eating in the UK in the 50's

[flowerfairy]

Pasta had not been invented.

Curry was a surname.

Olive oil was kept in the medicine cabinet

Spices came from the Middle East where they were used
for embalming

Herbs were used to make rather dodgy medicine.

A takeaway was a mathematical problem.

A pizza was something to do with a leaning tower.

Bananas and oranges only appeared at Christmas time.

The only vegetables known to us were spuds, peas,
carrots and cabbage,

All crisps were plain; the only choice we had was
whether to put the salt on or not.

[flowerfairy]

Condiments consisted of salt, pepper, vinegar and
brown sauce if we were lucky.

Soft drinks were called pop.

Coke was something that we put on the fire.

A Chinese chippy was a foreign carpenter.

Rice was a milk pudding, and never, ever part of our dinner.

A Big Mac was what we wore when it was raining.

A Pizza Hut was an Italian shed.

A microwave was something out of a science fiction movie.

Brown bread was something only poor people ate.

Oil was for lubricating, fat was for cooking

Bread and jam was a treat.

Tea was made in a teapot using tea leaves and never green.

Coffee was Camp, and came in a bottle.

[flowerfairy]

Cubed sugar was regarded as posh.

Figs and dates appeared every Christmas, but no one
ever ate them.

Coconuts only appeared when the fair came to town.

Jellied eels were peculiar to Londoners.

Salad cream was a dressing for salads, mayonnaise did not exist

Hors d'oeuvre was a spelling mistake.

The starter was our main meal. Soup was a main meal.

Only Heinz made beans.

Leftovers went in the dog.

Special food for dogs and cats was unheard of.

Fish was only eaten on Fridays.

[flowerfairy]

Fish didn't have fingers in those days.

Eating raw fish was called poverty, not sushi.

Ready meals only came from the fish and chip shop.

For the best taste fish and chips had to be eaten out
of old newspapers.

Frozen food was called ice cream.

Nothing ever went off in the fridge because we never had one.

Ice cream only came in one colour and one flavour.

None of us had ever heard of yoghurt.

Jelly and blancmange was only eaten at parties.

If we said that we were on a diet, we simply got less.

Healthy food consisted of anything edible.

People who didn't peel potatoes were regarded as lazy.

[flowerfairy]

Indian restaurants were only found in India .

Brunch was not a meal.

If we had eaten bacon lettuce and tomato in the same
sandwich we would have been certified

A bun was a small cake back then.

The word" Barbie" was not associated with anything to
do with food.

Eating outside was a picnic.

Cooking outside was called camping.

Seaweed was not a recognised food.

Pancakes were only eaten on Pancake Tuesday

"Kebab" was not even a word never mind a food.

Hot dogs were a type of sausage that only the Americans ate.

[ozankoys]

We had lunch lunchtime & tea tea time always bread, butter & jam or banana with brown sugar - (we always seemed to have bananas) followed by cake or buns.
There was always a pudding after lunch (which we called dinner) lovely steamed spotted dick, jam or treacle pudding with custard of course. For a special treat a tin of peaches or fruit salad with a tin of Nestles cream or evaporated milk!
Am I showing my age???
Despite this carbohydrate overload none of us were overweight, I do not think we used to have such big portions.
Sunday's joint of beef used to last around 3 days & I am sure it was not very big.

[flowerfairy]

Surprisingly muesli was readily available in those days, it was called cattle feed.

We thought that Baguettes were a problem the French
needed to deal with.

Garlic was used to ward off vampires, but never used
to flavour food.

Water came out of the tap, if someone had suggested
bottling it and charging more than petrol for it they would have
become a laughing stock.

Food hygiene was all about washing your hands before meals.

Campylobacter, Salmonella, E.coli, Listeria, and
Botulism were all called "food poisoning."

The one thing that we never ever had on our table in
the fifties …. elbows.

[the butlers wife]

wow ozonkoy

your parents must have been rich, we only ever had bread and jam during the week and puddings on special occasions.
being born in the 40's there was still food rationing as I remember untill the 50's. Money was always short in our house
as there were four kids to feed and looking back I don't think my mother was very good at managing, so by Tuesday the
table was a little bare.


The butlers wife

[paula121s]

Unfortunately I missed all that as I wasn't around

[ozankoys]

My parents were far from rich but as I was an only child the housekeeping only had to stretch 3 ways. Most people grew their own vegetables & we used to have a sack of potatoes that lasted for ages you could not do this now as they deteriorate so quickly aside from the fact that we hardly eat potatoes now!
I was born in 1950 & cannot remember food rationing.

