typical weekly menus in 1960

kunekune

My parents were quite adventurous by the standards of the 60s, but the food was definitely different. We went to Indian restaurants for special occasions (I always had chicken biriani), and got chinese takeaways. Meals I remember at home included salad (can't work out what the protein was, maybe there wasn't any), liver & bacon, egg and chips, sausage and mash, mince and mash, spaghetti bolognese, beef casserole, my dad's beer & beef stew. Chicken was a luxury - maybe if we went to my gran's for sunday lunch. There were a lot of puddings, as others have mentioned: I used to make queen of puddings as my party piece, mum made rice pudding, banana custard, trifle, fruit & condensed milk, jelly with fruit in it. Other treats were rationed: there was one packet of custard creams a week, and I don't think we ever had crisps or ice cream in the house.

Oh, and my dad rationed toilet paper too. Two squares per trip.

jackieb

We had scampi every Friday - but dad was a fisherman and came home on a Friday with a bag of prawns. He makes the best batter!

On a Saturday night as a treat mum would sometimes make us chips and we'd get to eat them in the livingroom. She'd give us them through the serving hatch, and they'd be wrapped up in homemade greaseproof bags.

MATH

As a 60's/70's kid of a working Mum I was raised on the new liberating convenience foods. When your veggies were no longer the same square shape of the Birdseye Box they came in they were cooked!!!:DAngel Delight, Tip Top, Vesta Curry, Tyne Brand Minced Beef and Onion, Tinned Potatoes, Arctic Roll. I cannot remember any fresh food at all. We may shudder at some of the ready made muck of yesteryear but at the time it was a Godsend. Without it my Mum would have been chained to the kitchen like her Mother before her, would never have had a career and would have missed vital episodes of General Hospital and Peyton Place:rotfl::rotfl:

Topher

We seem to have forgotten minced beef. 1,001 ways with mince, that was my family, although Grandma had a special way of boiling it until it was grey and totally flavourless- gravy for her, was the water the meat had boiled in. Bless her, excellent at cakes lousy savoury cook, Gran was the opposite.

Cottage/shepherd's pie, Cornish pasties, beef cobbler, meat loaf, meatballs, patties (later known as beefburgers) beef stew & dumplings, beef in suet roll, corned beef hash (not quite mince) plain beef in gravy, later beef curry. (In the 1960s, Gran thought you sprinkled curry powder on later, like pepper)

I think the meals tallied with the household tasks, so the main ingredient was the same per day of the week, but my family's wimmin did vary what they turned it into.
Monday wash day (ironing if the weather was good enough to have dried everything on time) So left over Sunday roast in some form. (By the late sixties, Mum had cracked the curry powder thing, so chicken curry was a regular.)
Tuesday ironing and vaccuuming, also dusting living room (read parlour for the grandparents) and stairs. Think the butcher's van arrived on Tuesday too.
Wednesday Market day in our town, so another meal that could be cooking itself while they shopped.
Thursday baking day, and coffee morning in the neighbourhood. (My Grandma lived in a terrace of five houses that ran alongside our back garden, so all the residents were "Auntie and Uncle" and their families had grown up together) The housewife who was hosting would knock on her chimney breast with a wooden spoon when the coffee was ready, and the person hearing it would knock on her opposite wall, so they'd all had "The Knock" to go for coffee. Wet fish van came on Thursday.

Friday, bathrooms, bedding changes (washed later when we got a washing machine instead of the twin tub & mangle) also the day the Grocer van arrived. Local paper was passed along the row, so only one purchaserd per week between six households. The Pop man came, but only to my Grandma's & Auntie Dorrie's.

Bread was collected from "The Top Shop" (at the top of the road) by us kids, so sometimes would pick up an Auntie's order, they paid whenever.
Milk delivered daily, electric float, Co-op Dairy, and the Ice-cream van arrived on Sunday afternoon, he wasn't always lucky enough to make any sales.

Hmmm! Makes me think.

T

kunekune

How could I have forgotten corn beef hash (we called it Globbage)! Also sausage meat baked in a plait, and yes, some of those convenience foods Math mentioned. Not tinned potatoes, thank goodness, but tinned fray bentos steak pie, vesta chow mein and definitely angel delight!

Tibbie's_mum

susank wrote: »

Oh I forgot spam fritters and fish pies How could I forget that! Mince cooked in milk - YUK!

My OH is always going on about his Gran cooking mince in milk and how lovely it was!!! Sounds absolutely disgusting to me.

Even in the 70s, when I was little, our menu followed a vague pattern, I remember my mum would always mince the joint we had on a sunday. There would always be homemade cakes for Sunday teatime when Nan visited. And we only had crisps on a Thursday because that was the day she would go to Kingston with my Nan and they'd go to M&S, what luxury one large packet of crisps!!!!

