Did anyone else's mum give them a food nobody you speak to has heard of?

[Rollerbird]

Although with mumsnet I bet others have had 'it:
In my case it's a' treat' of Cabbage Water
Basically when she cooked (boiled) cabbage (which was with a chopped onion, pepper and nutmeg) I could have a cup of the water after (veg stock I suppose)
I did see it as a treat and am drinking some now, remembering her fondly.

@DearTeddyRobinson
Oh colcannon. I love that although I usually make it with cabbage as I prefer that. But kale is the proper stuff!!!

@millimollimandi not sure if this is what you mean, but we have always eaten our dumplings (made from Suet) as pudding. They are cooked in the stew or soup, then taken out when the soup is served, put in a dish and covered in sugar and put in The oven to keep warm. Then we eat them for pudding, and the sugar has dissolved all into the outside and blended with the soup/stew residue. Sounds disgusting probably but is absolutely delicious

Scottish, so not sure if it's a Scottish thing or just my family being weird.

Mr Beeku's eggs.

Banana, onions, curry powder and a fried eggs. Really tasty but a bit odd

@Herja @Tawdrylocalbrouhaha Another one here who's grandma frequented the same health food shop!

Sosmix I actually used to like, from memory. Pear spread I had forgotten about but good memories! Same health food shop used to sell coltsfoot rock and liquorice root. I did not like either (I'm not a liquorice fan at all!) but my sister loved them. Those roots would look like an abomination after she'd chewed on them 🤢

I did like the barley sugars (minus the sugar- health food!) though!

Yy to cabbage water - we were also a north west family.

I'm enjoying the vegetarian reminiscing. I also used to get Sizzles and Burgamix - the bacon and burger flavours of Sosmix. Burgamix was vile but I miss Sizzles.

@Easterbuns1 My grandma and then my mum always did very finely sliced cucumber and white onions in a bowl of vinegar on every salad/buffet too! I keep meaning to do so, but very few things in my life seem to call for a buffet. I swear we had one twice a week or so when I was little. Whhhhhhy so many buffets? (And why so few now? I love a buffet!)

@Alsonification yes colcannon!! With rashers!! Ah happy memories!

@Easterbuns1 Haha, just read the rest of your post!

Yes to the Chips in soup and I have just remembered another one:

Parents would shop for the month and, after returning with the huge haul and putting it all away, they would sit down to enjoy a Holland's meat pie in Heinz vegetable soup. They never had it at any other time, ever!

Breakfast slices.They were basically long rashers of spammy bacon,very greasy but we loved them.Think they were from Sainsbury's in the mid to late 80s

Tawdry was this health food shop in Brixton by any chance?

No, it was in Dun Laoghaire (Dublin) but I bet they all had the same stuff and also smelled the same!

Wouldn't mind some carob chips right now.

Blatherskite

Thanks for that! The rest of the recipes (so beautifully displayed!) look hilarious. Especially the "mice" and the car!

My mum used to buy a breast of lamb, boil it, take all the bones out then dip the meaty bits in egg and breadcrumbs and fry them. She called it escalopes. I think it must have been a war time recipe. We loved it!

@Tahitiitsamagicalplace that sounds like banana crunch pudding - it was an 80s packer pudding by birds. I think we used to have the chocolate one

www.childofthe1980s.com/2008/11/28/birds-instant-hot-crunch-puddings/

I'm amazed to hear about the chips in soup. My Mum used to do a plate of chips with soup poured over, I've never heard of anything similar before.

RacecarDriver - I remember 'fairy bread' - I grew up in Australia and it was most definitely a party staple there.

Mum used to make me Egg and bacon on a plate....an egg, a couple of rashers of bacon, grated cheese and milk and then put in the oven....i only really liked the cheesey bit.

When anyone had a cold she;d make onion juice. Sliced onion in a sieve with some sugar on.

My nan, not mum back in the late 50s early 60s gave us white bread cubes in hot milk with sugar when we were poorly.

She also used to cover a joint of lamb with suet pastry so we had a huge slab of pastry with a tiny amount of meat for dinner - was lush.
She did the onion rings in vinegar and sugar thing to go with cold boiled belly pork which seemed to be 90% fat.

GahWhatever and FurryCushion The baby onions in the white sauce were delicious. They were made by one of the big firms, may be Birds Eye or Findus.

A local bakery used to make Frog cakes. Squares of plain sponge with pink patisserie cream on top, covered in green fondant icing shaped to look like a frogs head, with chocolate eyes.

@45andahalf - I thought my mum was the only one who made egg mayo with Heinz salad cream instead of mayonnaise!

She used to boil suet dumplings alongside boiled gammon - they were solid and dense on the inside, and slimy on the outside - but they weren’t served as a sweet, like @Millimollimandi’s mum did - she served them with the main course.

I remember so many of these.

The raw egg beaten into milk, often with a splash of sherry, was a quick restorative after fasting before communion, and the hot cabbage water was another Sunday treat.

Fairy bread was a treat when you were poorly, as was egg-in-a-cup.
We used to have the pear spread with cheese, a bit like having membrillo with cheese.
Cucumber sliced in vinegar was a staple of summer salads, and we also had Russian salad which was carrot potato and cold sausage mixed with mayonnaise.

One of my favourite meals was cold poached skate served with mayonnaise, I think Mum dreamt that up herself, she also made mince with dumplings, baked in the oven so the dumplings were crispy on top and deliciously soggy underneath.

I used to serve the little onions in white sauce with baked gammon, delicious!

Dad invented something called Pasta Gunk when I was little. It consisted of pasta, tuna, mayo, chopped cucumber and chopped tomatoes. With grated cheese on top and anything else in the fridge that he thought might work chopped in as well. It was surprisingly palatable despite the name!

@DontCallMeCharlotte I remember we made the 'Fangtastic' burgers a few times. The Dalek-looking 'Top of the Pops' was attempted once too I think.

We had to make do with what we were given by friends when I was a kid so my mum gave us some odd things.

My favourites were egg noodles with beans and cheese & also lentil soup on spaghetti. We never had mince without a tin of beans in it to make it go further - I still do this now with rice as I loved it as a kid.

@Herja I was fed sosmix on a regular basis by my great aunt. I loved it as a kid, made into burgers.
I bought some a few years ago and it was vile!!! Not how I remembered it and also it was really unhealthy from what I could see on the ingredients.

Cinnamon toast.
Toast with a sort of cinnamon sugar icing that you grill. I'm gonna have to get the recipe from my mum as I'm suddenly craving it now!