Would You Believe This

My parents had lived in France, so our food in the 1950s was as
cosmopolitan as my mother could make it, given the restrictions in what could be bought. She grew her own garlic and herbs. I think I was the first among my contemporaries to have home-made spaghetti bolognaise.

WithNobsOnIt

Cheese Souffle. How very Hyacinth Bouquet and old fashioned.

I bet Margot in the Good Life was an expert at naking this type of snobby,status symbol food

Did yours collapse?

NotAGran55

You could put me in a craft shop and the only thing I would recognise would be knitting needles and sewing stuff.
It wouldn’t stop me being able to scan your purchases and take your money though, and more importantly pay my bills.

Ridiculing the shop assistant because of her food knowledge is diabolical.

It's certainly a bit entitled!

Souffle gained popularity in the 70s as a staple at dinner parties, often appearing alongside prawn cocktails and Black Forest Gateau as a trendy yet sometimes intimidating dish that symbolised culinary effort. If this person was younger than the OP then her culinary world may have been very different. The souffle fitted perfectly into that era's dining trends and got several mentions in the Jilly Cooper novels of the 1970s and on into the 80's

My (very grown up) children are great cooks and I learn from them all the time. Leaving in different countries means their cooking has developed in different ways. The person serving Moonwatcher1904 doesn't lack knowledge - hers will be different. But her open mind allowed her to ask her question and learn something that day.

For anyone who still wants to make a souffle but would like to make them more forgiving, stable, and convenient and allow for advance preparation, without the rush to get everyone sat down, try a "double cooked" or "twice baked" souffle.

Sainsbury's cashier weighed up my Swede as a turnip last week. Cost me £2.20 instead of 68p and a ten minute queue at Customer Services for a refund. No apology from them!

I don't think that food can be "snobby" or "old fashioned" in itself but some of the people who go on about it can be.

What is wrong with a souffle. I love cheese soufle and make it regularly. I serve it with fried potatoes and peas.

I think it quite reasonable for a customer to expect the assistant to know something about the goods they are selling. I would expect any successful shop to be briefing their staff on any new products coming into the shop, whether this was furniture or a new fruit, vegetable or other product coming into a supermarket.

I would expect most shop assistants to be interested in the products they were selling.

Over the years when chatting to tradesmen workingin my house I have been amazed by the number of different things they have been intersted in.

Currently renovating a 300-400 year old house, I ended taking the man who came to get the moss of the roof and clean the gutters into the house to show him the witch marks on the fireplace. His mother went on archaeological digs and he was fascinated by old houses like ours, and I assume that women working as shop assistamts or whatever have similar interests.

There is a real air of intellectual snobbery about those who think that just because someone works as shop assistant or cashier, their intellectual interests will not stray beyond celebrities and soap operas.

M0nica

What is wrong with a souffle. I love cheese soufle and make it regularly. I serve it with fried potatoes and peas.

I think it quite reasonable for a customer to expect the assistant to know something about the goods they are selling. I would expect any successful shop to be briefing their staff on any new products coming into the shop, whether this was furniture or a new fruit, vegetable or other product coming into a supermarket.

I would expect most shop assistants to be interested in the products they were selling.

Over the years when chatting to tradesmen workingin my house I have been amazed by the number of different things they have been intersted in.

Currently renovating a 300-400 year old house, I ended taking the man who came to get the moss of the roof and clean the gutters into the house to show him the witch marks on the fireplace. His mother went on archaeological digs and he was fascinated by old houses like ours, and I assume that women working as shop assistamts or whatever have similar interests.

There is a real air of intellectual snobbery about those who think that just because someone works as shop assistant or cashier, their intellectual interests will not stray beyond celebrities and soap operas.

Nothing wrong with a souffle Monica. The OP seemed to suggest that it was a might infra dig not to know what it was.

(By the way, I meant to thank you for writing about the number of schools you had in a past post. I think we managed about the number! Not something I'd recommend and I notice Forces wives won't do it so much now but it's always good to know others share a similar experience.)

the number the same number

I make no apologies for not having been au fait with all the stock at the supermarket I worked at a couple of evenings a week. I was there to re-stock shelves and check use by dates and nothing else. It was not my day job and I was only there to supplement my meagre income in order to keep up with the mortgage repayments.

I was always polite and if I knew the answer I said so but some customers were quite rude if I said "I'm sorry I don't know."

