Old-fashioned food

WE have a local cafe that cooks tradition dinners at lunch time, liver & Bacon, ox tail, steak & kidney pud etc, love it, especially in winter. They also do old style school puds that stick to the sides.

...forty years ago I often used to cook liver and bacon...

I still often cook liver and bacon, one of our favourite dishes! But it has to be liver from the local farm shop as the stuff that passes for lambs liver in the supermarkets is a revolting, crumbly mess.

Anyone remember Foster Clarks soups? They came in square solid blocks that you had to crumble and mix with water. There were only very limited flavours - I can remember only oxtail and tomato but there were others.

DH and I still eat liver. DC would never touch it. We have it with thick onion gravy, that's how mum used to make it.

When I was first married forty years ago I often used to cook liver and bacon, devilled kidneys, pigs trotter soup and yes, junket which I loved. I wonder if you can still buy rennet to make it with?!

which is what I do too- and yet, can fully understand how wasteful and non-sensical that is.

Oh no, granjura! I can certainly see the case for wasting nothing. But in practice the thought that I might one day be called upon to prepare and cook giblets and offal for the GC, because of a Jamie campaign, makes my blood run cold. I prefer to eat just a small amount of free range meat, best bits only.

Where we live in rural Switzerland and nearby France, offal is still very popular, but not for the young. I have mixed feelings about this, as ever since I was a child, I refused to eat offal, tripe, heart, brains, kidneys, liver,, etc, etc - and this is more and more the case with youngsters.

However, it is crazy from the environmental and animal welfare point of view- that increasingly only a small part of animals slaughtered for food are only used for the best bits, and the rest just ending up in sausages and cat or dog food!!! When you think of the amount of cereal and fodder + water required to produce meat- it is just nonsensical.

There should be a real campaign by the likes of Jamie Oliver and other famous chefs, to bring back 'lower cuts' of meat back on our tables, explaining the environmental factors at the same time.

I love black pudding and used to be able tobuy a gf one but it can't find it any more

Oh, and pigs' snouts - have they ever been popular here? My mother used to boil a pig's head up for the dog occasionally. They smelled absolutely foul.

We've just had a few days in Riga and a lot of these foods are alive and well and very popular out there - sprats, haslet, rollmops, eels and more eels. Actually, some of the eels on sale at the central market were still alive and well... There was a nasty looking live pike wriggling about at the front of one stall and I stepped well back in case it lunged at me.

I love boiled ham, I am quite obsessed about the fact I cannot throw away the stock, so I either make peas soup with yelow split peas, or peas pudding

Mum used to make tripe and onions in the postwar days. I actually enjoyed it although I've never made it as an adult. Tripe is often served as a regional dish in Italy. - the one they do in rome is lovely and not a bit like our tripe and onions.
We often had junket, blancmange and jelly with evaporated milk.

Toast and dripping. Filled you up after school.

I used to like haslet in a sandwich with brown sauce. Junket is the most vile thing known to man - slimy and revolting ! ( Blaaaah emoticon) Roll mops were very popular when I was a student, they were served up at all our parties along with the cheese and pineapple.

I'd of been one skinny kid if I'd been raised with you guys!

Evaporated milk on tinned fruit- always the sweet for tea at my gran's house. Home made Yorkshire Curd Cheesecake, my gran made it without a recipe. I've tried but can't get it right.

newist our DH's sound like brothers... mines favourite is sausages mash and processed peas...

I have just made mince and crispy dumplings, proper mushy peas and mashed potatoes for my DH, I had salad

My Dad used to have sprats. He was the only one in the family who could face the little eyes staring!
A favourite with us all was apple pasty baked with a topping of grated mature cheddar, delicious!
My mother was a farmer's daughter, so routinely cooked brawn, brains, Bath Chap, tongue, testicles, trotters, tripe and chitterlings (intestines) amongst other disgusting offerings! Not much of the animal was wasted!

Mum has now gone home and there is enough cream left for bread jam and cream yum!

Yes I'm from jellied eel country. At every party or wedding and funerals come to think of it there would be large bowl (an enamel washing up bowls usually) of jellied ells and two more of shrimps and winkles- vile all of it. I was considered stuck up because I don't like things like that or cold offal based things. I now live in pork pie country and I cannot stand the great fatty lumps of pig and heaven knows what encased in solid lardy pastry. I quite like Red Leicester Cheese and Lincolnshire Poacher and a lovely slice of hard cheese on top of fruit cake - I was shown that in the Yorkshire Dales when I lived there and I loved that but I prefer caved aged Cheddar to Wensleydale which can be a slightly bitter- Swaledale is much nicer.

I buy haslet in Tesco DH loves it. I made casserole with hearts quiet often years ago. Never eaten brains though or cod roe [yuck] potted shrimps or jellied eels anyone?

I remember going home from Brownies (I must have been about seven) and seeing Dad eating a plate of tripe and onions. I thought, What the heck is that?

Thankfully it was regarded as a luxury for the man of the house so I was more than happy to slum it with cheese on toast.

There were lots of things I liked until I heard what they were made of eg brawn, potted haugh and even black pudding! My grandparents always tried to make us eat fat despite our choking on the disgusting stuff. Luckily my Dad put his foot down and saved us from that 'treat'. Similarly for tripe. Phew.

I made brawn once. The pigs head sat in my jam pan and I swear the eyes followed me around the kitchen as it simmered! I persevered and made the brawn and it sat in the jellied stock. I couldn't eat it. However, the cat really enjoyed it.

Other foods - stuffed lambs hearts and stuffed breast of lamb (still do that occasionally). Never trotters or brains, rarely oxtail. I remember getting pig's chaps - I think this was cured pig's cheek. Very good too.