Eating in the 1950s ...much less choice, but we were healthier

Cream with Christmas pudding was tinned sterilised Nestle cream, which we loved as it was such a rare treat. Carnation with tinned fruit was the usual dessert.

I can remember carnation milk Vesta ready meals and Mum's junket &jelly whip for afters

A little tin of condensed milk was a huge treat! We really did think our Vesta curry night was exotic!
Tinned salmon salad, followed by tinned peaches and ‘cream’ (Carnation) was also a meal for when we had visitors. They, and we, always seemed to enjoy it.
Ham was a rare treat but always tasted good, unlike most ham nowadays. Cake was usually homemade and much enjoyed.
Everyday tea often was toast topped with either beans, egg, spaghetti hoops, tomatoes or mushrooms.

Sarahellenwhitley - My Mum worked in a British Restaurant. I remember being taken there after Nursery one day. The building it was in is still standing it is no a Baptist Church.

I used to love Vesta curry. I remember me and my ex husband having them. They were a bit of a faff as, if I remember rightly you had to measure the water in the packet the meat concoction came out of, had to stir it until it boiled.......and that was a convenience meal.....not like the 'ting' meals now!

We had a coal hole outside the front door. The coalman came around with his horse and cart. He would heft a sack up the path and tip the coal down the shute into the front of the cellar. I can remember that smell.

I was always a bit spooked if I went down the cellar steps. I could see under the floor boards, very dark and dirt, and lots of spiders webs.

Yes agreed sparkly - I wish I could edit and amend the title.

My mum was a wonderful cook, especially with cakes and pastry. She use to make cream horns, eclairs and the most wonderful cakes and biscuits. Porridge Oe toast for breakfast, school meals a snack of bread and butter when you came home from school and then a high tea. . I use to love her ham and split pea soup ate with loads of bread and butter.and butter. Hot milky drink before before bed with a piece of cake.

Vesta Chicken Supereme in the 60s and who remembers Junket - loved it.

Sorry time lapse and crossed post with hula hoop and sparkly

I too used to use a sheet of newspaper which I placed over the 'blower' (a sheet of metal with a handle on) to draw the fire and one time it was the News of the World and I was that absorbed in reading some salacious piece that the paper caught and went up in flames☺! I was 11 at the time and it was my job to make the fire as I was first home from school and my parents were at work. Different times indeed but fond, amusing memories nevertheless.

Age 7 my dad taught me how to lay, light and draw up a fire as I was the first one home everyday, no firegard of course. Mum decided we would become trendy and try a Vesta meals once a week. Dad complained that there wasn't enough on his plate, I loved them especially the crispy noodles. In his later years dad loved nothing better than an Oriental takeaway or a spicy curry.
We have far more choice of healthy foods today, fresh foods are affordable all year round today. OK they may have travelled many food miles but you can pick up salad leaves, toms in the winter months at no great expense.
I think this post should have read "but were we healthier?"

I remember being desperate to try a burger in the Wimpy Bar when I was about 14, but wasn’t allowed! We “ate out” once in a blue moon, partly due to cost, but mostly because there just wasn’t anywhere!

Mucky fat on fresh white bread was often our Sunday tea/supper I still buy it occasionally !! We ate vesta curries and chowmein loved the crispy noodles . Does anyone remember tins of Tom piper Irish stew they were lovely . Soda pop I remember coming home from school and setting and drawing fire with shovel and newspaper which often caught fire we never worried about it did we .?

Yes seacliff I remember using newspaper to 'draw' the fire. It's a wonder any of us survived really.

Remember Goblin tinned steak & kidney puddings? Disgusting! Slimey, chewy suet pastry filled with very chewy meaty chunks of some kind of description although I doubt it conformed to the words on the side of the tin......

My mother was a good cook and baker and was willing to try new things. We had a few Vesta curries but she made curry as well. Her soup was legendary. Treats were grapes and melon! There was always “ordinary” fruit in the bowl for between meals.

We had a Vesta curry every Saturday for a treat in the late 1960's. Mum used to add some tinned meat to make it go further but, otherwise, it was one box between four people. I thought it was lovely.

Sunday lunch was, alternately, roast half shoulder of lamb and roast chicken with roast potatoes and vegetables, followed by either Birds trifle, Jaffa cakes, Lyons coffeee cake in a box or tinned mandarins with tinned evaporated milk.

We knew how to live in those days.

Oh yes, I remember the beautiful frost patterns on the insie of my bedroom window. We had a hot water bottle, the rest of the bed was icy cold.

Our bathroom was heated by a Valor oil heater, which was standing in the bathroom, so dangerous now I think about it, with children around.

I remember Mum putting some newspaper across the fire to draw it, to get it going well.

*Who

As well as being more active I'm sure we used more energy keeping warm in houses with no central heating. who remembers frost on the inside of their bedroom window?

My mum was a very plain cook certainly nothing vaguely foreign came near our house. In the 1950's it was cooked breakfast, cooked lunch, slightly later a snack lunch and hot meal in the evening. She made everything from scratch but by the late fifties early sixties would sometimes buy a Fullers cake for birthdays or special treat. Right into the 1960's one aunt would bring her own banana to Sunday tea as she didn't expect my mum to provide everything, a left over from wartime I suspect.

No, our food certainly wasn't healthier when we were children, except in one area - we consumed much less sugar.

In my home sweets were bought on Saturday for the princely sum of sixpence (old money) per child, and it was up to the child whether she ate the lot on Saturday, which my sister did, or spun them out to last the week (me). There were no more sweets before next Saturday whatever you did.

Lemonade was a party drink, we weren't even given it on Sundays. Orangeade, same rules. Two biscuits for each member of the family for morning coffee (we had ours with us at school to eat with our free milk).

If we were hungry between meals and asked we were allowed to take a slice of bread. (Quite literally, nothing went on that slice, you ate it in the kitchen or outside while playing).

Dinner was a 5.30 p.m. and nothing at all to eat until porridge in the winter and cornflakes in the summer at 7.30 next morning during term time - 9 a.m at the weekends and during school holidays.

Try running that regime past the grandkids - your ears will be blue with their comments!

annodomini - Your mum buried the dog?

In our family coffee was called Camp, came in bottle and was only used to flavour cakes!