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 was telling my son last night that when I was a child prawn cocktail flavoured crisps were pink. As in, the actual crisp was pink with flavour. They arent anymore.

Pizza night was a home made pizza.

Same here, but that was a real treat, not the grimness you would have assumed. DF is a great cook, so we really looked forward to it.

Tinned salmon would make an appearance twice a year in sandwiches for tea on Easter Sunday and Boxing Day, and it was considered lucky to get one of the little hard backbone bits.

I'm roughly the same age as you op but my food memories are very different. My Mum and Dad were keen to try new foods, I remember having things like garlic bread and courgettes in the 80s (very exotic on our Northern, working class estate) but mixed in with a lot of convenience food like crispy panckes, dalesteaks and turkey drummers.

Oh ick @ tinned salmon and getting crunchy bones in it. Vile!

What are 'high days'?

High days and holy days is an expression- I think it refers to the Jewish religious calendar but it's more widely used an expression to mean festival days or national holidays.

veg and fruit were very seasonal and not imported on the same scale apart from bananas and oranges. I had my first pasta aged 16 and curry/chinees after I left home. I grew up in the 80's mainly.

Oh god: the soggy veg. My mum still complains if any vegetable has a hint of bite to it. Bicarbonate tablets in the water for greens - usually marmalised cabbage. Loads of potatoes. At school they always had revolting black lumps in them, however they were prepared. Steamed cod steaks with the bone in and cooked to death, parsley sauce and broad beans for dinner on Fridays. The fish man came in his van on a Tuesday so the fish will have been touching on aromatic anyway

My mum is a chef and I was one of those kids who was like a bottomless pit, so my memories of childhood mealtimes are brilliant. The dog and I used to hover about in throes of excitement while she plated up, and I used to eat my meals at lightning speed to get first pick of the seconds. I have access to many more ingredients, much cheaper than she had, but I could never hope to cook like my mum.

Food was terrible. My parents pride themselves on our 'healthy upbringing- no added salt or butter (or flavour of any sort). Stew with chewy meat, potatoes, carrot, swede and water. Dry pork chops. The stench of the slow cooker! Curry made with cheap chicken and a jar of curry sauce. Frozen desserts for £1 from Safeway. Served 'microwaved or frozen'. Packed lunch was always a cheese sandwich on brown bread, a penguin, packet of hula hoops and an apple. Never given drinks except orange squash with a meal. I think I was permanently dehydrated.

Walls viennetta - it was a real treat, a posh dessert, we had it as an alternative for Christmas lunch for those who didn't like Christmas pud. I bought one a couple of months ago and thought it was a bit meh, maybe it used to be made with better quality chocolate, but the one I bought recently tasted a bit cheap. The other ice cream dessert I used to love was arctic roll - I don't know if that's still on sale but it used to be lovely!

I was a kid in the 70s and 80s. I remember when M&S started doing Caribbean juice and Tropical juice rather than just orange or apple from concentrate. It was a taste sensation. We'd never dreamed fruit juice could taste so good. I don't think we ever really ate pasta at home. We did eat rice, curries and exotic fruit as my dad grew up in the West Indies so we used to make a trip to Shepherds Bush market to buy things like mangoes and pineapples. We also bought stuff like creamed coconut for curries, black-eyed peas and a particular type of curry powder which was far nicer than what was available in supermarkets.

I loved boil in the bag cod in parsley sauce and Findus crispy pancakes, which were rare treats.

Because shops were only open for quite short hours and my mum worked, food used to get a bit boring at the end of the week. Things didn't last as long so we nearly always had fishcakes made with tinned fish on a Friday. We sometimes ran out of loo paper towards the end of the week and had to use torn up newspaper that you rubbed between your hands to make softer.

We only ever really had apples for snacks (I didn't like bananas). Or sometimes toast. Going on holiday to France was amazing - fromage frais, for instance, wasn't available in the UK.

NannyR me, my three sisters and brother loved Vienetta I remember that we used to have to make sure we got an equal amount! We always wanted more. Once my youngest sister and brother stayed at one of our Aunties houses and they had it for pudding and they said they got a huge peice each they talked about it for ages!

