Sunday tea

We weren't well off at all, but even my Nan (mum's mother in law) had to say, through gritted teeth.
"Well, I'll say one thing for her, your mother has always been a good manager"

I remember looking for 'digs' when I first left home and the advice I was given was that the landlady 'kept a good table'.

I was confused but realised that it meant she fed her lodgers well - and she did!

I remember my mum saying that to me.
She would often stay for tea, unexpectedly, and I would say I didn't have much in.

Then out would come all sorts of things, my mum said I must have magic cupboards.

I'm going to bed now before I start raiding the fridge or cupboards.

Sleep tight.

DH's landlady certainly kept a good table. The first time I was invited to tea she apologised because she was, 'just a plain cook'. Oh, music to my ears. I dreaded being invited anywhere knowing I'd have to try and eat cakes, jellies, jam, chocolate etc.

She had a lovely cottage garden and laughed when I asked if I could eat a cooking apple straight off the tree.

DH used to say, 'She's a cheap date.'

On a Saturday tea time we had egg and cress sandwiches. The cress still had most of the seed pods in. Jelly with a tin of fruit in and cake or home made jam tarts and lemon curd ones.
Wrestling on the tele at tea time and Billy Cotton show in the evening with the Black and White Minstrels.
Sunday tea was a get your own as we got older. Red salmon and cucumber sandwiches, tinned fruit cocktail and the same in our house Pantglas2, it was a fight who had the cherries. 2 in a tin if you were lucky. Or we had peaches or pears with Carnation evaporated milk. Then cake.
Oh, Lins1066 I remember those little hard silver balls. My mum only put them on our birthday cake. It's a wonder we didn't break our teeth on them they were like mini ball bearings.
As mentioned, Sing Something Simple on the radio. I'm singing the theme tune in my head now.
Mum and dad never missed Songs of Praise and The London Palladium. I used to like beat the clock.
Happy days

I did get to like Sing Something Simple when I got older, I guess because I didn't have to send myself to bed afterwards!

Does anyone remember those ready-made sponge flans that you put your own fruit into and topped with a weird jelly substance that came out of a packet? Ready-jel or something?

I have to say, we were not well off when I was young! My mum was and still is, at almost 92yo, an excellent manager. She's on a pretty basic state pension but still thinks she's lucky that she never goes without.

Yes, my mum used those flan things.

Now I come to think of it, I didn't even like a lot of this tea food.
Carnation milk never floated my boat, nor tinned fruit.

I used to do the Quick Jel and tinned fruit flan thing when we were newly weds. Also the lemon meringue pie kit.

Bread & butter floats in Carnation milk, until it gets soggy! . It's also odd to think that some babies were fed on that self-same Carnation milk until they were weaned.

Cinnamon toast has also just come to mind. Yum!

Growing up, we used to visit Mum's parents once every couple of months or so. We would leave after Church Sunday morning, and get there in time for brunch. Brunch was always the same - hot buttered toast, sunny side up eggs, bacon, jam, and fruit and veg. Mum had three brothers who lived in the same city as my grandparents and they often came for brunch after church too.

We don't seem to have 'tea' nowadays do we? But I remember my childhood 'tea-times' well.

Paste sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, tinned salmon sandwiches, cheese, celery stalks in a jar, and pickles. Jelly, fruit and Carnation milk, followed by home-made cake. Big pot of tea on the table - with a home-knitted tea-cosy.

Ah, happy times!

I can't ever remember having anyone to tea at our house, Mum didn't encourage it.

Sunday tea at our house varied a lot.

We had sliced brawn, or ham, tongue, all cut very finely by our local butcher - one thin slice each. Or pork pie. Occasionally we might have tinned salmon or corned beef. Dad once brought home some Spam.

I like Heinz sandwich spread which I recently re-tried. It's not the same I loved it with cucumber.

In summer this lot would be eaten with salad and mashed or new potatoes.
We had the celery in the drinking glass as well, my sister always had first dibs on the new, fresh shoots from the middle.

Salad was bought from the allotments up the street. I've never had spring onions as good again, deliciously strong.

For dessert it was usually tinned, sliced peaches (fruit salad on special occasions) with either Carnation or that thick, reduced Nestles cream from a tin. Sometimes 'top of the milk'.

Mum was a good baker, so there would have been jam or lemon tarts, or fruit cake but I always preferred the savoury stuff so if there was any salad left, I'd scoff that with a slice of bread rather than have a piece of cake.

Mum had several great aunts and we often visited them.