My Dad was a great one for always having a never ending pan of soup on the go, and the smell of celery,carrots and onions always reminds me of his cooking......happy memories!!!!!

jannyannie

What a lovely thread, I feel all nostalgic. I was born in 1961. We had no ridge, just a pantry with a stone. Mum shopped daily. Fruit and veg was delivered once a week on a Friday. Sunday was always roast. Monday leftovers. We used to have things like toad-in-the-hole and veg, beef stew, pork chops, egg and chips. Friday was always fish.

Can't remember a set menu though. We all hated tripe, so Mum used to make it for herself when we were at school with a mealy tatty. We only ever had pudding on a Sunday. The rest of the time we ate fruit. We drank gallons of milk! and didn't have squash. If we were still hungry after dinner, which was enormous, we had bread and butter.

jackieb

Topher wrote: »

Thursday baking day, and coffee morning in the neighbourhood. (My Grandma lived in a terrace of five houses that ran alongside our back garden, so all the residents were "Auntie and Uncle" and their families had grown up together) The housewife who was hosting would knock on her chimney breast with a wooden spoon when the coffee was ready, and the person hearing it would knock on her opposite wall, so they'd all had "The Knock" to go for coffee. Wet fish van came on Thursday.

T

Thursday was always my mum's baking day as well. I remember before I started school going next door in the mornings with my mum - for tea and muffins. It was a regular occurance - they used to have turns. Josephine always had toasted muffins. I'm pretty sure it was every weekday - like elevenses. I couldn't get over that she kept her eggs on the table in a hen-shaped pot (like the one in the TV show Bread). The baker's van used to come most days as well - just tooted their horn and you knew he was there.

I remember always having Ready Brek in the mornings (I was born in 68, so more of a 70s child really). In the winter i'd sit on the kitchen floor, right next to the paraffin heater, and i'd get corned beef legs from sitting too close!

There used to be no shops open on a Sunday where we lived, so dad and our next door neighbour used to take their car on alternate weeks, and go out to a garage in the country for the papers, a block of ice-cream, and a box of Quality Street for my mum. She got a box every Sunday. For pudding on a Sunday it was nearly always a slice of ice-cream and tinned strawberries. I always mixed them up and insisted it was yogurt.

sammy_kaye18

Have to say Im loving this and was talking to my grandmother about this thread last night.

Im a child of the 80s generation (84) and my mum is a 60s baby - (born in 64) so she didnt really remember alot about her menus but my nana was telling me abotu the mince thing and how they were always inundated with veg from my grandfathers plot and the fish van was one of my great grandfathers friends so they always got a little extra on days (well with 8 daughters you need it!)

Dont know if id ever stick to a set menu plan every week but i know we do repeat some meals each week. Although even i can remember have spam egg and chips for my dinner, smoked haddock cooked in milk and havign the roast recycled.

withabix

This thread is great.

I'm only 38, but I was a 'late only child' - my mum had me when she was nearly 40 in 1969 - not a recommended age to have a child at back then!!

Our family has therefore virtually 'missed' a generation, so the old fashioned way of doing things has carried on further than it may have in some families.

Some of my memories (as mentioned in thread above):

Slices of ice cream - oh yes, I remember those long cardboard boxes it came in. Cream of Cornish was bought for celebrations, made entirely from additives and no milk or cream (or vanilla!) I seem to recall!! Although around the Fylde, Bonds of Elswick was the normal fare - proper ice cream.

Tripe - my dad still has this when he can find it. I would never ever eat the stuff!

Liver (done in flour and fried), kidneys (yuk), cow's tongue (can't remember what that was like), heart etc...

Yellow fish (finnan haddock to be more precise).....yumm! Manx kippers were popular as well.

Bacon and egg are officially allowed at tea time by the way, along with our other national dishes such as fish n chips, Sunday leftovers and errr....curry! I still have roast leftovers for at least Monday and sometimes as sarnies. There's nothing like cold roast beef, pork or chicken....mmmmmmm! Cold meat and chips!

Vesta boxes - I remember frying those crispy bits that came inside the box - what were they supposed to be??? Crispy noodles?

As for people saying chicken was rare and expensive - I'm assuming you are children of the '50s?? Post-war, chickens were for laying eggs, not eating. You only ate a chicken when it got old, injured or stopped laying (or errr...died)! Male chickens were the normal fare otherwise (as they are now). My mother and her parents had bantams in the back yard at Lytham.

Meatloaf - nobody has mentioned that!! I guess that was homemade Spam?

Fritters - little rounds of fried pancake batter.

Fried bread - normally accompanying the bacon and eggs at tea time. Slices always cut diagonally from square bread!

Beef dripping from the butchers - came in a paper carton. Can you still get that?

Nobody has mentioned rabbit stew....I remember the butchers in Lytham having a row of rabbits hung up on hooks outside the window even in the 70s and 80s, along with pheasants, mallards and other similar stuff, complete and fully recognisable of course...