nostolgic meals

We had a ginger beer plant whitewave under the kitchen sink - it did plop didn't it.

We too had a ginger beer plant. I recently had a Fentiman's ginger beer and it tasted very similar.

On a Saturday afternoon in the 1950s I always had a slice of chocolate cake with thick chocolate icing on it and a couple of glasses of ginger beer - just wonderful.

We didn't get fat because the above was a treat and the rest of the week was meat and veg, home made apple pie and custard and all the traditional meals of the time, including pigs' trotters and tripe !!

We ran about a lot and didn't have telly until the Coronation and then only watched occasionally.

I wish I could go back and relive those wonderful times.

I wonder if a Time Machine will ever be invented.

What's a ginger beer plant? And why was it kept under the sink?

whitewave; I used to sleep on the cliffs overlooking Trebarwith so I could see the sun rise over the sea. Did you know that they're doing an adaptation of Jamaica Innfor showing on the telly later this year? I didn't know that Trebarwith [along with Boscastle] was one of the main smuggling beaches in North Cornwall till I read the article.

Hi Mollie,

You mix lemon juice, water, sugar and powdered ginger in a big bottle and let it ferment. It was often put under the sink as it exploded regularly with the cork jumping out. We kept our bottles down the cellar. It tasted fab.

You can still buy ginger beer plant kits, try Lakelands I think I have seen it there.

I agree about Fenteman's Nankate and it gave me the same sort of hiccups.

We had a ginger beer plant, given to us by a friend who split hers. I just assumed it was similar to that yeast mixture that used to be passed around to make a cake with. Use some, save some and give some away. It grows.

When I visited DD1 last year she had a revolting looking thing in a ceramic pot which she kept fed with tea I think, then drew off glassfuls of it through a tap at the bottom. It was supposed to be very healthgiving. She offered me a drink but I declined. Similar sort of thing to the ginger beer plant I suppose.

On Saturday lunchtimes Mum used to cook a big casserole or a large ham joint with parsley sauce etc. I remember a friend's mother saying in astonishment "a proper dinner on a Saturday? !"

We had marks all over our farmhouse kitchen ceiling where the ginger beer plant kept exploding. You then passed some of it on to someone else in the village so they could start their own.

I'm just nostalgic for breakfast. Gave up my buttered toast 18 months ago because I could never stop at 2 slices and was trying to lose weight. Only fruit for breakfast now and I've lost 3 stones.

I was having 0% greek yogurt with fruit ( trying to lose weight too), but now it' s winter have been having porridge with a banana or poached egg on a crumpet. Weight loss has slowed down though.

But nostalgic for scones, jam and clotted cream, which we had quite often when we lived in Devon.

And referring back to the OP reminded me of when we were on Harlyn Bay with our dog (this was 35 years ago), who ran off and came back with a lamb chop in his mouth! He had 'asked' some people further down the beach for it apparently. Very embarrassing.

tegan do you come from Cornwall then? My most favourite place in the world is Tregardock. My family are from Delabole all slate quarriers. Didn't know about Jamaica Inn though. Yes knew about the smuggling.

Thanks NanKate... I've never heard of it - ginger beer, yes, but a ginger beer tree? No! You live and learn, eh?

I lived there for two years in my late teens, but we went back there several times a year for holidays. You know, I've never seen the quarry at Delabole, even though I lived at St Teath and then Boscastle for a while. Tregardock was 'the secret place' that only the locals knew about I've only been there a couple of times. I worked at Mrs Pipers cream tea cafe in Boscastle and Terry Dangers fish and chip shop in Tintagel; also SPD at Bodmin. Trebarwith was my favourite place; probably my favourite place in the whole world, along with Port Quin.

They are filming Jamaica Inn In Yorkshire!

They're filming in Cornwall and Cumbria as well ! Did you know they're filming Macbeth with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard at Bamburgh Castle next week? I'm really annoyed that I can't go there to see what's going on.

Not a nostalgic 'meal' as such, but a couple of years after the war I used to go shopping on a Saturday morning with my mum, and we would come home at lunch time with a freshly baked Hovis loaf some butter and cheese, and we would sit with a slice of Hovis, thick with butter (we went without for the rest of the week!) and a hunk of cheese - doesn't taste the same these days. In those days too, we could do the weeks' shopping for £1.50! (or one pound ten shillings).

We used to have a friend who lived near Bodmin. She had a guernsey cow and used to make her own clotted cream. Every time we went to see her she would give us a pint of it - thick and yellow, it was like butter