Food and drink from the past.

In the 50's I remember there was always a rabbit or pheasant hanging in the outhouse and we had fresh salmon and sea fish, all caught by dad or his friends.We had a large allotment so all fresh vegetables. Mum worked full time but she would do a big bake every week,egg custards,cakes, scones,coconut castles,egg and bacon tart, cheese and onion pie.She was a wonderful baker. Boiled all the vegetables to death but great baking!!
I do remember Vesta packet curries. A big crowd of us used to go camping at the weekends and we often had a big pan of mixed Vesta...probably was vile but as a tipsy teenager it was great.

Bez, you had a lucky childhood with regards to eating. my Mother was not a good cook, and didn't have much spare time either as she had a full time job outside the home, but I remember Surprise peas,mash and fried sausages as something wonderful!

I was born in1940 and don't remember much of things in our house being like the programme. My father worked on radar during the war and it was too far away to possibly come home at lunchtime so he took sandwiches to work and we had something cold then and all ate together when he came home from work. My mother was a good cook and as my father kept chickens we always had fresh eggs - rarely had need for the egg powder. During the summer my mother gave eggs away to people but also preserved some in water glass for during the winter when the hens stopped laying. They had a tang to them so they were only used in cooking. My mother swapped tea coupons for fat/ butter/ margarine ones with a neighbour in the next road. She had adult sons who could never have too much tea and mum needed the ingredients for baking. We had fruit trees and she made jam but also preserved it in Kilner jars which she sterilised in the oven. So we had fruit most days and with a steamed or sponge pudding from time to time. When the pears ripened in September people came from all around with baskets and we just filled them up for them. The worst thing I can remember eating was parsnips! but also being told they gave you curly hair which I so wanted!!
My mother always had a good store cupboard as she bought things such as dried fruit and brown sugar if she ever saw it and she had those sweet shop glass jars my father bought from the newsagent to store it in. She made jellies as she could buy gelatine and she coloured and flavoured it - I only realised in retrospect how lucky we had been as she was such a good cook and manager.
We also had a Bendix automatic washing machine in 1948 - cost £82-10 shillings. My fathe spent almost all his savings on it as my mother was ill after the birth of my sister in 1945 and needed all the assistance she could get. At the time it did not heat the water and also had to sit on a concrete block my father built under the kitchen floor and the machine was bolted to it. No fridge for some years though - we had a tiled shelf in the larder.

Crumpets, toasted in front of the fire, then spread with butter.

I still like Marmite toast, pilchards or sardines, Spam,custard, steamed puds,
Rice pudding, buttery mashed potato.
never have any liver now though, or kidneys, yuk.never have cabbage now either or rhubarb.Or blancmange.

I loved stovies the way that my mother used to make them. I hated rice, custard and anything sweet and do to this day with the exception of bread pudding but I would eat it with milk rather than custard. I loved my mother's home made soups, no tins of soup in those days if my memory serves me right.

No bought vegetables, everything home grown. We lived about 2 miles from the local town, no car and about 3 buses a day. A baker used to visit with his horse and cart and that bread was so fresh. I remember a fishmonger also with his more upmarket van. No corner shops in those days.

When we had a car, a treat for me was a white pudding and chips from the Italian fish and chip shop 2 miles away. I am not sure if white puddings are sold in Scotland now- few folk have heard of them in London.

Rice pudding, I still make that sometimes. With nutmeg and cream and a nice brown top.

Oh yuck. I hated blancmange too. I was sick when given it at birthday parties.

I did like that tinned fruit salad though.

I was born in 1937 and have no memory of that bread , I lived in Scotland during the war and have lovely memories of Gran making all sorts of jam , but I hated the gooseberry jam . Granda brought us a real honeycomb , it sat in the middle of the table and we chewed the wax like chewing gum , the honey went on homemade bread and many a spoonful was sneaked

Has anyone mentioned junket yet ?

Blancmange pink, wobbly and sick inducing.

We had bread and jam, with perhaps a homemade plain cake, for the last meal of the day. Called it "tea". Cooked meal was lunchtime.

I always had Ovaltine or Bournvita in bed.

I watched the programme last night, and felt very sorry for the poor woman, she was completely out of her depth as she obviously wasn't the sort of woman who was an inventive cook. However they did make it very clear that she hadn't chosen the meals at all, they had been chosen for her. If I had been handed those ingerdients I would have used them in a very different way. They also didn't mention that for many people, as they had had a cooked meal at lunchtime cold suppers that didn't use up precious fuel were the norm, so cold leftovers - even liver, as my mother recalls - were often used, but they made more of an attempt to pretty them up in my mother's family. She was 15 in 1950 and she says that my grandmother would slice things up finely and sprinkle them over salad, or mix them with mustard or something, horseradish, and put them in sandwiches.

