What was your childhood diet?

Murphybear

I was born in 1952 so caught the tail end of rationing. Food was pretty basic, nothing exotic like pasta or Indian/Chinese or pizza. All the veg we had were from the farm or what we grew apart from peas which were tinned. My father brought some kohlrabi seeds from Europe and grew them, I wouldn't go near them as they smelt of cabbage while cooking.

We had a roast on Sunday followed by pudding usually rice pud or apple pie. Never had pudding in the week but had an orange instead.

Saturday lunch was a tour de force - either Spam or corned beef with chips. A large can did 5 of us, those were the days.

We chose what we could eat on birthdays, mine was skinless sausages and chips both very well cooked and swimming in ketchup.

walkers60

How I love this thread. I was born in 1949 into a family of 5. My mum was a good cook and we were well fed with what she could get - she could stretch meals to feed us all. However, as others have said you knew which day of the week it was by the meal served! Always a roast on Sunday with shepherd's pie on Monday (wash day with machine and wringer). Tea on Saturday was salad with luncheon meat, corned beef or tongue watching the football results and Dr Who. I helped her cook on Saturdays making cakes, lemon meringue pie, biscuits and puddings. During the apple season, we had lots of apples, it was always stewed apples or apple pie and custard. There was no fridge so on Sundays someone would pop up to the local shop and get a block of icecream in a cardboard wrapper. No supermarket just corner shop and deliveries. We always had a cooked breakfast.
When unwell we had blackcurrant juice or lemon/orange barley water and whisked milk and raw egg and oranges cut in half and we would suck the juice and then turn inside out to get all the orange!
Only take away was fish and chips.
School dinners where you had to eat everything on your plate. I once took what I thought were chips (very rarely served) but in fact they were roasted parsnips! Still can't eat roast parsnips. Also I once left my mashed potato on my plate and I was forced to eat it on its own. To this day I can only eat mashed potato now if it is served with gravy or sauce. They also had a 'slow-eaters' table which I was made to sit at.
I became a school cook and I made gypsy tart, butterscotch tart and sausage rolls, cheese flans etc. all from scratch. Children also liked my liver and bacon where the liver was steamed in huge steamers.
We didn't have many sweets then but on a Friday, after Brownies, my Dad would buy Fry's chocolate bars which were 6 squares of different flavours such as turkish delight, strawberry cream, fudge and caramel and two others. They were delicious. My Gran also gave us a tube of fruit pastilles or wine gums and see if we could last them a week!
Such great memories.

aimless_2

My mum was a single mum after the war and worked full time so our meals were basic 40s meals, friday was a treat as we had pie and mash with licker from the shop. Sunday she made a massive bread pudding that lasted us well into the week. The only day she had to skimp due to lack of money was on a wednesday when we had my favourite meal, boiled dogs n onions. Just potatoes brought to the boil with an onion and sausages dropped into the boiling water to cook for 20mins or so. She would be amazed to learn that I still have this once a week although I have problems finding nice sausages to go with it now, also the skins are fragile now so have to be fished out before serving which never happened years ago.

happy35

I was born in 1974, am a very fussy eater so what I was fed and what I eat are two very different things

I remember roast meat and veg dinners, fish with mash peas and parsley sauce, bacon joint again with parsley sauce veg and mash, Chips and ham, tinned salmon with salad, chicken occasionally, steak and chips occasionally

I also remember Pek being popular for sandwiches or lunch with chips, also corned beef pies and stew, cheese seemed to be eaten a lot as well.

veg was often home grown and seasonal, we only tended to have salad in the summer

breakfast was toast, rice crispies, porridge or biscuits!!!!!!!!

I was really fussy and eat mostly fruit, veg with potatoes of some sort and fish - much as I do now.

We didnt eat loads of processed foods although I can remember potato fritters occasionally and fish fingers.

Rainbow82

I was a forces brat born in '82 and mostly grew up on bases in Germany till I was 12. My parents both worked but we had a mostly home made healthy diet, roast dinner on Sunday with roast potatoes and mash and at least three different veg, if it was chicken then it would be stretched to a chicken curry and maybe a pie in the week or later on a stirfry which I though very exotic as a teenager lol. I remember lots of corned beef hash, mince and onions, liver and onions, spaghetti bolognese, chilli, lasagne, quiche, soup, ratatouille interspersed with probably once a week chips (done in the chip pan and blotted with kitchen roll to remove the excess oil by my dad lol) and small pizzas (the ones you buy in packs of ten) or cheese crispy pancakes. Only when mum was working and dad had to "cook" lol. There was always veg on the plate and in the summer we would have cold quiche, jacket potatoes and always a bowl of salad on the table.

