My mum’s cooking, salmon for the poor

Esmay

My grandma made wonderful pastry.
She had cold hands and a light touch .
If making pastry I cool my hands in a bowl of water with ice cubes .
Grandma used lard or half lard to margarine or butter .
She used as little water as possible.
I have to admit to using Jus roll these days !

I used to buy Tesco readymade pastry which was made with all Normandy butter but now they've changed it to rapeseed oil and palm oil.

My grandma made wonderful pastry.
She had cold hands and a light touch .
If making pastry I cool my hands in a bowl of water with ice cubes .
Grandma used lard or half lard to margarine or butter .
She used as little water as possible.
I have to admit to using Jus roll these days !

My mother was a wonderful baker. Her pastry and cakes were legendary. Neighbours used to love "just popping in" hoping for a cup of tea and slice of cake. The jam tart I remember is the one I was warned not to touch as it was just out of the oven. Naturally, I had to check and stuck my finger in the middle of it. Only did it once.

My granny wasn’t a wonderful cook but made a wonderful apple plate pie, treacle (syrup) and jam tarts to use the odd bits of pastry. I’ve come close to the apple pie only once. I don’t know what I did right. 😋

When I was young, salmon came in a tin. On Sundays, for tea, along with salad and bread and butter, then tinned peaches and evaporated milk followed by home-made cake. Some weeks we had tinned ham.
😯

I have my grandmothers (born 1905) Christmas Cake recipe . It involves feeding with a great deal of brandy 🥃

I believe a couple of centuries ago, poor Estate workers who got food provided by their boss complained bitterly that they were really sick of salmon and oysters and demanded "decent" food. How things change!
I have never been keen on salmon and have never eaten an oyster.
I agree with others on here. Good pastry needs lard, although a mixture of lard and butter is also good. To me, anything that contains palm oil, which most commercial pastries, biscuits and cakes do, have an unpleasant "back taste" and are never quite as they should be. It is also impossible to make a decent bread pudding these days as the bread is so bad. My Mum had a lot of faults but her bread pudding was not one of them! Her rice pudding was totally irresistible and I have never been able to emulate the chocolate sauce she made to go with her chocolate sponge pudding.

Another favourite was Grandma's Junket (anybody remember Junket?). Milk warmed with flavoured rennet tablets until it curdled and set. She would set the bowls by her kitchen range. I disliked Grandma, she was not a pleasant woman, but I loved the Junket and the Caroway seed cake she sometimes made.

I wish I could replicate my Mum’s apple pudding. Delicious with lashings of custard. I was also used to suet pudding with gravy before a meal, a throwback from years gone by to fill you up when there was little meat to put on the table. I really enjoyed it, made by my Mum and my Gran.

Salmon was a poor man’s food in some areas of Scotland, because it was so abundant. I knew someone who couldn’t abide salmon because she’d eaten so much of it as a child, growing up on a large country estate.

My Mum and Dad were born in 1916, Popsy would tell me that if you were poor, you would eat salmon!

Perhaps the men went fishing and caught them.

Mum made salmon coulibiac, especially during Lent.

Lovely meal, I make it often as our daughters truly enjoy salmon.

My Mum was a very good cook and used Cookeen for pastry. She used butter for cakes.

My mum made the most delicious coffee cakes, chocolate logs and lemon pies. Her pastry was fantastic so light and rich .. oh how I miss her cooking and her..

I wondered if anyone had any wonderful recipes

I've still got my Mum's recipe for Christmas puddings which is simple and foolproof.

My pastry only ever came up to my Mum's standards once! I used lard that time.

When I think of some of the delicious, and filling, things we ate, some of them can't have been good for us, though. Jam tarts (the jam was home-made), treacle tarts, fruit pies. Suet puddings eg Spotted Dick, jam roly-poly, all with custard.
However, we ate a lot of home-grown fresh vegetables and fruit too.

Not having a car and walking or cycling everywhere we probably used up all that energy.

I come from a long line of bakers. My gran was taught to bake when she was in service in the 1920s in a Jewish household. Many of her recipes were of Jewish origin. The favourite one she made was apfel kugel, an apple baked in pastry. It was delicious and none of us have been able to replicate it exactly. When I think of nana, that's what comes to mind

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Did your mum make pastry with lard? My mum did and it was wonderful.

I do too when I ever make pastry, which is not very often. I certainly makes short pastry "short".

You’ve just made my mouth water!