Sunday tea

I really fancy some tinned mandarins

I remember when chicken was a special treat and beef was the usual Sunday roast.

Mum used to make a great egg and bacon pie, which became a favourite of my soon to be DH. So I had to learn to make it, but I don't think it matched mum's. We had it with the lettuce, tomato and cucumber salad.
Followed by tinned fruit and evaporated milk or tinned nestles cream. I did like that then, but haven't had it for years.

My mother was a half-hearted cook and got in a bit of a groove once frozen chickens became available. We never dared complain.

One Sunday lunch she wanted to impress my older brother's new in-laws so we had roast beef which was a rare treat. When it came to supper my younger brother, who'd been out all day and was expecting left over chicken, sunk his teeth into his sandwich and yelled, 'It's BEEF, it's BEEF!!

Tinned salmon or boiled ham salad with bread and butter. Followed by tinned fruit (mandarin oranges/fruit salad/peaches) with evaporated milk. Then weekly (!!) bath and hair washed ready for watching Sunday Night at the London Palladium!

Sometimes Shipham's paste with mustard and cress.
Mud and grass.

Comfortably

Auto-correct knows best apparently.

Gonegirl we weren't comfortable off at all; I don't know how my mum did it. This was probably late 50s, 60s.

She did say that bread and home-made jam was a staple in war-time and she used to invite the evacuee who was staying next door round for bread and jam as 'next door' didn't give the girl enough to eat.

Sardines on brown toast (toast was white on every other occasion).
Or a sandwich of cold meat, left overs from Sunday lunch.
Tinned fruit - peaches, fruit cocktail or pears with Carnation.
Sometimes potted meat or salmon spread on toast, with ‘melty’ butter.

Occasionally we had Ritz biscuits.
They'd go a bit soggy from being on your plate next to the pickled onions.

Tyne brand sliced beef in gravy with mash, bread and butter is what I remember as a favourite. My mum was a widow when I was small. In summer we had lots of salads and fruit pies. Everything was seasonal. I can’t remember eating tinned fruit or veg at all.

When DH and I started courting in 1970, we went to his parents’ every other Sunday for tea. He came from a big family, they all went back home on a Sunday.
Tea was jelly, cold custard, fruit she had bottled herself. Cheese and onion sandwiches. Pastries. And every week she made a big chocolate cake, the best I’ve ever eaten. Not too sweet, quite a dense cake, lovely and chocolatey, with chocolate butter cream and chocolate glacé icing.
Oh, I can taste it now!
??

Oh yes, celery stalks!
The tops of them would go all droopy if they were left too long.
They still tasted nice with salt on though.

None of really had a sweet tooth so rarely any cake. I used to love sandwiches made with sliced white Mother's Pride and whatever meat was left over from the Sunday roast. Lots of salt and pepper in those days. We used to eat a late Sunday lunch so didn't bother with tea just waited for supper.

Celery stalks were always in a jug of water which dripped all over the place when you helped yourself, pickled onions, cheddar cheese and if we didn't have sandwiches we'd have Jacobs cream crackers with butter.

When we visited my grandmother it was always tinned pilchards, bread and butter and a salad which was just lettuce, tomato and cucumber. She did have a sweet tooth so there was usually a fruit cake.

Ah, that's really nice.
I was just thinking how I disliked it, but now I think of you and your mum in law singing along its replaced a lifelong feeling of gloom when I bring it to mind.

Sing Something Simple was lovely. Used to sing along to it sometimes with my mum-in-law while we did the washing up.

My teas were in the 70s.

I can't remember what we had for Sunday tea in the forties. Probably bread and jam, same as other days. The teas described on this thread are more like we had when my children were young in the seventies.

You must all have been very comfortably off.

Oh yes, I can remember the top 40, or maybe 20, then the dreaded Sing Something Simple, too.

Most of these were also at our Sunday teatimes. Sometimes there were scones, too. The tinned fruit & evap is so odd now - whoever thought that up? It was lovely to dip bread & butter into it. I also remember my mum getting excited when Birds Trifle and Dream Topping made their debut! We also had pilchards on toast sometimes.

Mum used to stagger up the stairs (our sitting room was upstairs) with a laden tea tray for six of us, I don't know how she did it. We younger kids would eat while sitting on the floor, the bigger two on the sofas with mum and dad.

Then it would be cleared away and the TV would go on for Songs of Praise. After that, it was the radio and I would start feeling sad when Sing Something Simple came on, as it meant I'd soon have to go to bed and it would be school again tomorrow.

Lovely memories.
We had salad with tinned salmon and bread and butter followed by apple tart or tinned fruit salad and Nestle tinned cream or “evorapated” milk. My mother made beautiful apple tarts ...

On Saturdays we had fish bought from MacFisheries ( there was always a queue). A pair of kippers for my father and haddock for mum and me.
On Sunday's my mother usually made a tart from whatever was in season, blackberries, rhubarb, blackcurrants or apple.
Tinned fruit, mandarin oranges, pears, fruit cocktail with evaporated milk or tinned Nestle cream. If we had sandwiches they were usually salmon or cheese and tomato.
Mum made the lightest Victoria sponge and sponge traybakes with either green or pink food colouring and white icing, with silver balls sprinkled on top ( these were usually for my birthday parties). I have since replicated these for my own children.

Our Sunday tea never varied. Plain bread and butter first (or you couldn't have anything else). Then jelly and fruit, mum's homemade chocolate sponge (which was stodgy and dry) and perhaps jam tarts. and weak tea. All to the accompaniment on the radio of Welsh hymn singing. Had the same tea for years and years. Have never had it since thank goodness.

Oh yes, we had radishes too.
Little firey hot slices with salt on them. Lovely!

Sunday tea at our house always included an Apple tart. Mostly we went to my Grandma's though. We always had a boiled egg , with bread and butter. Tinned peaches with evaporated milk, and bread and butter . Followed by Angel cake and weak tea. Never varied, but we never minded.