What was your childhood diet?

Edwardia

My mother is an excellent cook and we travelled a lot. I went to school in France and Canada as well as UK.

Until I lived in Canada I didn't have stuff like McDonalds and diet Pepsi. I loved Kraft Dinner macaroni cheese (full of additives but there is an organic version now), Sealtest blueberry yogurt, Laura Secord butterscotch pudding, creamed sttyle canned sweetcorn, romaine lettuce, apple sauce, peach juice, choc chip muffins, apple and cinnamon Cheerios, saltines, graham crackers and Ontarian apples (think the variety was called Spy ?).

My mother cooked from scratch a lot. She loves Italian food so we had home-made pizza, lasagne, bolognese, cannelloni, risotto and gnocchi.

Also remember coq au vin, omelettes with herbs, cheese or mushrooms, chicken a la King, lobster, grilled sardines, Maryland chicken, sirloin, rump and fillet steaks. Lots of salads.

My mother did cod's roe with mash which we hated, stuffed lambs' hearts with a spicy tomato sauce, plaice, cod, haddock, kippers, smoked haddock, fish cakes, Devonshire chicken casserole (made with evaporated milk)

Only beefburgers she bought were Birds Eye ditto fish fingers with McCain's oven chips. In Canada we made our own burgers and BBQd by the pool.

Puddings were usually fruit or yogurt or HM crumble eg rhubarb with custard or rice pudding or the Portuguese version, arroz doce

Muppet81

Born 1956 in Oldham.

Brought up on -

black puddings with mustard in a paper bag (bought on Oldham Market and eaten as we walked round)
steak and kidney suet puddings (cooked in a rag)
tripe and onions cooked in milk with dumplings (lush!)
Mince and cowheel with dumplings
Liver and onions
Corned beef hash
Vegetable soup with dumplings
Brawn (all sorts of probably unsavoury bits in a jelly) on bread
Vesta chow mein (thought it was so exotic - my Sauturday night meal whilst watching cartoons on TV)
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)

Rice pudding (home made of course)
Bread and butter pudding

Water! I was a deprived child (joking ... had a great childhood) and was never allowed fizzy drinks. I used to see the Ben Shaw waggon come round every week and all my friends were choosing their drinks for the week. Felt so left out! BUT! Still have all own teeth and in good nick so maybe I should be grateful.

Friday night usually I stayed at Grandad's whilst M and D had a night out. I was taken down to the local chippy and came back with fish and chips and a bread roll with a can of cream soda - my only fizzy drink of the week. How I loved it! I still view cream soda as a treat ... somewhere on par with champagne.

Sunday afternoon tea at Grandads house - slice of boiled ham, lettuce leaf, slice of tomato, slice of cucumber, slice of white bread and butter - followed by tinned fruit with Carnation milk in Summer and custard in Winter. Always listened to The Clitheroe Kid on the radio.

During my childhood I can only recall VERY rare times when we did eat out, usually in a cafe. Never recall a pub or proper restaurant.

When I was 13 I went to stay with a French pen friend for 6 weeks. What an education that was! Each Friday evening (at abut 7pm not the 5pm usual tea time for me) the whole family would meet up in a proper restaurant and eat a fabulous meal with 3 courses plus a cheese course and wine. I remember being agog at the range of cheeses and the waiters humouring the funny little English girl and giving me lots of tiny bits so i could try them all. I loved it! Tried all sorts ... mussels, fabulous fish dishes, roast tongue, horse meat (nothing unusual there now of course :rotfl:). We were given a baguette with a stick of chocolate inside it to take to school for our lunch.

I have to say that that 6 weeks made a lasting impression on me and I think it altered my views on food (for the better) for the rest of my life.