I wish I could make the cakes I used to make, without getting fat on them.

I was born in '41 and I've never heard of the National Loaf. All our bread (white and delicious) came from the baker down the road who made it on the premises overnight. And sometimes we had a real treat - 6 mixed buns. 1d each.

My mother's speciality was thick soup that you could stand on. We came home for lunch every day and had that to look forward to. She would buy a big marrow bone every week and when she had extracted the stock with the pressure cooker, the dog had the bone and we had the soup. I mostly remember the butterbean soup, but surely we didn't have that every day? . She was a great cake baker and used to send me a sultana cake every few weeks when I was at University which probably explains the weight gain!

I found this site, it has a semolina cheese recipe or two as mentioned above. Fascinating. I just remember semolina as something that made me feel ill at school.

recipespastandpresent.org.uk/semolina.php

We burned it off walking to school, playing outside, doing housework, carrying shopping home. Our homes were kept cooler so we used it up keeping warm.

There was less sugar and less between meals.

My mother's meals were not actually stodgy - we ate a lot of meat and vegetables and fruit. Yorkshire puddings, bacon roly-poly with suet crust and onions (yum) and fruit pies and milk puddings filled us up but did not deposit fat like the fatty sugary nothingnesses that children eat all day now.

But wasn't it all rather stodgy stuff? I can't imagine eating like that now, or what size I'd be if I did!

I only watched this show last night (recorded it) and thought it was fascinating. I was born in 1950 so only remember the second half of the decade really, but I do recall tasty stews, pies and cakes.
My mother was forever making jam from fruit trees in the garden. My dad liked anything with custard on it - it wasn't a real pudding otherwise. Likewise any main meal was acceptable with a few chips - from the chip-pan with its (reused many times) lard.
I still use my mother's wartime cake recipe called Belgian Loaf which never fails to raise compliments. I don't think our kitchen was as pretty as the one shown.

I've posted about this on another thread and I'm glad to see that other Grans who remember this era thought that "Home in Time for Dinner" wasn't a true representation of food in Post War Britain.

As we were there, I think our memories are far more accurate. For example I have no memory of the National Loaf and I was born in 1946. I asked a friend who was born in 1945 and she doesn't remember it either.

My memories are the same as the ones above, chips in the chip pan of lard, bread and butter pudding, apple sponge, beef stew, cauliflower cheese and plenty of salad usually with beetroot.

School dinner varied. I went to 3 Primary Schools in this era and the food in the first two was OK. The third school was dire with awful grey meat, stalky cabbage, and lots of rice or semolina pudding. We also had fish with huge bones. I did love what we called cake and custard, steamed pudding with lots of bright yellow custard. There were often seconds of cake and custard and we all went mad for it.

My dad used to be in the kitchen usually heating up a can of soup and he did do the washing up from time to time. My father in law on the other hand was never seen in the kitchen - but he wasn't typical I'm sure.

My mum used to make chips in an old chip pan with a colander type thing in it. The chips were cooked in melted solid lard and then when the pan was cool, put back in the cupboard to get solid and stayed there until we next had chips. They were the most divine chips ever!!

My dad was Italian so we had lots of Italian food - he was a marvellous cook. My sister, brother and I were introduced to Italian food long before 'spag bog' became a staple in most households.

My mother wasn't the best of cooks so I don't have fond memories of favourite meals. She wasn't a bad baker though, melting moments, sponge puddings and bread and butter pudding appeared fairly often, no wonder I've got such a sweet tooth.

I used to love Farola pudding. The only place to buy Farola these days is Asda, and then only intermittently. I don't have any at the moment and am making do with semolina.

What a fabulous walk down the memory lane of culinary delights. I remember them all.

I was never hungry in the 1950s and we were all slim and healthy.

I just remember 3 meals a day and no snacks, but we did have occasional sweets. Happy Days

What I forgot to say when I mentioned slurpy chops was that garlic was also an important ingredient. My ma made curries too – albeit with commercial curry powder rather than her own garam masala.We did have a fair amount of meat and two veg but she was also quite adventurous with her cooking. The idea that the 1950s was all tasteless slop is ridiculous. Just for the record Chaucer (1345–1400) wrote about garlic and other culinary herbs. Interesting food was not invented by modern television chefs.