We were what we ate

My diet today is very different from what I ate when I was a child.

There are so many foods that we now take for granted that were not even on my radar back in the 1950s and 1960s.

My last post was a description of what I'm doing to try not to over-eat or eat too much of the wrong things. One of the things I need to do is depend less on processed food and prepared meals, and prepare my own food.

I was cooking liver and steamed veg on Sunday and I commented to Margaret that liver was something we had every week when I was a boy and my mother was alive.

We had a very regular, fixed menu week on week, with little variation.

Sunday dinner (lunch) was always a joint of beef. We'd have chicken for dinner only at Christmas or when one of ours was being culled on account of its poor egg-laying record. Sunday dinner would start with Yorkshire pudding, which was made as one big sheet and sliced up (not the individual round portions we do today) and we ate it as a starter, not on the plate with the rest of the meal.

It would come out of a roasting tin, be sliced into four and served with gravy. It was my favourite part of the meal.

The main course (although we didn't call them courses) was roast beef, roast potatoes and one veg - sometimes cauliflower, but often carrots. Broad beans, peas and runner beans would be served in season. We never had parsnips (I don't know why).

There was always pudding and this was often apple pie or apple crumble. My mother had been a cook in the WRNS during the war and had then worked as a cook at Dutton Hospital (where she met my dad). She was a very competent cook, but not adventurous in any way. Back then, food was something you needed to keep you alive, it wasn't a source of entertainment or a hobby. We never ate out unless we went to a cafe at the seaside or ate in John Lewis' cafeteria if we went to Manchester.

On Monday, we always had 'tater ash' which used up what was left of the cooked beef joint. My grandma came every week to help mum with the washing (which was done only on a Monday) and she would cook dinner while mum did the washing. I'm using the word 'dinner' but dinner was what we now call lunch and it was the main meal of the day.

Tuesday was usually chips (made in the chip pan and fried in beef dripping) with luncheon meat and often some baked beans. It was my favourite meal of the week. Wednesday was liver, served with mashed potato and mashed carrots. We never had fried onions with it and I don't think we ever used the verb 'to fry' in relation to onions. I think they were put into the stew while it was bubbling and they ended up soft and well boiled, no caramelisation allowed! The potato hash was mainly potatoes, there were a few carrots, onion and we'd also have a suet dumpling. My favourite variation was meat and potato pie. This would always be done by Mum, not Grandma.

I didn't like onions and I'd push them to the side of my plate and I didn't like fat or gristle, so that would also be left. Mum would indulge my fads, but I knew that Grandma was biting her tongue. I loved luncheon meat, I liked that it was cold, but warm where the chips had sat on top. I liked the fact that it had no fat (I didn't realise at the time that it was a processed meat and it was full of fat, it had just been mashed up and dyed pink). I loved liver, but hated the pipes in it.

After`Wednesday, the strict regimen of our menu was more relaxed. Sometimes we had pork chops, sometimes sausages, minced beef, corned beef ... Mash was the usual fare, chips only once a week. Sometimes we'd have chips from the chip shop - I never had fish, I always had either just chips and mushy peas or fishcake and chips. Often we took a bowl up to the chip shop to be filled with chips and we'd have chip butties when we got home.

I ate little fish. A fishcake from the chip shop, sometime we had fish fingers and sometimes tinned salmon. There was no tuna. I did eat sardines or sild - I liked them in olive oil.

Pasta figured little. We ate spaghetti with mince now and again and macaroni cheese was the other pasta dish. Rice was only eaten in puddings, never boiled or fried and cous-cous or gnocchi was unheard of. I didn't see a pizza until I went to live in Peterborough and I didn't see a kebab until I worked in London.

Apart from Yorkshire pudding on Sunday, there were never starters but we did have pudding at most meals. Apart from apple pie, we also had steamed sponge puddings, steamed suet puddings, jam tart, treacle tart, rice pudding, semolina and tapioca. My mother also used to make a pink custard using blancmange mix and there was a caramel version, which was my favourite. For years, I thought blancmange was a hot, runny dish and only a short while ago (I think it was Uncle Don's funeral, my cousin Carole gave me a lift and was talking with great nostalgia about Auntie Nellie's pink custard (things like that stick in your memory - even 50 years later).

Jelly was reserved for Sunday tea or parties and trifle was a very rare treat. My Mum's favourite sweet was lemon meringue pie. I didn't care for it once I knew the white bit on the top was egg white.

Breakfast was varied and there was a degree of personal choice. I always liked porridge with syrup and toast (which we used to make by opening the fire door on the range and holding the bread in front of the glowing coals with a toasting fork). That was one of the first grown-up jobs I was trusted with and it wasn't hard until you had to turn the hot toast over and spear it from the other side.

I also has cereal (and that's the one constant between then and now). We had Cornflakes, Weetabix, Frosties, Rice Krispies, Sugar Puffs, Coco Pops and Shredded Wheat. Milk was full cream (not skimmed) and it was delicious. Sometimes we'd have bacon and egg, a boiled or poached egg. My dad always had the same thing: a bowl of Cornflakes with hot milk (so they instantly went mushy), followed by bacon, egg, fried tomato and fried bread. It was all cooked in the frying pan - not grilled - and dad liked his egg cooked one side, then turned over and cooked the other. A treat (after the breakfast had been fried) was to have a "rub-round". This was a slice of bread wiped around the pan to mop up the bacon grease, eggy bits and tomato seeds. It was lovely.

Tea (what we now call dinner) was eaten earlier (between 5-6pm) and would be a much lighter meal. Typical was sild sandwiches, beans on toast, poached egg on toast, crumpets; sometimes there would be fried potatoes.

Drinks were milk, squash, water, tea, coffee and cocoa. We had pop vary rarely. Fruit was apples, oranges or bananas. You only got grapes when you were in hospital. There were biscuits and chocolate biscuits (Penguins) but they were not eaten often and when they were gone, they were gone! That's more or less a direct quote.

The other difference was the cooking process. We had a large oven/range in the kitchen, which heated the water, heated the kitchen and did most of the cooking. There were two ovens and a couple of hobs. A kettle would always be on the side of the hob, singing away and would be moved onto the hob proper (which was covered by a big asbestos pad when not in use) to bring it to the boil. Pans would go on the top and we used a gas cooker only for quick boil needs such as milk or getting a pan of potatoes boiling.

My mother told me gas was too expensive to use the oven.

This post sounds a bit like a rambling letter in the Daily Mail, but I've enjoyed pulling out my food memories. Margaret has a few recipes handed down by her mother, but they are for things like jam and pickle. You'd know how to cook regular day-to-day stuff. I don't remember Mum having a cookery book in the kitchen.