Sunday tea

Sunday tea at my mum's house was only ever bread and jam or, if we were very lucky, bread and dripping from the Sunday roast.

In my mid-teens I was sent to live with my grandparents and my Nana always made a 'proper' Sunday tea. This was comprised of sandwiches made with 'best' butter, and either a jar of paste or a tin of salmon, followed by cake or some homemade sweet pudding and custard. Then we would sit and listen to Sing Something Simple, which I grew to really look forward to.

Did anyone else used to have 'best butter', or was that just a thing in my family? I often used to wonder what a 'second best butter' might taste like.

I can't ever remember having anyone to tea at our house, Mum didn't encourage it.

Sunday tea at our house varied a lot.

We had sliced brawn, or ham, tongue, all cut very finely by our local butcher - one thin slice each. Or pork pie. Occasionally we might have tinned salmon or corned beef. Dad once brought home some Spam.

I like Heinz sandwich spread which I recently re-tried. It's not the same I loved it with cucumber.

In summer this lot would be eaten with salad and mashed or new potatoes.
We had the celery in the drinking glass as well, my sister always had first dibs on the new, fresh shoots from the middle.

Salad was bought from the allotments up the street. I've never had spring onions as good again, deliciously strong.

For dessert it was usually tinned, sliced peaches (fruit salad on special occasions) with either Carnation or that thick, reduced Nestles cream from a tin. Sometimes 'top of the milk'.

Mum was a good baker, so there would have been jam or lemon tarts, or fruit cake but I always preferred the savoury stuff so if there was any salad left, I'd scoff that with a slice of bread rather than have a piece of cake.

Mum had several great aunts and we often visited them.

Same bill of fare: Auntie Minnie used to make a wonderful 'choppy' which I still make.
Fresh mint, green tops of spring onions, often a bit of dandelion or nasturtium leaf to give it bite. All this very finely chopped then covered with a mix of vinegar, a pinch of sugar and hot water.
Auntie Minnie would make this before we arrived so it was cold. It wasn't until she taught me how to make it I realised she used hot water.

She served Coconut macaroons and Parkin, Madeira cake, or Eccles cakes. Like me, she made her own Cream Crackers to have with a variety of wonderful cheeses.

Blimey, I've just written enough to fill a book

We don't seem to have 'tea' nowadays do we? But I remember my childhood 'tea-times' well.

Paste sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, tinned salmon sandwiches, cheese, celery stalks in a jar, and pickles. Jelly, fruit and Carnation milk, followed by home-made cake. Big pot of tea on the table - with a home-knitted tea-cosy.

Ah, happy times!

Growing up, we used to visit Mum's parents once every couple of months or so. We would leave after Church Sunday morning, and get there in time for brunch. Brunch was always the same - hot buttered toast, sunny side up eggs, bacon, jam, and fruit and veg. Mum had three brothers who lived in the same city as my grandparents and they often came for brunch after church too.

Bread & butter floats in Carnation milk, until it gets soggy! . It's also odd to think that some babies were fed on that self-same Carnation milk until they were weaned.

Cinnamon toast has also just come to mind. Yum!

I used to do the Quick Jel and tinned fruit flan thing when we were newly weds. Also the lemon meringue pie kit.

Yes, my mum used those flan things.

Now I come to think of it, I didn't even like a lot of this tea food.
Carnation milk never floated my boat, nor tinned fruit.

I did get to like Sing Something Simple when I got older, I guess because I didn't have to send myself to bed afterwards!

Does anyone remember those ready-made sponge flans that you put your own fruit into and topped with a weird jelly substance that came out of a packet? Ready-jel or something?

I have to say, we were not well off when I was young! My mum was and still is, at almost 92yo, an excellent manager. She's on a pretty basic state pension but still thinks she's lucky that she never goes without.

On a Saturday tea time we had egg and cress sandwiches. The cress still had most of the seed pods in. Jelly with a tin of fruit in and cake or home made jam tarts and lemon curd ones.
Wrestling on the tele at tea time and Billy Cotton show in the evening with the Black and White Minstrels.
Sunday tea was a get your own as we got older. Red salmon and cucumber sandwiches, tinned fruit cocktail and the same in our house Pantglas2, it was a fight who had the cherries. 2 in a tin if you were lucky. Or we had peaches or pears with Carnation evaporated milk. Then cake.
Oh, Lins1066 I remember those little hard silver balls. My mum only put them on our birthday cake. It's a wonder we didn't break our teeth on them they were like mini ball bearings.
As mentioned, Sing Something Simple on the radio. I'm singing the theme tune in my head now.
Mum and dad never missed Songs of Praise and The London Palladium. I used to like beat the clock.
Happy days

DH's landlady certainly kept a good table. The first time I was invited to tea she apologised because she was, 'just a plain cook'. Oh, music to my ears. I dreaded being invited anywhere knowing I'd have to try and eat cakes, jellies, jam, chocolate etc.

She had a lovely cottage garden and laughed when I asked if I could eat a cooking apple straight off the tree.

DH used to say, 'She's a cheap date.'

Sleep tight.

I'm going to bed now before I start raiding the fridge or cupboards.

I remember my mum saying that to me.
She would often stay for tea, unexpectedly, and I would say I didn't have much in.

Then out would come all sorts of things, my mum said I must have magic cupboards.

I remember looking for 'digs' when I first left home and the advice I was given was that the landlady 'kept a good table'.

I was confused but realised that it meant she fed her lodgers well - and she did!

We weren't well off at all, but even my Nan (mum's mother in law) had to say, through gritted teeth.
"Well, I'll say one thing for her, your mother has always been a good manager"

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

@merlotgran
Hardly anyone even knows about Canasta these days!

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.

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.

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.

though no no

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.

Nah. I fancy Ritz crackers.

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.

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.