Back in Time for Dinner

I liked Instant Whip - the forerunner of Angel Delight. I loved the butterscotch flavour - and for a sophisticated treat we stirred in some desiccated coconut. Mmmmm....

I used to make Angel Delight for the DGC. It was a way of getting milk into them (but I wouldn't serve it now).

Greyduster I remember the synthetic 'cream' (goodness knows what it was made of) which the bakery used in the 'cream' cakes. DM used to send me over there with a large glass jam jar which they would fill with this white stuff and that would go on top of the trifle for special occasions!

I think one problem with the programme is that the wife apparently doesn't do much cooking anyway, so coping with different foods is even more difficult for her.

We seemed to have a lot of roast dinners on Sundays in the 50's. I remember my mother getting very cross because I wouldn't eat any of the fat or gristle, which she assured me were very good for me! The meat would be served cold on Monday with mashed potato and pickles, and turned into shepherd's pie or rissoles on Tuesday. Does any body still make rissoles?

Life was much more exciting in the 60's! I loved Vesta's spaghetti Bolognese and Beef Curry and the crispy noodles with the Chow Mein were really thrilling Libby used to sell tins of what they called Spanish Rice, it was cooked in a tomato sauce with red and green peppers. I loved it and used to put a fried egg on top of it - I think there is a Mexican dish which is rather similar (no chilli in the Libby's rice of course) It must have been about this time that Green Giant sweetcorn appeared in the shops. My father knew about sweetcorn, having spent part of the war in the USA. He also knew about hot dogs so we used to have frankfurters in rolls as a weekend treat - sometimes with a glass of Coca Cola!

No Motorways in my childhood, in fact I didn't even know anyone with a car. I don't like corned beef as we seemed to have it nearly every day at school during the war years. At home lots of lovely stews, not a lot of meat but loads of vegs, lentils and pearl barley and of course dumplings.

I typed a post then it disappeared and appeared as a 'search'

Is it me or my pc?

I think I said: yes, DM made lovely beef stews with dumplings. How did I stay so skinny - and there were lots of lovely puddings as well.

Quick, post before it turns into a search for dumplings .......

Deedaa I remember being table head at junior school and everyone leaving the fat and gristle (and the meat was very fatty and gristyly!)
The headmistress stalked round, inspected the leftovers I had scraped onto one plate and told me that if I allowed anyone to leave any food at all, she would make me eat all the leftovers in future. That would have been mid-1950s.

My DM rarely went in to school but I remember that time she did, and I was not made to eat everyone's leftovers!

gristly?

Really interesting posts! Glad it's not just me being picky! Totally agree that the mother in the programme is at a distinct disadvantage in that she doesn't normally cook for her family anyway so has little or no knowledge of basic cooking to help her improvise with the ingredients she was given. Even my sons would have done a better job of it than she did!! Found it hard to feel sorry for her I'm afraid. Agree also that the programme makers should really have interviewed a few of us older ladies who actually ate the food our mothers prepared in the 50's and 60's. My memories are of good home cooking - stews, roasts, steak and kidney pudding, shepherd's pie and always apple pie and custard on Sunday, an all time favourite of my father. Ooh treacle sponge pudding, spotted dick, jam roly poly, tinned peaches - all with loads of custard. Feeling hungry now.....
My mother also worked throughout those years - part time, various jobs that fitted in with 4 children and a working husband. She would have gone stir crazy otherwise........

In my first job, if I had friends in for a meal in my bedsit, I seem to remember 'cooking' a Vesta curry with some extra curry powder (oh dear!). I suppose those were a kind of precursor of Pot Noodles! Chicken was indeed a treat for special occasions. I can't remember when turkey became available for Christmas. My mum baked a steak pie at Christmas and/or New Year.

We had a capon at Christmas as far as I can recall.

There was sherry and brandy in the cupboard but I remember saying that we ought to have wine on Christmas Day so I treated the family to a bottle of Barsac (must have been about 1963) to go with Christmas dinner.
I remember that it was very sweet.
I don't know that DF was very impressed!

My Scottish friend said that it was always steak pie on New Year's Eve (presumably to soak up all the alcohol!)

Vesta curries - I used to pick out the raisins. Angel Delight came in loads of flavours mint choc, banana, butterscotch- it separated if left too long, ended up with a watery layer at the bottom.
Bernie Inns with liqueur coffees, scampi or chicken-in-a-basket was thought the height of sophistication
Always turkey at Christmas, lamb at Easter, fish on Fridays, no pudding unless you cleared your plate.
Mum was a good cook, dad wouldn't countenance 'mucked up' food so never had curries or spaghetti let alone a takeaway other than occasional fish and chips.
Every Saturday was a trip to nearest big town shopping followed by fish, chips, peas and bread and butter with a cup of tea -5 of us ate for £3.2s.6d!

We had corned beef hash, and we loved it!If anyone knows the best way to make it, post it on the food thread?
greyduster ........ I have been trying to think of that tinned cream you mentioned, we loved that too, was it Nestles?We also loved instant whip but only the butterscotch flavour. never had dream topping or angel delight though.We didn't have a fridge in our parents home either, just a larder with stone shelves.
true that the 60's were a very exciting time to be young, I loved it.

We only had Vesta curries, chow mien etc about 1970 to 73.

I did wear a long hair piece like the ones in the programme, in the mid to late 60's, for going out.There were wig boutiques!

Mrs P assures me we had Vesta meals, I find that very difficult to believe.

We had all the above, and being Cornish - pasties of course. Mum had what they called butter pasty during the war because of meat scarcity so it was potato swede onion and knobs of butter.
Always a capon at Christmas and beef every Sunday. In my case bread jam and cream sometimes for breakfast but mostly bread and milk which I love to this day. So bread with butter sugar and full fat milk. Of course the milk wasn't pasterised.

I wonder what our dining-out experiences would be like now were it not for the cuisines introduced by the wide variety of immigrants to our country!

More European centred rather than the rest of the world?

I remember a little cafe near our college run by an Italian lady, back in the early 60's. It served typical greasy spoon food. One lunch time we (about 6 of us as I remember) asked if she could make us some spaghetti, WOW, from then on we got so much Italian food each lunch time, we could not eat it all. My first introduction to real Italian food.

Anyone remember luncheon vouchers - mine were 3/6d and you could buy a three course lunch with that.

In about 1965 I had my first Chinese food in a restaurant near to where I worked. Us girls thought we were the height of sophistication

In the same restaurant were male managers and we felt equal to them - "and the times they were a changing." Bob Dylon.

I was working in London in the mid sixties zany, like Pompa, had my first taste of Italian food at a tiny cafe just round the corner from Berkeley Square. They served lovely sausages and mixed grills, but I was intrigued by the staff shouting orders down into the cellar kitchen for "lasagne al forno, spaghetti alla bolognese!" I asked what the lasagne was one day, ordered it and was hooked. It took me longer to try the spaghetti - eating it looked a bit too complicated and slightly messy!

The cafe we went to was near Tottenham College in West Green Rd.
(My future MIL was the canteen manager, but we ate out !!)

The mention of Luncheon Vouchers reminds me of that celebrated "madam" Cynthia Payne whose establishment was next door to where Jean (Boht) and Carl Davis lived many years ago when DDs were at primary school in Streatham. Jean once told me what nice and quiet neighbours they were -even with so many " visitors"!!

Why do Luncheon Vouchers remind you of Cynthia Payne? Did her clients pay in Luncheon Vouchers?