Amazingly, despite this "offal" diet, I always stayed slim and am still just under 8 stone ...... but I am vegetarian

madnotstupid

Born 1972
I remember a lot of potatoes boiled or chips, sausages both links and square, chops, fish on a Thursday cos that was the day the van came round, mince and tatties, roast on a sunday, bacon and egg pie and macaroni cheese with chips! or toast. spaghetti bolognese made with tinned tomato soup added to mince. Always a pot of soup on the stove - lentil or scotch broth.
lunches my granny fed us almost always a pie from the bakers. at high school I had chips pretty much every day. My ma worked so I cooked two / three times a week and experimented on the rest of the family. Curry, lasagna and chilli - nothing all that adventurous now but then it was quite a revelation.
I remember filling up on bread a lot, getting in after school and making toast, bread, butter and homemade jam after both lunch and tea and in the evening.
Not much processed food, but light on veggies and fruit was usually tinned. I think my diet's way healthier now.

funny_bunny_2

Really enjoyed reading this thread!
I was born 79 and my memories of meals when we were younger were:-
Sunday was always a roast meat veg and gravy and viennetta for pudding.
Week nights were Belly pork with mash and veg, Brains faggots hm chips and peas, liver for my mum sausages for me and sister mash and veg used to love the onion gravy, bacon sausage cheese tomatoes and oatcakes (i'm from stoke on trent) Fish fingers, pizza, cheesey mash and beans, corned beef pie (like shepherds pie but corned beef instead of mince) when we had a microwave jacket potato with cheese. Salad in the summer with a spoon of mash or tinned new potatoes.
Lunch was schools dinners or sandwiches (remember telling my mum that i enjoyed the cheese and brown sauce sandwiches and i had them every day at school for about a year) :rotfl:
Friday and sometimes saturday nights we used to go to the working mens club and if my mum won on bingo we would have a chinese on the way home.:D
Happy memories:)

Ada_Doom

Another one really enjoying this thread, it's interesting how diets change, I really recognise the diets of the other 1970's babies s I was born in 1975.

My single and skint mum was a good cook, it was what she did for a living but she had so many of us to cook for I hink she got really fed up. I remember Brains Faggots and mushy peas, findus crispy pancakes and little fozen mousses. We only got a freezer in the late 80's and my mum loved it, we lived off frozen food from Bejam for alot of the 80's/ nineties! As my mum worked as a cook in a posh school we would have some of their leftovers, I remember really nice youghurts. As I became a teenager our diets got better, lots more fresh veg and fish and salad, I think people got a bit more adventourous?

My kids have a great diet as their Dad is a good cook, he cooks a lot of middle eastern food and thier favourite is Chicken Sharwarma and homemade flatbreads (although they also like my egg and chips)They eat things I would never have eaten at their age, altough they probably have far more takeaways than I did (I did not have a mcdonalds til I was 13).

teaandcakeaddict

I was born in the mid 80s, youngest of 4 children. My parents had been very poor growing up, but my dad worked hard to ensure we NEVER had to go without like they had.

Our diet was quite healthy and modern compared to my friends families as my dad had a heart attack when I was young so my mum put all her efforts into improving his diet.

So it was Cereal/whole meal toast/yogurt/fruit for breakfast and eggy bread for a treat on weekends! My dad used to love ready brek, he still does! But it used to make me feel violently sick, I remember my mum forcing me to eat it before school.

Lunch was packed, usually sandwiches which I used to throw in the bin, fruit which I used to throw in the bin, yogurt and a biscuit. On weekends it would be beans on toast, cheese on toast, Soup, baked potatoes and salads. Pretty much the same things my kids eat for lunch now!

Dinners were very rarely red meat, only chicken or turkey (my dad used to have the odd steak for being a good boy, and pans of scouse would make an appearance in the colder months:p). Lots of steamed veggies al dente (imagine my horror the first time I had veg at a friends house, boiled to within an inch of its life! ). Our menu was basically lots of salad, lots of veggies, nothing deep fried, lots of olive oil, lots of fish, Mediterranean dishes, stir frys, curries.........oh how I longed for some greasy grub!!!

I used to marvel at the food at my friends houses....crispy pancakes! Burgers! findus French bread pizza thingies! Turkey twizzlers! battered sausages! And I'll never forget being served a plate of mince as a meal by my friends mum AS A TREAT.Trying to swallow that greasy brown slop :eek:.

I realise now how lucky I was to have a mum that had the money and time to cook healthy and interesting meals, even though all I wanted at the time was McDonald's!

LittleMissAspie

I was at primary school in the 1980s.

Breakfast was sugary cereal or in the winter I liked Bran Buds with hot milk. I don't remember having toast, don't know why.

