What was day to day food in your childhood?

Serendipitious

Been thinking about this on and off today and, apart from the rigid enforcement of formalities, my memories of the actual food are that it was quite good.

Sunday was always a roast, weekdays were rissoles, cottage pie, liver and onions, egg and chips and so on. Oh and fishcakes, homemade, they were not so nice... Salads in summer, and everything followed the seasons.

Fresh vegetables always, my grandfather grew a lot, and while there was never any impression of lack at the table, there were never any leftovers either, so I think they had portion control just right.

Chips were cooked in a chip pan, with lard, and it was left in the pan to solidify until the next use. Lard was also used for bacon, sausages and eggs, and again always left in the frying pan to use again next time. Frypans were kept in the oven. Fat from joints was kept in a special pot on the slate slab in the pantry.

Puddings were pies, custards, sago, semolina, rice, etc. Pastry was made with lard and margarine, half and half. There were also sponge cakes and scones and fruit loaf, never together, but on a sort of rolling schedule.

We got sixpence for sweets once a week when the sweet van came round, I used to choose Spangles as they lasted longer.

But the best meals were always at my Grandmother's house, where we felt truly indulged. My brother and I would be sent over on the bus almost every Saturday after we'd done our jobs. A hearty beef stew for lunch, with thick crusty bread as well as potatoes, an enormous rice pudding with second helpings, then later for tea there would be huge slices of ham, salads or pickles, thin sliced bread and butter, tinned fruit and evaporated milk, then best of all the chocolate teacakes (I once ate almost a whole pack of these by myself, so she must have bought plenty!) But the loveliest thing of all was the genuine affection and warmth at my grandparent's house, a roaring fire, and the novelty of TV - we didn't have a TV at home till I was 15.

Primrose

Gosh I remember that chip pan with the solidly set lard in it. It probably wasn,t too hygenic just left on a shelf for ages but those were the days before we had a fridge.
When fat was on ration my mum used to share the chip pan with our next door neighbour as nobody got enough fat rations for a whole chip pan to themselves but that soon stopped after my mum realised she was scooping off and keeping most of the lard for her own use !

Pollycat

Chips cooked in lard - food heaven.

gwynlas

Parents married during war so everything rationned virtually until I was born in 57. Sunday roast was cooked on Saturday as easier to cut cold, half shoulder of lamb, rolled brisket or pork, two veg and boiled potatoes.
Same again Monday then remainder of week egg and chips, sausage and potch(potato and swede mashed together) lamb cho, liver, stuffed hearts etc, corned beef pie ,one veg fresh carrots, cabbage or tinned peas Fresh fish pan fried on Friday, later frozen breaded fish fillets, mash parsley sauce or chips. Occasionnally home made fishcakes made with pilchards in tomato sauce, Friday might have fresh cockles from the van,Saturdays were usually stew in winter or boiled bacon in summer, Breakfast usually toast, occasionally boiled egg or bacon and egg Sundays, I liked fried egg with fried bread, cooked in lard.Sunday tea was salad in summer, winter sandwiches made with tinned luncheon meat, fish paste, shoulder ham or cheese, tinned fruit with evaporated milk or cream home made tart or sponge cake, sandwiches and cake or biscuits remainder of week. Father worked rotational shifts as a miner so would have cooked breakfast each day after night shift, egg, beans or grilled kidneys on toast., other meals as rest of family. Summer veg and soft fruit plentiful as grown by father and uncle suppers might be boiled runner beans or boiled onions with bread and butter, otherwise toast with mixed fruit jam or in the 1970's pate!

Bathory

70's kid here.

Beef on Sunday, bubble & squeak with the leftover beef on Monday served with gravy so thick you could slice it. Fat from the beef was spread on bread and put out for the birds who dived on it as soon as it was out - especially in the Winter months. Weekdays would be either liver & onions, crispy pancakes, fish in packet sauce, sausages or fish fingers always served with potatoes in some form or other. On a few occasions smoked Kippers appeared as a treat and I thought they were the most demonic nasty things ever. I use to sneak my portion out of the house and bury it in the midden when nobody was looking.

