Funny stories that show your age.

When I was first interested in decent food, when Adam was a lad, I was introduced to Fillet steak.
There was a Sainsbury’s in the middle of Nottingham and you could buy two Fillet steaks for 7sand6pence.
You can work out for yourselves in today’s money.
However if I could remember what I earned then it was still a very special occasional treat.
Another one was Halibut, I haven’t had that for many years so can’t compare cost.
I don’t think I would ever have paired steak with spaghetti, you were certainly trend setters.

When my late sister was first married her DH decided to surprise her by making a rice pudding. Unfortunately he used a whole large packet of rice and half a pint of milk. I think he invented rice cakes!

I was complaining to my mother about not having something that a friend had and she replied, "You don't know how lucky you are, you eat chicken, midweek!" I guess this must have been in the late 50's.

I remember the spaghetti that came in a long blue packet! My mother would break it in half.

I remember when salt and vinegar crisps came out, my old dad bought a packet and we all had a taste, I loved them and have ever since but my old dad crinkled his nose in disgust and said ‘these are just pickled crisps.’
I also remember the coal man bringing a sack of nutty slack and putting it in the bunker in the back yard, one time I was going out wearing a light coloured shirt skirt and white tights - believe it or not I also was probs wearing orange lippy - and the coal man lunged at me with his coal blackened hands laughing as I tottered away on platform heels. I complained later to my mum who just waved her hand dismissively and said I couldn’t take a joke.
Times have changed.

I love bone handled knives for spreading butter etc and have several from my mother and MIL. My granddaughter was setting the table for me yesterday and said, “ Granny, you’ll never believe it, but there was this EXACT knife on a table in the museum last week!” Out of the mouths of babes etc.

I love these stories of things and times I remember. Yes long spaghetti in blue paper. No olive oil or garlic easily obtainable.
DH and I went to what was for us an expensive restaurant on Kingston Hill as a great treat. As a dessert we had melon balls which were frozen solid. We nearly cracked our teeth on them..but were too young and unworldly to think of complaining.

When I was au pairing in Spain, the lady of the house took on a new maid. This girl was younger than me but she could remember when they first got electricity in their rural village. The children were fascinated and she said they spent ages playing with the light switches, switching lights on and off.

I am somewhat amazed that I can remember getting electricity to our village.
Before that we had gas lamps and you had to be very careful not to poke the match through the mantle or you would be in real trouble.
I think it was about 1948/9 when electricity arrived and a company came round and put in about 5 light fittings and a couple of sockets for £25.
Real olden times.

I remember my old neighbours asking if it was ok to put avocado in a fruit salad as they thought it was a pear!

In the 70s and my first serious boyfriend. I was trying to impress and decided to cook chicken curry but didn't know how to as curries weren't part of my family recipes. So I bought a Vesta curry which were very popular then.

We used to think those Vesta meals were very exotic!

I used to buy endless packets of Angel Delight. When foreign students stayed with us I gave it to them several times for dessert. I thought they would be impressed by my cooking skills as they really loved it but, when they were due to leave, one asked if I could buy a packet for him to take home.

Grannybags

We used to think those Vesta meals were very exotic!

Ooh so did we Grannybags. Having one on a Friday night as newlyweds we thought we were the kids 😂

ROMILO

When I was in my teens my then boyfriend and I decided to celebrate our 6 month anniversary with a special meal. Back then there were no fastfood chains, burgers,Italian or otherwise. Pub food was a pickled egg or a pie, although chicken in a basket was just appearing. We couldn't afford a restaurant so we decided to cook. We bought fillet steak, chicken and steak were a treat then. Chips seemed a bit mundane so we settled on spagetti. Not many people holidayed abroad then but we had heard of spaghetti. We had to go to an upmarket grocer that specialised in imported food to get some. It came about 15 inches long in a dark blue paper wrapper with not an English word in sight. The man behind the countertook pity on us and said large pan, boiling water ,done when you can pinch through it,drain well. When the pan of boiling water was ready we put all the spaghetti in an watched in horror as the pan filled to the point of overflowing. Needless to say unseasoned,plain and rather wet spagetti with cremated steak was not the meal we were expecting! We had our 62nd anniversary in September.

Gosh, chicken in a basket! That takes me back.

You should have splashed out on a Vesta Curry.

After listening to my school friend who had a much older boyfriend who took her out for chicken in a basket I asked my mum what it was like. She said ‘It’s just chicken…in a basket’. I realised I wasn’t missing out on anything really!

I, too, thought it was exotic! I think it was chow mein or chop suey. We didn't have a Chinese restaurant where I lived and I had no idea how to make it.
My mum , god bless her, got fed up with ordinary mince and once made Hawaiian mince. It had tomato puree and tinned pineapple chunks in it. Not one of her finest creations.

We never had alcohol at home so I didn't really know what to do with it.
I must have heard the words "pint of lager" from somewhere ( maybe Coronation Street?)

So I gamely marched up the bar and ordered 2 pints and proceeded to fill the glass with ice.

Ooh so did we Grannybags. Having one on a Friday night as newlyweds we thought we were the kids 😂

And watching The Mod Squad on the telly!

foxie48

I was complaining to my mother about not having something that a friend had and she replied, "You don't know how lucky you are, you eat chicken, midweek!" I guess this must have been in the late 50's.

Yes, as a child, but we are going back to around 1955, it was for Christmas. It was most likely to be pork or lamb once a week.

My first drink in a pub (just 17) was a port and lemon with a much older BF. I didn’t know what to order and thought it sounded grown up. Fast forward 2 years (now with Himself) and I was enjoying Cinzano & lemonade. Bleugh! 🤢

Newly married I came in from work and Himself decided he’d make our tea, as a surprise. He thought he’d make ‘beefburgers’. He chopped up an onion really small, put it into a bowl and scooped out a TIN of minced beef (M&S ha!) missed it, shaped into patties with a sprinkling of flour. Heated the frying pan …. You can guess the rest. We had stew for tea!

* mixed

Moth62 we use my parent's bone handled knives all the time, their bread board with the sharpest serrated knife ever and their green enamelled bread bin.
They were all wedding presents in the early 1940s. I love them.

When my mum retired she decided to learn to cook something a bit exotic and managed to get hold of a bulb of garlic. I was visiting her the day when this dish was being cooked and she rung and said I haven’t got a garlic crusher. When I told her I’d bring mine over, she asked me if it would fit in the car. We teased her about it for the rest of her life.