Oh it's all coming back to me now! Meat paste, the shiphams jars of chicken and ham flavour and the little foil Matheson pastes. Corned beef in a tin that you opened with a little key thing. Tongue from the butchers. Satsumas at Xmas and a token fresh pineapple and real coconut. At Xmas we had real pop ie 2litre bottle of Name brand Fanta or Coke (the rest of the year it was squash). And Lucozade,if you were poorly, and it came in a glass bottle that was bobbly and wrapped in yellow cellophane. Also Corona bottles that you got 10p back when you returned them.

We grew up on frozen, processed stuff....crispy pancakes, fish fingers, beef burgers. On Sunday a roast and also stews like mince or liver. Mousse, angel delight or an apple/orange/banana. Sandwich paste, dairylea or sandwich spread in a packed lunch. Tins of beans/spaghetti. I remember being given sweet corn and it being considered exotic. Mayo and satsumas at Christmas only. Ketchup was for special occasions. Frozen chips.No foreign" stuff like curries, pasta or garlic bread - didn't eat that until my twenties.My kids were given spaghetti hoops at after school club and were most unimpressed and revolted "Mummy, it was like pasta with tomato ketchup but yucky".They have grown up with mainly cooked from scratch food. Won't touch burgers or tinned stuff unless it's tinned veg/pulses that they're used to. They are fatter than I was as a kid though! But then I remember feeling hungry alot.

Fizzy drinks only at Christmas or a rare trip to the pub. Squash the rest of the time. Hated water. Made sure my kids only had water or milk until they were at least 4 so they were used to it for school. They still mainly drink water but have full sugar squash at dinner time about 4 times a week.

They don't like fizzy drinks which I don't see as a bad thing.

I loved roast dinners with all the trimmings but they were Sundays only. On Monday we had leftover meat with mashed potato and pickle - that was nice too! Sausages and heavenly mash with gravy. Fish (usually Friday), mum liked cooking plaice and chips. Rissoles! My mother made amazing rissoles, she bought 'Scotch beef' from the butcher and minced it at home with onions. She also made Scotch eggs which were tastier than any you can buy, served hot with potato, veg and gravy. Pancakes for pudding served with caster sugar and lemon. Loganberry tart (where do you see loganberries nowadays? They were gorgeous). Creamy rice pudding. Lamb chops. Fried chicken. I do all that except for rissoles and Scotch eggs. Would quite like to make rissoles so might look up recipe. Scotch eggs - I'm sure I'd never get the sausagemeat to stick.

I grew up in the 80s/90s. My mum is a vegetarian which was quite unusual even then so she cooked a lot from scratch. She is a good cook and made a lot of pies, quiches, salads. She would also make a lot of fruit pies and crumbles but I always preferred the shop bought puddings . Angel Delight was a favourite as was Vienetta and choc ices. We had a sweet day on Saturday where we were given money and could choose what we wanted from the corner shop, usually pick and mix. Other than that we didn't have sweets. I remember trying things like hummus and avacados for the first time and thinking they were really exotic. I also remember being a sixth former and a Starbucks opening in our city and being amazed by the choices of coffee and how delicious latte was!

I recognise so much on this thread. Meat was always well done. Any hint of blood or pink meant it was not cooked and could cause food poisoning so it went back in the oven. There was no pickiness over food, you ate what was on your plate or you went hungry. End of. No snacking unless it was an ice cream at the seaside, I always chose a 99 . All meals were meat and two veg type. Never ate any other cuisine until I was 18 +. Sunday dinners were pork chops or roast chicken with mash, veg and a dessert. In the cupboards were things like Jamaica Ginger cake, Battenberg, fig rolls, garibaldi biscuits and Mum's homemade cake. There were standard things we ate I don't see much of now like rissoles and faggots. I hated when we had to have new potatoes as I loved mash but you didn't get anything out of season then.

I remember in the 60s spaghetti used to be really, really long. Like, about 2 feet long. And came in blue paper. Does anybody else remember that?

I remember that, TheMythicalChicken!

Rebeca we always used to have roast dinners on Sunday and the left over meat on Monday but we had it with chips and left over veg and gravy. There was never much gravy left so we had to fight my Dad for it! We used to have pickles onions with it too. It was one of my favourite dinners unless it was lamb which I hated. We also had sausages In gravy too which I loved especially in mashed potato season.

Olivia we were the same with ice creams we had them mostly on birthdays when we could chose which ones we wanted for pudding it was usually Feasts. Then 99 on holidays or beach trips.