Back in Time for Dinner

Remember having fruit juice as a starter?

Yes, it was a staple, wasn't it? Our nearest one was the Leather Bottle at (I think) Uxbridge. It had a stream running through it under the floorboards with a glass panel on top so you could look through at the water. I was very jealous when my sister was taken there by a new boyfriend.

I was waiting for the Berni Inns but perhaps that will be next week.

Prawn cocktail, steak and chips etc and Black Forest Gateau!

Oh, yes, the Vestas. How sophisticated they were! Those little bags of dried brown stuff that turned into beef curry with sultanas when you added water. Then they started leaving out the sultanas which was a big disappointment. I lived in Southall in those days - I bet you can get a much better curry there now than you could then!

I don't remember my Mum 'cooking' stuff in the fridge but she did occasionally buy ice cream cakes which, obviously, were kept in the fridge.

We never went out for dinner in the evening bcause there was nowhere to go really until the Berni Inns started up. Before that we used to Lyons Corner House or the ABC but only as a treat.

Ha ha - the trailer for next week shows my Fred the Flour shaker and my pickled onion jar!
I must be stuck in the 1970s.

The 1960s party buffet is recognisable! Sausages on sticks and cheese+ pineapple!

I have to say that we were no strangers to Vesta chow Mein. I thought they were lovely! Mum was a big fan of Elizabeth David so we had a lot of her sort of recipes -I had to go to Mr Mackintosh's chemists for the olive oil. So this programme is relatively accurate from my perspective. Our kitchen was that bright blue and yellow too.

I think it was supposed to be about 1961 when they ate at the service station.

I remember the opening of the M6 - I was there and we were standing on the motorway!

Yes, I think corned beef hash was more student food.
A friend and I cooked spag. bol. but my DM never made it!

If you put either of my daughters back, or my daughter-in-law, you would get better meals than that.

But I did get the impression that the series had been written by someone very young with a fixed view of what food was like in the past. The plot to the whole thing seems to be that food used to be horrible and inedible and that the current era is the only time when we ate well.

The poor mother is being put through the kind of challenges that they give contestants in the stranded-in-the-jungle-with-only-a-penknife shows endure, with no training or guidance at all.

I don't remember having corned beef hash but we did have corned beef. I remember it with boiled potatoes or salad and also in sandwiches. I really liked it but wouldn't eat it now having been veggie for 30 or more years.

I do remember going to the service stations for an evening out. My parents didn't have a car then but I had a boyfriend who did, so we used to swan off up the M1 and dine out in style watching the traffic go past. What fun!

Yes, I ate corned beef hash in the student flat I shared with 3 other girls in 1968.

I remember service stations being opened on the M6 - our nearest was Knustford, but while my parents liked to go out on Sunday afternoons in the car for a drive round the Cheshire lanes, our dining out experiences were limited to getting fish and chips from the chippy as a treat (not on Sundays of course as everything was shut) and eating them in the car.

My mother disliked cooking and we ate the same things week in, week out.
Monday - shepherd's pie.
Tuesday - fish and chips (cooked at home)
Wednesday - potato pie
Thursday - chops
Friday - Herrings or kippers
Saturday - cheese pudding or grilled cheese on a plate
Sunday - roast dinner
We never ate chicken except at Christmans.

Then in the early seventies the Cordon Bleu magazines came out and my mum belatedly took an interest in food, and started cooking things like carbonade of beef or armenian lamb.
But it was too late for me, I had already left home!

The latest gem: ' in the 1950s you wouldn't have just gone and sat at the hairdresser's'

I thought most women went for a shampoo and set once a week (and didn't wash their hair in between).

Oh yes, I remember that now!

I thought that perhaps if you put any 40 something woman back then they would be flummoxed but I think my DD could improvise better than that!

My dad could cook too - although only when mum was not well.

My memories are like yours, I'd certainly never heard of, let alone visited, a motorway service station!
Definitely no ready meals, bought cakes etc
I do remember corned beef occasionally but there was a huge scare over Argentinian corned beef and ?anthrax. I remember mum and dad talking about it because at that time my father had given up his job to run his parents' grocers shop, and he'd had to check and throw out the infected tins if there were any.