[genghis]

Luxury!!!
We kept chickens like most people and many people here. They had to be declared I was told as they affected your ration entitlement!!
Extra eggs were stored in a large galvanised bucket in isinglass I think? By the time I arrived on the scene (post war bulge) the bucket was just a conversation piece.
When we started taking holidays - luxury - we went to the South coast in bungalows many of which were two railway carriages roofed over - inflation price increase 125,00 % - many are still standing. Fortunately my father was wise enough to buy one.
Outside toilet, guzzunders, no bath (sea outside!!), leaky hot water bottles and Savoury Sam with his horse and cart who came around weekly - no doubt he grew very good tomatoes!!

[woodspeckie]

When it was school holidays we were given two jam butties and a bottle of tap water in a pop bottle and told to go out and play and come back at tea time. Beef leftovers from Sunday made a potato and beef Hash on Monday after washing day. Dad grew his own veg and kept chickens so always had one for Christmas dinner, Mum used to buy shiny red apples a few weeks before Christmas they were polished and put in a biscuit tin full of straw and put under the floor boards in the back bedroom I got one in one of Dads socks along with one Tangerine and some nuts on Christmas morning. One year I got a second hand pram repainted by Dad with a brand new doll in it, I was made up none of my friends had a pram. What I difference these days a 15 yr old Grandaughter said yesterday "I am having my own bank account for Christmas with £200 in it and I can have £50 to spend as well" these kids have never lived.

[DAVPAT]

Pasta had not been invented.

Curry was a surname.

Olive oil was kept in the medicine cabinet

Spices came from the Middle East where they were used
for embalming

Herbs were used to make rather dodgy medicine.

A takeaway was a mathematical problem.

A pizza was something to do with a leaning tower.

Bananas and oranges only appeared at Christmas time.

The only vegetables known to us were spuds, peas,
carrots and cabbage,

All crisps were plain; the only choice we had was
whether to put the salt on or not.

Olive Oil was Popeye's girlfriend surely!!??



David

[flowerfairy]

Yes of course David, I forgot that one,

[Halffull]

Bread and dripping was a standard Monday/Tuesday "tea" . I loved bread and dripping
Sugar was rationed as were other items I can't remember, banana??? think I was about five or six before I ever saw one of those
Sundays roast always appeared on Monday as mince, you never left the table until told to and never before your plate was empty, if you couldn't eat it it was saved for your next meal.
Tripe was another steadfast
Nearest chip shop was 3 miles away so that was a once in a blue moon treat, that I don't remember until the 60s when I was earning.
School dinners were compulsory where I went, I loved them, but again the "dinner ladies" and teachers made sure you ate it all and there were no choices, always fish on Friday, and no left overs

[Keithcaley]

Halffull,

School Dinners!

I remember learning to wash down the ghastly, over-boiled cabbage with copious draughts of water before I started eating the bits that I liked.

A useful 'Life lesson' !

[JeanW]

Keith Caley - water with your school dinners. Luxury!! We just had to go dry, us Southern jessies. I loved school dinners (eventually) but for 5 bob a week, you couldn't afford to be too fussy.

I loved bread and dripping (to be honest, I still do, but you can't seem to get the meat that makes decent dripping these days). I also remember coming in from school and feeling peckish and a nice bit of bread and sugar used to tide us over till tea-time (which we now call dinner). I think the reason we weren't all like tubs of lard was due to the fact that we had to walk, or ride our (second hand, painted by your Dad) bikes everywhere.

Eeeeeehhhh - kids today don't know they're born

[Halffull]

Keith, I forgot the jug of water that was always in the middle of the table I thought the cost was half a crown a week for school dinners, but I might be wrong
We had a corona pop man come round the village in his lorry once a fortnight I think it was and he always stopped at my Gran's (which was down the road from our house) we used to take any empty bottles we had "found" out to him cose we got a penny or maybe 2 pence for them, we never bought corona pop we couldn't afford it but my Gran used to buy it as a special treat for us if we were good, we always went to see Gran on pop day
Today half the kids don't drink anything except "coke", if I asked for a drink my Mum would offer me "corporation pop" (water to the youngsters reading)
Milk was delivered by the farmer on his pony and trap and bailed out from a churn with a ladle, fresh from the cows, not pasteurised or treated and sterilised in any way.
Bacon was bought in the village shop and she sliced it from a side of bacon on the slicer as thick or thin as you wanted and as many slices as you wanted. Cheese was the same only cut to size from a ring or block on the cheese board with a wire cutter.
Salt came in loaves and you sawed off bits.
Yes I had a two mile walk to my primary school and the first day my big sister took me, but after that I was on my own as she then went to secondary school, no car, no bus just shankses pony