Lunch was a cheese sandwich, packet of crisps, chocolate bar and flask of squash. The flavour of the crisps varied and the chocolate bar varied, otherwise it was exactly the same each day.

Dinner was usually pizza and chips. I might sometimes have cheese on toast.

No desserts, no sweets, no eating out, no takeaways, no vegetables, no fruit.

My mum has no imagination, apparently.

natbags

1973 for me
Mum worked 2 jobs and dad was self employed so usually went to nannas after school
Sunday always a roast (by Mum) followed by bubble and squeak(leftovers) with red cabbage on a Monday (cooked by dad)
Lots of homemade chicken soup, boiled onions and cabbage and bacon ribs from nanna. Also potted beef, cucumber and salad cream or garlic sausage sandwiches for lunches
Mum and dad became more interesting in the 80s and started going out for a curry or getting a chinese takeawy occasionally.
When we did our 'big shop' on a friday night we were allowed to choose, so I used to have a french baguette pizza or share vesta beef curry with dad - mum always choose a fish pie i sometimes picked a frozen mousse too

FairyPrincessk

I was born in the early 80s in the southern U.S. We moves several times when I was a child and our diet varied accordingly. For breakfasts we had:

Cereal, warm toast/pastry/muffin Cereal always had to be mixed--one sweetened expensive cereal and the rest would be unsweetened inexpensive.
porridge
grits (a porridge made from a dried corn product)
pancakes/waffles on weekends
Eggs/Toast

Lunches varied. At some schools I tooked packed lunches with sandwiches, wraps, cold quiche, cold salads etc. We didnt have many prepacked foods most of the time but there were a few years where there were things like granola bars, applesauce (like pureed apples) or yoghurt. School lunches were abysmal. Somtimes abysmally disgusting, sometimes very tasty but nutritionally abysmal. We were pretty much always given the option of which we wanted.

Dinners were very varied. We ate cajun dishes, mexican dishes, the odd frozen thing like fish fingers, soups, meat and veg etc. The main thing was that my mum always insisted there be vegetables, so if we had fish fingers there would be peas and corn (served seperatel) or carrots etc. Potatos weren't considered veg and neither were baked beans. When I was a teenager we had pizza every friday night and were allowed a fizzy drink then but that was it. It was an extremely varied diet, and healthy by the standards of the time although I think a lot has changed since then. I use a lot less pre-packaged than my parents did--i.e. I don't use cream of whatever soups in casseroles, I tend to season my own things instead of buying packet seasonings etc and I tend to make veg more the focus of more of my meals, rather than a side dish. The knock on of this is that I no longer like most of the foods I loved as a child. However, considering their resources I think my parents did a remarkable job of feeding me.

That said, when I started babysitting I was appalled at how many parents fed their kids Kraft macaroni cheese and hot dogs/chicken nuggets/fish fingers and considered that a normal dinner. I used to refer to boxed macaroni cheese as child abuse! I don't necessarily see it so black and white any more, but I do think it is sad that a lot of parents do not have the time/knowledge/budgeting skills/ etc. to make fresh foods for their kids more often.

p00

I was born in the early 50s and shopping was so different then. No giant supermarkets. The milkman brought most of your daily needs on his float like eggs and bread. potatoes were always bought by the sack. Meals cooked from fresh products.

I had school dinners and they were always a proper dinner and a pudding. I could just eat some sponge and mint custard.

Friday nights was fish and chips night some weeks from the chip shop

Other evenings we had tea we had something with chips made in a proper chip pan orsomething on toast.

We had a treat on a Saturday of a huge crusty steak and kidney pie for lunch fresh from the bakers. Followed by sponge and custard.

Sundays we had chicken or beef roast dinners and a pudding made at home.

We never ate out at a pub (don't think you could ten) or ever went to a restaurant or caf! or coffee shop as a family.

None of us was overweight although it seems now that we ate a lot more 'food' then. Perhaps because we did a lot more walking in those days. And as children we had our chores to do daily and we rarely watched tv, we were always out playing or on our bikes.

Its sad days today that children tend to eat convenience foods, do nothing and are overweight- and dont learn to cook even.

What will the future bring