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.

I don't think I went to a Wimpy till I was about 8. Fast food for us was fish and chips, which was an occasional treat.

There was a brilliant "Timeshift" about British eating (out) habits after the war ...

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/timeshift-spicing-up-britain-how-eating-out-went-exotic-tv-review-immigrants-and-berni-inns-rescued-10101797.html

Vesta Curries, Berni Inns ...

Brussel sprouts tasted vile as a child, I recently saw a farming report on Brussels sprouts. Over the years the farmers have developed a new strain of them so they don't taste as bitter as they did in the 'good old days' ...

Mince featured heavily too. I also remember liver and kidneys. All of it always grey and liver had big tubes in it. Shudders!!!!!

Mostly just remember crap cooking from my mum. She would do thick, stodgy, unseasoned food for every meal. We lived in Australia, I do not want to eat lasagna, stew or pasta bake when it's 40 degrees ffs! All her cooking was terrible tbh. A 'special' meal for her was when she'd cook something like soggy fajitas (again, the meat would be unseasoned and bland but at least there was some fresh vegetables in there.) Also a perverse insistence on constantly reheating left overs to within an inch of their life so that they were dull and soggy and resembled dog food.

Tripe and onions at my grandmother’s house, liberally doused in malt vinegar. Sixties/early Seventies.

Paste sandwiches (beef or crab) followed by tinned fruit cocktail with tinned cream was considered a perfectly acceptable meal for a child.

I remember the seasonal fruit in particular too - the excitement of the cherries and peaches being in season for all of a fortnight, and strawberries from the garden. Most of the year it was apples and bananas and only one piece a day. Grapes a huge expensive treat. I didn't try an aubergine or courgette until university . Sadly, I think we may be headed back to that after April as imported fruit and veg is going to be a lot pricier.

We had all home cooked food and as my mum was a beautiful cook we all had good appetites.A lot of meat and veg based meals, home made pies,quiche, scotch eggs and salad and always a delicious pud after to help keep you going. I feel sad when I read about dry grey meat cos we never had that, it was always tasty. We were very lucky.

We didn’t eat fast foods. a couple of times a year we would go to the Wimpy. We would have fish and chips once every two months

Forgot semolina and tapioca , both of which I hated with a passion

@areyoubeingserviced You tried to forget them anyway!! Tapioca and semolina were the only times I refused pudding at school dinners.

Vesta beef curry with Angel's Delight for pud.

semolina and tapioca

Here's one from the vaults ...

Cremola ....(which I loved. Along with Semolina, Tapioca, Rice pudding ...)

Only had pizza once a year, at Christmas when we were allowed to 'eat in front of the tv', watching James Bond. This we thought was the most exciting thing ever!

Frey bentos pies
Goblin tinned pudding
Bacon grill
Spam with boiled potatoes
Vienetta
Paste butties
Tinned Apple and blackberry pie filling
Blocks of ice cream
Weak squash
Space invaders crisps
Wham bars
Gob stoppers

God I'm starving now

My parents were 'good lifers' too so grew their own fruit and veg, eggs from hens, milk from goats, and own meat from goats/lambs/calf/pig. Dad did also have an arrangement to pick up boxes from the supermarkets to grow bedding plants in commercially so we did skip diving before it was trendy - so meals could be very fresh and worthy with the odd bag a squashy cream cakes thrown in!

I didn't have to ask to leave the table (never quite understood what that was all about! I get it if there are younger siblings/rellies etc that older kids need to set an example of carrying their plate but if you're finished, you're finished!) But I did have to finish my meal before leaving the table....even when the gravy was cold and concealed and tears would bounce off the film! (Needless to say I don't put my dd through that kind of hell!) We never ate things from tins, except baked beans, everything had to be cooked fresh. No pasta - that was "foreign". All pastry was made with lard rather than Trex/butter. We weren't allowed stuff like findus pancakes, pot noodles ready meals etc. Same meal on each weekday e.g. Monday ham and chips, Friday cottage pie (I hated Fridays. My mum would sometimes take pity on me and cook me fish fingers if dad was working late!) If you didn't eat it it got thrown out for the seagulls and there was nothing else.

I grew up during the war so rationing was in full force. I remember loving dried egg omelettes. We always had a roast dinner on Sunday, but chicken was only around at Christmas. Butter was in short supply, and the margarine was vile, but beef dripping from the Sunday joint was delicious on toast. It was a treat to go to the Lyons Corner House at Marble Arch for afternoon tea, as they provided lots of thinly cut buttered bread. I still love butter, none of your healthy spreads have ever graced my fridge.

Shepherds pie once a week, spag bol once a week. Never eating out, a friend took me with her family to Pizza Hut at about age 10 and I thought it was so posh. That awful vienetta ice cream thing for ‘afters’. Literally living off frozen food (we had two freezers), frozen pizza, frozen sausages (blergh), loads of oven chips. Lots of canned tuna and packet flavourings. I think my daughter will be very spoilt in comparison!

My mum used to bake cakes and scones once a week which would be served for the first time on Sunday, then eaten for the rest of the week. Pizza meant one slice of a pizza with veg on the side. The first time I went to a Pizza Hut, (in my teens on a visit to a city when they were a new thing), I was disbelieving at being given a whole small pizza to eat by myself. Fizzy drinks were for high days and holidays only. Fresh OJ never appeared in our house. Orange, lemon or blackcurrant squash (with bits in) was the everyday drink.

Chops. Lots of chops!

Pizza night was a home made pizza.

I grew up outside the UK, born in '60s. We never had cooked brassicas (my parents didn't like them). Raw brassicas were available at most social gatherings but I didn't like them. We had lots of fresh salad, especially raw onions. Xmas time my extended family unwrapped an enormous block of cream cheese on a plate, & poured a big jar of (Mexican) salsa over it. Gravy was something foul I tried to avoid in school dinners (never encountered it otherwise). I don't remember ever having roasties. Everyone had lots of fizzy drinks and drank milk in large glasses. My mother stopped regular cooking when I was 8yo so I (mostly) only had meals, esp. hot meals, if we ate out or cooked it myself. My mother bought large tubs of ice cream for each of us once a week and we each ate our own at our own rate. Then my mom got into Sugar Blues and we had a year of no sugar, followed by years of still fairly health food orientation (but always lots of snacks). Now most of my evening meals are simple starch, lots steamed veg, bit of meat.

Not too fondly, if I’m honest. Parents grew up during rationing and that limited what they had learned to cook and what we ate.
Mum went back to work when I started junior school, Dad didn't cook as much as heat things up . I remember frozen convenience food - Dalesteaks; Findus crispy pancakes; boil in the bag cod in parsley sauce. Quite a lot of mince. The pressure cooker was used for vegetables because it was quick but that meant green vegetables were cooked for the same length of time as potatoes. I had left home before I realised that green beans didn't have to be so soft they smeared across the plate when you tried to cut them. We couldn’t leave the table until we had finished so I spend quite a few evenings sitting in front of a plate of cold, overcooked vegetables. Mum was good at roasts and puddings like apple crumble, lemon meringue pie, rice pudding. Dad had an allotment and we had a lot of stewed apple, stewed damsons, stewed plums… Which was nice, but also a lot of Sunday afternoons top and tailing gooseberries, and podding broad beans, and cutting the grubs out of apples.

They fed us the best they could with the time they had, and the money they had, but I prefer my own cooking and the current variety of fresh ingredients.