Foreign food

I don’t recall a time we didn’t have foreign food as my dad spent time in Egypt during has national service. He was a great cook unlike my DM who could burn water.

It's those crispy noodles I'd like to try, I think.
Did they come with the curry?

I remember going to a friend’s house and her dad was cooking spaghetti. I had never seen proper spaghetti before and I was fascinated by the dry noodles bending into the water as they softened. The first time we went into a Chinese restaurant was when we were supposed to be staying half board in a bed and breakfast, but the evening meal left a lot to be desired so Mum and Dad took us in search of a restaurant. The Chinese was the only place we could find open on a Sunday. We all ate from the “English “ section of the menu.

MissAdventure

I'd really like to try a Vesta meal.
I feel I missed out.

I wonder what we'd all think of them if we had one nowadays?

I think I'll have a look in poundland ot B&M.
Perhaps they might stock them?

I grew up only eating non British food. My parents had both lived abroad, my mother grew up in Egypt and attended a french school there (she was also half French) she lived in Canada as a young woman. My father had travelled around the world and had lived for 8 years in the South of France working for a French company my grandparents also travelled a lot so our food at home was an eclectic mix of French, middle Eastern and Italian cuisines. When I was 5 my mother and grandmother opened a cafe in Brighton and used to help the owners of the Indian restaurant next door with trips to the cash and carry in return for a weekly family meal with them which gave me an early love of Indian cuisine and all things spiced! My first taste of British food was when I went off to uni and a real culture shock it was too😂 I still dont eat British meals to be honest as I find them often tasteless, even my occasional fried breakfast has chilli jam and mushrooms cooked in garlic pepper😂

MissAdventure

It's those crispy noodles I'd like to try, I think.
Did they come with the curry?

No, I think it was the chow mein which had the crispy noodles.

We used to go to a very fancy Chinese restaurant in Manchester in the 1950-60s, it was lovely.
I think that there were Italian restaurants around at that time too. I remember that we had tinned spaghetti but we didn't have the dried version until much later, though my mother did learn to make an excellent lasagne in the late 60's.
Living in the area around Manchester with so many from the Indian sub-continent living and working there at that time it is surprising that there were no Curry houses. In fact we rarely even saw anyone who appeared to be Indian or Pakistani. I had my first curry in 1970 when I went to university in London,

Does anybody remember the April Fools Day joke when a film was made for evening TV about the spaghetti that grew on trees in Switzerland?

Oh yes:I do.

Think we've all gone very much the same route - ie introduction to convenience food Vesta things. Also spaghetti bolognaise, Chinese restaurants, etc.

My diet was restricted even by British standards - as my mother was such a "limited" cook to say the least. All those things I could have tried whilst having to get carted along with my armed forces family for nearly 3 years as a kid - and we didn't try one of them and I knew my mother well enough to know it wasn't worth asking - so I just used to look hopefully at it and my mother pretended she hadnt noticed me doing so!!!!

There was no holding me when I moved out on my own at age 21 - there was a lot of lost time to make up for. I wasn't always vegetarian - so a couple of Arabic boyfriends in a row meant I got used to Arabic food and doing things like sitting down on the floor, huge platter of Arabic food they'd just cooked there for them/me/their friends and digging in with my hands. Promptly decided I liked Arabic food (spicier than ours) and buy various bits of it to this day (cue for buying some only this morning - now we've got Arabic food available to buy in this area). So - yep Arabic food is my favourite. Though I also like Greek food and Italian food and I'll try most things within my remit. Cue for I'm used to people asking me what something is and how to prepare it - as they know there's a good chance I'll know...

Picked up some ideas also about Danish food in my 20's - whilst living in Denmark briefly. Even had to learn about real coffee there - as the British only seemed to do instant back then.

Basically my attitude these days is "You name it and, as long as it's vegetarian I've probably tried it. If I haven't tried it yet - please hand me a bit and I'll have a go...".

Smorgasbord. There was a restaurant in Bristol in the early 70’s. You helped yourselves as many times as you liked to a magnificent Scandinavian spread.

In the late sixties mum discovered curry powder. She started adding it stews, mince, soups. Dad complained as he liked plain food. She then started buying Vesta curries and cooking plain for dad. My brother introduced us to garlic bread and avocados in the seventies. What a revelation!

cc

Does anybody remember the April Fools Day joke when a film was made for evening TV about the spaghetti that grew on trees in Switzerland?

The presenter for that was Richard Dimbleby - who usually presented and commentated on solemn ceremonial events on the BBC.

Housecraftandcommunitystudies

When I was about 13 in the 70s I thought my friend was very exotic because at their house they had something called Vesta. I think they were a convenience food and they were a curry.

Hahaha How I remember Vesta, awful dried food which my friend and I loved! Curry flavours, chicken or beef. One had some weird curly noodle things you had to fry! So so funny!

I’m also someone one whose first introduction at home to food from other cultures was Chinese restaurants and Vesta meals. However, I remember going to France when I was 14 and buying a baguette with a smear of pate on it. What a revelation after being brought up on sliced bread and potted meat!

My first experience of fresh foreign food was chinese take away at my Auntie’s house, they had it every Friday.

I love most foreign food now and Turkish is one of my favourites. A Turkish breakfast is a feast and sets you up for the whole day.

Having said that I do like a British roast dinner with all the trimmings, any cut or type of meat.

DH and I met each other in the sixties when we lived in London and we used to eat out a lot, but he wouldn’t eat anything other than English food until I dragged him into a Chinese restaurant in Golders Green that friends and I used to frequent. He was completely bowled over by the food and from then on we went there a lot, but he wouldn’t expand his culinary horizons any further until he was posted to a Gurkha unit Borneo and discovered Gurkha curries and the Nepalese version of nasi goreng.

Cossy

My first experience of fresh foreign food was chinese take away at my Auntie’s house, they had it every Friday.

I love most foreign food now and Turkish is one of my favourites. A Turkish breakfast is a feast and sets you up for the whole day.

Having said that I do like a British roast dinner with all the trimmings, any cut or type of meat.

I absolutely adore Turkish food, especially a proper Turkish village breakfast.

Turkish breakfasts? Did somebody say "Turkish breakfasts"? Hang on a little minute whilst I get my knife and fork out ready to dig in....

MaizieD

The first Chinese restaurant in my home town opened when I was 15. The food was gorgeous!

We'd had an Italian restaurant for ages but money was tight so we were never taken there. The interior always looked very bohemian with candles stuck in /Chianti bottles

Food at home was plain, but mum would be willing to try daring new ideas, like rubbing a cut clove of garlic round the salad bowl..

I'll eat just about anything now, but I do object to chili in absolutely everything, including traditional British foods.

This made me laugh out loud, MaizieD (thanks). "Mum was willing to try (daring) new ideas like a cut clove of garlic round the salad bowl".

Well lots of places sell vesta meals, so I shall be trying one soonish.

I remember cooking spaghetti for my then new husband in 1970. Never cooked it before and boiled the whole packet. It was everywhere. All over the cooker and floor. Didn’t know you had to measure it out.

The first time I ever attempted to cook curry my then husband liked it but said he would rather have potatoes than rice with it. So for years we had curry with mashed potatoes. It's quite nice actually.

Gay18 I had a similar experience the first time I cooked dumplings in a stew. I followed the recipe and it didn’t seem like enough mixture to divide into portions so I stuck the whole lot in and left it simmering, only to return and find this huge mass that appeared to have a life of its own, puthering over the sides of the saucepan with the lid perched on top like a hat!!