Delicious!

I well remember when I was about 6 (so mid 1950s) and we were asked to bring something for a Harvest Festival display at school assembly.
My father worked in London, not far from one of those markets where even then you could get just about anything, and one of the things he bought for me was a big green pepper.

What a weird thing! And what a funny smell it had! I couldn't imagine anybody eating such a thing! Let alone wanting to!

My mother was a very good cook but it was mostly very traditional - all from scratch - though by the 60s she would make her own versions of spag bol and curry now and then.

Gosh this brings me back. Born late 50s but only remember from mid 60s. My sister worked in a butchers as a clerk and as mum minded her child meat was provided free. Leg of lamb Sunday..chicken Monday..tongue Tuesday..beef stew Wednesday...mince Thursday ..fish on Friday...steak on Saturday and if any left over used for breakfast on Sunday as we had no fridge. Soup each day ..desserts of rice pudding..bread and butter pudding,tapioca semolina tin fruit and ice cream on Sunday. Tea was sauasages..sandwiches.sardines ,bread with sugar or chef sauce. Breakfast was porridge and toast..an egg on Sunday..
11 of us well fed on a tight budget.

My mother was a very good cook. Plain food but very well done. The only thing I couldn't cope with was fat on the boiled bacon, though I was very happy with the meat, mashed potato and lightly boiled cabbage sprinkled with vinegar.
I wish I could make roast potatoes and yorkshires like hers.
Anyone ever have squares of cooked suet pudding roasted round the roast meat?
Delicious, and perfectly healthy for a family who were very active, growing our own fruit and vegetables, keeping chickens and walking or cycling everywhere

I was born in late 50’s, my parents had pubs with restaurants, my mother hated cooking but as we had “chef’s” it didn’t matter. On their night off once I reached 11 I would be allowed out with them once a month and can remember going to a restaurant in London called Alpinos, I felt very “grown-up”. If they didn’t fancy their pub/restaurant food we went to a Chinese restaurant round the corner.

I used to relish going to my Grans, paternal one weekend and maternal the next for a proper home cooked meal, roasts, pies and homemade cakes and deserts. They taught me how to cook together with Domestic Science at school, I can cook anything from scratch just fed up with doing so!!!

Fennel - lovely to know there is another potato cake maker out there!

Janeainsworth - I've tried to do what I call posh potato cakes with the flour and milk, they just didn't work out, however, I did fry them not put them in the oven. I will try your method and smother them in butter...mmmm

When I was in my early teens, my parents would take us to the Bernie Inn for special occasions, never went anywhere else apart from department store cafes

That reminds me of eating in a 'worker's cafe' in Hull back in the '70s. I think it was run by the council. Really good traditional english meals and very cheap.
That was when I'd just met second husband and was helping him with renovations. Our children helped too.
'Still together now for 40 years' TG.

You are obviously younger than me. Never went in restaurants when we were children. I was 19 when I started having lunches in the large Co-op restaurant in our town. Very nice meals there.

saggi I actually enjoy liver and bacon with a nice onion gravy now, but hated it when I was a child. My original post was really about how dreary food was in restaurants in my childhood, and how much more choice we have now.
I remember a story, ( apocryphal?) about Paul Gascogne being interviewed before the World Cup:
“We’re taking our own chef, so we can have proper English food, like pizza and curries.”

Dora Marr .... liver, boiled spuds and cabbage. What’s not to likeable??

I make potato cakes like any mother used to, but add milk & flour to the leftover mash, then form it into little patties.
Baked in a hot oven on a greased baking tray till golden.
Served with lots of butter.

I still make potato cakes like that .

My mother always cooked her own hams and often we would find a tongue in the larder being pressed under a heavy weight.
Tripe cooked in milk with onions was not a frequent meal but made an interesting change.
My uncle owned a market garden so vegetables were plentiful and were relished as mother would serve them with interesting sauces sometimes. My mother had worked in posh households and had a liking for fine food.
I can cook anything but I am lazy and do not want to spend my entire day in the kitchen.
I found your account of life in the 40s interesting Bijou.

Did anyone's mum or dad make potato cakes?
Left over cold mash beaten up with eggs to a gloop and then fried in hot oil in small batches?
They were and still are one of my favourite comfort foods, my husband says they are boring as he pushes them round his plate, I just say put some sauce on!

He will have to get used to them as he is retiring soon and our money will go down a lot, no big pensions to come.

We ate them morning noon and night sometimes, I can remember cutting them up for my younger siblings, blowing on them and passing them along the table. Sometimes we had them with fried bacon when times were good. Happy days.

A lot of the food I grew up eating I still love.A hearty stew,cottage pie ,corned beef hash,slow cooked brisket.
But equally so much choice now and so many tasty recipes.I feel guilty about the air miles and environmental cost but I would be lost without avocados in my diet!
I too remember my first spaghetti Bolognese at a school friends house.Her parents were from Mauritius and thought it must be a traditional meal from their country!There was a dish of grated parmesan and as they all sprinkled it on so did I,but it smelt weird like sweaty feet and I had to politely struggle through it.A staple in our fridge now.

Brawn and pilchards. Liver which was tossed in flour then fried ?

My dad used to make spam fritters for Saturday lunch

Sorry too many wonderfuls!

I don't remember anything Mum cooked that I disliked but I do remember my favourite lunch- Spam fritters and chips!

I was so lucky - my Mother was a great cook. My favourites were Toad in the Hole, Rissoles with HP sauce made from minced joint left overs, and wonderful Bubble and Squeak (also with HP sauce!)
Wonderfully light steamed puddings (jam, golden syrup, and sometimes marmalade). With these she made the wonderful Jam Sauce, wbich msy have been her own invention. It consisted of jam and water thickened with arrowroot. May sound gross but was scrumtious as it soaked into your plateful of lovely sponge. Also Eve's pudding, and Junket.

I was born a year into the war and grew up with rationing until about the time of the Coronation in 1953. Our generation has been reasonably healthy even if we didn't have the advantage of living on a USAF base! My dad grew our vegetables and we had eggs from relatives who kept hens. No-one in our immediate family took sugar in tea, so what sugar we had was used by my mum to make the occasional cake as a treat. Although a good baker, she was an uninspired cook. Mince and tatties was a staple dish - for long after the end of the war.
My little sister and I had our first ice cream on VE Day, from our local Italian confectioner. If we had a Mars Bar, it was divided into five for our family. Today kids will eat a whole one. Bananas made their first appearance at a neighbouring child's birthday party, a welcome change from banana sandwiches made from mashed parsnips with banana flavouring!

Like a few others I was born before WW2 and grew up with a limited range of food . Mum was a good cook, and Grandpa had an allotment. also one of my aunties was married to a farmer so we had plenty of eggs. We lived on the coast so often had fresh fish.
I can't remember feeling deprived, because I didn't know any different.
But everyone was very excited when the first bananas, sweets and chocolate arrived in the shops.
And we had an Italian immigrant family who sold ice cream .

That’s really interesting Bijou and Framilode.

Gonegirl I usually cook ‘interesting’ things that my mum would never have dreamed of. My herbs and spices occupy half a cupboard.
But sometimes I crave plain old fashioned food and we have potato pie or bangers and mash or cheese pudding.

If I wanna be crass on here, I will be stuffin' crass.

Oh, it's a typo