Sunday tea

Ah, that's really nice.
I was just thinking how I disliked it, but now I think of you and your mum in law singing along its replaced a lifelong feeling of gloom when I bring it to mind.

None of really had a sweet tooth so rarely any cake. I used to love sandwiches made with sliced white Mother's Pride and whatever meat was left over from the Sunday roast. Lots of salt and pepper in those days. We used to eat a late Sunday lunch so didn't bother with tea just waited for supper.

Celery stalks were always in a jug of water which dripped all over the place when you helped yourself, pickled onions, cheddar cheese and if we didn't have sandwiches we'd have Jacobs cream crackers with butter.

When we visited my grandmother it was always tinned pilchards, bread and butter and a salad which was just lettuce, tomato and cucumber. She did have a sweet tooth so there was usually a fruit cake.

Oh yes, celery stalks!
The tops of them would go all droopy if they were left too long.
They still tasted nice with salt on though.

When DH and I started courting in 1970, we went to his parents’ every other Sunday for tea. He came from a big family, they all went back home on a Sunday.
Tea was jelly, cold custard, fruit she had bottled herself. Cheese and onion sandwiches. Pastries. And every week she made a big chocolate cake, the best I’ve ever eaten. Not too sweet, quite a dense cake, lovely and chocolatey, with chocolate butter cream and chocolate glacé icing.
Oh, I can taste it now!
??

Tyne brand sliced beef in gravy with mash, bread and butter is what I remember as a favourite. My mum was a widow when I was small. In summer we had lots of salads and fruit pies. Everything was seasonal. I can’t remember eating tinned fruit or veg at all.

Occasionally we had Ritz biscuits.
They'd go a bit soggy from being on your plate next to the pickled onions.

Sardines on brown toast (toast was white on every other occasion).
Or a sandwich of cold meat, left overs from Sunday lunch.
Tinned fruit - peaches, fruit cocktail or pears with Carnation.
Sometimes potted meat or salmon spread on toast, with ‘melty’ butter.

Gonegirl we weren't comfortable off at all; I don't know how my mum did it. This was probably late 50s, 60s.

She did say that bread and home-made jam was a staple in war-time and she used to invite the evacuee who was staying next door round for bread and jam as 'next door' didn't give the girl enough to eat.

Comfortably

Auto-correct knows best apparently.

Sometimes Shipham's paste with mustard and cress.
Mud and grass.

Tinned salmon or boiled ham salad with bread and butter. Followed by tinned fruit (mandarin oranges/fruit salad/peaches) with evaporated milk. Then weekly (!!) bath and hair washed ready for watching Sunday Night at the London Palladium!

My mother was a half-hearted cook and got in a bit of a groove once frozen chickens became available. We never dared complain.

One Sunday lunch she wanted to impress my older brother's new in-laws so we had roast beef which was a rare treat. When it came to supper my younger brother, who'd been out all day and was expecting left over chicken, sunk his teeth into his sandwich and yelled, 'It's BEEF, it's BEEF!!

Mum used to make a great egg and bacon pie, which became a favourite of my soon to be DH. So I had to learn to make it, but I don't think it matched mum's. We had it with the lettuce, tomato and cucumber salad.
Followed by tinned fruit and evaporated milk or tinned nestles cream. I did like that then, but haven't had it for years.

I remember when chicken was a special treat and beef was the usual Sunday roast.

I really fancy some tinned mandarins

My mum used to make sausage meat and onion pie.
It was lovely cold, with brown sauce.

Then she almost always made rock cakes and bread pudding, plus blackberry and apple pie.

When I was about ten I had to go to the butcher's on my bike every Saturday morning and ask for a piece of beef/lamb/pork, inturn, "about six shillings please". The meat was always about the same size so I think it must have all cost about the same per lb.

Nah. I fancy Ritz crackers.

My mum used to make small cakes, mostly chocolate ones. No icing no. Never had paper cake cases either. Straight into the bun tins the mixture went.

though no no

The first time I ever saw an egg and bacon pie being made was when I visited a friend whose sister had just had a baby so she was doing some cooking for her. I was fascinated by the sight of her cracking the raw eggs over the filling before putting on the pastry top.

It had never occurred to me that the eggs actually baked in the oven. In fact I don't think I'd ever had egg and bacon pie and it looked delicious.

Mum and Dad sometimes had friends round on a Sunday evening to play Mah Jong or Canasta. She would make an apricot tart with a bought pastry case and tinned pie filling. Everyone thought it was delicious - or at least that's what they said.

My childhood was roasts. My Mum would pack us all off to church while she cooked. Usually lamb or beef with all the trimmings. . Hardly ever chicken as it was a luxury back then. I
was in A&E all day Sunday and I fretted about no lovely Sunday meal although I had a lovely chat about food with the nurse in A&E.
Sometimes I do a roast but now it's just me and DH at home I often do something else. If I hadn't been in A&E it probably would have been a pie (made from scratch, natch). DH loves a nice pie and so do I.

I'm with Gonegirl - tinned salmon sandwiches was for important guests only - we were not "comfortably off" so don't remember Sunday tea as being anything different to weekday tea - ie bread butter and gooseberry jam or pork dripping if we had had roast pork for dinner - never ever went hungry so were well off so far as I was concerned.

I do remember an occasion when my Great Aunty Hilda came to tea and my mother made salmon sandwiches (at great expense) with cucumber (unheard of for us girls) we were well impressed - Great Aunty Hilda announced that she did not like salmon but she did like cheese - so my mother made her cheese sandwiches and all was well - as they say in all good stories - it is true I was there!!! One of the occasions that I felt sorry/empathy for my mother - she had tried to impress a posh (and rich) relative but failed.

@merlotgran
Hardly anyone even knows about Canasta these days!

My mum used paper cases for fairy cakes so we must have been posh.
No icing though.