School dinners at primary school were amazing- lots of veg, quiche, spaghetti Bol, chips once a week. Everyone ate the same thing and seating was assigned, every table had kids from each year and the older kids were servers. Dessert was usually cake and custard and always a debate about who was lucky enough to get the skin from the custard. It wasn't the same when we had to bring packed lunches firva while because there was asbestos in the kitchen.

Great thread, brought back loads of great memories.

katyboo123

I was born in '84

We had curries, spag bol, etc cooked from scratch and I used to help out with the cooking and learnt so much from my Mam. We had the usual fish fingers, crispy pancakes, etc, and sommat and chips was our fav... but all in all I think looking back I had a fab diet, little bit naughty, mostly good... we had fish every week and when Aldi opened, once in a while treats like Frickadelan (sp?!), meatloaf, etc. My Mam joined WeightWatchers in the late 80s and we started to have 'Chinese Style' night and that was awesome, she'd even buy us a few fortune cookies! And, for dessert we'd eat fruit. Always. We used to go fruit picking all the time and make pies from it too!

There was one point we ate lovely home baked goodies at my Nanna's each night and my parents ate pilchards on toast every night. I realise now that was a period where my Dad was out of work and we were in serious trouble. It was the same time that we started playing a lot of cards on a night and having 'family night' (and got rid of our TV... )

VJsmum

walkers60 wrote: »

I became a school cook and I made gypsy tart,

Mmmmmmm Gypsy tart - with half an apple? LOL, are you in Kent? THis seems to be peculiar to Kent. I lurrved gypsy tart at school and cannot make it, no matter how I've tried. Went to a school reunion last year where they served it (and coconut pyramids ) it was YUM

Uniscots97

I was born in 76, and for me it was sausages, veg and mash, sometimes spaghetti neopolitan (still my favourite, basically its just spaghetti and the tomato pasta sauce and a little cheese), lots of home made veg soup (that you could stand a spoon up in) and sometimes findus crispy pancakes (the chicken ones). In summer it was salad (some of it home grown) with little cubes of cheese and lots of beetroot. When times were hard it was rabbit stew and one time I stupidly took the lid off the big stock pot to see what was cooking and saw eyes in a sheeps head staring up at me..... I screamed and nearly knocked the pot off the stove! At my grandparents - (Mum side) if Gran was feeling adventurous it was a Beef Vesta curry with those neon yellow crispy things on top and a slice of Arctic roll (yum!) and Creamola foam, other than that it was home made stew or soup. (Dad's side) Home made jam (usually gooseberry or bramble) on plain bread (google Mothers Pride Plain bread if you've never heard of it its completely different), or baked potatoes done in the fire.


For my Mum and Dad it was home made soup (different recipes for each side of the family) and bread, home made stews, home baking and jam sandwiches. Fish cooked in milk and home grown veggies.

For my Great Gran (Mum's side), potted hock (no idea what this is), bread dipped in carnation milk as a treat, home made vegeetable soup and stews, fish and home made meat pie padded out with veg.

For my Great Grandparents (Dad's side), mince and potatoes, soup and plain bread, rice pudding, sausages, fried egg on toast and corned beef hash (laterally).

Thanks for bringing back memories of trying (or being forced to try) different foods growing up!

michelefauk

I was born in 1968. Good but basic diet, lots of fresh veg (my mum always seemed to be at the sink peeling veg!) mince, potatoes, corned beef hash, casseroles, home made soups, liver (yuck!) sausages, a roast on Sundays.

I hated meat and had to sit for what seemed like hours chewing and chewing on meat as we weren't allowed to leave the table until we had eaten everything. Manys the time I used to hide it in my mouth then pretend I needed the loo and spit it down the toilet! Needless to say I became a vegetarian at 13 and have never eaten meat since. We were allowed a treat on shopping night, I always used to choose a Ski hazelnut yoghurt! If we went to my grans for Sunday tea it was always tinned salmon sandwiches, salad, home made cake and trifle.

If we had been poorly we used to have bread and hot milk, which was basically a bowl of hot milk with cubes of bread sprinkled with sugar!

Gloomendoom

Early 60's. I don't think special food for children existed then. We just ate smaller portions of normal adult food. It was all pretty basic stuff. Meat and two veg. No foreign things like pasta or quiche. The only exception was an occasional curry.

My mother excelled at baking, cakes, pies, scones etc. and I'm rather pleased that my wife seems to be developing a similar mastery of the oven. It's about the only trait they do share.

I've never been a fussy eater so would quite happily gobble up anything put in front of me, from tripe to fish roe and everything in between.