Like many of my generation, once we left school our introduction to exotic international cuisine came wholly from the fact that Indian restaurants would still sell you a drink after the pubs closed as long as you were eating!
Yeh, those were the days.
In London in the 60s the weekend format was, Saturday....8 or 9 pints followed by a curry. If no party and no birds it was then 10 pin bowling all night and then Sunday.....a walk to speakers corner to hear the nutters. Then a stroll down the east end for a few pints and some jellied eels and pickled eggs then off to a good cafe for a gorge and then kip until Monday ...morning for work
RICHARD OF LOXLEY
It’s none of my business what people say and think of me. I am what I am and do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. It makes life so much easier.
I was talking about this with my parents the other day. My mum always used to have Yorkshire Puds as part of the main course, however her auntie served them prior to the main course. And my dads sister used to enjoy Yorkshire Puds with raisins / sultanas.
Another favourite of the time was bread & butter pudding, that was a dessert that made use of the left over dried bread.
Yorkshire Pudding is superb, served whenever! Great with ANY meat dish and gravy...... Here in China, I have great difficulty in getting decent beef for a roast, so in my house Pork roast with Yorkshires is far from uncommon!!
Following tradition, my Chinese wife cooks Yorkshire Puddings, with roast Pork and perhaps Sichuan Gravy..... great stuff, you should try!!
"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things" - Yma o Hyd.
Up soi 23 Sukam in BK last night......... Full size Yorks with the works inside...... Yummie
RICHARD OF LOXLEY
It’s none of my business what people say and think of me. I am what I am and do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. It makes life so much easier.
pharvey wrote:
Following tradition, my Chinese wife cooks Yorkshire Puddings, with roast Pork and perhaps Sichuan Gravy..... great stuff, you should try!!
On my way!!
The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
dtaai-maai wrote:I have very clear memories of corned beef and salad cream. No idea if they were indicators of anything beyond a lack of taste, though!
I imagine there are probably quite a few Brits like me, who had a very conventional childhood food experience. Summing it up, egg and chips, beans on toast, fish fingers and the like during the week (and cooked school lunches, with an occasional visit to the fish & chip shop for a bag of battery bits with chips) and a roast meal on Sunday, p'raps with apple pie and custard. My culinary experience wasn't greatly enhanced by 7 years of boarding school either...
Going on exchange trips to France and Germany in my mid teens really opened my eyes to the fact that eating could be a real event, not just at Christmas.
I still enjoy traditional English food when it's cooked with a bit of flair and imagination, but how did we ever manage when the only real variety was fish & chips? My father died in 1975, and I'll bet he never had a pizza, a curry or a Chinese in his life, never mind tom yam. My Mum lived another 25 years, and I'm not sure she had any of those either!
Oh yes - very true. But we didn't have fish fingers (I don't think they had been invented back then!) After I passed my driving test in 65 I took my Mum to York one day and we went to a Chinese - it was her first ever foreign food (apart from Italian icecream in Brid.)
BTW the 'battery bits' were scraps. And Spam is now served in most English chippies - Spam fritters - love 'em! Mind you cod roe seems a bit scarce these days...
But we didn't have fish fingers (I don't think they had been invented back then!)
Mags, my Mom used to serve those up for lunch on Saturdays when I was a kid in the '50s. We called them fish sticks though. They came in a freezer pack already breaded and ready to cook on a baking tray in the oven. We ate them even more often after we got our first Microwave oven in the late 60's. My Mom used to serve them with English peas (but never mushy), as the little round green peas were called in America. Maybe that's why I grew up liking fish 'n chips so much. I didn't realize that she was serving an almost traditional English dish until they started opening fish and chip shops in America. The first one of those I remember was a fast food chain called H. Salt Esquire that opened in my city in the '70s.
My brain is like an Internet browser; 12 tabs are open and 5 of them are not responding, there's a GIF playing in an endless loop,... and where is that annoying music coming from?
These are the first ones I remember eating as a kid... I thought it was "Gordons" but I did a search and determined this was it because I remember the picture of the fisherman on the package.
Later we did eat a lot of Mrs. Paul's.
My brain is like an Internet browser; 12 tabs are open and 5 of them are not responding, there's a GIF playing in an endless loop,... and where is that annoying music coming from?
hhfarang wrote: We ate them even more often after we got our first Microwave oven in the late 60's.
Putting the vast ocean of difference between fish fingers and fish 'n chips to one side for a minute, I suspect HHF's childhood was not a particularly privileged one (financially, I mean!). However, this casual reference highlights the gap between an average US and UK household in those days. I think we got our first little black & white TV in about 62-63. My first experience with a microwave was some time round the early-mid 80s. This may be later than some, but I can't believe most Brits had even heard of a microwave in the 60s.
I remember very clearly going to stay with relatives in Canada in the early 70s. Their standard of living was very much higher than ours in so many ways. I had the opportunity to emigrate there when I was 18 and often regretted not taking it.
Yes, DM, Americans loved their toys even back then. My father was a blue collar city bus driver all his life (after WWII) but he had to have the latest gadgets. We were the first on our street to own a TV (1949) and the first to have a microwave (around 1968). Europe must have been similar to what you recall as well...
When I worked for Siemens in the early 90's a visiting engineer from Munich came to visit me at my home in California. When he walked into my living room he immediately saw the 1.5 meter square (approximate front dimension) black box sitting there and inquired as to what it was. It was my first (55") rear projection TV. He had never seen or even heard of them before and was fascinated by the technology... and that was a master degree'd German IT engineer!
My brain is like an Internet browser; 12 tabs are open and 5 of them are not responding, there's a GIF playing in an endless loop,... and where is that annoying music coming from?
Maybe I was lucky growing up in the early 50`s because processed foods were unheard of and although a working class family we always had substantial home-cooked food with ready access to fresh caught fish, wild rabbit and home-grown vegetables. This, I believe, together with creeks, woods and open spaces to play in gave me a good grounding to grow up healthy and lean, conditions which with good luck will continue. I know it`s a cliche', but kids today, with their parents encouragement, could be so much healthier and fitter and obesity wouldn`t be such a drain on the NHS.
Pete 
