Back to 1950s cuisine to cope with COL

Had a small roast chicken tonight. Tomorrow will be Caesar salad cold chicken & crash hot potatoes

Lovely but I’m intolerant to aubergines and peppers. Eating is very upsetting

Roast chicken was expensive in the 50s. Our Sunday roasts were usually beef, lamb or pork. Chicken was a treat. We did have two or three meals from the roast and still do the same now, just swapped to have chicken regularly with beef or lamb only when on offer,

I can see how sticking to a specific range of foods can save money. Less impulse buying quinoa and throwing it out unopened 3 years later.

If you want to take it further, there is a good facebook group called living on wartime rations 1940's experiment. I don't remotely do that, but there are good tips about making things go further and eating more veg. They say people had very healthy diets then, if perhaps u interesting.

Yes - all sounds very familiar (I was born in the 60s too, but Mum was very much a child of the 40s).

I’d forgotten about tapioca - tinned and served hot with a big lump of jam in the middle.

I’d also forgotten about brawn - made from the pig’s head, which sounds disgusting but it tasted just fine.

As they say, the only bit of the pig you can’t eat is the oink.

I’m shocked at how people hav interpreted this thread in such a negative way!! No need to be judgy re herbs and spices, and no need to take offence on behalf of the 1950s (!)
I think op is just alluding to a more restricted manner of shopping and eating and is using the post war rationing period as a comparative.

OP I have changed the families diet to a more considered approach. No I can’t go and buy ras el hanout, pomegratine molasses and lamb mince to make a new ottolenghi recipe in the way that I used to. Because I can’t risk the family not liking it/ the waste of money for an ingredient that will not be regularly used.

I meal plan now around a set of ingredients that I have, that can and will be used over and again, and that will definitely be eaten. the veg I buy is the boring stuff- onions carrots parsnips. The fruit apples and bananas- because a kilo bag of carrots is £0.50p and serves two or three meals. Baby corn (a favourite) is £1 for one meal. It’s simply not economical anymore.

This weeks meal plan is

corned beef pie and steamed veg
tomato pasta bake
pan haggerty
jacket potato and beans
ham, egg and chips

I’m pretty sure my DM’s use of herbs and spices was restricted to mint, sage and parsley from the garden, Schwartz jars of dried mixed herbs or spices (when she died some of the jars I threw out were pretty much antique) and salt and pepper.

How much are you really saving by not buying herbs and spices? I tend to avoid out of season vegetables, but soups and casseroles using winter root veggies are cheap, nourishing and can be made interesting with the right seasonings. Tinned pulses are cheap and add interest to a curry or casserole. I always use the leftovers of a roast in a pie or some such for the next day, because I don’t like food waste. We don’t do a traditional salad in winter because salad veg aren’t in season and don’t taste nice, but I do a salad using sweet potatoes which is lovely as a cold side dish. You don’t need to go 1950s to be economical.

If you eat seasonal veg and are creative you don't need to eat like it's 1950. Our menu last week was Sunday sausages,ash, broccoli, Monday was homemade chilli and rice, Tuesday was salmon and green beans with cou cous, Wednesday was veg and cheese omelette, Thursday was a nigella recipe from years ago with chicken, veg, potatoes, chorizo all in 1 roasting tin, Friday was leftover chilli made over homemade potatoes wedges, Saturday was roast pesto veg on pasta.

I was a child in the 1960s and your family food sounds very, very similar to ours.

Always a pudding although often it would be some variety of milk pudding like rice, ground rice, semolina or tapioca. The best pudding was always on Thursday as that was Mum's baking day so we had things like lemon meringue or apple pie and custard. Mum baked lots of sweet things like buns, cakes and jam tarts. My Dad had a sweet tooth and liked two or three sweet treats in his pack up.

We did have chicken now and then because we kept hens and once a hen stopped laying Dad killed it and dressed it. Ditto surplus cockerels after a batch of chickens grew up.

We didn't have a freezer until the 1970s though. After that half a pig was something they would buy.

Always plenty of veg because Dad was a keen gardener and grew loads.

