Eating in the 1950s ...much less choice, but we were healthier

My mum was no cook at all so I don't remember anything much except roast lamb or beef on Sundays then when I was a bit older, I think chicken replaced the beef which became too expensive. Sunday pudding was always tinned mandarin oranges and Carnation. Sunday tea usually fish paste sandwiches and maybe a box of cakes like Mr Kipling French Fancies or jam tarts. We had Weetabix for breakfast, school lunches then marmite sandwiches and milk after school. Weekends and school holidays I remember sausage and chips, egg and chips, fish fingers and chips for lunch (I said she was no cook ?. Sometimes we had hard boiled egg salad in the summer. All bread was Mothers Pride and Wonderloaf ? I only tasted Hovis at my nan's but I loved it.
I did buy Vesta meals for myself as soon as I was earning at 15 though, I thought they were really tasty ?
Angel Delight I bought for my daughter in the 70's - again butterscotch her favourite. Apparently my GDS had Angel Delight for pudding at his very expensive nursery one day this week so either they still make it or the chef is calling something Angel Delight so that the parents know it was something fluffy ?
My main observation is that the quantity we ate was so tiny compared to nowadays - for example, the first time mum bought a pizza from Safeway we cut it into 5 and had it with chips and beans. ?

I stayed with my Grandparents when I was about 13 while parents were on holiday, not cool ? to go away with mum and dad, Nana gave me a Vesta curry thinking she was giving me something special and I was in the bathroom all night fighting both ends. Hadn't the heart to say anything and tried to act normal. Felt like poo.

You could tell the day of the week by the food on the table in our house!
We never had an evening meal - just a round of sandwiches and a piece of cake and a piece of fruit.
Lunch was eaten at school [can't remember what we had in the holidays] but we had a cooked meal at weekends and a roast on a Sunday though it was only my nan who did roast potatoes.
Breakfast was a fry up - egg, bacon and fried bread.
If you didn't eat what was on your plate you went without and as I didn't like rhubarb tart I went without if that was the pud of the day.
It was a mixture of home cooked and tinned

Pollyperkins sorry this isn't about food. Just to say aah the beautiful Loire valley. Such lovely memories.

We also had vesta curries and other vesta meals in the late 60s and through the 70s. I was very pleased with myself when we went to France by ferry and drove down to a gite in the Loire region. I knew we would need a meal so took a vesta one which was easily reconstituted with boiling water!

Bother. Excuse the typos! With not qith. The liked ice magic not lokes ise magic and they squirted it not sqited which sound s horrid!

Hate tripe but we had angel delight a lot esp butterscotch with bananas cut up in it. Our children in their 40s still go on about it. Or choc one qith tinned pears! Arctic roll was another favourite esp the one with chicolate round the outside. They lokes ise magic too where you squited choc sauce on icecream and it went hard! All this was in the 80s.

In the 60s we

Virol - vitamins A and D.
I often saw elderly people in France with bandy legs due to vitamin D and calcium deficiency in their childhood years of growth.

Juliet - the orange juice was a vitamin C supplement. We couldn't get citrus fruit (and many other things) during the war because shipments of food were blocked.
You never know, might have to go back to it after Brexit. Or rose hip syrup or backcurrants.

Fennel - I’m glad I’m not the only one who liked Virol. I used to be given cod liver oil before that and Virol was a vast improvement. I vaguely remember very concentrated orange juice too....not sure whether it was supposed to be diluted but it was given to me neat. Took away the cod liver oil taste!

I loved carnation milk as well Legs porridge and rice pudding made with Carnation - delicious.
Apropos of the News of the World, does anyone remember a saucy magazine called
Titbits. When my ex husband was a teenager his mother used to cut out certain articles before he was allowed to read it. A magazine full of holes !!

Virol, the bane of my life! I hate,hate,hated it! When I told my mother decades later, she said 'why didn't you tell me, I'd have stopped giving it to you'!

I actually like Virol, Gilly. My younger sister used to lap up plain cod liver oil - yuk.

Oh yes ‘the Virol’ or cod liver oil and malt! Yuk! I was given it by the doctor,who decided I was under weight. I hated it.
We all lined up to have a spoonful,including my slightly over weight sister and the dog!

I remember as a teenager going to meet friends in the park after tea - with no money! Someone might have had a packet of crisps which they offered round. We drank from the water fountain if we were thirsty. I don't remember feeling deprived. Went home about ten or so. didnt drop dead from starvation. Food is too important nowadays.

I remember the corona lorry when I was a bit older. I think we got money back on the bottles.

Fizzy pop was Corona bought from a lorry that came to our neck of the woods once a week. As s treat mum would sometimes allow us 2 bottles between the six of us and it had to last the weekend. I can still remember the fights and agreements over which flavours we were to have. We also had a butcher who came twice a week in a van and mum would give him her order for the weekend. Jams were homemade from what ever fruit we were picking on the farms at the time and home made cordial was also made. So out picking strawberries with strawberry jam sandwiches and a strawberry drink and a piece of Victoria sponge with ...you guessed it... strawberry jam inside.

Welcome Stargran!

Yes I remember Angel Delight - butterscotch was my favourite and arctic roll too. In fact both my children (47 and 45) were not unfamiliar with both!

