Back in Time for Dinner

I don't think anyone took 2 and a half hours to cook a roast chicken dinner in the micro-wave, as usual, everything is exaggerated. The mother seemed amazed at most things, she frequently used the phrase, "Oh my goodness." I wonder if that actually is her job or whether that is just a fictitious one for the programme. My sister-in-law first served me Viennetta which I considered to be very luxurious, I still love it today.

I do not remember anyone getting a microwave and getting rid of the main cooker. That was rubbish.
We lived in Peterborough where Sodastreams were made. I think we were the only family not to have one. We didn't need one as many of my sons' friends had family working at the factory, so they were not without Sodastream drinks.
We only ever had one television and only got a colour one when we got a BBC computer.
We were odd as well, Deedaa, as we became vegetarian in the mid 70s. There were possibly a lot of odd people around at the time.

I remember our kids having TVs in their bedrooms and waltzing in and out of the kitchen grabbing food as and when they needed it. I didn't care a jot. It felt like sharing a house with adults instead of having to be a modern day version of The Waltons.

We always sat around the table for Sunday Lunch which was still a special time.

Well, the mum has certainly cheered up now! She seemed happy, laughing and making jokes. Perhaps she feels more sure of herself now she is in the 80's, out at work and having help in the kitchen!

pompa I don't always recycle it, sometimes I make cakes for the birds with it

Deedaa you were ahead of the times!

I think the programme would have been better if they had found a couple where they both cooked and then we could have seen how inventive she was in the 50s and 60s instead of so useless.

I'm not sure that i see the point of making a programme about food with a woman who can't even fry an egg or open a tin. I nearly fell off my chair laughing when she said how wonderful ring pulls are, hasn't she ever had one come off in her hand and been faced with a sealed tin?

I suppose we were a bit odd in the 70's because DH's family were Italian so we ate a lot of pasta, fresh ravioli from the deli, salami and prosciutto, and of course Panetonne at Christmas long before it became fashionable. As he lived in central London we spent a lot of time in Cypriot and Turkish restaurants eating hummous and taramasalata, pitta bread and kebabs.

How could you ?

So would DH if I didn't put it into the food recycling!

I still sneak a slice of bread and dripping when her indoors si not watching (beef dripping of course - with lots of salt) Yummy

I remember having sugar sandwiches
That is about the only thing I remember about my granny, we used to go there and I always asked her for a 'sugar buttie'.

MIL had that crockery pattern; we had Woolworth's blue and white checked gingham pattern (I wish I still had DM's set.)
I still have my pressure cooker though it rarely gets an outing these days.
I also have Fred the flour shaker and that pickle jar in my kitchen. I am stuck in the 70s!

I remember DH refitting the kitchen in our first house (1975) with blue formica cupboards and teak formica worktops. It was very modern!

My mother died at the end of the sixties, and my father, not being a cook at all, was probably pleased to be able to feed my brother and I boil in the bag beef. He was of the generation of evaporated milk in the tea. I was a bit peeved to see the girls last night reading Jackie with Gilbert O Sullivan on the back, he was not featured that late in the Seventies, 1979, he was early seventies. I did enjoy seeing the crockery patterns as well, very authentic. I left home in 1980, couldn't afford a cooker at first, I thought Pot Noodles were invented for me, and ate a lot of KFC!

I thought the last programme was more accurate. I was providing meals for 3 hungry sons, lots of their friends and a hard working husband during the 70s and 80s. The programme missed out two strange but popular devices from the era - the Soda Stream and the Sandwich Maker.
"Get busy with the fizzy Soda Stream."
It's etched for ever in my brain together with trying to clean the Sandwich Maker.

I think what this discussion has made clear - and what the programme is not interested in showing is that there was no one unified cuisine for any decade. Just a range of foodstuffs that were more popular or new to the market in that decade. In any decade how and what people actually ate was immensely varied depending on their financial circumstances, family attitude to food, whether they lived in a big city like London, where a there were street markets selling a wide range of fruit and vegetables unavailable elsewhere or in a more remote rural area.

