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

Our grammar school headmaster was adamant that we all have as broad an education as possible. Although he didn't go so far as to say boys should learn to cook!

We had needlework in the first form, needlework and cookery in the second form and cookery in the third form. I still have two exercise books of recipes and notes on basic cookery which I still refer to. The boys did local history and, I think metal- or woodwork.

The only thing I regret is that, while we had to choose 2 of 3 sciences (most people dropped biology), we didn't have a choice between music or art, and had to take art, which I hated.

We all had to take 9 O levels which was not fair on those who had more of a struggle. They should have been let off a few subjects to give them more of a chance, but,in the end, everyone got at least 2 O levels.

I was the opposite of you M0nica .
At our pretentious GPDST day school, those in the alpha stream took Latin and Greek and the dim ones took Domsci. I was hopeless at Latin and wished I had been dim.
However in 6th form as reprieve from A levels we were allowed to choose cooking and dressmaking as relaxation which have been more use to me. I became a potter and a teacher.
I wish I had done chemistry though.

We all did a year of cookery classes at my grammar school - after the year of needlework when we made the cookery apron!
But I can’t say I learned much at all - rock cakes and cheese and potato pie was about the size of it. I picked up a lot more from my mother, who was a good cook.

Re languages, we all had to do French to O level, and Latin for 2 years, after which you could carry on with Latin (plus Greek), or start German, or if you weren’t much cop at languages, extra English.

In the 5th form there was a new option of Russian - one of our French teachers had taken an intensive course in it. We were allowed to drop another O level to do it. I was only too pleased to ditch physics-with-chemistry!

Just 10 of us did O level - we had just one year in which to do it - and 6 of us went on to A level. Our teacher was fantastic - she bought a Russian typewriter so she could give us sheets of vocab for our set books, to save us having to look so many words up.

Maggiemaybe

Germanshepherdsmum

I so wish I could have been included in domestic science classes. My grammar school only allowed that if you were considered not good enough at French to study a second modern language or Latin. I also wish that we had been given the opportunity to study a second modern language and Latin. I would gladly have sacrificed the compulsory art, pottery, singing and drama - subjects at which I was worse than useless and which have contributed nothing to my life. Sorry to digress.

At my grammar school we had a double period of needlework once a fortnight, and a double period of cookery every fortnight. They’ve both come in handy, I must say. We all did Latin or Greek, though, from the start, and then could add German as an optional second modern language in sixth form. We had Art and Music every week, but no Drama or pottery. It’s interesting to learn what happened in different schools.

That is so not fair!! 😁

Germanshepherdsmum

You were lucky Maggie. As a sop, those who hadn’t been written off after the first year as ‘fit only for DS’ could study Latin or Russian in the sixth form. I guess it was presumed that we would marry a multi-lingual diplomat and have staff to cook and do needlework.

At the Girls' School yes.

However, those at the Boys' School were expected to become the diplomats!
One of our friends took Russian; I don't know if he became a diplomat 😃

You were lucky Maggie. As a sop, those who hadn’t been written off after the first year as ‘fit only for DS’ could study Latin or Russian in the sixth form. I guess it was presumed that we would marry a multi-lingual diplomat and have staff to cook and do needlework.

I have always said that the best qualification I had for becoming a mother was O level Latin. Both my DC went through a stage of wanting to wnow where words came from 'Mummy, why are people walking in the street called pedestrians?' and so on and so on. I was so glad I had O level latin to fall back on and I often wished I had studied greek (camera, cinema, hippopotamus).

Then I bought a really good 2 volume dictionary - and they could look the derivations up for themselves.

Germanshepherdsmum

I so wish I could have been included in domestic science classes. My grammar school only allowed that if you were considered not good enough at French to study a second modern language or Latin. I also wish that we had been given the opportunity to study a second modern language and Latin. I would gladly have sacrificed the compulsory art, pottery, singing and drama - subjects at which I was worse than useless and which have contributed nothing to my life. Sorry to digress.

I didn't do Domsci either, we had no choice so I did Latin, but I was no good at singing, gave up Art and we didn't do drama.
I would happily have given up hockey, it has been no use whatsoever in my life whereas domestic science would have been very useful.

Mum thought tinned spaghetti was a foreign treat😂

Germanshepherdsmum

I so wish I could have been included in domestic science classes. My grammar school only allowed that if you were considered not good enough at French to study a second modern language or Latin. I also wish that we had been given the opportunity to study a second modern language and Latin. I would gladly have sacrificed the compulsory art, pottery, singing and drama - subjects at which I was worse than useless and which have contributed nothing to my life. Sorry to digress.

