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

I worked in a canned food factory in the 1960's - and the production line for tinned fruit cocktail required only one cherry to each tin. We each had a large tin of peach slices or grapes or pineapple chunks and were told how many of each to go in each tin as it came past us and for cherries it was one!

As others have said Vesta chow mein ,curry it was made from TVP. Textured vegetable protein. But it was ideal for camping hols. I know these aren't foreign but hamburgers in a tin of gravy, Heinz sponge puds in tins. Boil in the bag fish yuk. Spam fritters my mom made . Cod roe in a tin yuk. Angel delight how it was supposed to feed 4 I don't know. Mom always used 2 sachets. And why did tinned fruit cocktail only have one cherry in it🤷

And goose liver pate. Yum!

Ali08

I was on holiday with my parents and one breakfast time we were faced with some odd little thing on our plates.
Mum & I were very sure we were not going to eat whatever it was, and I said that they looked like monkeys brains!
I'm not even sure where I got that from, unless I'd seen something on tv or heard something at school.
My dad ate all 3 and thoroughly enjoyed them. Even asking for 2nds. We were told he couldn't have 2nds as they were an expensive delicacy. Of course, we asked what they were?
Lo & behold, I was actually right, they were indeed monkeys brains!!
Ugh! What a thought!

As children, with our parents on ski holiday, we encountered different foods - I still remember unfamiliar unpleasant cheese.

I was on holiday with my parents and one breakfast time we were faced with some odd little thing on our plates.
Mum & I were very sure we were not going to eat whatever it was, and I said that they looked like monkeys brains!
I'm not even sure where I got that from, unless I'd seen something on tv or heard something at school.
My dad ate all 3 and thoroughly enjoyed them. Even asking for 2nds. We were told he couldn't have 2nds as they were an expensive delicacy. Of course, we asked what they were?
Lo & behold, I was actually right, they were indeed monkeys brains!!
Ugh! What a thought!

Ah, I am fascinated by the whole process from start to finish.

M0nica

Norah I have always seen food as something to be enjoyed and savoured, something which is so important to life that i want to know where it comes from, how it is prepared and its evolution as well as the best combination of foods for health, mental and physical.

Food is multisensory, and can only be given the respect its essential nature to our lives requires by our being willing to devote time and effort to its selection and preparation.

Sustenance, to me, means eating without discrimination, like putting petrol in a car,

I assumed I wasn't understanding.

I spend time preparing food, growing herbs and veg. Hours daily selecting the recipes, measuring ingredients, herbs and spices - and cooking.

Eating food, to me is merely means to an end - healthy body.

I was born in London in 1950 and one of my earliest memories is sitting in my high chair eating pink yogurt- that and marmite sandwiches was one of the few things I would eat.
In the early 60's we would occasionally go by bus to shop in Luton-we lived in Hertfordshire by then. As a treat we would go to a Chinese resturant for a set lunch which was chicken and sweetcorn soup with egg stirred in, Sweet and sour pork followed by banana fritters!
At my secondary modern school we did do a lot of basic cooking but nothing that wasn't British. My mother was a good cook but the most exotic we got was spaghetti in some kind of tomato sauce for tea on a Sunday.
When I went to teachers training college in 1969, our landlady -who was a great cook introduced us to all kinds of new tastes such as Boursin cheese!

Jaxjacky

Apologies *pascal30’ some of my best meals, past and present are with friends and family, not much silence about!

Yes I agree JaxJacky and this is done mainly on retreats..

Apologies *pascal30’ some of my best meals, past and present are with friends and family, not much silence about!

Norah I have always seen food as something to be enjoyed and savoured, something which is so important to life that i want to know where it comes from, how it is prepared and its evolution as well as the best combination of foods for health, mental and physical.

Food is multisensory, and can only be given the respect its essential nature to our lives requires by our being willing to devote time and effort to its selection and preparation.

Sustenance, to me, means eating without discrimination, like putting petrol in a car,

Always fond of Pizza in Marseille.

Pizza ..

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'm not sure what you mean. Perhaps my definition of sustenance does not match yours - surely we eat to sustain life.

pascal30 wrote" 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"

When it occurs to me when I am eating butter how dairy cows suffer I feel insincere, fraudulent , and dishonest.

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

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.

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'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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Oh and I never iron hankies

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