What was day to day food in your childhood?

Pollycat wrote: »

Slightly off-topic but.......did anyone else have to ask to leave the table after eating?

Yes, we did.

We always sat down together to eat at the dinner table, no elbows on the table, we all talked, but NEVER with your mouth full!

Knives and forks put together on the plate when you'd finished and we'd wait till everyone had finished before thanking the chef (Mother) and asking to be excused.

All of it good table manners imho and I'm glad of it
(bad table manners in others leave me cold).

Oh and we took turns with the washing up, drying up and putting away...again all good lessons in life imho.

What a great thread, have loved reading others' reminiscences. I was born in the early 50s and can't remember what we had during the first 10 years, but in the 60s, yes we had Vesta but always paella. My dad had been in India in the war and loved making curries though they were pretty interchangeable, just some were beef and some chicken. I imagine it would've been hard to find the spices then though I do wonder where he got the poppadums from. Sharwoods mango chutney, still a yum on toast. I think it must've been a military tradition because on several camps we moved to there was often a 'curry lunch' for families on Sundays in the mess and these were amazing. All the little side dishes of different chutneys, raita etc. In the 1950s in the UK. Soldiers were obviously well looked after. And I used to get a glass of coke too. Tasted completely different to these days though. My mum was fine with plain cooking, I remember a wonderful cheese pie she used to make which we had with spinach. Mmmm. She was also addicted to her pressure cooker which I asked her to leave to me in her will. She's still alive now so has given it to me as she says I shouldn't have to wait any longer. My parents used to cook highly salted soups in it. Oh chops. We used to eat loads of those. Can't think why, I really don't like the thought of a plain slab of flesh on my plate now. I remember being sent to the butchers for chump chops (lamb) - horrible, all that yellow fat.

I've been wondering though what my kids would say about my cooking if they contributed to this thread? Doesn't bear thinking about. My ex-OH did nothing about the house, even though I worked and studied full time. When I came home late he always used to say 'oh I didn't know what you had planned/might want to eat/thought you'd want to do it yourself'. Yeah right after a day at work/college! How lovely it would have been to come in to the smells of a lovely meal, children clean and bathed, homework done, glass of wine. The kind of homecoming he had when I didn't work late evenings. Have my kids got the same perspective on those years? Be interesting to know.

The other thing this thread highlights is portion size. I'm not sure we know what the right portion size is now - a Fray Bentos pie between 5? I reckon it'd be half each these days. Madness!

DS

Similar to most so far: born late 50s, grew up 60s. Father self employed builder with limited earnings after a fall from scaffolding: he only was able to go back to work in the late 60s. Mother was a 'stay at home' but far from unemployed: gardening, cooking, sewing etc: worked as a hotel cook during holiday seasons.

During term time - (free)school dinners: tea/supper was varied.

Rice puddings, semolina, bread & (home made) jam, soups/stews. Bread (home made & bought unsliced) was the staple.

We kept chickens for both eggs and Sunday roasts; occasionally we had a pig (big garden / small smallholding - about an acre), lots of home grown veg / fruit.

Weekends (Saturdays) - bacon, egg, home made chips (nearest chippie was about 40 mins away - no car), brown fish & rice, omelettes, egg fried rice with whatever, cheese on toast (Welsh Rarebit? melted in a saucepan with a concoction of onions & powdered mustard) etc. (On the rare occasions we had a FB tinned pie - it served 6!)

Sunday was roast (mostly chicken, sometimes (cheap cuts) beef), loaded with veg (which had to be eaten first; home made pies etc. Desert (only on a Sunday!) was either trifle or fruit pie & custard After we got a fridge (with a massive 'icebox' - it must have been all of 10" x 8" x 6") she sometimes made ice cream.

My favourite tea of all was some Thursdays: freshly picked mushrooms from the edge of the wood behind us served on home made bread. She always seemed upset if I asked on a Wednesday if we could have that on a Thursday - it was only after she died (early 70s & I grew up - fast!) that I realised this was a 'desperation' (no money!) meal and she (possibly/probably) felt a failure for serving it.

A lot of the above was cooked in a Dutch oven type thing over an open fire, the first electric cooker I remember was mid 60s (after Father was able to start work again) and our first fridge was late 60s after the older girls started working during the holidays.

Nelski wrote: »

oh yes no food was ever to be eaten unless sat at the table ..evening meal was served promptly at 5 when the tv had to go off and we spent time as a family.
We could not have a pudding if main hadnt been eaten and nobody could leave the table without permission

I didnt have meal on my lap till I left home :eek: cant find much fault with any of this though I reckon we have it wrong with tv dinners.

We didn't have our main meal of the day until 7pm or later but like you, always sat down to eat together.

The TV was never on and no, no 'afters' (pudding) unless you ate your 'firsts'

With regard to my earlier post on this, some may make assumptions, but to me, having good manners and good table manners has nothing to do with what you have or don't have, they are fundamental no matter what you are doing/eating, nor how rich or poor.

IMHO

Pollycat wrote: »

Slightly off-topic but.......did anyone else have to ask to leave the table after eating?

No, because the idea was to sit down, wait in trepidation with a roast chicken sitting in front of us for your plate to be slammed on the table with your allocated watery, unseasoned veg and measure of gravy, then scarf it down as quickly as possible to make sure nobody else stole something off your plate or you ended up on the receiving end of her ire for something (as well as the initial fear of the carving knife, she always ate her dinner with an even sharper vegetable knife which, at such a small table, was within range, as was the back of her hand) and get the heck out of there so the second sitting could go in and you weren't within reach anymore.

I always scuttled straight back to my place - on the living room floor with the animals - with relief. Even if second helpings had been available (you got as much you were given and that was it), nothing could persuade me back into the kitchen.


The idea of eating slowly, with both knife and fork, having water, putting your knife and fork down between mouthfuls, sitting there with nothing to eat because you had to 'let your dinner go down before dessert' and talking filled me with horror. Unfortunately, once forced to do that by the ex because 'that's what families do', I found it to be exactly as unpleasant as I had feared - he grew up with the sitting nicely, bread on the table (that you couldn't touch because that meant you were greedy) asking to be excused, business - and used the time to provide criticism of what you ate, how much you ate, the way you ate, how real women didn't eat like that/that much/that quickly/etc.

As far as I'm concerned, leave me the hell alone, don't talk to me, don't remark upon anything about me, if possible, don't even look at me whilst I'm eating if you aren't my OH, who is aware of all of this history and therefore doesn't set me off. And he always gets me a second helping of roast and potatoes on Sundays, as he knows it's something I never had and won't do myself.


My opinion now is that, no matter what people say about it being important for families to eat together, it's only a good thing if mealtimes are not a microcosm of exactly how screwed up the inhabitants of the house are.