And nothing has changed. DD and I were discussing this programme today and noting that while both she and DS are good cooks with an interest in food, their preferred eating styles are immensely different. DD's choice of cuisine I what I would call main stream English, roasts, pies, simple dishes relying on good ingredients. DS loves all ethnic food. When we visit we get meals from North Africa, the Middle East, Ethiopia and Asia.

It is what I call the curse of the average, what the 'average' family ate is not representative of what the whole population ate. It is like saying that the average family has 1.94 children and then trying to find a family with that fractional number of children

In the late 50s/ early 60s we had a very boring diet, sunday lunch(roast) was the best of the week, Monday was reheated sunday lunch, Tuesday was home made broth/soup, Wednesday was mince, Thursday
home made chips/pie and Friday was usually pot luck, anything, Saturday was baking day so pie/suet pud etc and for other meals we had sandwiches. Until the 70s I never heard of sphagetti, curry or anything that this programme says we ate.
it also seems a bit middle class, the families were all two parent and the father worked so they were reasonably well off, a widow with daughter and child living alone with one wage could not afford meals like this nor the gadgets they had. I remember having sugar sandwiches or just a plate of baked beans for supper, only a boiled egg for breakfast. We had no cereals no tinned food apart from beans and we had no fridge till 1973. So although the main meal which was mid day, was quite substantial, the rest were scanty. I couldn't imagine a breakfast with only an egg and no other foodstuff, yet today I cant remember when I could afford a roast dinner.
Having said this the programme was interesting.

They're making it sound as though a woman without a job was just a boring domestic drudge. I spend the seventies at home bringing up three children but my friends were in the same boat. We visited eachother regularly with our children, swapped recipes, knitted, made clothes, gardened, used the library, discussed politics etc. They were happy days before the pressure of having to work full time while still doing the lion's share of the housework because the cost of living had gone through the roof.

Did we really eat so much frozen and tinned food?

I love watching this it does take me back, it is bitter sweet for me because I wish I was back there

Mrs P regularly uses her pressure cooker, still has and uses her Kenwood chef from 1963, had to replace the rubber feet a couple of times , otherwise still going strong.
We bought the Kenwood with Kensitas tokens when we were engaged.

In the 70s, my greatest asset was my pressure cooker. Great for all sorts of stews as well as for vegetables and soups. The Kenwood Chef was another indispensable piece of equipment. Nowadays, I still use the pressure cooker a lot but the Chef has given way to a Magimix.

I have only ever eaten part of a Pot Noodle and never bought any for my DC. Although youngest DD sneaked one in occasionally!

It was very odd last night, having read

Power cuts in the early 1970's were difficult for most families, but not for us. We lived in a house with a solid fuel Rayburn with a solid hotplate and oven. My mother could cook and bake whether we had electricity or not. The very first Pot Noodle I ever ate was in Nurses accommodation while visiting my sister. We were not very impressed!

Newly-wed in 1970 I have always remembered Katharine Whitehorn's invaluable advice in "Cooking in a Bedsitter"(Penguin 3/6) which was to do with wine - red or white?
"It should be news to no one that red wine goes with red meat and most game; white wine with fish, veal and the sweet course. More to the point perhaps is that white wine goes with carpets; red wine only with floors you can wipe clean or don't need to care about "
That about sums up my first forays into cooking in the early 70's!

I also still have the cheese one. I amazed family and friends making the Pizza recipie. It was so exotic! x

I still have the cheese cookery book J52, and a McDougalls one which was free (and I have to look up Yorkshire pudding or popovers every time in it, even after all these years )
I never had a stab in tin-opener, I am sure the butterfly ones were around in the 60s.

Only the butterfly ones, I hated the stab in ones! x

And you could use a tin-opener!