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My sense of taste is not "special"!

(32 Posts)
trisher Fri 11-Dec-20 22:25:58

I was in M&S to collect some stuff and I went through the food section. Suddenly I decided that I wanted banana custard for my tea, so I needed custard. I settled on the best there was Madagascan Vanilla Custard. At home I heated it up and sliced in banana and served it It was OK (a bit sweet!) but it wasn't right.
And then I realised I was raised on custard made with custard powder and my sense of taste has been ruined for ever. I'm simply not special enough.
Has childhood food ruined anything for you?

lemongrove Fri 11-Dec-20 22:32:34

I do think that food eaten throughout childhood often stays with you, in that your brain/ tastebuds prefer it.
I always feel better ( internally!) with blander meals than anything rich/fiery etc and that has always been the case so not just an older person thing.
Not sure foodstuffs have ruined anything, though know what you mean about the custard.

Callistemon Fri 11-Dec-20 22:39:35

We used to have Bird's custard but my mum also made egg custard so I don't mind what I eat - as long as it's custard. I do like fresh Cornish custard.
I think Bird's custard is the best one to have with bananas, I use less sugar than recommended.
Ambrosia is ok too.

Does anyone remember Monk and Glass custard powder?
(Bob Monkhouse's family firm)

petra Fri 11-Dec-20 22:43:54

Marco Pierre White makes his trifle with Birds Custard Powder. He says it's the best ?

lemsip Fri 11-Dec-20 22:46:52

No, but I remember 'Robinson's Groats.' that came in a tin with a yellow label!...

SueDonim Fri 11-Dec-20 22:54:36

Oh, funny you should say that, Trisher as we had bananas and M&S custard recently and were most disappointed. We like the Ambrosia tinned stuff though, and today I noticed they now do strawberry custard! A tin just happened to fall into my online shopping basket. grin There’s a chocolate version as well but I’m not keen on chocolate flavoured things.

Callistemon Fri 11-Dec-20 23:01:08

petra

Marco Pierre White makes his trifle with Birds Custard Powder. He says it's the best ?

If you don't use proper Bird's custard in a trifle then it's too sloppy.

Callistemon Fri 11-Dec-20 23:06:54

Frederick Glasscock set up a factory in Clerkenwell, London, to manufacture a range of sweet food products to tempt the Victorians’ adventurous palates. With his business partner, a Mr. Monkhouse (grandfather of the late Bob Monkhouse) he developed his most famous product, a special recipe custard powder which was sold in tins under the brand name ‘Monk & Glass’ with a picture of a splendid fat monk holding aloft a glass filled with delicious yellow custard on the label. This brand continued into the 20th century, eventually being sold to Bird’s Custard Co. by the Monkhouse family in 1958.

GrannySomerset Fri 11-Dec-20 23:20:58

I love M&S and Waitrose vanilla custard - currently with mince pies but even on its own. Did anyone else give their children Cremola, a yellow ground rice pud made with milk? Known as yellow pudding it was a firm favourite, often with the addition of stewed fruit.

paddyanne Sat 12-Dec-20 01:15:57

I like the chocolate custard for a Black Forest trifle ,I love black forest cake but it doesn't all get eaten if its just two of us so a small trifle hits the spot

CanadianGran Sat 12-Dec-20 03:31:18

Banana cake - my mum made a simple banana cake with brown sugar frosting. It was just in a 9x9 pan, not double layered. I'm sure she made only to use up bananas turning brown. Somehow I cannot find a similar cake or icing.

Banana bread or banana muffins are not the same texture. I'm still on the hunt for a similar recipe.

vegansrock Sat 12-Dec-20 05:30:41

I have no nostalgia for childhood food. Boring salads of lettuce and cucumber with a hard boiled egg and “salad cream”. jam sandwiches, mashed potato with carrots and dried peas like bullets, rice pudding, lots of stuff out of tins. Even though my mother was a reasonable cook and her pastry was good, I have no desire now to eat pies or custard of any type. My memories overall aren’t good ones. When I think of the foods my grandchildren choose to eat - hummus, sushi, curry, couscous it’s a world away.

Calendargirl Sat 12-Dec-20 07:34:40

I still love salad cream Vegansrock.

Franbern Sat 12-Dec-20 07:38:26

Sainsbury's own low sugar make up custard is great with bananas (and fruit pies, etc.) Not worth making when it is just me and this is thick and creamy.

aggie Sat 12-Dec-20 07:45:17

I like Birds , I make it with no sugar . My MIL did this because FIL used to sprinkle sugar over the custard anyway and she was being thrifty with the sugar , so OH had got used to the taste

tanith Sat 12-Dec-20 08:00:27

GrannySomerset my children weren’t keen but Creamola was my husbands all time favourite pudding I don’t think it’s made now but I once found a recipe to make it and I believe it had custard powder in the recipe.

Willow500 Sat 12-Dec-20 08:24:55

I lost my sense of taste and smell 10 years ago but even before that I found that beans on toast just wasn't the same as when I was a child. It was my favourite meal but something was lacking as I grew up sad

Maggiemaybe Sat 12-Dec-20 08:25:32

I have no desire now to eat pies or custard of any type.

I love a pie. They’ve had a big revival in recent years (round here anyway), and a really good chicken and ham pie or a proper nutmeggy custard tart can send me straight back to my childhood.

I still like a Durham wet salad with my Sunday dinner. Lettuce, tomato, chopped spring onion and mint sauce made up with vinegar. Heaven piled into a Yorkshire pudding with thick gravy on top. Funnily enough I’m usually the only one eating it. smile

Nortsat Sat 12-Dec-20 08:50:12

My mother was a very good cook and as her father was a butcher, much of her cooking was meat related with delicious gravy.

I love gravy ... and lots of it on any meat related meal.
I have also turned my partner into a gravy fiend. His mother wasn’t a very good cook thus he has a distorted sense of how good my cooking is. He loves my gravy and frequently remarks that people would pay considerable money for it.
Consequently we’re a ‘gravy family’ and I always have to make a HUGE jug of it for any family meal involving a roast.

Nortsat Sat 12-Dec-20 08:52:48

Maggie I had to pop back.
I was brought up in County Durham but have never heard of or eaten a Durham salad.
I can’t quite imagine it ... ?

Georgesgran Sat 12-Dec-20 09:03:02

I’m in Durham too and not heard that mixture referred to as a ‘Durham Wet Salad’. My MIL used to make it but just referred to it as salad. I wonder if it was popular in the pit villages where the miners could grow the ingredients easily and it was added to a proper meal, not a salad in its own right? Not a lot of pitmen would be happy with a plate of ‘rabbit food’ after a long shift underground!
My favourite expression is a Scottish salad - chips!!

NannyJan53 Sat 12-Dec-20 09:08:57

I prefer Birds Custard, but it has to be made with Steralised milk! It makes it tastes creamy. In the Midlands when I was growing up we only had Steralised milk. Never buy it now, except to make custard!

Maggiemaybe Sat 12-Dec-20 09:14:18

Oh yes, wet salad was definitely just an addition to Sunday dinner, Georgesgran! My dad was a miner and I don’t remember ever having salad as a meal!

Maggiemaybe Sat 12-Dec-20 09:16:25

There’s a discussion about it on this Sunderland board (that’s not where I lived, btw).

www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/salad-type-dish-with-mint-cucumber-etc-with-sunday-dinner.617782/

Maggiemaybe Sat 12-Dec-20 09:22:29

Some on there know it as Yorkshire salad, apparently. I live in Yorkshire now and I’m the only person I know to have heard of it!