it 4-5 times. Usually by that time our tastes had changed and we did like it, or if we still didn't like it we were told to put mint sauce on the greens or ketchup on it just so we would eat it and not waste it.

SpendlessKaren

I was born in 1962 and my Mum was a dreadful cook. I can remember for sunday lunch the vegetables would go on to boil around 10am, ready for lunch at 2
She used to also make this pie called Jimmy Young pie (from his radio show)..it was sausagemeat, tomatoes and boiled eggs in puff pastry and horrible lol
Many the times she burnt the bottom out of pans because she forgot they were on too..

Muppet81

Born in 1956 - Posted earlier but keep thinking of other meals which should have been included in my "offal" diet as a Lancashire lass

ribs - cooked in a presssure cooker with butter beans. Very tasty.

Pressure cooker exploded one day and left a couple of the individual ribs hanging down from where they had ended up in the polystyrene ceiling tiles which were so favoured then.

dronid

I was born in 1972 with all the unfortunate food quality issues therein. Mother’s Pride was pretty much the only bread you could buy. However my mother was an inventive cook and it’s only after I left home I realised how little money we had. I never saw myself as poor and we got a good diet. As soon as we were able we switched over to wholemeal bread, free range eggs and, although the mince we used was value mince, we probably escaped the BSE because most of it turned out to be soya! We pretty much never had processed meals. There were always vegetables and it was a varied diet.

My mother also would use pasta; rice etc and I enjoyed curries from an early age.

We’d have a roast on Sunday but none went to waste and was used during the week too.

I am still astonished we got as much as we did for so little – she’s incredibly well managed.

Hermia

1980s. My mum cooked a lot of traditional British dishes when I was a kid. I remember steak and kidney and endless things involving mince. It was very red meat-based and the only fish I remember eating was fish fingers. Vegetables were boiled to death and I don't remember any herbs. My parents used to complain that I was a really fussy eater, but I was just uninspired by the food. I remember the entire family going to a French restaurant for a relative's birthday when I was in my mid-teens. I remember really upsetting my mum by going on about the food all night. It's just that I had never had vegetables that tasted of anything and I had never had potatoes cooked with herbs etc. I couldn't believe the flavour food could have.

Lindsay_C

I was born in '81 - though my dad is quite a bit older than my mum (he's 84!) so probably more traditional cooking in some ways.

Always a roast on a Sunday, generally beef and always at 1pm (they still do!), and dad taking beef sandwiches to work for a couple of days afterwards. Usual things of cottage pies, stews, steak and kidney pudding, meat and two veg etc but also lamb hearts (dad and me only) and spag bol and lasagne (mum and me). I'm still trying to perfect mum's gravy, but I've managed the roast potatoes

Saturdays was always steak and chips, lamb rogan josh or pork chops whilst dad and I watched Final Score. Later on the chip van would come round about 10 and we would generally get fish and chips to share - otherwise the cat would go loopy, she could hear his bell a mile away!

Mum always bakes her own cakes, generally on a Sunday whilst listening to the Archers and getting the dinner on - fairy cakes, lemon drizzle and fruit cake, as well as rock buns, scones and cookies. I'm lucky I've had this skill passed to me, as well as my nan's ability to do pastry.

Until about 90/91 we used to have a fishmonger, butcher and greengrocer come around, but no longer unfortunately - the chip van still comes round though, and comes through where the OH and I live!

My OH and I generally eat the same - he loves his stews and roasts, as well as chilli con carne and other things like paella and fish dishes.

jezebel1

born in 1965 my mum could make dinner out of nothing a bit of flour would be turned into potato cakes lol everything was made to go a bit further water in sterelized milk breadcrumbs in salmon sandwiches lentils in stews a chicken or pan of stew would last for days .
meals were
sheperds pie
bacon ribs and peas
corned beef ash
plate pies
bacon egg and cheese on a plate andput in the oven
neck of lamb with potatoes
rabbit stew
my dad used to eat ,pigs heads, tripe,elder,any kind of offal .
kippers for breakfast
a lot of fish
chicken on sun, same chicken with salad or on sandwiches the day after soup with the bones.
home made cakes and biscuits ,baked alaska. rice pudding baked apples apple or rubarb crumble

lol the good old days have to say i have been trying to get back to that way of cooking .

ska_lover

Lots of mashed potatoes