'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

My Nan always served sliced tongue in her array of meat for salad, and if she was being posh then crinkle cut pickled beetroot, silver skin pickle onions and tinned Heinz potato salad which was tiny hard lumps of potato in not salad cream and not mayonnaise but something that resembled both but with the undercurrent of vomit.

Grated carrot, grated apple with diced cucumber and sultanas. Salmon and Jersey royals.

I wouldn’t eat meat from a young age which was seen as being frankly, a bit strange back in 1980s Essex. So for school dinners in primary school as a vegetarian it was either a jacket potato with cheese or a salad that comprised of iceberg lettuce, cucumber, tomato and a boiled egg (oh yes, and the salad cream). Just me and a pair of Hindu twins from the year below eating those boring salads for seven bloody years. My secondary school was a bit better- maybe vegetarianism as a concept had gained some traction by the time the 90s rolled around- so there was always at least a pasta dish or veggie burger on offer.

My father in law does salad like that. (His “cuisine” is still stuck in the 70’s.... Think Apricot Chicken made with apricot nectar and a packet of French onion soup powder 🤢. Throw pineapple, honey and ketchup in it and you have sweet and sour chicken! 🤮 No wonder the man has diabetes.) Anyhow, he gets arty-farty with salads and smears tinned, creamed corn (looks like vomit) on a whole lettuce leaf, plops a ring of pineapple in the middle, then jabs a pickled baby beetroot in the hole, which bleeds through the whole yellow and beige mess. Looks like something drained from a wound.

At some point in the 70s the radishes started turning up cut in half in that zig-zag flower shape.

I had to get some salad stuff on my way home from work when I was about 15. My Mum's salad consisted of some normal type limp lettuce, a half boiled egg, and a bit of beetroot, and maybe some tinned salmon if it was Sunday tea, She never bought cucumber, radish or spring onions or tomatoes, as these were things that she never would eat. This was in the 1960 era.

I have never heard of cold mashed potatoes with salad. Boiled yes (potato salad) but mashed?!

@Notreallyawaitress I have finally met my people. Salads have to include cold baked beans to mix with coleslaw. And also salad cream for mixing in with pickled cabbage. I’m going shopping tomorrow just to make a salad 😁 oh and must include crisps

@GreyHare

My Nan always served sliced tongue in her array of meat for salad, and if she was being posh then crinkle cut pickled beetroot, silver skin pickle onions and tinned Heinz potato salad which was tiny hard lumps of potato in not salad cream and not mayonnaise but something that resembled both but with the undercurrent of vomit.

It really does have a vomit tang, along with toast toppers.

My 70’s childhood salads were tomato, round lettuce (garden), boiled ham (very salty) cucumber slices (in vinegar), egg, spring onions perhaps dipped in salt (small pile on the plate) salad cream, proper bread (white tin loaf wrapped is tissue paper) buttered very thickly with real butter. Sometimes a pork pie with homemade pickles. If available beetroot (garden) sometimes pickled. Everything was on the middle of the table so you could pick what you wanted. Always followed with fruitcake or jam tarts, sometimes if we were flush, Mr Kipling’s Viennese whirls or French Fancies and lots of tea with sugar and creamy raw milk.

Also tongue, tinned ham, cold chicken or beef or slices of cheddar would make guest appearances.

I genuinely can't remember any childhood salads.

Nowadays I always use a vinaigrette dressing, usually it's lettuce, cucumber and tomato, finely chopped.

Lancashire 1970s - Nan salad was always plated up and was half a tomato, couple of lettuce leaves, sliced boiled egg, salad cream and a good slice of either boiled ham, tongue or haslet. Bread and butter was on the side, with a dish of cucumber in vinegar. We used to get “winter salad” at school - grated carrot, grated beetroot, grated cabbage.... I never ate it!

Homegrown tomato onion and cucumber in a cream vinegar sugar salt and pepper dressing. Lots of pickled beetroot. I also remember a hot potato salad with mashed potatoes, spring onion, egg and salad cream.

Bringing back
Memories of the 1970s school dinner pickled beetroot slice spreading its juice over everything - put me off all beetroot for life I fortunately. My only food dislike.
With American ‘nans’ my English school salads were augmented on trips to the us by -
Russian salad - a staple
Jello with vegetables
All types of rice and other chopped salads often with mini marshmallows as core ingredient
Pinwheels - rolled beef rolled with cream cheese olive and pecan stuffing
Lots of pineapple and cranberries in unexpected places.
Cold creamed corn on the side of many
Banana and peanut butter with orange slices and a few lettuce leaves salad !
Lost of moulded mousses/jellies with various cubed vegetables entrapped.
Sweetness almost always !!!
Then the ‘exotic’ clams and lobster (staple and not expensive where they were) - often jellied with vegetables. Often in a ring. Seems positively Victorian (Lincolnite?) thinking about it.
Recent funeral lunch I was at in the mid west made by the ‘church women‘ featured most of these. Still going strong.

We only ever had fruit salad (80's).
My mum made an awesome quiche with sausage in it. I wish i knew the recipe. She died just after I graduated (2002). I have her scrap book of recipes but no quiche.

My grandma made this salad! She also had a celery vase in the middle of the table, stalks cut with the leaves still on, you took a stick and dipped it in salt. I loved it!

Our Saturday tea salads were legendary.

Iceberg lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, spring onions, pile of grated cheese, boiled egg, two slices of rolled-up ham, beetroot, pickled onions, pile of homemade coleslaw, new potatoes, salad cream.

About 2000 calories, all scoffed in front of the Brookside omnibus.

Marvellous.

My grandma (born 1914) used to chop everything into tiny pieces and mix them all together. They were delicious!

My Irish nan used to have a salad spinner !!

We were fascinated by it as kids.... I guess having a wet lettuce was a no no

Again, celery in a glass.....
Rolled ham and salad cream

She also invented the dairy Lea and mini pickled onion sandwich, which is a game changer.

Love you Nan

I love an old fashioned salad - much nicer than the various leaves that gets served up now! Iceberg lettuce, radish, egg, carrot sometimes, tomatoes, and a bit of diced or grated cheese served with new potatoes and ham. I would love one right now!

My DM used to do the cucumbers in vinegar, but I hate vinegar so she used to give me a dish of sliced cucumber by itself.

i dont remember my granny making salads for us.
we had winter salad at primary school, in winter! with chopped up apple and beetroot and i cant remember what else.
i worked in a care home some years ago and gave the residents beetroot and peeled sliced cucumber, along with salad cream

exactly as my gran served.
Although you forgot about the stewed rhubarb for afters, or fleas graveyard if it was a special occasion.

[quote ClinkyMonkey]@tortoiseshell1985
Is your mum Irish or of Irish heritage? Because mash with bits of spring onion is champ, albeit warm, not cold! Was it left over from the day before, or did she specifically make cold champ?!! (I like cold champ BTW, but I'm weird!)[/quote]
Indeed she was of Irish heritage, her da came here for work as the farm couldn't support them all and no jobs in rural Ireland, he married and settled here. It probably was served hot, I just remember it cold for some weird reason.

My nonnas salads are various combinations of lettuce, grated carrots, tomatoes, betroot, cucumber all in seperature bowls with no dressing, then everyone adds the oil and salt and vinegar themselves. "grown in a garden" vegetables from Italy are a completely different thing from my "bought at Sainsburies" veg :(

My parents have got a vegetable patch this year, the lettuce and radish did well, but we only got a few tiny tomatoes and carrots. Tasted good though.