What ‘foreign food’ do you remember as a child?

Marmin

I remember olive oil came in small bottles from the chemist. It was used medicinally, certainly not to cook with.

It was warmed and poured down your ear, then a plug of cotton wool pushed in!

There were no exotic restaurants or food sellers when I grew up in the 40 s / 50 s
Loved Vesta when I moved away from home and then lots of West Indian cooking After moving to the Far East Malaysian, Indian and Chinese by the time I came back to UK there were Chinese and Indian restaurants

My paternal grandparents met in France pre WW1, so they were used to a Southern Mediterranean diet and grandfather emanated from Malta anyway, so when they married and settled in London after the war they shopped for food amongst the Italian community. Garlic, olive oil, olives, aioli, spaghetti in long blue packets were considered quite unusual then, not anymore of course, but they were standard fare in our house, my dad's speciality was dressed crab, which we at Sunday tea time. I remember going to my grandparents house as a child and thinking how nice it was that granddad had so many pet rabbits until I found out!

My maternal grandmother was half English and half Irish and granddad on that side was half English and half French (Jewish) but we didn't know that then we just knew he wasn't a catholic like the rest of us!. I remember staying with them as a child when they moved to the Sussex coast and loved the food we had, very different from the other side far more traditional and English lots of home made scones, cakes, steamed sponges and they always made us cloudy lemonade, it was a contrast from what we ate with the other side of the family. My father was really a Francophile, his sister, my aunt having married a French man, both my parents liked it over there. I remember my father commenting negatively about English food, their idea of seasoning is an Oxo cube or the English can only cook one thing, roast beef and they still manage to ruin it, he didn't want his bien cuit or with soggy veg! He liked a moan, my father

Kiwis

Same here

My mother was a poor and resentful cook, she had a cupboard full of Colmans mixes, she used to make Boeuf Bourguignon, when she announced it she would always lower her voice a few octaves and try a French accent, it used to irritate the life out of me!

We didn’t have any interesting food , there was a garlic salt mill and a packet of Lyon’s curry powder in the cupboard in about 1973, I think they were still there when I cleared the house.

I learnt to cook with the help of the wonderful Delia Smith, not many foreign recipes but once I mastered the everyday stuff I got into more exotic dishes.

I now probably cook more foreign food than traditional, particularly in the summer.

Cooked red cabbage and meat balls ( exotic at the time)

Curry, with apple and sultanas. No garlic or herbs ever used.

My parents never ate or served us kids anything remotely foreign when I was growing up in the 60s/70s.
I'm not sure that there were any takeaways available locally anyway other than fish and chips for most of that time , not that Mum and Dad would have dreamed of eating curry-type meals even if they had been readily available.

Actually, that's not 100% true - I've just remembered that in the 70s my dad would sometimes have a Vesta beef curry if my mum was out for an evening. That was as foreign as it ever got in our house back then. 😂

The first 'foreign' food I ate was pizza, and that wasn't until 1978, when my boyfriend dragged a rather reluctant me into a pizzeria!

How things have changed.

A couple of years ago I met up with an old grammar school friend and she laughed like mad when I recalled staying round her house and having boil in the bag paella which was really exotic to me!

Grandmabatty’s post reminded me of how exotic pineapple was back in the 50s. Hula hoops and Hawaii 5-0 were all the rage. Very occasionally Mum would buy a pineapple from the market. I suppose that was really my first taste of ‘foreign food’, along with bananas and, at Christmas, tangerines, dates and Turkish Delight. Before the Vesta delights arrived.

Having been brought up in a Third World country without refrigeration, things like baked beans, fresh (as opposed to powdered) milk, bacon, etc., were incredibly sophisticated!

Callistemon21

Marmin

I remember olive oil came in small bottles from the chemist. It was used medicinally, certainly not to cook with.

It was warmed and poured down your ear, then a plug of cotton wool pushed in!

That is not entirely true.

Boots started as a hebalist and well into the 1970s had a food section selling herbs, spices, diabetic, gluten free and other special diet food and that is where the olive oil was. That Boots customers were so ignorant that all they used it for was softening wax in their ears, was their problem. Boots sold it in the food section.

When we returned from service abroad, my mother used to go into Boots to buy paprika and curry powder and some other curry spices.

Like Monica I lived in the far east as a child but our cook only served us British food.
Back in England my mother cooked spagetti, which was pretty exotic! The sauce was Cambell’s condensed tomato soup and about a pound of grated cheddar was stirred in.

Bazza
There was still rationing when I was a child.
No oranges, lemons or bananas at first after WW2, so they were quite exotic when they came into the shops.

my future MIL's amazing Cape Malay curries.

It’s unkind to say that people were ignorant because their only known use for olive oil was for softening ear wax. My parents had never been abroad and Mum was a good plain meat and veg cook. They might not have been sophisticated but they certainly weren’t ignorant.

I grew up in Birmingham where there were many Indian and Chinese restaurants even in the 1960s. I remember there were a lot of Indian restaurants in Bristol Street - the joke at the time was that they all shared the same kitchen "out the back". I used to enjoy going for a set meal at lunch - it didn't really matter which restaurant you chose, the food all tasted much the same. I loved it though.

Olive Oil BP was indeed sold for medicinal purposes and its primary use was to soften earwax.

www.pharmacyrequirements.co.uk/olive-oil-bp#:~:text=Olive%20Oil%20BP%20has%20many,needed%20for%20a%20healthy%20body.

We grew up with a British/Northern French cuisine; so I guess basic meat and veg. Not too much fresh fish available in Ontario in the 60's/70's but Mum did good scallops when she could get them.

One of my friends was Italian, and I had pasta at her house for the first time. I was converted! My mother later worked at a factory that tinned tomatoes, and they started making jarred pasta sauce, that we had with spaghetti. I have to say my Dad turned his nose up, but we children loved it.

We did have a Chinese restaurant in town, but I'm afraid we didn't go, I think because we wouldn't have know what to order!

Only English food when I was a child. Luckily my mother liked cooking and food was good. Had never heard of Vesta curries until I read about them on GN. I taught myself to cook after a fashion from Elizabeth David French Country Cooking. Remember trying to persuade my mother to make quiche but not succeeding.

Germanshepherdsmum

It’s unkind to say that people were ignorant because their only known use for olive oil was for softening ear wax. My parents had never been abroad and Mum was a good plain meat and veg cook. They might not have been sophisticated but they certainly weren’t ignorant.

Certsinly it is!!

My parents certainly weren't ignorant.
My mother had lived overseas on married accompanied tours of duty and also visited other countries too.
My father probably visited more countries than many posters on GN have ever been to.

Olive oil is still recommended as a softener for ear wax.

We used to go to the Swiss Food Centre and the Norwegian Food Centre when I was a child.

I adored the latter and happily loaded my plate with all sorts. However I've no idea what it was.

But I have never forgotten it!

I don't think these restaurants exist any more

Vol au vents

Wenmore

Vol au vents

Are they foreign?
Or are they rather like Black Forest Gateau?

I think Chicken Tikka Masala is a British invention 😃