My parents used to eat honeycomb tripe cold with vinegar
and pepper but didn't impose it on us, their children! DH still likes tongue but I never have liked it so buy it for him as an occasional treat. He likes elder too which I believe is cooked and sliced udder. Ugh!

I was watching an old episode of 'Eat well for less' last night. The mum complained about the ham which had been substituted for her usual stuff, 'Yuk, it's real ham. You have to chew it!' We couldn't believe it!

Hi my first posting on Gransnet! Anyone remember Angel Delight and Artic Roll I think I remember having Spam Fritters, Tongue (a cold meat bought from butchers!). Can remember my father eating Tripe and onions! Yuk

Legs, that reminded me, we had Instant Whip , similar to Angel Delight. I loved banana flavour. Mum made fish cakes with lots of mashed potato and just a little fish.

We were on the go all day long, I'm sure we were more active than today's children. Indoors we'd be reading books. We didn't have a TV until about 1958, and of course the children's programmes weren't on for long each day. Rest of the time we played out on the street and bomb sites. Hardly any cars in our road.

My Fenland Uncle used to serve a huge Yorkshire pudding with gravy as a first course to full us up. Then we'd get the meat and veg. I know this was common in a lot of country areas.

Does anyone remember being given a spoonful of Virol each day?

I was born in 1955 & was brought up on Carnation (evaporated milk), I still love the taste. Breakfast was porridge/cereal/egg butty/toast. I only ever drank milk in tea & coffee (can't stand the taste of it on cereals).

We grew a lot of our own fruit & veg. I had School Dinners at Primary School, cooked on the premises, small school but delicious food. Mum baked cakes & biscuits, she was a good cook & could be quite adventurous. I remember Vesta curries. Angel Delight or fruit & Carnation especially on a Sunday when Tea in the Winter was always in front of the fire, quite often toast made in front of the fire.

I remember ice on the inside of the windows, baths in front of the Rayburn in the Kitchen & an outside loo. I was a skinny child & a very slim teenager, sweets were a treat, the only crisps were Smiths with the little blue twist of salt. Fish & Chips was a rare treat. Were we healthier? Maybe, medical advances are I believe the reason life expectancy has risen as well as better housing & safer working practices. Looking at the younger generation & their lifestyle I wonder how good their health will be in their 60s/70s/80s. My Mum is 89 & apart from increasing mobility problems she is very healthy & only takes medication for neuralgia

My Mum was a very plain cook, nothing even vaguely 'foreign' ever crossed our threshold! She worked full time so had little time for baking but she made lovely pastry and her speciality was always apple pie.

On weekdays breakfast was cornflakes or toast & marmalade, or porridge in the winter, made with Scotts oats (not instant) and drizzled with golden syrup. I still like it that way. Lunch might be a sandwich or scrambled eggs on toast, and dinner was leftovers on Monday, sausage & mash on Tuesday, stew or casserole on Wednesday & Saturday, and fish on Friday. We never had 'chippie' fish& chips, Mum didn't like it, she always cooked her own.

Sundays was always a full Sunday roast (chicken, lamb or pork - Mum wasn't keen on beef. My grandparents lived with us and Granddad insisted on a cooked breakfast and roast dinner every Sunday with all the trimmings and a proper afters. Mum seemed to spend all day Sunday in the kitchen!

We always had a few apples and bananas in a fruit bowl, but fizzy drinks and crisps were only bought at Christmas. Sweets were a weekend only treat! The nearest we ever got to 'eating out' was a bag of chips at the seaside. One Christmas my friend's Mum took us both to see the lights in Oxford Street followed by ice creams at Lyons Corner House, my Mum was shocked that she would take children our age (about 9) to a 'posh' restaurant!

One of my aunties worked at a Lyons tearoom & bakery. She visited us every couple of months and always brought me a Meringue Animal. They were the most beautifully modelled and decorated meringue confections filled with whipped cream and jam, and I have never seen anything like them since. They were delicious too, and I always looked forward to her visits. Does anyone else remember those?

Our house never had central heating, just an open coal fire in the living room and very small gas fires in the bedrooms. No heating in the bathroom. In the winter we all had hot water bottles. There were no carpets anywhere, just lino and lots of rugs that my Mum made using the latch-hook method. I loved the coal fire we had. Granddad taught me how to lay it up and light it and it was always my job to clear the ashes and blacklead it on a Saturday morning. We always made toast on the fire using long wire toasting forks (didn't have a grill or a toaster) and I used to sit with my Granddad and look for faces and shapes in the burning coals. The downside was having to carry buckets of coal up three flights of stairs! So many happy memories.....

Can remember the Vesta curries. One thing I think I would find different would be the portion size compared to what is expected nowadays. Vestas would fill a teaplate now. Wasn't actually keen on them. We have too large portions now. I have a spaghetti portion dispenser with holes for 1 and 2 portions. Was given this as wedding present 1966. Now the forr 2 portions would be nearer what we expect for 1 person though still on the small size. Food has become too plentiful over the years so we eat more. It was breakfast, dinner then teatime with a glass of milk piece of toast for supper. Sweets were once a week treat. No cans of fizzy drinks, smoothie, crisps for snacking on between meals. It's not down to lack of exercise that makes us fat, its what and how much we eat. Thermal dynamics!