Saturday was baking day for cakes as mum never bought shop made ones. We did sometimes have blancmange, tinned fruit & cream or artic roll (tesco now make a version of this). Occasionally we would have supper which consisted of water biscuits, cheese, celery sticks and crisps with the little blue salt bag.

I recently ate something that I'd never had for 30 odd years - tinned Sild on hot buttered toast. For some reason I was dreading opening the tin as it had sat in the cupboard for a while but it was actually rather nice. OH's dad raves on about how good tripe and cow heel pie was which he use to get from the local market but I don't think I will be trying them.

LameWolf

MandM90 wrote: »

We all have to ask if we want to leave the table - even DH and I. It just seems rude to leave someone to eat on their own! We don't eat in front of the telly because there is no telly to eat in front of

There's only Mr LW and myself here, and due to health issues I often have to "leave the table" so to speak in fairly short order during our meal; but I always say to him "would you excuse me for a few minutes please?" because it just seems the polite thing to do.

I should clarify something - I said I was not allowed to talk at the meal table as a child. The adults, ie my parents and my paternal grandmother, who lived with us, would speak to each other, but being a child (the only one, btw) I was expected to remain silent.

The other thing, I don't know if this was normal or not, but there was nothing to drink with the meal. In our house you ate your meal, and the adults had a cup of tea and I got a glass of water, milk or weak orange squash afterwards. My parents seemed to believe it was bad for you to have a drink with the meal.

Floss

I'm a 1964 child and we always had to ask to leave the table: "please may I be down?" being the favoured gabbled question!

We generally ate as a family - when we had school dinners the kids tea would.be around the coffee table in front of Blue Peter with Club or Penguin biscuits after. Later when my brothers were both at senior school we all ate together with mum & dad, as we did at weekends.

Food was routinely:
Cooked breakfast every school day / porridge in winter, with cereal at weekends
Saturday lunch was also cooked breakfast (mum worked on Saturdays so dad cooked his signature dish!)
Saturday tea generally ham or sausage sandwiches or occasionally burgers (once we had a freezer in 1974), sometimes doughnuts from the machine where mum worked
Sunday lunch was always a roast with a pudding - generally beef or lamb, sometimes pork, not often chicken as too expensive. Both beef & lamb always came with Yorkies
Sunday tea was bread, butter with jam or cheese & celery or h/g tomatoes followed by apple pie, cake or scones
Monday cold meat & potatoes & veg / salad or leftovers made into pie, curry, rissoles
Other teas would be minced beef, mash & veg; cottage pie; corned beef hotpot; liver & onions (yuck); lamb casserole; fish pie with mash top; sausage & chips.

Serendipitious

Oh yes, Yorkshire pudding - always made in a large meat tin so you had slices of it.

Another memory popped up - potatoes were always left to soak in cold water for hours before use - 'to get the starch out' was what they said.

kboss2010

HM chicken & sweetcorn pie, Supernoodles, milk roll & Billy bear ham w/crisps sandwiches, poached egg & beans on toast, toad-in-the-hole, apple pie & tinned custard, strudel & Bird's custard, stir fries, lemon chicken w/roast potatoes, celeriac & gravy, sweet & sour chicken, chips & Chinese chippy gravy w/bubblegum panda pop!

I was a late 80's kid so I grew up on a diet of my Gran's traditional British home cooking, my Dad's attempts at Jamie Oliver & my Mum's convenience food/lots of meals out.

sillyvixen

In my teenage years, we got a microwave, and mum used to get those pizzas with the Styrofoam under the base (think of the value ranges by now days standards) and nuke them .. Styrofoam included. We were happy with our soggy cheese and synthetic tomato offering untill my brother requested to go to pizza hut for his birthday meal.