Meals on Certain Days ??

Nowadays I tend to cook whatever goes off first.

Mum worked so food as follows:
Sunday roast, lamb or beef
Monday cold meat with veg including bubble and squeek
Tuesday, shepherds pie or awful curry made with powder
Wednesday, don’t remember
Thursday, don’t remember
Friday, fish (white with sauce)
Saturday, sausages generally beef which were spicy and I didn’t like and pork if I was lucky. Made by the butchers just down the road. Teatime was sardines on toast, spaghetti on toast, soft roe on toast which I actually liked.

Anyway, that’s what I remember. Mum actually had little interest in cooking. My Dad was a good cook having learned to make the best of everything in WW2.

We didn’t, my mum was a good, experimental cook, so we had very varied meals, from Elizabeth David and her ilk, but my Nanna was very traditional, the same meals on the same days, she even had tripe and onions on a Thursday, which we refused to eat.

This sounds to me a lot like what was available with rationing. We always had stew on a Sunday, heated up and served again on Monday. Fish on Friday.

We didn’t have much money and my dad grew the veg and fruit which my mum bottled. My mum was a wonderful cook and very creative.

That is wrong about Shirley Valentine, she fed her husband egg and chips on steak night because she had fed the steak to her neighbours dog because she felt sorry for him.

No regimented meals at our house, both as a child or today thank goodness.
Very few cooked breakfast either, maybe eggs of some kind now and again randomly.Cereal in warm weather and porridge in cold weather, toast and marmalade.

Usedtobeblonde

That is wrong about Shirley Valentine, she fed her husband egg and chips on steak night because she had fed the steak to her neighbours dog because she felt sorry for him.

Yes!
"I like chips and egg ..on a TUESDAY – today is THURSDAY… Where’s me steak?!”

I remember my mother cooking a proper dinner on Saturdays, often a beef casserole or a boiled ham joint with vegetables and my schoolfriend's mother being astonished that we had 'a proper cooked dinner' on Saturdays. She said it was the day to have something quick on toast or a help yourself day.

When I was growing up we always had a roast dinner on Sundays and egg and chips on Mondays because it was wash day!

OH and I have a variety of meals but we try to plan for the week ahead so there's less food waste.

We used to have a roast on Sunday, cold meat on Monday and cottage pie (with the last of the roast minced up with an onion using a rotating hand mincing machine) on Tuesday. The fishmonger van came around on a Friday. I think the veg cart was a Thursday. The rest of the week was more random. We used to have mince quite often and soup boiled up in the pressure cooker. We also had rice pudding made with flaked rice and baked for ages- usually cooked in the bottom of the oven, with the roast on a Sunday.
My mother ordered food- to collect the following week from the butcher, the fishmonger or the grocery cart/van. We had a small allotment so veg was seasonal as available. We did not have a supermarket in our small market town. I don’t remember having a fridge until the late 60s?
Now we don’t have a routine- but we can just go and buy what’s available in the supermarket. There is so much choice now.

Never I don’t know what I m going to eat until I m ready to eat
Then I have a hunt round the freezer or fridge cupboards etc

I can’t remember a certain day thing as a child but there may have been, definitely the Sunday roast though.

crazyH

The only regimented meal was Fish Friday and I still maintain that.

School dinners were fish on Friday even though the Catholics had their own parochial schools ( northern England, 1960's-1980's).

I occasionally find myself cooking fish on Fridays out of sheer habit. My husband was of the opinion that Saturday night was fish and chips from the local chippy so his mum didn't have to cook that night.

Margiknot

We used to have a roast on Sunday, cold meat on Monday and cottage pie (with the last of the roast minced up with an onion using a rotating hand mincing machine) on Tuesday. The fishmonger van came around on a Friday. I think the veg cart was a Thursday. The rest of the week was more random. We used to have mince quite often and soup boiled up in the pressure cooker. We also had rice pudding made with flaked rice and baked for ages- usually cooked in the bottom of the oven, with the roast on a Sunday.
My mother ordered food- to collect the following week from the butcher, the fishmonger or the grocery cart/van. We had a small allotment so veg was seasonal as available. We did not have a supermarket in our small market town. I don’t remember having a fridge until the late 60s?
Now we don’t have a routine- but we can just go and buy what’s available in the supermarket. There is so much choice now.

I still have a hand mincer. I used to have two but my daughter -stole borrowed one when she left for uni.

BlueBelle

Never I don’t know what I m going to eat until I m ready to eat
Then I have a hunt round the freezer or fridge cupboards etc

I can’t remember a certain day thing as a child but there may have been, definitely the Sunday roast though.

One of both the upsides and downsides of going from a five member family to a widowed empty nester is that I still find myself incapable of shopping or cooking for one.

I always have frozen meals in my freezer. I just have to make sure it's correctly labeled so I'm not eating meat curry with pasta because I thought it was a pasta sauce.

When I was a child we did almost always have a Sunday roast (beef or pork, my dh didn’t like lamb and chicken was expensive) but never at lunchtime - usually at around 6, to leave much of the day free.