At my grammar school we had a double period of needlework once a fortnight, and a double period of cookery every fortnight. They’ve both come in handy, I must say. We all did Latin or Greek, though, from the start, and then could add German as an optional second modern language in sixth form. We had Art and Music every week, but no Drama or pottery. It’s interesting to learn what happened in different schools.

Germanshepherdsmum

I so wish I could have been included in domestic science classes. My grammar school only allowed that if you were considered not good enough at French to study a second modern language or Latin. I also wish that we had been given the opportunity to study a second modern language and Latin. I would gladly have sacrificed the compulsory art, pottery, singing and drama - subjects at which I was worse than useless and which have contributed nothing to my life. Sorry to digress.

Who knew why I was allowed domestic science class?

My language is mostly useless, pottery, drama, singing were totally useless to me -- but I'm a fantastic cook.

Thank you -- my lovely mum and sweet nuns.

I so wish I could have been included in domestic science classes. My grammar school only allowed that if you were considered not good enough at French to study a second modern language or Latin. I also wish that we had been given the opportunity to study a second modern language and Latin. I would gladly have sacrificed the compulsory art, pottery, singing and drama - subjects at which I was worse than useless and which have contributed nothing to my life. Sorry to digress.

My mummy, bless her, used to make 'spaghetti bolognese', which was basically mince and potatoes with a tin of spagetti hoops on top.

Grammaretto

I remember domski (Domestic Science) we were to cook a dish of our choice and the listed ingredients would be ready for us the following week.
The Penguin recipe book was used and I chose cheesecake which involved butter, cream cheese and digestive biscuits.
The next week I was presented with margarine and, cheddar cheese. Your choice was far too expensive, I was told.

*

Crikey - we had to bring out own ingredients!

Oh yes brunost brown cheese. Yuck at first when you expect it to taste like cheese but yummy when you think of fudge.
My worst experience was fermented soya in Japan. People were queuing for it but one mouthful of this sticky stuff left a nasty taste.

Norwegian Brown Cheese!

www.scandinaviastandard.com/what-is-brunost-a-guide-to-norwegian-brown-cheese/

My mother liked a strange quite sweet cheese Witzend - we had it occasionally if someone went to a big food hall or similar I wonder if that was Norwegian?

Gwenisgreat

My first adventure with foreign food came when I was invited to a birthday party of a Norwegian boy. No idea what I ate, but it was strange and I wasn't keen. Apart from that the most 'foreign' food I ate was the haggis we'd made at school - yeugh!!

I wonder whether some of it was their ‘brown cheese’? A Norwegian student friend of a dd who came to stay once brought us some. We’re pretty adventurous eaters here but it tasted so weird! Def. an acquired taste.
IIRC even our cheese-addict dog turned her nose up.

10 and 6 for a curry, nan and a beer at the Agra, off Tottenham Court Road happy days.

I remember a school friend telling me her mother had fed them tinned frogs' legs; thank goodness I wasn't invited to tea.

My first adventure with foreign food came when I was invited to a birthday party of a Norwegian boy. No idea what I ate, but it was strange and I wasn't keen. Apart from that the most 'foreign' food I ate was the haggis we'd made at school - yeugh!!

Bara Brith…..🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Do remember going to one of the first McDonald’s when young. Hated it. The mayonnaise splatted on it. Yuck! Much preferred a Wimpy!
Also at a friend’s house, the mum overloading a fork of spag bol into my mouth. Horrible experience.

A mushroom was "foreign" to me until I was 10 years old.

Brought up in deepest, darkest Norfolk. Dont remember any 'foreign' food in our house. Dad was very conservative with his food and Mum loathed cooking, but as a 1950s housewife who didnt work outside the home she was lumbered with it. Saving money was the order of the day so we ate an awful lot of potatoes. They came with gravy and miniscule bits of meat from left overs, mashed with cheese or fried as potato cakes. Never had baked spuds because that would have meant putting the oven on. As the man of the house Dad would get pork chops with a sausage and we kids had just sausage. It was the mid week treat. Lashings of sugar of course and plenty of biscuits and home made cake served as dessert with Birds custard. Very clear memories of being hungry and eating the dog biscuits when no one was looking.