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

Hi my first posting on Gransnet! Anyone remember Angel Delight and Artic Roll I think I remember having Spam Fritters, Tongue (a cold meat bought from butchers!). Can remember my father eating Tripe and onions! Yuk

I was watching an old episode of 'Eat well for less' last night. The mum complained about the ham which had been substituted for her usual stuff, 'Yuk, it's real ham. You have to chew it!' We couldn't believe it!

Welcome Stargran!

Yes I remember Angel Delight - butterscotch was my favourite and arctic roll too. In fact both my children (47 and 45) were not unfamiliar with both!

My parents used to eat honeycomb tripe cold with vinegar
and pepper but didn't impose it on us, their children! DH still likes tongue but I never have liked it so buy it for him as an occasional treat. He likes elder too which I believe is cooked and sliced udder. Ugh!

Fizzy pop was Corona bought from a lorry that came to our neck of the woods once a week. As s treat mum would sometimes allow us 2 bottles between the six of us and it had to last the weekend. I can still remember the fights and agreements over which flavours we were to have. We also had a butcher who came twice a week in a van and mum would give him her order for the weekend. Jams were homemade from what ever fruit we were picking on the farms at the time and home made cordial was also made. So out picking strawberries with strawberry jam sandwiches and a strawberry drink and a piece of Victoria sponge with ...you guessed it... strawberry jam inside.

I remember the corona lorry when I was a bit older. I think we got money back on the bottles.

I remember as a teenager going to meet friends in the park after tea - with no money! Someone might have had a packet of crisps which they offered round. We drank from the water fountain if we were thirsty. I don't remember feeling deprived. Went home about ten or so. didnt drop dead from starvation. Food is too important nowadays.

Oh yes ‘the Virol’ or cod liver oil and malt! Yuk! I was given it by the doctor,who decided I was under weight. I hated it.
We all lined up to have a spoonful,including my slightly over weight sister and the dog!

I actually like Virol, Gilly. My younger sister used to lap up plain cod liver oil - yuk.

Virol, the bane of my life! I hate,hate,hated it! When I told my mother decades later, she said 'why didn't you tell me, I'd have stopped giving it to you'!

I loved carnation milk as well Legs porridge and rice pudding made with Carnation - delicious.
Apropos of the News of the World, does anyone remember a saucy magazine called
Titbits. When my ex husband was a teenager his mother used to cut out certain articles before he was allowed to read it. A magazine full of holes !!

Fennel - I’m glad I’m not the only one who liked Virol. I used to be given cod liver oil before that and Virol was a vast improvement. I vaguely remember very concentrated orange juice too....not sure whether it was supposed to be diluted but it was given to me neat. Took away the cod liver oil taste!

Juliet - the orange juice was a vitamin C supplement. We couldn't get citrus fruit (and many other things) during the war because shipments of food were blocked.
You never know, might have to go back to it after Brexit. Or rose hip syrup or backcurrants.

Virol - vitamins A and D.
I often saw elderly people in France with bandy legs due to vitamin D and calcium deficiency in their childhood years of growth.

Hate tripe but we had angel delight a lot esp butterscotch with bananas cut up in it. Our children in their 40s still go on about it. Or choc one qith tinned pears! Arctic roll was another favourite esp the one with chicolate round the outside. They lokes ise magic too where you squited choc sauce on icecream and it went hard! All this was in the 80s.

In the 60s we

Bother. Excuse the typos! With not qith. The liked ice magic not lokes ise magic and they squirted it not sqited which sound s horrid!

We also had vesta curries and other vesta meals in the late 60s and through the 70s. I was very pleased with myself when we went to France by ferry and drove down to a gite in the Loire region. I knew we would need a meal so took a vesta one which was easily reconstituted with boiling water!

Pollyperkins sorry this isn't about food. Just to say aah the beautiful Loire valley. Such lovely memories.

You could tell the day of the week by the food on the table in our house!
We never had an evening meal - just a round of sandwiches and a piece of cake and a piece of fruit.
Lunch was eaten at school [can't remember what we had in the holidays] but we had a cooked meal at weekends and a roast on a Sunday though it was only my nan who did roast potatoes.
Breakfast was a fry up - egg, bacon and fried bread.
If you didn't eat what was on your plate you went without and as I didn't like rhubarb tart I went without if that was the pud of the day.
It was a mixture of home cooked and tinned

I stayed with my Grandparents when I was about 13 while parents were on holiday, not cool ? to go away with mum and dad, Nana gave me a Vesta curry thinking she was giving me something special and I was in the bathroom all night fighting both ends. Hadn't the heart to say anything and tried to act normal. Felt like poo.

My mum was no cook at all so I don't remember anything much except roast lamb or beef on Sundays then when I was a bit older, I think chicken replaced the beef which became too expensive. Sunday pudding was always tinned mandarin oranges and Carnation. Sunday tea usually fish paste sandwiches and maybe a box of cakes like Mr Kipling French Fancies or jam tarts. We had Weetabix for breakfast, school lunches then marmite sandwiches and milk after school. Weekends and school holidays I remember sausage and chips, egg and chips, fish fingers and chips for lunch (I said she was no cook ?. Sometimes we had hard boiled egg salad in the summer. All bread was Mothers Pride and Wonderloaf ? I only tasted Hovis at my nan's but I loved it.
I did buy Vesta meals for myself as soon as I was earning at 15 though, I thought they were really tasty ?
Angel Delight I bought for my daughter in the 70's - again butterscotch her favourite. Apparently my GDS had Angel Delight for pudding at his very expensive nursery one day this week so either they still make it or the chef is calling something Angel Delight so that the parents know it was something fluffy ?
My main observation is that the quantity we ate was so tiny compared to nowadays - for example, the first time mum bought a pizza from Safeway we cut it into 5 and had it with chips and beans. ?

That's DGS ?

We never had fish paste, always broil sandwiches on white bread. I still make rice puddings, especially during the winter as my husband loves them and bread and putter pudding.

My husband still looks for the Paella ? as he lives it.

Can anyone remember having a revolting 'brown gloopy' stuff, I think it might have been codliver oil and malt?

When I had my 2nd child in the mid 80's my craving was vesta ready meals, loved the beef risotto and prawn curry. My family thought it was odd, as I cooked those meals from scratch myself in non-pregnant situation.

My parents were publicans, and our pubs always served food, I grew up on "traditional pub grub". Also fortunate to eat out once a week on their night off, I can remember going to an Italian restaurant in Leicester Square called Alpinos, I felt very grown up and sophisticated (once I had changed out of my awful dark brown school uniform in the toilets).

I remember British Restaurants. Although whenever I mention them to people of my age, no-one else does. There was one in Clapton, East London and when my Mum was in hospital for a very long time back in 1947, my Dad would often take me there for a meal. Not sure how long they lasted, there is a school there now.