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

We lived on a farm. My Mum was a good cook and we enjoyed a lot of fresh food. My Dad often returned from the markets with ‘exotic’ fruit which we enjoyed. The first foods truly viewed as foresight were Vesta meals, they loved chicken chow mein, later a take away Chinese meal was their great treat. In the early days Mr C and I always had a box of Vesta paella in the cupboard for a quick meal, usually when the fridge was empty. I’d forgotten about it all.

Grammaretto

Does anyone else remember how prawn cocktail and chicken-in-a-basket were the sophisticated offerings on posh pub menus?

The first time I ever went into a pub this is what I ate.

My sister and I (15 and 17) were staying with an aunt and uncle in Wiltshire and they took us out for a meal at a country pub (around 1961) and this is what the menu was. We both felt so grown up and sophisticated.

At home we would eat out in restaurants now and again but we had never been to a pub before.

Not spaghetti he does sound a very interesting man.

JaneJudge melon balls of course. Chilli con carne for mains and creme caramel or cheesecake for afters?

I remember food in France was better.

pascal30 yes, he really was.

Mum wasn't nearly as naturally adventurous but he would usually manage to tease her and eventually persuade her to try things - ... except tripe - which she always decided she hated no matter how it was cooked.

They were a good "team" actually... and I was very lucky.

Talking of Vesta, my treat for myself when I was a student in the 60s and marginally less skint than usual, was a Vesta Paella. 🙂

The medicinal olive oil from Boots decades ago was not intended for culinary use anyway, at least I doubt it.

Although except for the odd ‘bolognaise’ and curry, usually made from the remains of the roast, we largely had very traditional food in the 50s and 60s and my mother was actually a very good cook.

NotSpaghetti

My dad was always adventurous with food. He had his eyes opened in the army i think when stationed in Africa during the war.

He went to London four times a year for work and came home with "odd" things - kumquat, aubergines, kiwi fruit (think then called Chinese gooseberry), persimmon, lychee (my favourite) and many many more including odd meats and strange fish.... he once brought a breadfruit which he had apparently eaten in Africa and didn't really like! He bought it because he saw it and wanted me to try it. He said I should "try everything at least once" - this extended to snails (which I liked) and frogs legs - which although chicken-ish I think I just couldn't do again.

He was a great cook and I remember having octopus and squid in his paella.

He often cooked curries and used a lot of beans and pulses which i think was more unusual then. I remember going with him on a London trip once and he took me to a market where lots of exotic foods were available and to my embarrassment (as a maybe 14 year old), quizzed the market trader and shoppers buying things how to cook them and what they were like. 🥺

I do that myself now I have to admit - and it does make me remember him with fondness.

I remember the day he took mum and I for pizza and asked if they could show us how they spun the dough (oh dear so embarrassing) and mum and I were dragged along to watch...

All things food were interesting to him.

Luckily we lived near a city with a variety of cuisines even when I was quite young. He was a kind, lovely man who would engage with everyone so easily and naturally. He had a shop when I was a girl and regular customers would bring lots of "treats" from abroad. One taught him how to make yogurt (which was not to his taste), a Jewish friend showed him how to make latkes, someone gave him a recipe for an Eid dish which was like a spiced very sweet bread pudding made with condensed milk - and another friend taught him how to make the fabulous wired sugar flowers that you see on wedding cakes.

I feel very blessed to have had him and been influenced by his openness to other cultures- and his genuine enthusiasm.
I now know how lucky I was.

He sounds a really interesting, lovely man.. I bet nowadays he would have gone on Masterchef...

And melon ball starters

Yes, it was very trendy

Death by Chocolate Cake? I only tried it once, couldn't finish it.

Along with the standard fare in Berni Inns. prawn cocktail, steak and Black Forest gateau.

Does anyone else remember how prawn cocktail and chicken-in-a-basket were the sophisticated offerings on posh pub menus?

As a small child brought up in rural Yorkshire there was never a hint of anything "foreign" in our diet. The only takeaway available was fish and chips. My father was not interested in "foreign muckment".

Evidently when I went to Paris to stay with a penfriend when I was eleven or twelve I came home "reeking" of garlic. I remember I discovered that I liked snails and chocolate sandwiches were a revelation.

It was only when I worked away from home in the school holidays when I was 16 that I first tried Chinese and Indian food and loved both. The first "foreign" food I learned to cook was spaghetti bolognese.

We lived nowhere near a town with a "foreign" restaurant, not that my mother would even have tasted it as it was all "disgusting".

I worked in Dundee and my first introduction was Chinese food which I loved. Now I will try anything once, preferring Indian, Chinese and Thai food to British.

We had the same boring menu at home week after week.

