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

My brother and his girlfriend took me to a Chinese restaurant when I was 12. Oh my goodness - it was very special - I thought I’d gone to another world! .

When we left school 1966, working in London just 16 yrs old, I met my friend for lunch. She said ‘there’s an Italian restaurant round the corner, shall we go?😳. It was the first time we’d had Pizza and it was delicious!

Germanshepherdsmum

None at all until Vesta came along in my late teens! I was the only one in the family who would eat it but thought it was wonderful!

Haha, me too. I first ate when I was training to teach.

Yoghurt made it to the shelves of my village Coop in around 1962, and I nagged my mother to buy me one, despite her prediction that I wouldn’t like it. How right she was - it tasted sour, of course, but worse than that, it had a horrible sickly strawberry crust on top. I felt obliged to force the ruddy thing down, having been told in no uncertain terms how expensive it was.

We had no ‘exotic’ food. Dinners usually consisted of meat, potato, vegetables. I remember when I had to take ingredients to a Domestic Science lesson, my father was horrified at the idea that tomatoes were sold in a tin.

We had a Polish neighbour in the flat upstairs when I was a toddler and she used to give me olives and stuffed vine leaves. Went to my first Chinese restaurant in the East End when I was 12 and easily handled the chop sticks.
My mum was a very frugal but adventurous cook. Her mum had been a chef. My dad grew all our fruit and veg and my mum bottled, pickled and made jam.
There was always good food on our table.

Hithere

Nasty is relative

A lot of jello concoctions in the past are very side eyed and considered nasty now - all the rage then

Can you explain side-eyed ?
And why is it called jello in the US?

Despite being invented by Antonin Carême (1784-1883) one of the most famous French chefs , vol-au-vents are as British as cucumber sandwiches, especially when filled with egg mayonnaise. Or mushrooms in cold white sauce.
The stalwart of many a Bridge evening or church social.

Wenmore

Vol au vents are most certainly French

They just seem so Abigail's Party!

I did make some earlier this year for a party 😃

Vol au vents are most certainly French

Vesta risotto or packet dried curry.

Hithere

Nasty is relative

A lot of jello concoctions in the past are very side eyed and considered nasty now - all the rage then

DH still bemoans the fact that we don't have jelly and blancmange any more, remembered from parties when he was young.

Nasty is relative

A lot of jello concoctions in the past are very side eyed and considered nasty now - all the rage then

My father loved it.

If it was popular it can't have been that nasty.

Callistemon* Gogonzola was an everyday product, certainly in the 1950s and later.

As i said the standard 2 cheeses served on a cheese board if you ordered 'cheese and biscuits' rather than a dessert was cheddar and gorgonzola. It was harsh and acidic and completely put me off blue cheese, until the 1980s and I tasted stilton and then later roquefort, and now innumerable other blue cheeses, but i di try some gorgonzola recently and it was a s nasty as I remembered.

I also remember Ski yoghurt with real fruit ! I worked in Sloane Square in London on Saturdays when I was 15 and spent most of my meagre wages at the supermarket in the king's road. So sophisticated!. It would have been 1963.

At home we had vesta curry and Vesta chow mein. Spaghetti Bolognese made from scratch, occasionally.
Oh yes. We knew how to live

For me as a teenager the Kentucky pancake kitchen was exotic. They served Russian Blinis.

I'm sure we had Vesta curry with just rice, as we did my mother's curries (with sultanas).

Rice, however, was generally pudding rice made into milk rice puddings, slow-cooked in the oven with nutmeg.

Vests curry with mashed potatoes.

I dont think my father was sophisticated but he had travelled a lot!
I just assumed gorgonzola was an everyday product, although it was too strong for me.
Cheddar came from Australia and Canada as well as England!

I do remember Vesta chow mien less exotic were ravioli in tins also peach Melba ski yoghurts at my convent girls school seemed very new in late sixties to me

I remember in our small Scottish town there was “cheese”
Not any specific sort, just “cheese” . Generally “mousetrap)
Danish Blue or Gorgonzola when they arrived at the delicatessen in Galashiels (who also sold YOGURT!) was considered the height of sophistication.

DH's Aunt in Australia used to send them food parcels during the war. He remembers the tinned fruits, nuts, dried fruits and other goodies which weren't available here at that time. He also wondered how many food parcels ended up at the bottom of the sea.

In the early 1950s, we lived in Yorkshire and all our family lived in South London. When we drove down to visit them, an 8 hour journey, my father would book lunch at The Bear at Stamford. He would always have cheese and biscuits rather than dessert and the standard cheeseboard was a piece of Cheddar and a piece of Gorgonzola. At various times we had lunch at other hotels when travelling and the cheese board was always just those two cheeses.

I grew up in NZ in the 1950s. The most exotic food I ever had there was pavlova cake. Children didn't go to restaurants.

When I came to London there were Chinese restaurants and I remember loving lychees.

I babysat for a family who had fruit in their fruit bowl I had never seen. I think they were avocados and aubergines. This would be 1967.

When I was very young a parcel arrived around 19 December. It was marked Open immediately. Do NOT wait until Christmas Day.
It contained bananas, the first I had ever seen. This was in the post war years, late 1940 ies.
There was Danish bacon, New Zealand butter…..
Veg from the garden, meat and fish from butcher and fishmonger, nothing “ foreign”. Plain English cooking.
When I was 16 I visited my French pen friend and tried various French dishes. At 17 I had my first meal in a Chinese restaurant.

Yes, we had Edam too, that counts as foreign food!