I remember I was in the audience at a performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion when somebody recognised me as the shelf stacker at their local supermarket. They could not have been more surprised if I had been a giraffe.

Lahlah65 - I can remember the first time I ever had a pizza. My parents had heard about this "fabulous flatbread" with different toppings and my father was keen to discover more..
He had, however, just been to the dentist for several tooth extractions and it was a quite ridiculous struggle!

My children and grandchildren find it hard to believe.

DaisyAnneReturns

--the number-- the same number

When the BBC first introduced literacy programmes, back in the 1980s, I noticed how many of the adult illiterate were forces children, who moved from school, to school, to school.

I did not really realise until then how difficult it was for children of average ability or less to have such a fragmented education. When you constantly change school, you have no idea whether you are clever, average or struggling, and it was not something ever discussed at home. But because both I and my sisters were clever (although we did not know this) we just sailed through these constant changes.

We just benefitted from a childhood that meant we lived all over the world, at a time when most people in Britain would not even have made it across the Channel.

However, like many forces children we went to boarding school at 11.

What was your experience did you enjoy it at the time, do you think it gave you an edge by making you very resilient. I think it did for me.

DaisyAnneReturns

NotAGran55

You could put me in a craft shop and the only thing I would recognise would be knitting needles and sewing stuff.
It wouldn’t stop me being able to scan your purchases and take your money though, and more importantly pay my bills.

Ridiculing the shop assistant because of her food knowledge is diabolical.

It's certainly a bit entitled!

Souffle gained popularity in the 70s as a staple at dinner parties, often appearing alongside prawn cocktails and Black Forest Gateau as a trendy yet sometimes intimidating dish that symbolised culinary effort. If this person was younger than the OP then her culinary world may have been very different. The souffle fitted perfectly into that era's dining trends and got several mentions in the Jilly Cooper novels of the 1970s and on into the 80's

My (very grown up) children are great cooks and I learn from them all the time. Leaving in different countries means their cooking has developed in different ways. The person serving Moonwatcher1904 doesn't lack knowledge - hers will be different. But her open mind allowed her to ask her question and learn something that day.

For anyone who still wants to make a souffle but would like to make them more forgiving, stable, and convenient and allow for advance preparation, without the rush to get everyone sat down, try a "double cooked" or "twice baked" souffle.

I have a much loved copy of The Prawn Cocktail Years
by Lindsey Bareham and Simon Hopkinson.
It is a great recipe book with built in nostalgia. 😊

M0nica

DaisyAnneReturns

the number the same number

When the BBC first introduced literacy programmes, back in the 1980s, I noticed how many of the adult illiterate were forces children, who moved from school, to school, to school.

I did not really realise until then how difficult it was for children of average ability or less to have such a fragmented education. When you constantly change school, you have no idea whether you are clever, average or struggling, and it was not something ever discussed at home. But because both I and my sisters were clever (although we did not know this) we just sailed through these constant changes.

We just benefitted from a childhood that meant we lived all over the world, at a time when most people in Britain would not even have made it across the Channel.

However, like many forces children we went to boarding school at 11.

What was your experience did you enjoy it at the time, do you think it gave you an edge by making you very resilient. I think it did for me.

I hadnt realised that one M0nica - ie many of the adult illiterate being forces children (though I'm an Armed Forces "child" myself). I think it was seven primary schools I had in total as far as I can (vaguely - as most of my childhood memories are missing - not surprisingly). I can understand the "illiterate" I guess - probably courtesy of the school moving and my (errrm...her brain wasnt her strongest point) mother = I had to spend years with a dictionary in the other hand when I read anything other than light fiction books. Thankfully I'd realised my vocabulary was inadequate - and one could tell I was expanding it - because my dictionaries got steadily bigger and bigger (because of the increasing number of words I couldnt find in a smaller one). Me reading meant the book I was reading in one hand and a dictionary in the other one for years...

I think the confidence factor might be a part of it? (ie missing confidence). Though I'd got into grammar school (albeit by having to get my mother to "fight back" against a boy being given my place to start with) I had no idea I was intelligent - until the University came round doing an IQ test on us all in one year at one point and I asked what my score meant and have been so thankful since that they did that and I did ask.

I remember my father making a disparaging comment well into adulthood about "Those 'teachers' at those schools abroad were just "someone's wife" and they werent "proper teachers" (ie trained etc - as he subsequently was when he retrained in mid-life as a teacher).

