Shopping baskets through the years

When I was little I didn't realise we ate margarine. I very proudly announced that we had Stork on our bread.

We used to have Redibrek with hot milk and sometimes an egg. We also used to have Haliborange tablets in the winter.

Porridge for breakfast in the winter followed by fried bread to put some fat on my ribs. In the summer we had cereal and toast so cereal was definitely around from late 40s.

I remember Haiiborange tablets! Breakfast was a cooked one for my father, cereal -Sugar Puffs was my favourite- or toast but as a teenager I hated breakfast but my mother would try to get me to drink black coffee with an egg beaten into it...absolutely gross!

Haliborange tablets were such a relief after the awful National orange juice and cod liver oil we were forced to take a spoonful of every morning.

I loved the taste of national Orange juice, could still get it when expecting elder child but not younger child. As a child we always had it including Virol, I think it was called, Malt and cod liver oil mix. Still malt extract.
I also had a liquid multi vitamin. Can't remember it's name. At nine I was very underweight so had extra stuff on prescription.

Would it be Abidec Brendawymms which as it's name suggests was vits ABC and D? I loved national OJ and could eat it undiluted from a spoon.

I liked that orange juice too.
I had codliver oil and malt as well.

Plus Scotts Emulsion and standing in front of infra red thingy wearing nothing but cardboard eye protection. But I think I have just lost the thread. Back to porridge it is.

We had fried bread when it was cold and toast when it got warmer weather.
My mother always shopped at the Co-op, check number 15433, she sometimes bought their own brand of cereal it was like rice crispies and had cut out houses on the back. You could make a village when you had collected enough boxes.

We never had packet cereal when I was a kid- but bread, butter and jam, or sometimes home-made muesli.

We had boiled eggs from nanna's chickens with toast done over the fire range for breakfast done with long toasting forks,we also had cod-liver oil every day and if ever you felt unwell my dads first question was "have you been" ? if by chance the answer was no you got a dose of x-lax to sort you out

Puffed Wheat or porridge, toast and marmalade in our house. I remember my grandmother buying a bran scone for her breakfast-can't seem to find them now. It wasn't a scone shape but fairly flat and triangular. I also loved Delrosa Rose Hip Syrup and, oddly enough, malt. I sometimes still buy a jar of malt in the winter. Divi number was 13435!

And for Scottish Gnetters....was anybody else ever sent to buy a 'fourpit of tatties'. I used to go to the greengrocers for these with my granny's tartan bucket bag, remember those?

I don't think that was an Ayrshire expression, Katek. I was always sent to get half a stone of tatties from the corner shop which was once a toll house. Usually I carried them in my bike basket.

Virol!!! Thank you Brendawymms. I've never been able to remember the name when I've been trying to explain it to DDs. I adored it, so much so I polished off half a jar once when mum wasn't looking. She had a fit, but it didn't seem to do me any long-lasting damage!

I also remember something similarly delish, but it looked a bit like face-cream (ie: white and creamy) and smelt sweet... maybe it was face cream. I think it was some sort of vitamin supplement ...one of many that was pumped into us war babies.

Virol was brown,wasn't it? Nobody of my age can remember the white stuff. Maybe I imagined it

Don't remember the white stuff, but I was 'built up' with Virol after a nasty bout of pneumonia and I hated the stuff. Cod Liver Oil was somtimes mixed in with our orange juice. My mum (like many of her generation) was obsessive about bowel health and I was expected to have Kellogs All Bran for breakfast - I'm sure from the 40s onwards. I never touched it after I left home for Uni. She even found a recipe that used it for a fruit loaf. At least you could cover it with butter.

Yes absentgrandma Virol was brown! Sorry, I don't remember the white stuff. Also remember dextrose in a small brown bottle which came out in droplets which were added to baby's formula. I used to get a large spoonful of delrosa rosehip syrup last thing going out the door to school every morning.

I had no idea cereal was available before I was born, 1950. My Mother always gave me porridge so maybe wasn't keen on cereals. I'll never know her reason.

She did though, buy All Bran which she used for the loaf you are talking about Anno. I still have the recipe if you want a copy??

I loved the orange juice but not the cod liver oil so it was mashed up with banana to disguise the taste. I eventually liked the taste so much I was caught swigging it from the bottle a few times!

Perhaps it was an Edinburgh expression AnnoD......think it was about 3.5lbs

I'd never heard that one, Katek so I googled it. I think it must be a "fourth part" of a stone.

This was on https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070911042158AAqNxBm (from David C)
"Best Answer: I haven't had a fourpit o' tatties since I was a kid visiting my Aunt in Glasgow some 30 years ago. Do they still sell them from the vans? There was a little mobile vegetable shop from the co-op, and I think it was about 3 1/2lbs weight of potatoes and they had to be Kerr's Pinks as well.

I think it was related to the old Scots measure - firlot - a dry measure equal to 4 pecks, and the boll was equal to 4 firlots.
The peck was equal to 4 lippies or 'forpets'.Since all grain and seed were measured out in Peck buckets, the small forpet measure was ideal for carrying potatoes, it was a volume measure rather than a weight measure.

Scottish for a 1/4 part, generally meaning 1/4 peck; thus the forpet is another name for a lippie. The original old Scots name for this - lippie was about 2.27 liters for wheat, peas, or beans and about 3.04 liters for barley or oats, and were made from steam formed leather and wooden buckets, with rope handles. "

It has been mentioned before but was the white stuff Scott's emulsion absentgran it was in a bottle and very thick?

Scott's emulsion is a vitamin supplement with a mix of cod liver oil and vitamins A & D. I have never heard of it so had to google it.

Agus, that All Bran loaf was a bit like sawdust! Miraculously, I had no need for that or anything else with a laxative effect after I escaped from Mum's clutches!

Ah! We could be getting warmer annsixty. Maybe I'm confusing the two things, and the 'white stuff' could have come out of a bottle rather than a jar(after all it has been nearly 70 years since I last tasted it) The google info doesn't make it sound very appetising and from what I remember it tasted lovely. I might do a bit more research. How sad am I?

The All Bran loaf brought back memories. Almost tempted to 'google' the recipe for that, then thought better of it