Old-fashioned food

Were they dried peas?

And as the saying went, "Carlin Sunday, Farting Monday.

Odd that you mentioned grey peas, ethel. I'd never heard of them till we ate them in Latvia last week - they're a bit of a favourite there and were very tasty with mushroom sauce and bacon bits. I looked them up when I got home and found they are the carlins we used to eat in the North East on Carlin Sunday (Passion Sunday) during Lent. I can't remember how my mother cooked them, but I think vinegar was involved.

We had the most delicious lemon posset at a party at the weekend.

it was ladies competition dat at bowls club today and there were dishes of posset!

My Sainsbury's sometimes has soft roe.

Do you remember that you had to buy suet from the butcher to grate for puddings etc.

Soft herring roes on toast? Delicious. Have just found out that our local Tesco sells frozen "milts" . Same thing?

My butcher does haslet here in Leicestershire icy but here they call it Hazelat.

Haslet is still made and sold by pork butchers in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire (probably elsewhere but I know about those). Much nicer than the stuff sold in supermarkets on the cold meats counter, full of onion and fat, which is the only sort I can find further south. Lincolnshire ones are lovely, particularly the brown bits on the outside.
I used to love pork dripping on bread as a child, especially the dark brown jelly. We had it after we had had roast pork, or you could buy the dripping from the butcher too.
Tinned peaches and evaporated milk! Bottles of orange drink, about a third of a pint, bought from the milkman.

Steamed sponge pudding and custard.....yum.

Bread and dripping. I remember my mum scrapping the dripping off the bottom of the pan and spreading it on thickly sliced bread. Mum and Dad loved it. My sister and I ran for cover whenever it appeared.

My mother loved tripe and onions! She also liked boiled onion. This consisted of a very large onion, boiled and served with butter, and seasoning. She lived through the war so they had to be inventive.

In one of my very old books (probably about 250-300 years old) there is a sucking pig recipe, which begins "first stick your pig above the breastbone but make sure your knife is sharp..." And continues from there, with letting the blood run but being careful to save it etc. Back to basics!

I remember all the foods mentioned here - what meat heavy diets we had then. And I also remember gagging at the smell of tripe and fish cooking. Still hate the smell of fish round the house.

Haslet is too high fat. He is rarely allowed it. And it's a long time since I bought him any cods' roe.

We used to have puddings of semolina, ground rice, and flaked rice. Lovely with stewed apple. But, sadly fattening. So it stopped.

I'm going to make a bread and butter pudding today. Got some lovely soft white bread to use up.

Quite a few "unmentionable" bits disappeared during the BSE scare/crisis and have been slow to reappear. My butcher kept a book "under the counter" for his regular customers so that we could have beef on the bone for Christmas!
I am sure I have bored all my friends to death with how one DD celebrated her 30th at a well known pork restaurant in Spitalfields, with a " sucking pig banquet", I think she had 2 or even 3 whole piglets (vegetarians and the tender-hearted look away now) even I as a carnivore prefer food not to look like what it was in life, if you see what I mean.
Anyway at the end of the meal her future MIL and I went to ask if we could have doggy bags as they have 2 dogs, we have one, and there were certain bits (ears, tail, trotters etc) left over. We got so much that even giving a tail, ears and trotter to the dog, we had a reheated roast dinner for the next 3 days!

I still use all those things, not haslet. It's not something I have ever tasted. I make stuffed hearts, liver and bacon, I make liver stroganoff rather than steak, kidney and bacon pilaff, chicken liver pate, I boil up pigs trotters, then roast them. My mother makes brawn, delicious as long as it has enough herbs and seasoning, I buy jellied eels in the local market, and make rollmops, which I suppose are semi-pickled herrings. I remember my mother making two dozen one night, for the next night, but my father came home from a night out and fancied a snack - he ate a dozen of them and she didn't talk to him for a week! I have always loved them, but prefer the gentler home-made ones.

I hate junket and blancmange and tapioca, but I make our rice pudding in the winter. We like cods roe, and sprats - and fried whitebait. I haven't had tripe for a while, but I do make a very nice blanquette of veal substitute with it, I could never bear tripe and onions again after having made it that way. We have oxtail stew every winter. The kids have always loved it. I can buy a whole tail from my butcher for £4.

We have liver and bacon with onion gravy fairly regularly and love it. I remember those soups that came in a block they were very tasty and I always used the oxtail in mince gave it a fab flavour but now you cannot buy any dried oxtail soup at least I've not been able to find any for years.

I do remember enjoying an omelette with brains (lamb's presumably).
What happened to sweetbreads? They were very popular in the post-war years, I remember...

liver yuk. I cant look at it raw never mind eat it cooked.

Ooh! Liver and bacon - thanks for the reminder! Must have some... soon...

Im confused now, I meant roll mops not roll ups but are they not the same as baked herring. I love them but don't like their bones.

Roll ups? I thought those were DIY cigarettes!

Aren't rollmops pickled herrings?

My granny used to make what she called 'cow heel', it was a sort of casserole. I assume it was cows feet or trotters or something. Anyone heard of it. We also had grey peas, jellied beetroot and herring baked which I assume is a variation of roll ups.

I love liver and bacon and had forgotten all about it. Next trip to the butchers and liver will be on the list!