I was very surprised by someone recently (until she stopped talking to me pretty quickly....) saying she'd had over 20 schools and cue for that's one of the ways I realised that she's a "traveller" (even though she owns a house). So "travellers" have more schools than we had even....

I guess Forces children go one of two ways from what I can make out - either "You try and make us stay in one place" OR "You try and move us - if you want some sort of whack round the head". I'm in the "You try and move me.....if you dare" school of thought.

NotAGran55

You could put me in a craft shop and the only thing I would recognise would be knitting needles and sewing stuff.
It wouldn’t stop me being able to scan your purchases and take your money though, and more importantly pay my bills.

Ridiculing the shop assistant because of her food knowledge is diabolical.

I have found that, generally, assistants in craft shops are very knowledgeable about their trade.

To be fair, Moonwatcher did not say she ridiculed the shop assistant at all. She just said to us she was surprised that the assistant didn't know what a soufflé was. I might have expressed surprise that you could buy ready-made ones.

To be fair, Moonwatcher did not say she ridiculed the shop assistant at all. She just said to us she was surprised that the assistant didn't know what a soufflé was. I might have expressed surprise that you could buy ready-made ones.

I agree.

I've made souffle all my life. Even now as vegans we make if our children request. However, I doubt sofffle is considered an easy meal currently.

I'd no idea ready made souffle was available.

I'd no idea ready made souffle was available.

I shall look for them in Waitrose.
Mind you, DH isn't a fan so I might have to eat both.

Britannica Dictionary definition of RIDICULE. [+ object] : to laugh at and make jokes.

“I couldn't believe someone working in a supermarket didn't know what one was.....lol”

The “…lol” is most definitely ridiculing the staff member for their lack of knowledge in my book.

Obviously not, as we know not the staff member nor the supermarket nor even the area.
No finger pointing. No ridiculing.

It was just a comment on Gransnet. But make of it what you will .

Years ago I was working in Asda and I happened to be on the meat counter. One of the boys there was sorting out some pork chops. "Pork" he said "That's from pigs isn't it?"! On another occasion the manager of the Deli counter came into the staff canteen and said "Pross kew wittow? That's Parma Ham isn't it?"

NotSpaghetti

I used to make a big souffle when we had lots of hungry small children - also the same principle but with breadcrumbs in makes a good "cheese pudding".

I didn't often bother with individual ramekins though.

I've had a pretty nice souffle at one of the Heartwood Inns recently.
heartwoodinns.com/

CariadAgain I don't know anywhere near me to buy Puntarelle to be honest...
Can't find any chicory easily.

My mother used to make a cheese pudding to die for! I’ve never quite managed to replicate it exactly.

Many of our grocery clerks are international students, or recent immigrants. I will quite often have to confirm certain vegetables that are not prepackaged. I certainly don't mind; I'm sure if I was in their original country there would be many things I didn't recognize.

By the way, I have never had soufflé.

M0nica

DaisyAnneReturns

the number the same number

When the BBC first introduced literacy programmes, back in the 1980s, I noticed how many of the adult illiterate were forces children, who moved from school, to school, to school.

I did not really realise until then how difficult it was for children of average ability or less to have such a fragmented education. When you constantly change school, you have no idea whether you are clever, average or struggling, and it was not something ever discussed at home. But because both I and my sisters were clever (although we did not know this) we just sailed through these constant changes.

We just benefitted from a childhood that meant we lived all over the world, at a time when most people in Britain would not even have made it across the Channel.

However, like many forces children we went to boarding school at 11.

What was your experience did you enjoy it at the time, do you think it gave you an edge by making you very resilient. I think it did for me.

I don't think it was just ability that mattered. Some children (my brother!) enjoyed the changes. I didn't. I hated leaving friends behind and in some ways work was an escape at a new school which was, I suppose, a bonus.

I haven't made one for ages...
Think I should do!
Happy days Witzend!

A flatmate used to make a smoked haddock and cheese souffle. It was wonderful. And she made it not in a high sided white souffle dish but a round brown earthernware Habitat dish. It was the early 70s.
I have never made it and I have an identical Habitat dearly loved casserole dish. I do love cooked smoked haddock mixed into scrambled eggs or an omelette. So have got close to the taste.
I have found my local supermarket assistants very helpful, but wouldnt expect the younger ones especially to know all the 1000s of products they could be asked about.