'salads' your nan used to make...

[trashcanjunkie]

Mine used to do this for my grandad once a week - it would consist of a boiled egg, halved, a massive spring onion or two, some pickled beetroot maybe.... (not entirely sure....) and two slices of corn beef with salad cream on the side.....

DH says his lot also used to have 'salads' like these - he reckons it's 1970's northern thing....

I wish I could remember all of the elements... Did anyone else's family eat these? I bet there are variations on the theme

I've had nan salad for my lunches most days this week - Lettuce, cucumber, tomato, cheeses, ham, pork pies/quiches, crackers, bread and butter, apple, pickles and tonnes of salad cream.
I love it. Quick and easy to make when wfh, get a handful of veggies in for your quota, protein, and have it different each day.

My mum used to make a rather - ahem - unusual salad (late 70s, early 80s). I think it was from a Marguerite Patten book and I used to beg for it for tea.

You covered a big plate with floppy lettuce. Then you mashed up a tin of pink salmon (with bones) with some Branston Pickle and plonked it all on top of the lettuce. Then garnished it with the pièce de resistance - a bag of Chipsticks.

I made it a couple of years ago in a fit of nostalgia. It was totally, utterly rank.

Topped with chopsticks

noo Chipsticks,

sliced tomatoes with sugar on.

My nana used to make and my mum still does was a salad, lettuce and tomatoes mainly, covered in warm water, vinegar and sugar and left to soak all day. Usually served as an accompaniment to our Sunday roast. Bloody loved and just can’t make it the same

Oh yes forgotten about the tinned pink salmon with the chewy bones

This was for when we had visitors and the best china plates/tea cups would come out too

Tuna was considered a poor substitute (I love tinned tuna, tinned salmon not so much)

@mavisEnderby64 a fellow Yellowbelly. Oh the horrors of stuffed chine! Get the best haslet on the farmers market in our town.

I married into a market garden/veg selling business. I was horrified when the salad that I was offered was 2 lettuce leaves, a slice of tomato and a slice of raw white onion. They had a whole shed of lovely salad veggies down the yard
Agree I make most of these salads for my teenagers most weeks, minus the ham and with falafel instead

I've been reading these very carefully but so far my Great Aunt Jean seems to be the only person who put tinned peaches on her salad? She must have been much, much posher than I realised.

My mum, bless her, did a piece of lettuce, a quarter of tomato, a couple of slices of cucumber and the choice of pickled or plain beetroot. With salad cream and cold meat. All separately arranged on the plate. On a special occasion there might be some potato salad.

I hated salads. Now love them as I permit mixing together a broader range of ingredients and salad dressing.

Iceberg lettuce, sliced tomatoes, beetroot from a jar, potato salad (bought), coleslaw (bought), bit of cheddar, sliced spring onions, boiled potato (yes as well as potato salad) with salad cream, ham.

One of my favourite teas - salad of lettuce, cucumber, tomato, spring onion with a dressing of sugar and vinegar, boiled egg, some kind of meat whether it be corned beef, tinned Pek, chicken leftover from the Sunday road and either homegrown boiled new potatoes or chips - maybe salad cream, pickle, mustard. Yum yum.

Northern, working class........

Rae - tinned peaches went in curry not salad .

We used to have celery sticks with salt on the side to dip it into

And tinned ham

Oh god my auntie used to put apple and raisins in her curry

Potato salad was an unexplored concept despite potato being in every other meal.

Cucumber sliced and soaked in vinegar was normal: never had plain cucumber.

The centre piece was often a pork pie. Still my favourite salad item tbh!

I loved salad cream and tried it out ony children but they didn't take to it.

With salads as a child I loved to take the bread and butter and make a salad cream buttie with it.

Pickled onions/silverskins, and beetroot- straight sliced, never crinkle cut
Crinkle cut was considered fancy by my nan and grandad.

Tinned ham occasionally appeared in the mystery salads too, and always with salad cream.

MIL's salads:

Clumps of iceberg (literally the worst lettuce)
One tomato cut into wedges
Lumps of cucumber if you're lucky

No dressings available. Their home is the Shrine to Dry Meals.

@RedRec - round lettuce - still sold in Waitrose :)

www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/essential-round-lettuce/086437-44138-44139

I just loved my grandma's cooking full stop.

Beetroot was cubed
Carrot was grated
Cucumber was thinly sliced
spring onions were left whole and the ends curled
tomatoes were quartered and sliced
always cooked ham and cubed cheese too.

My mum used to do a great 80’s salad once a week during the summer when we were growing up.

Lettuce leaves, quartered tomato, thinly sliced cucumber, spring onions and beetroot with cheap ham rolled up, a boiled egg, some awful tinned new potatoes and loads of salad cream.

There’s an episode of Only Fools regularly repeated where they’re eating a good ol 80’s salad. It makes me feel nostalgic for the ones of my childhood.

he reckons it's 1970's northern thing
Definitely Southern thing too. I always used to wish we were sophisticated enough to have mayonnaise instead of the salad cream, but now it love salad cream! The Christmas edition would consist of the left over pork and beef slices (never had turkey) and have the added attractions of pickled onions, gherkins, coleslaw and shop bought potato salad. I preferred the Christmas tea salad to the actual Christmas dinner. It may be my mind playing tricks on me but I always seem to remember eating it on a fold out table in the sitting room - a once yearly treat - watching The Great Escape. Mind you that film is repeated so often maybe I really did do that every year. The DDs current Nan salad, made by their actual Nan, has the mind blowing addition of sliced grapes.

I didn't know this was a thing but I basically have a NaN salad every lunchtime!!

It varies a bit and sometimes I have homemade tabbouleh, pomegranate, feta and sweet potato pakoras which I don't think would have made it across my Grandmas threshold!

But the basic base is round lettuce, cucumber, peppers, radish, tomatoes, celery. An English garden salad and actually a lot of the time is majority grown in my actual garden!

I also have cooked beetroot, homemade vinaigrette and cottage cheese as staples although my protein tends to be marinated grilled chicken or hot smoked salmon. I can be partial to a boiled egg or rolled ham if we're out of the fancy stuff! And coleslaw obvs is a must.

What else would you call 'salad'???!?