Standard herbs and spices used by my grandmothers: Parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, bay, mint etc.
Cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, black peppercorns.
Admittedly garlic and chillis were not widely available, but Elizabeth David popularised Mediterranean cooking in the 1950s and I have my grandmother’s copies of her books.

My mum grew most of our veg in the 70s and grew lots of herbs too.
I often roast a piece of pork and it makes two roast dinners and a stir fry for 3 adults.
I grow some veg on my allotment and lots of soft fruit and then freeze things. I may have rebellion on my hands if DH has to eat anymore runner beans.
Food very similar to how my mum cooked and not much different from my gran although she would have had to eat seasonally as no freezer.

How can meat pie and stew, even if homemade, be cheaper than ratatouille? Or dal and rice? Or rice and beans? Or a veggie curry?

Beef is always more expensive than aubergine and lentils surely.

You don't need to do away withflavours to eat cheaply.
Dried herbs and spices are cheap and just as good as fresh in sauces, stews and casseroles.
Seasonal fresh veg is pretty cheap too, frozen meat and veg can be much cheaper than fresh.
Boiling the chicken carcass will give you stock that can be frozen for gravy or used in soups and risottos, same with beef, pork and lamb bones.
A dash of Worcester sauce can round out a dish too, a bottle of shops own brand is about £1 and can last years as long as its properly sealed in a dark cupboard.

I'd rather starve than not buy herbs and spices.

I was brought up on 1950s style cooking, although I’m not sure the cheap cuts of meat then are that cheap anymore. Meat and two veg plus a pudding, because my dad liked a pudding.

Neck of lamb stew
Rolled breast of lamb (home made stuffing)
Liver and onions
Steak and kidney pie
Egg and chips (a Friday night tea)
Shepherds / cottage pie
Fish fingers with white parsley sauce

Weekend would usually be a roast on Saturday, cold meat and veg on Sunday and leftovers on Monday. We had a hand mincer for the leftovers - made the best minced meat for pies. Rarely had chicken as mum would get half a pig or lamb or a load of beef joints from the butcher for the freezer.

Puddings were treacle tart, lemon meringue pie, queen of puddings, bread and butter pudding. Lashings of birds custard. And Angel Delight 😬

Perhaps she just wasn’t a very good cook?

Herbs and spices have been used in the UK for hundreds of years, if not forever. Lots even grow here.

I wasn’t around in the 1950s but my mother remembers my grandmother cooking with things like mint, sage, rosemary and basil.

You only need to buy herbs and spices once in a while and have them available all the time. I wouldn't buy fresh herbs but I do grow and freeze my own.
As a child of the 1950s I think the diet was repetitive and boring but undoubtedly cheaper. We were never hungry despite being poor.
It's also true that a Sunday roast did three meals, once as a roast, once cold and a third time in a pie. Same every week. I still do three meals from a roast but they are a bit more interesting and have more spices.

That all sounds lovely, and I bet that all those vegetables taste really good, as well.

Yeah I don't get it either. Yes I do cook a lot more Asian/Mex food than my mother did in the 80s, but would definitely be using leftover meat, making my own pies etc. You must have been spending a fortune

Batch cooking is the way forward for me. I always make enough for 3 meals, freeze and reheat. Saves on cooking times, prep and money buying in bulk. There's always a choice of different meals ready to go.
I buy yellow sticker food and cook it freeze that too. Saves a fortune.

Asparagus is expensive and not great at this time of year.
Have you tried eating seasonally, or going veggie, even just on week days?

As far as I know they weren't used widely, no. My former MIL always waxed lyrical about going to France on honeymoon in the early 60s and that was when they discovered the joys of garlic and herbs. Before then, it was mostly salt and pepper. And they were both from pretty affluent families.

Excuse me but I don't understand how this is "back to the 1950s." It doesn't sound that unusual to me. If we have a roast or chicken on Sunday we have always made use of the leftovers. Who doesn't? And we just had a homemade steak pie this evening, I used shin of beef. It needs a long, slow cook in the oven to make the pie filling but it was delicious. I didn't realise I had stepped in to a time machine.

Anyway, can I add liver to your list? That's pretty economical I think and can be tasty if you cook it nicely.