Revisiting food from your youth.

now, someone mentioned Thunder and Lightning to me the other week, I can't remember what it is and I can't remember who it was who mentioned it.
I'd never heard of it before

Thunder and Lightening is a thick slice of White bread topped first with clotted cream and then golden syrup drizzled over the top. Think it might just be a Devonshire thing.

All those years I lived there and I've never heard of it!!

We definitely tucked into that many times when I was growing up in Devon (50s/early 60s) but never heard it called Thunder and Lightening - maybe its a regional thing within Devon?

My own Devon boy says he has never heard of it.
He was deprived!! Or perhaps there was rationing when he was growing up.

I thought it would be something like a Crunchie bar

My mother dropped all Fray Bentos' products after the typhoid epidemic that was traced back to infected corned beef in the 1960s or was it 1959? I've never had the courage to try them since.

I loved bridies with baked beans, served both at home and at school for lunch. Our butcher's meat pies were good too when served with baked beans.

I detested fried Spam, but could and still can eat it cold. I never really liked tomato soup, but if I have to eat it still prefer Heinz to other varieties.

Going further back, during WW2 when most foods were rationed (even bread) one of the main standbys for protein was tinned snoek
www.recipespastandpresent.org.uk/wartime/snoek-snook/
I can't remember the taste. But I do remember Spam
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(food)#/media/File:Spam_can.png
We hardly ever had meat, apart from some grey tasteless mutton.
We lived with my Gran and she was a very good cook. She made the best of the little there was. Her best things were Yorkshire puds with syrup, and apple pie with a slice of cheese.

When I was little, during the war, apparently I was a very fussy eater. to the point where my mum took me to the doctor.....
........he said, 'Have you tried her with sardines?'
Never thought about why I should have been like this.

It's only just been pointed out to me, that the food available then was probably very bland and uninteresting, with little variety!
(Can't recall if I did like the sardines!)

We somehow managed ...we did have relatives on a farm..... to get sausages and enough eggs to keep them in 'waterglass' in a bucket.

Later, in the rationing time after the war, I do remember I hated the margarine, horrible taste. Spam was ok.

My Mum used to give us tinned meat pie right up until she died 10 years ago. I remember once coming downstairs to find smoke pouring out of the kitchen. One had gone up in flames in the oven! I managed to extinguish it. She peeled the top off and made us eat it!!

My mum was a cookery teacher so she always made everything from scratch. As a student I indulged in lots of ready made things as I didn't really learn to cook properly until later. I remember vesta meals and goblin meat puddings were favourites. Mum always roasted breast of lamb, boned and rolled. I still do it as it is so much cheaper than other cuts and just as tasty if you cook it for long enough to make it tender. It's the lamb equivalent of belly pork but hasn't become as fashionable. Mum also cooked offal regularly and I'm still a fan of roast heart, liver and onions and kidney though my kids aren't keen.
As children we were given bowls of hot raspberry blancmange which mum called 'pink pudding.' I still like blancmange but not hot.
Mum told me she knew a poor family when she was a child who were given hot sweet white sauce for pudding and told it was hot ice cream!
I'm now hankering for a Fray Bentos pie. I saw them in the pound shop the other day but decided against buying one but now I'm regretting it. Next time I'm there I think I may succumb to temptation.

My Partner and I adore a Frey Bentos pie even now, but:
Can anyone please, please, please, tell me of a tin opener that will open them and not wear out after a couple of times.
Even my electric one no longer works on these tins, and we are getting free Bentos withdrawal symptoms.?.
HELP !!!!!!!!!!

*Alie Oxon*wrote
"We somehow managed ...we did have relatives on a farm..... to get sausages and enough eggs to keep them in 'waterglass' in a bucket."
So did we.
But we lived on the coast and always had fresh fish.

Loved caramel blancmange. Can't find it now

Does anyone remember toast toppers hubby used to love them I haven't seen them in years

I've just rediscovered fish paste. Crab and sardine and tomato on cream crackers with a glass of red around five pm. There's posh!

I DO remembr Toast Toppers, heaven knows what was in them but they were quite tasty, I seem to remember.

Can you still get those crispy pancakes (were they Birds' Eye?) that you had to fry? I loved them, thought they were dead sophisticated. I have a Fray Bentos pie sitting in the cupboard but I'm nervous of trying it, in case it's horrible and pricks the bubble of my memory of them as being utterly delicious.

I love salmon fish paste (now called salmon paste) blueskies - I had it for my lunch today on granary bread, plus cucumber, of course. Delicious!!

We thought we were very sophisticated eating the dried Vesta meals - curries, chow mein, etc. From what I remember, it was just add water and reconsitute. Yuk. Ditto Goblin meat pudding.

I still have fond memories of strawberry, banana and chocolate Instant Whip and Corona fizzy drinks - especially Ciderapple.

I'm in a minority I know but I loved school dinners - chocolate crunch and strawberry or banana custard, mince and onion pie, mince curry ................

it's a wonder we're still here and posting .....

when did we all become so health conscious about our food - some of it was rubbish years ago!

My mother dropped all Fray Bentos' products after the typhoid epidemic that was traced back to infected corned beef in the 1960s or was it 1959? I've never had the courage to try them since.

I remember that grandetante
It was sliced corned beef from the deli rather than tins of corned beef: apparently the very large tins of corned beef were lowered into the river in Brazil?? to cool rapidly and some had little holes in them so contaminated water got in. That was the story at the time, I think.

Then there was an outbreak of botulism from tinned fish - I think some people died.

I used to love Fray Bentos pies but we were only allowed them on holiday in the caravan, served with Smash and tinned peas. Also for a holiday treat was a drink called Cremola Foam, does anyone else remember that? It was crystals in a tin and you would add water and stir until it fizzed up. Our final holiday special was Kunzle cakes, they were chocolate shells filled with sponge and cream. Yum.

Oh yes, I loved Cremola Foam - but it did create an awful lot of....erm....gas!

Does anyone remember a shop called MacFisheries? As a treat we could have a fish cake and - the height of sophistication- potato croquettes!

Bought a can of Heinz tomato soup recently as a nostalgic kick. Had it so often in childhood. Had to say it disappointed. Maybe I needed my mum and the 60s to make it taste good.