Later in the week there would probably be a cottage pie with minced leftovers, or even a curry.

The only regimented meal I can recall was on Mondays. This was washing day. The soup pot was stuck on, cooked whilst the boiler was doing its job, then clothes into the double sink. Goodness, when I think of it, it all started at 6 am. Stock was made then the ingredients added. Only part I liked about the day was the custard for pudding.

The only meal we knew what we were getting was Sunday Roast… Beef… I got fed up of beef so Mom used to do me Pork Loin 😄…. Nowadays we never know what we’re having from one day to the next, even on a Sunday… Whats in the fridge or freezer? We have what we fancy… I think we’re having Sea Bass tonight, (yes we are hubby has confirmed - he seems to have taken over the cooking) what with not sure…

My mother claimed she loved cooking. In reality, she loved cooking for visitors and on special occasions. The rest of the time?

We could not work out the day of the week by the food, as breakfast consisted irrespective of the day of the week of porridge in the winter months and corn-flakes (ugh!) all the rest of the year, with milk to drink for small children, and cofffee later on.

On school-days, lunch was a packed lunch of sandwiches from age 5- 12, followed when I changed schools for school dinner for the rest of my school-days.

At week-ends and during school-holidays, lunch was either a fry up of leftovers, or things like bacon and eggs, sausages and chips, with or without baked beans, or Heinz spaghetti in tomato sauce with cold, or fried luncheon meat (ugh again!)

Dinner on Saturdays roast, usually pork. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and from Mummy's point of view, preferably also Wednesday, what was left of the roast sliced and served cold with boiled potatoes and a vegetable.

Thursday and Friday, probably soup (one thing my mother enjoyed and was good at making,) followed by mince and taties, stovies, if that roast was still waiting to be eaten up, or shepherd's pie.

And how we loved the weeks where the roast was not big enough to last to Wednesday, and things like liver and onions or meat-balls cheered us up.

And need I add, that you ate what you were given, without complaint?

By now, no-one will be surprised to learn that I dropped this dismal regime, as soon as I got my own place, and make what I want, when I want it.

Monday mince from the left over Sunday roast

Remember this song by The Scaffold?

“Today's Monday, today's Monday, Monday is washing day
Is everybody happy? You bet your life we are!

Today's Tuesday, today's Tuesday, Tuesday is soup
Monday is washing day
Is everybody happy? You bet your life we are!

Today's Wednesday, today's Wednesday, Wednesday is roast beef.
Tuesday is soup
Monday is washing day
Is everybody happy? You bet your life we are!

Today's Thursday, today's Thursday, Thursday is shephard's pie
Wednesday is roast beef
Tuesday is soup
Monday is washing day
Is everybody happy? You bet your life we are!

Today's Friday, today's Friday, Friday is fish
Thursday is shepherds pie
Wednesday is roast beef
Tuesday is soup
Monday is washing day
Is everybody happy? You bet your life we are!

Today's Saturday, today's Saturday, Saturday's payday
Friday is fish
Thursday is shepherds pie
Wednesday is roast beef
Tuesday is soup
Monday is washing day
Is everybody happy? You bet your life we are!

Today's Sunday, today's Sunday, Sunday is church...
Saturday is payday
Friday is fish
Thursday is shepherds pie
Wednesday is roast beef
Tuesday is soup
Monday is washing day
Is everybody happy? You bet you life we aaaaare!”

We always had fish in Friday. Mother was a Catholic and my Uncle had a share in a fish stall in our City wholesale fresh fish market.

We used to have platefuls of all the best fish landed at Fleetwood including plaice, cod, silver hake etc.

Haddock was considered to be tasteless and downmarket. Only fit to give the cat. My mother wouldn't entertain it

I can't believe the price of fish nowadays and haddock is still tasteless.

But l still have great memories of Fish in Friday nights

I'm sure I've asked this before, but can't remember if anyone came up with an answer - why do Catholics (in particular) eat fish on a Friday?

Up until the early 50's it depended on rationing and very limited. Dad grew potatoes, snowball turnips and leeks.
Food wasn't so different after rationing. Although there was more choice, there was also poverty through disability. There would have been about 20 meals, interspersed with things like stovies without meat. Potatoes were always the mainstay. It took me many years to realise that I didn't need to do as many.
But the piece definitely resistance was Mum's soup. She could turn anything into great soup. We were fortunate that we had a meat marker. Ham ribs and knuckles made delicious lentil or split pea soup. Her puddings were to die for, baked rice, apple sponge or rhubarb tarts. Never a recipe crossed her hand.
I remember one day she went to a food demonstration and was delighted to learn how to make baked Alaska.
I grew up healthy and sturdy and had good health for many years. I think because of my Mum's cooking.
I tried many different recipes and cuisines, but now, I find myself going back to some of those simple meals.
I feel quite emotional reading back and writing.

Sorry I know there are some spelling errors in the above. Eyes are a bit bad today.