Delicious!

My mother made a lovely roast dinner, and always the leftover meat on Monday, minced with mashed potato, sometimes with a spoonful of curry powder in it, very daring in those days. She had a pressure cooker and made lovely tender stews with whatever little meat she could afford. Always lovely puddings too. Used to love plain egg and chips too. Sadly her sponge cakes let her down; they were always dry, and we were obliged to chew our way through a slice every Sunday teatime.

My mother was totally unimaginative, my life changed when those vests meals in boxes arrived on the scene, I was by then doing early evening activities, so I’d persuade her not to put mine in the oven for hours, so that it would be even worse than usual, and I’d make a Vesta meal when I got in, delicious!

Don’t know if they still exist, but I bet they’re pretty revolting !

My Welsh granny used to make a huge pot of cowl. Soup made from neck of lamb, root vegetables , split peas , pearl barley and lentils. Wonderful after walking home from school on a freezing lunch time before walking back.

We lived in London but she had grown up in a farm I believe it was a good way to feed hungry farmers.

Vesta! Not vests!

The Sunday joint went a long way then didn't it ? My mother was a good cook but we knew which day of the week it was by the meal we were eating. I remember the pressure cooker being used a lot, in those days there were different weights to put on the lid. I used a more modern one when the family were at home, made a big difference for a working Mum.
I loved the puddings my mother made, jam role poly, steamed fruit puddings, rice pudding made with evaporated milk - yummy

Gabriella I’m confused too - I thought your young days were spent in Liverpool?

My mother was an excellent cook. In fact that had been her job before marriage. But it was standard plain English cooking, which she taught to me. When I was a teenager I used to experiment with more exotic dishes on a Saturday, which everyone liked. I have been a vegetarian for nearly 50 years but I can remember enjoying meat dishes and make them for others.

I was 7 in 1954 when rationing finally finished and still have one or two memories of being sent to a couple of the local shops in our street being entrusted with the ration book and a note with the items needed. We seemed to eat a lot of stews back then but always had a home made pudding each day. Home made apple pie and custard, suet puddings with custard, jam sponge and custard, plus different sorts of milk puddings. Because foods had been on rations for so long we were expected to eat everything put in front of us whether we liked it or not, so the puddings became my favourites. I never enjoyed meat much because of any fat or unexpected piece of sinewy stuff you got sometime in liver, so it put me off and never been a big meat lover since then, but do eat it occasionally, and always cooked meat for my own family. Home made apple pie and custard is still one of my favourites now.

I can remember being given the treat of skewering the marrow out of the leg of lamb joint. Definitely wouldn't eat it now!

So many of these memories involve meat! For our parents, a meal wasn’t a meal unless it included meat of some sort

I remember loathing dumplings when a child but yesterday we went to a party where they served Dumplings, to my horror ( apparantly all the rage among youngsters),and to my surprise they were delicious, not at all like the stodgy things we used to eat, so things have changed thank goodnes.

I hated dumplings too

My mum was a great cook. Despite being very short of money she made 'proper' meals, lovely puds and cakes. There were always children from the local area hanging around our back door in the hope of getting a cake or two. I appreciated the sweet stuff but didn't appreciate the lovely dinners
I loved on sandwiches. Silly me.

Lived not loved.

MY DM was what was described as a 'good, plain cook'. All food was bought daily from local shops and stalls (no fridge of course) and we had a stunning variety of fresh vegetables each day, but very little meat. I have never managed to roast potatoes as my mother did - they were delicious, and her Yorkshire puddings had to be flattened slightly to get them out of the oven.
The meals at school were much the same - fresh, tasty and cooked on the premises. I'm not sure how many people actually 'cook' nowadays; heating things up and serving with salad seems to be a favourite with most people I know!

I must say my mum was a brilliant cook - she made pastry that melted in the mouth but the only problem was that she did seem to have a routine menu !
Sunday was always roast - even in the middle of summer and right up to the day before she died ( she reckoned she did it because dad expected it!) The type of meat we had varied, but we had a lot of chicken when my dad worked on a chicken farm (though the smell of them being gutted the day before still lives with me!!)
Monday was either cold meat left over from the roast, or it was minced and in gravy with mashed spuds and seasonal veg, followed by rice pudding (Monday being wash day !)
Tuesday was casserole or stew (ironing day)
Wednesday - toad in the hole
Thursday liver and onions/ bacon and onion roll
Friday - chops ( pork or lamb) either slow cooked in the oven or in the middle of a large yorkshire pudding
Saturday - either steak & kidney pudding or steak and kidney pie, followed by instant whip or Angel Delight!
Later on when she got an automatic washing machine, if we'd had chicken on the Sunday, she used to make an amazing chicken and mushroom pie! The only things that used to vary was the puddings - baked apples, apple dumplings, rice pudding, treacle or jam tart, jelly with tinned fruit and on a Sunday, icecream that I used to get from the off licence of the pub at the end of the road on the way back from Sunday school !!

My mother also a very good cook, her mothering skills not so great, managed to stay out of the way most of the time, sorry I digress, her cooking skills second to none, she was in service in very large house in London from quite a young age, fourteen I think, firstly just scrubbing the kitchen floor, then upgraded to washing up the pans, eventually on to prep of vegetables and on to just about everything else, it was obviously a very hard life for her, she was there for five years, only one afternoon off a week, but she could cook absolutely everything, I learnt a lot from her, but from a distance ?

Mum was a fantastic cook. Dad loved roast dinners so we ate those often. Cooked meals every day and she made the best cakes. She was a wonderful mum and I'm glad to have the chance to speak about her on Gransnet. (Had a lovely dad aswell).

Be patient janeainsworth
It was a long time ago and perhaps GG’s memory is not what it was

Just the word 'rissoles' makes me screw up my nose! And anyone else remember brawn? Ugh!

When my sister was born at home in 1951, the midwife swore that she could always make the new mother a pudding, no matter how bare the kitchen cupboard. My mother fell on the recipe with gratitude, and for years afterwards “Mrs Swain’s pudding” - usually a kind of steamed golden syrup sponge - featured gloriously at our Sunday dinners.

My mother did not like cooking but I remember delicious roast beef on a Sunday in the 1950's with carrots that tasted of carrots, not like the big watery things nowadays, and roast potatoes cooked in dripping off the meat. No fridge so meat and dripping kept in the larder, and delicious bubble and squeak made with left over cabbage and dripping. BUT I also remember awful school dinners - grey fatty mince, over cooked watery cabbage, and the prefect who stood over you until you finished it all!

When I started school I went home for lunch and as my Mum was working my Dad’s mother made me lunch. This was the leftover mashed potatoes from the night before fried. I got so fed up of this that as we lived over the family’s bakery I took to pinching a tea cake from the rack at the bottom of the stairs and eating it on the way up.

My mum was a wonderful cook and managed on very little money. My dad grew the veg and fruit and my mum bottled everything. She was still cooking from scratch until dementia set in in her 90’s.

I so want someone to cook one of the old-fashioned dinners for me right now.