Same bill of fare: Auntie Minnie used to make a wonderful 'choppy' which I still make.
Fresh mint, green tops of spring onions, often a bit of dandelion or nasturtium leaf to give it bite. All this very finely chopped then covered with a mix of vinegar, a pinch of sugar and hot water.
Auntie Minnie would make this before we arrived so it was cold. It wasn't until she taught me how to make it I realised she used hot water.

She served Coconut macaroons and Parkin, Madeira cake, or Eccles cakes. Like me, she made her own Cream Crackers to have with a variety of wonderful cheeses.

Blimey, I've just written enough to fill a book

Sunday tea at my mum's house was only ever bread and jam or, if we were very lucky, bread and dripping from the Sunday roast.

In my mid-teens I was sent to live with my grandparents and my Nana always made a 'proper' Sunday tea. This was comprised of sandwiches made with 'best' butter, and either a jar of paste or a tin of salmon, followed by cake or some homemade sweet pudding and custard. Then we would sit and listen to Sing Something Simple, which I grew to really look forward to.

Did anyone else used to have 'best butter', or was that just a thing in my family? I often used to wonder what a 'second best butter' might taste like.

grannyactivist My granny always referred to it as 'best butter'. She used to say 'Adams best butter' in a proud voice.

My mother in law always added crumbled Jacobs cream crackers to the tinned salmon for sandwiches. You couldn't taste it but it made the salmon go twice as far.

'best butter' in our house too.

I hated Sing Something Simple (but then I don't like music at all).
Dad used to say, 'Aye and they must be simple if they think we enjoy listening to this rubbish.' He still listened though

I didn’t like Sing something simple, but my dad never missed it, if I hear a snatch of one of those old songs, I remember him, I don’t think he could have had a lot of pleasure in life, but he did enjoy that.

We always had tinned salmon and shrimps, with salad and bread and butter. Dad wouldn't eat salad as he said 'it was for rabbits'. So he ate his salmon with just bread and butter, thinking back I wonder why he didn't just make it into a sandwich. We also had the sliced cucumber in vinegar! What was that all about.

For afters it was usually tinned fruit cocktail, but we did have real cream not Evaporated milk

I also remember chicken for dinner was a rare treat as Beef was obviously cheaper then.

Mum went back to work when I was 5, so we always had sweets on Fridays (pay day). My Mum always ironed to Sing Something Simple.

I just remember the place being surrounded by food wherever you looked. I don't know how my parents did it but each mealtime was like a banquet and there were only 4 of us.
Sundays started with home-made potato cakes for breakfast or/and beef dripping on toast if it was roast beef for dinner. Then a gigantic dinner after which salad would be prepared for tea as the aroma of sliced onion in vinegar and also cucumber the same way, sliced beetroot a jar of celery in the middle of the table like a plant. A plate of cooked cold meats and mum's speciality home-made pressed brawn which I loved with her pickle.

If we had room ( which we usually did ) there was fruit jelly and a sort of synthetic cream or evap. This was from 1950 onwards. Oh, and don't forget the doyley's on the cake plates!

I've developed that same trait of food being plentiful, but there's only myself, so I should have had " counselling " hahaha.
Christmas was something else ,as mum used to say she was going to " kill the fatted calf "-----as if we didn't already know ! Home-made Christmas cake and puds, stuffing and bread sauce, etc.
Vegetables and salads were home-grown so they were half-way there with the food.

Happy, satisfying and stable times. I'd go back to them if I could.

PS. I loved mum's pickled herrings.

We always had bacon and egg for Sunday lunch as it was quick to make.
We had been at Church in the morning and had to get back there for Sunday School- Dad was the Superintendent- and we had to go there and back on the bus so time was of the essence.
Tea was as others have said, salad with ham or tinned salmon followed by tinned oranges set in orange jelly, tinned peaches were a treat and evap milk.
Then it was back to Church for evening service and finally home to a slice of homemade cake before bed.
Happy days.

NannyJan53, I was laughing at your comment about the sliced cucumber in vinegar. I too, have no idea what that was about and it seems to have totally disappeared...

Gonegirl The teas I describe are in the 50’s and up to mid
60’s, we were very hard up but Sunday was the best day for food.Being a skinny and ever hungry child I looked forward to it.
The only thing that spoilt Sunday at all was Sing Something Simple on the radio, filled me with a sense of depression.

I remember, when I was a newly-wed, making a stack of salmon sandwiches for the in-laws tea.

Went into the kitchen to collect them and found the cat having a go at them. We didn't have anything else to offer them, so I tidied up the plate and down they all went. Nobody died.

A tin of salmon these days wouldn't feed many people - they've really shrunk.