What ‘foreign food’ do you remember as a child?

The odd Vesta meals tins of beef curry the curry one end of the tin rice the other can’t remember the brand name. My mum sometimes made a curry with minced beef apple and sultana she said it was Greek. We never got chippy meals they were beyond my parent’s budget.
I went to Liverpool city centre as a treat with friends for a birthday I was about thirteen. We went to a restaurant and never had Chinese food before so we didn’t know what to expect or what was ordered. It was fried rice and to us girls it was dry boring food with no gravy.

None, living in deepest darkest Cornwall.

Whitewavemark2

None, living in deepest darkest Cornwall.

I never had clotted cream or pasties unless I went to Cornwall when I was a child 😃

I was in my teens in the late 60s when my mother first made spaghetti bolognese and I did not like the pasta - it was probably overcooked - though my mother was a good cook otherwise.
Fish and chips was the only takeaway but we never had that. The occasional restaurant meals were Berni Inn steak house or Golden Egg.
I first went to Chinese and Indian restaurants around 1970 with my boyfriend. In the 70s taught how to make proper curries by an Indian friend and also experimented with lots of different types of food.

Nothing in my home town except fish and chips!
I remember DM putting a spoonful of curry powder in mince, which was wonderfully exotic!
When I went to college I was introduced to Indian and Chinese food which I loved, then, working in London even more variety.
And then I went to live in Singapore, I was in heaven!

I remember tasting caviar when I was about 16. A friend of my father purloined it from somewhere: I loved it 😍

Nothing much except the local Chinese restaurant food which was horrible, bean sprouts with no flavour and stodgy rice. My parents didn’t like garlic or anything ‘foreign.’ Lots of offal and puddings and tinned fruit and blancmange. As soon as I left home, aged 18, everything changed.

My parents cooked curries and all sorts as my Dad worked in a very mixed area and used to encourage my Mum to recreate the recipes. I remember she even used to make hummus. I think they used to buy specialist ingredients from the city centre shops

My gran was Anglo-Indian so we used to have a few curries, samosas and chapatis. My DH often. recalls his shock at having to eat dhal! He is not really a fan of pulses still.

Fleurpepper

my future MIL's amazing Cape Malay curries.

Did you know her in your childhood then?

Tins of Ravioli and tins of Rissotto.

My mother had one of those blue packets of spaghetti in the larder for years. I don't think she ever cooked it.

Once I made Lancashire hotpot in domestic science at school. As a Londoner, that was exotic enough for her.

She was a fantastic cook, though, and we always had delicious meals.

As I grew up all the curries I ate, except when we live in South Asia, I suppose I should call it now, were home made or served in the Officers mess.

I can remember the shock when my parents returned to England and we went out for a meal and the restaurant had curry on the menu, which I ordered, and I was then asked if I wanted chips or boiled potatoes and when it arrived the curry was closer to a fruit salad than to a beef curry and the rice was littlemore than a garnish - and it came with chips and peas. This was in 1964.

JackyB

My mother had one of those blue packets of spaghetti in the larder for years. I don't think she ever cooked it.

Once I made Lancashire hotpot in domestic science at school. As a Londoner, that was exotic enough for her.

She was a fantastic cook, though, and we always had delicious meals.

Once I made Lancashire hotpot in domestic science at school. As a Londoner, that was exotic enough for her
I'd never eaten Lancashire hotpot, even though I'd been to Lancashire several times, until DH made one. He learnt how from his Granny (who wasn't from Lancashire either!).

My father did like Gorgonzola cheese.
We also had Edam cheese regularly

Yes, we had Edam too, that counts as foreign food!

When I was very young a parcel arrived around 19 December. It was marked Open immediately. Do NOT wait until Christmas Day.
It contained bananas, the first I had ever seen. This was in the post war years, late 1940 ies.
There was Danish bacon, New Zealand butter…..
Veg from the garden, meat and fish from butcher and fishmonger, nothing “ foreign”. Plain English cooking.
When I was 16 I visited my French pen friend and tried various French dishes. At 17 I had my first meal in a Chinese restaurant.

I grew up in NZ in the 1950s. The most exotic food I ever had there was pavlova cake. Children didn't go to restaurants.

When I came to London there were Chinese restaurants and I remember loving lychees.

I babysat for a family who had fruit in their fruit bowl I had never seen. I think they were avocados and aubergines. This would be 1967.

In the early 1950s, we lived in Yorkshire and all our family lived in South London. When we drove down to visit them, an 8 hour journey, my father would book lunch at The Bear at Stamford. He would always have cheese and biscuits rather than dessert and the standard cheeseboard was a piece of Cheddar and a piece of Gorgonzola. At various times we had lunch at other hotels when travelling and the cheese board was always just those two cheeses.

DH's Aunt in Australia used to send them food parcels during the war. He remembers the tinned fruits, nuts, dried fruits and other goodies which weren't available here at that time. He also wondered how many food parcels ended up at the bottom of the sea.

I remember in our small Scottish town there was “cheese”
Not any specific sort, just “cheese” . Generally “mousetrap)
Danish Blue or Gorgonzola when they arrived at the delicatessen in Galashiels (who also sold YOGURT!) was considered the height of sophistication.

I do remember Vesta chow mien less exotic were ravioli in tins also peach Melba ski yoghurts at my convent girls school seemed very new in late sixties to me

I dont think my father was sophisticated but he had travelled a lot!
I just assumed gorgonzola was an everyday product, although it was too strong for me.
Cheddar came from Australia and Canada as well as England!

Vests curry with mashed potatoes.

I'm sure we had Vesta curry with just rice, as we did my mother's curries (with sultanas).

Rice, however, was generally pudding rice made into milk rice puddings, slow-cooked in the oven with nutmeg.