My mother often made vol au vents (mostly mushroom IIRC) - they entertained quite a bit. Would have been mostly in the 60s. They were very nice!

Re blancmange, Callistemon, now and then I make a chocolate one for dh. It was a childhood favourite of his. My mother also used to make it, but it was called chocolate pudding and we had it warm.

My mother lived for many years in Amsterdam as a child and was partial to things she had eaten there. Not just from there but more "northern European" things such as salty liquorice, roll-mops and raw herring.
At Christmas time we would always have stroopwaffel (spelling?) And bossche (?) balls and iced Lebkuchen shapes with ribbon to hang them.

When I was in my Early 20s I worked with a girl from the West Indies and we became great friends. She used to cook me goat curry, black eyed beans etc and it was delicious.

I also had many Asian friends and often ate in their homes and we would have lovely curries, samosas, chapatis, etc but quite different to those you could get in Indian restaurants. Their desserts were to die for, using loads of condensed milk and colourings.

Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch. My favourite foods from what you call foreign lands. Nothing spicy thank you. Did try my DB IL African stew, nearly blew my head off.

We had a Chinese takeaway (the Indian takeaways came later) and once a month we used to have a 'Chinky' - you certainly couldn't call it that now!

Luckily my parents were quite adventurous when it came to trying 'new' foods.

There were that many knives and forks that I didn’t know where to start and watched to see what order they used them in. 🤣

I know it’s not foreign but when I was about 17 I was friendly (through weekend work) with a girl who was maybe late 20s. She was married and they invited me for a meal. She cooked Jugged Hare and that was the first time I had heard of it!

A couple of years later I had a boyfriend who was celebrating his 21st birthday and his posh parents invited me round for a meal. We started with smoked salmon and I had never had that before either.

In the 50s we used to have a big Harvest Festival display at school, so of course we were asked to bring edible contributions.

At the time, my father worked in central London, Leicester Square IIRC, not far from what were then ‘exotic’ fruit and veg markets. One thing he brought for me to take to school was a green pepper (capsicum, not chilli). I had never seen such a thing, and still remember marvelling at its weird and wonderful smell.

I lived in a street in the suburbs of Glasgow which had a lot of Italian and Polish. I remember some friends sucking eggs on the way to school, and of course pasta was a great find for me!

The thing is our mums (well at least the older folks here) couldn’t cook foreign food because there was nothing in the shops to use I was born when there was still rationing
I only knew English grown foods meat and two veg the only fruit I remember were apples and oranges and pears
It was the sixties before I discovered other wonderful stuff

Ha ha, PamelaJ1 I don't remember him bringing fish eyes home! I think I wouldn't have forgotten that!

My dad was always adventurous with food. He had his eyes opened in the army i think when stationed in Africa during the war.

He went to London four times a year for work and came home with "odd" things - kumquat, aubergines, kiwi fruit (think then called Chinese gooseberry), persimmon, lychee (my favourite) and many many more including odd meats and strange fish.... he once brought a breadfruit which he had apparently eaten in Africa and didn't really like! He bought it because he saw it and wanted me to try it. He said I should "try everything at least once" - this extended to snails (which I liked) and frogs legs - which although chicken-ish I think I just couldn't do again.

He was a great cook and I remember having octopus and squid in his paella.

He often cooked curries and used a lot of beans and pulses which i think was more unusual then. I remember going with him on a London trip once and he took me to a market where lots of exotic foods were available and to my embarrassment (as a maybe 14 year old), quizzed the market trader and shoppers buying things how to cook them and what they were like. 🥺

I do that myself now I have to admit - and it does make me remember him with fondness.

I remember the day he took mum and I for pizza and asked if they could show us how they spun the dough (oh dear so embarrassing) and mum and I were dragged along to watch...

All things food were interesting to him.

Luckily we lived near a city with a variety of cuisines even when I was quite young. He was a kind, lovely man who would engage with everyone so easily and naturally. He had a shop when I was a girl and regular customers would bring lots of "treats" from abroad. One taught him how to make yogurt (which was not to his taste), a Jewish friend showed him how to make latkes, someone gave him a recipe for an Eid dish which was like a spiced very sweet bread pudding made with condensed milk - and another friend taught him how to make the fabulous wired sugar flowers that you see on wedding cakes.

I feel very blessed to have had him and been influenced by his openness to other cultures- and his genuine enthusiasm.
I now know how lucky I was.

Arguing quietly with a friend when I wouldn’t eat the fish eye that was in his bowl at the floating restaurant in HK.
We were with a Chinese family and didn’t want to be rude and leave it.
He did step up to the plate and gulp it down.
We were about 16 and had both grown up there so we’re very used to the food but that was a step too far!