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

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 😃

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!! 😁

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.

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.

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.

At my secondary school most of us left at 15. As for domestic science the most memorable lesson was an entire double period washing and ironing a single hanky. Not much cooking that I recall which may be why I am still not that keen on cooking.
Needlework was making an apron, which was finally finished around the time I left.
Single Science was about amoeba and the respiratory system.
About as basic as it’s possible to be and I was in the ‘top’ stream. It’s quite sad really

Oh and I never iron hankies

silverlining48

Oh and I never iron hankies

I don't even own a hankie.... or a headscarf.

At our school we had to endure Domestic Science for two years. I was hopeless. I wish we could have done woodwork or metalwork. We also did French and Latin with an option of German later on.

Foreign foods? Well, I remember when yoghurts first came in. They were sold by the milkman and everyone knew they came from Denmark. My lovely mum pronounced it yo-gert and was reluctant to try it at first but soon became converted. You left a note out for the milkman and he would leave the yo-gerts on your step along with the milk. Happy days!

My Irish mother, in the 1930s was bemused at her English daughter in law's chopping up boiled spuds and immersing them in salad cream.

At dh’s senior school, a selective London boys’ day school, the only ones who took biology at O or A level, were those planning on reading medicine. Biology was otherwise looked down on as a ‘girls’ subject’.

I was shocked not all that many years ago to realise that dh had not a clue about photosynthesis - I mean literally no idea about such a basic fact of life on earth - or the function of kidneys.

I've never thought of food as 'foreign' or anything apart from sustenance. Mum's family lived in London, we lived out in the country - different foods available in the South than mum cooked.

Mum made pasta bol - just normal easy food, imo. Mum made curries (as do I), normal veg, variety of spices, rice. No different to now to me.

Norah what a shame you have only ever seen food as just 'sustenance'. I have found understanding the history and development of the foods we eat and why we eat them is fascinating. A book I reread regularly is Dorothy Hartley's Food in Britain

All our diets are formed by the geology, landscape and economy of where it is produced and knowing and understanding that makes food so much more than just sustenance.

M0nica

Norah what a shame you have only ever seen food as just 'sustenance'. I have found understanding the history and development of the foods we eat and why we eat them is fascinating. A book I reread regularly is Dorothy Hartley's Food in Britain

All our diets are formed by the geology, landscape and economy of where it is produced and knowing and understanding that makes food so much more than just sustenance.

I think that seasonal eating is probably better for us, too.

There's a lovely meditation practice whilst eating... to think of where the food came from, the growing conditions, who grew it, how it was packaged and transported and how it came to be on our table.. all whilst eating silently and in gratitude