How do you remember food being ‘different’ when you were young?

[Geekster1963]

I remember that between October to March time we had mashed potatoes and April until September it was always boiled new potatoes we never had mash in summer or new in winter.

My Mum used to buy a big crate of oranges around December time and keep them in the porch, they were the nicest oranges ever. We never had them in the spring/ summer.

I remember the first time we had lasagne when I was about 18 we felt very exotic.

I never had anything like curry until I left home at 21 in the early 90’s.

Cornflakes for breakfast, tea round the table 530 every weeknight after school, always with potatoes peas and carrots (as above new tatties half the year mashed the other half!) Sunday dinner done in pressure cooker with angel delight dream topping after

Every Sunday was the same. Roast chicken, roast potatoes, peas, carrots and gravy followed by apple pie and custard for lunch. A cold meat sandwich and a Mr Kipling cake for tea. Every week. You'd think maybe they could have given us a different pudding occasionally and caused a sensation, but no.

I was a child in the seventies. My parents and relatives were quite well travelled and that was reflected in how we ate. I remember lots of healthy foods and cooking from raw ingredients. I remember our first freezer and the excitement of frozen foods.

I recall in the early 80's an advertising campaign by Safeway the premise of which was that they were now stocking exotic vegetables. One of those was red peppers!

Grew up in the 70s. Have to admit when I try these conversations with my dd (11) she rolls her eyes. As I think I did at my parents talking about the 30s and 40s.

Got cut off there. Blocks of ice cream in the tiny fridge compartment before then. My parents made lots of pickles and chutneys together. It seemed like everything changed after they got a freezer.

Fruit was apples, pears and bananas. In winter we had tangerines and satsumas. Autumn was the best season because our tree produced tangy apples and pommegranates were In season and we were allowed one on a Saturday night as a treat. We ate a lot more tinned food - spam and corned beef, and tinned vegetables and fruit (yuck). We would have tinned fruit salad with tinned evap and buttered bread for tea on a Sunday. Even then it was disgusting.

I grew up in the 80s and 90s and remember a much smaller range of fruit and veg. I remember the first time I had a kiwi fruit and salad was always just lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber, none of these fancy leaves! We lived quite really with only a wee Co-op (though there's a Tesco there now) which maybe accounts for some of the limited range, but even so. Also it was the same for us as with a PP regarding potatoes- new one is particular were a rare seasonal treat.

Oh yes a tiny freezer compartment (And when we got a freezer in the mid-90s it lived in the garage).

Food was fuel, and it wasn't seen as that important to have variety or interesting flavours. A lot more meat, cooked plainly without sauces. Vegetables were boiled.

My eldest (only one that speaks) asks to leave he table when everyone is done.

My parents used to soak pulses and buy kidney beans hard.....weird

No snacks

No puddings ever

Would have a properly set table with place mats

Everything else is basically the same because I just do what I was brought up with and my parents always liked trying the new exotic things out like Cous cous and fajitas they used to drive about 45 mins to the only spice shop around for stuff we can buy in supermarkets now

We used to sprout our own cress and mustard seeds on kitchen roll. I'm not sure you could buy it ready sprouted. I remember very plain lettuce salads and then cabbage salads - no red onions, mayonnaise, ready done dressings but they always had cottage cheese. I do remember evaporated milk in a can and the man coming by in a lorry selling pop.

We used to get bagels from delis. Nobody had heard of them. Dad used to make them too.
Still nicer than the bready crap you get from supermarkets.

We are fairly seasonally. Strawberries, cherries and peaches were bought from the market in the summer (and tasted amazing!). Satsumas (NOT clementines) were a December treat.

50s child here. A typical Monday dinner would be cottage pie made from Sunday's leftover joint with plenty of veg. Pudding was an occasional treat and usually something like homemade fruit pie made with home grown rhubarb or apples. Ice cream was high days and holidays and only a block of walls vanilla. There wad always fruit on the table. We had food that I don't imagine a small child would eat now such as liver and bacon with mash and gravy. We had potatoes with everything, pasta was unheard of and rice was for puddings only. Things like biscuits were given as treats and you only got one, it would be unthinkable to help yourself. I was given cups of tea from about 3 or 4, fizzy drinks didn't make it into mums shopping basket. I remember youghats arriving in the 60s, they seemed very exotic. I think my childhood diet, though limited by today's standard, was very healthy.

Pork chops with a section of kidney in them ... gone forever

I remember food tasting better but a lot of it was home grown. My parents were a bit 'the good life' though. Mum soaked lots of beans and pulses .We always sat at the table too but I think we always had a pudding. Frozen food was expensive at first I think and our freezer was used initially to freeze ice cream, food grown in the garden and brambles.

Chicken, duck, pork and eggs, apples and soft fruit all home grown. Jam, pickle etc all home made. (I still do this.) no ready meals or convenience food, no takeaway, no McDonalds etc. I still feel guilty for using instant mash and I left home over 20 years ago!

agree with so many of these! I have to say though, my kids still have to ask the leave the table

Ah yes, the frozen mousses. Best eaten still slightly frozen in the middle. Also the caramel puddings that were made from a powdered mix. Carmel? I loved them (you can still get them for a trip down memory lane.)

I remember lasagne being considered exotic as well, and didn’t have it until my teens. Wimpy was the only ‘fast food’ outlet available, or Beefeater for a posh meal. Our meals seem to revolve around mince - mince and boiled potatoes, shepherds pie, sphag Bol. Sphaghetti and macaroni were the main pasta you got. You drank lemon or orange squash, and never water. No one carried bottles,of water around with them, or had them on their desks. Tea was loose leaf.

Fizzy drinks were party drinks.

and we still eat kidney and liver and bacon. And we still eat out main meal sitting at the table as a family. And fizzy drinks aren't daily drinks still in our house. Are all those so odd?

I also remember some of those veg tasting different - stronger, more aromatic with an edge of bitterness. This was particularly true of red peppers and aubergines (my grandparents lived in North London in the 60's to the 90's and we got a lot of stuff from the local ethnic/Jewish/Polish delis.) We might have a bigger range of veg now but the taste of them has often been sweetened and homogenised by decades of selective breeding.

I grew up in the 90s. We still had banana-and-sugar sandwiches for tea on Saturday. I remember trying chicken kiev for the first time - exotic or what?! Packed lunch was sandwich, Wotsits, Club bar and extremely weak squash. I remember my grandma bought us some Dairylea Dunkers once (the Orinagal flavour ones, with herby wheat tubes) - mind blown. We also saved uppthe tokens to get the little pots for taking Pringles to school; when I was in year 5 my.best mate won a fiver in a packet of Walkers' crisps and it was honestly like the scene from Charlie and the chocolate factory with us all clamouring to see it! My dad used to let us have some ready salted crisps with a pickled onion in with Gladiators on a Saturday. Then, when I was about 10 Iceland brought out chocolate flavoured carrots - boak. My brother has never eaten carrots since. I'm not sure the 90s was a golden era for food tbh.