[woodspeckie]

Butter was cut from a large lump and was patted between two peices of wood to shape it into a square, tea was weighed out from a big tub into a bag, we had to go to the local farm before school to collect milk in an enamel can, we didn't have a bus come through our village we had a two mile walk to the nearest bus stop. We had one shop which was a bakery general store and post office with one telephone box outside, it was good though waiting in the bakery for the bread and barm cakes to come out of the oven, the bread usually didn't have a crust on top by the time we got home. Because our school didn't have kitchens we had to walk 1.1/2 mile to and from another school to have cookery lessons on a Monday morning never cancelled because of the weather we had to grin and bear it.

[deputydawg]

I remember in the 1940s when my father produced a cooked rabbit for Christmas for 5 kids (Turky unheard of), my mother said grace, then my brother burst into tears and said "I saw you kill my pet rabbit". We were all so sickened none of the rabbit was eaten. We did get the usual tablespoonful of sickly treacle, a teaspoonful of neat orange vitamins, and dried egg yolks from a tin. After, a shampoo in some yellow muck to make sure we did not give flea knits to the children we sat with at school who had rickets and leg irons. In the 1950s I rode a bicycle in all weathers 15 miles each way along the North Circular Road in London to work for £2 and 50 pence per week. After a year I hoped for a pay rise but was given a daily 1 shilling and 10 pence voucher for a lunch in the British Home Stores. Unfortunately that only covered the cheapest meal available ie cottage pie, baked beans, and chips. Having no extra monies I ate a CP and Cs meal every day for over 12 months and I think the pie was made from a condemned cottage, not beef. The late 1950s brought me to Army Food when there were Regimental Cooks and no Army Catering Corps Chefs. The food was a musical hall joke. Bully Beef in tins from field ration packs unused from the 1939 war. This lesson to me made me make every effort possible to see that my children got better nourishment in the 1960s. The Wildebeest (bless her) wonders why occasionally an onion with dry bread is all I have for a meal. It brings fond memories of an Aunt and Uncle who had very little but when I was tiny they always managed to find that for me when my mother had nothing. Years later I learned the onion would be stolen from a British Railways embankment allotment !

[Keithcaley]

]Bread and Dripping!

Just thinking about it makes your mouth water...

The 'black bit's were the tastiest (though I doubt that I'd eat them now!) - and as for bread and sugar...

My first bike (apart from the 'Grocer's bike', courtesy of my first 'job' ) was one of my dad's cast-offs, which I had to restore to his exacting standards before he would allow me out on it. I went everywhere on that bike - top of our terrace...
or Withernsea...

[jayceebee]

My dad enjoyed tucking in to a huge plate of tripe and cowheel. It looked awful!

[genghis]

No wonder they have a bad reputation!!!!
Gas at the dentist's for extractions!!!!!! The smell of rubber.
No pain killers and a drill he worked with his foot!!

[Halffull]

genghis, that was not a nice memory, I suppose there is a vague connection between dentists and eating

[JeanW]

ghengis - I am currently undergoing some highly sophisticated, state-of-the-art dental treatment and I was reminded of the 'old days'. The smell of that rubber mask they put over your face will forever haunt me and I'm positive I didn't need all the fillings I had then with, as you righly pointed out, the drill the dentist worked with her foot. You seemed to be in the chair for hours on end. I suppose that was what you got when you consumed pineapple chunks and rhubarb and custard sweets bought with your 3d allowance

[JeanW]

genghis - apologies for the misspelling of your name.

J

[kaiserphil]

Jean, that smell has remained with me all my life. I dreaded visits to the dentist at that time.

[Halffull]

No supermarkets, the only "department" store I can remember (I did grow up in the sticks) was the Co-op where we would get anything not available in the village shop and get a "divi", I remember Woolworths but that may have been the 60s.
Spuds and veg were either grown yourself or got from the local farmer