Things you didn't know weren't normal

[Applescruffle]

What are things you thought every one or every family did until you became an adult or entered a new relationship?

I'll start. I thought that everyone ate the leftover yorkshires after a roast dinner as desert eg: fill them with cream and fruit or custard or something, basically use them like you would a pancake... no?

I thought everyone peeled mushrooms, I didn't know that not only do people not peel mushrooms, lots don't even know they have peel!! 😱

I'll probably think of more.

Nb: I'm not meaning to trigger anyone's childhood or relationship trauma, I just mean lighthearted things x

Buttered Weetabix for supper. I thought everyone did it, but apparently not. Just my mum.

Well, ‘buttered’. Thick layer of Stork SB. Lovely.

It doesn’t work now that Weetabix has gone all thin and crumbly.

That's like a picture of someone removing the skin off a blueberry and saying it's normal.

Savoury pancakes are very normal on the continent.

Left over Yorkshires are because you deliberatly cook too many. In my family they were eaten cold with golden syrup for breakfast.

Also cheese on fruitcake is completely normal.

Yes to rhubarb and a cup with sugar.

Licorice sticks or roots - not black sticks made of licorice but the actual plant, you just chew the stick / root for the flavour.

Chocolate sandwiches, mde with animal bars.

Can you tell I spent the start of my life in Yorkshire?

I’m from Scotland this happened at every meal time in my house too, and when visiting at gran parents lol

Only rich people could afford Vienetta!

Oh yes, we used to have tiny slices & when I was little I dreamed that if buying my own for only me.

horseradish on lamb would have been a heresy in our house!

My parents were very very specific about condiments and would not deviate from: horseradish on beef, apple sauce on pork, mint sauce on lamb, dijon mustard on sausages, ketchup on steak, English mustard on gammon/ham, tabasco on bacon, Worcestershire sauce on mushrooms, cranberry sauce on turkey, bread sauce on chicken, currant jelly with mutton and dried parmesan and fresh lemon on veal....

And Ferrero Rochers!!!

Absolutely this!!! 😂

It so isn't 😂It's completly and utterly different.

A blueberry would fall to pieces if you tried to peel it. Plus it would be fiddley as hell. A mushroom would just be pure and white and clean and completly hold it's shape. And be enjoyable to peel.

UncleRadley
“ I will die on this hill”

I Love this! 🤣

My mind is 🤯

I could never do the bread and butter in the middle of the table thing. My kids would just fill up on it and not eat their dinners.

Wish people would stop posting pictures of fairy bread and mushrooms...the sight of both make me physically sick. 😬

I remember getting told off by my mother when I was about 15 when she realised I'd been wearing knickers to bed (but can't remember how she found out?). I only stopped when I was about 21 and accidentally poured hot oil down my stomach and was badly burnt...couldn't wear knickers at all for months afterwards...and never went back!

During the summer when I'm wearing a dress and just a bra underneath I do wonder about 'in case of accident'...but not enough to go back to wearing them...

Part of me really loves this (so many rules, so specific!) but I could never live like that. Mostly because what if I don't like the correct condiment?! You could not pay me to eat apple sauce and I don't love ketchup generally. I stick mayo on most things, and I bloody love bread sauce, mint sauce and horseradish ALL on a roast of any meat!

This is so interesting to me! I've found people are mostly one or the other - my PILs for example are a dinner at the table absolutely no excuses kind of family, so much so that when we persuaded them to get a Dominos one time FIL still got all the table mats, cutlery and plates out and laid the table. I was aghast. I know I eat all dinners on the sofa but surely even table families eat a Dominos in front of the telly?!

I think I'm going to aspire to be like you - mix and match. So no one is shocked if we eat at the table (like my family) but also happy to have a chilled sofa dinner when it's wanted and needed.

All my siblings are still like this (as am I), and their spouses joke about it. First time I had a roast dinner (lamb) at my ILs I asked my then bf (quietly) where the mint sauce was as it hadn't occurred to me that other houses mightn't have the same rules. I do now carry a wee tube of Coleman's with me (as does Nigella Lawson I think) in case I encounter something that 'needs' it. Any Christmas I spent with my in laws I always brought Cranberry sauce for the turkey as I can't eat it without it. My ILs are sadly passed away and we don't really do roasts at home, so I'm generally safe on that count.

Yip, always at the table for is. 4 kids, my father was mostly away. We would try our luck for a TV dinner (sat in front of it with a tray, not an actual take away), but no chance, at the table it had to be.

I think with my mum basically having to raise us on her own, she got fed up calling us for dinner. She then invested in a bell 😂. We always say she thought she was a whole lot posher than we were, the silver bell lived on the sideboard and she rang it when dinner was ready. We still laugh about it now. Don't know how it came about, but if ever a friend stayed over for the first time, there was always that wtf moment from them when the bell rang. 😂

Maybe the knickers on/off brigade also change their pjs less/more frequently?

I love love love bread sauce. I never understand why i only cook it at Christmas though.

I eat roast chicken with English mustard. Nigella does apparently and I thought' eeeewwww' but tried it (because ... well.... Nigella... ) and love it.

I like the idea of mix and match as well for dinner table/sofa. I always feel guilty if we don't eat at the table like I am losing my standards- but that said we eat on the sofa most of the time. I shall reframe it as being 'relaxed' rather than lazy which is what my parents would think.

@Applescruffle We always ate at the table when my dad was home but when he worked away my mum and I would sometimes have a floor picnic in the living room with stuff he doesn’t like

My dh and I eat at the table usually unless it’s a takeaway in front of the tv once a week or breakfast in bed

Bread sauce is the best but a bit of a faff - my mum always made it with a clove-studded onion in it so I do too. English mustard is good on most things!

aaah oddly the only breakfast we pretty much ALWAYS eat at the table is breakfast.

I love a decent breakfast. I do toast, scrambled eggs orange juice, yoghurt and fruit pretty much every day. Granted i wfh and we don;t have to leave for the school run until 7.40 but i have one child on ADHD meds which ruin his appetite and we have to front load on food before he takes his meds. So I started making a cooked breakfast daily. I really enjoy it (to be fair I read through it and the DCs are on their phones so it is not as formal as it sounds).

But mostly sofa for dinner.

I mean, why choose? why pressure? I tried to be a complete table family as I was brought up for it to be the correct way. We wouldn't have even tried to eat our dinner in front of the TV and the dinner table was never in the same room as the TV.
But I found a more relaxed approach to be better for us, less stress for me, more enjoyable meal times, and more what DH was used to. And they still learn how to eat properly at a table because it's still very much something we do.
And as I've gotten older, I've realised my mum felt under so much pressure to be perfect and that's why she insisted on these things, not because it was wrong not to. In reality we were dirt poor, my step-father was a raging alcoholic, and pretty much none of us are NT. We were far from "perfect" and my mum tied herself up in knots trying to fit a mould we would never fit. And I will not put that pressure on myself.

Always knickers and PJs in bed. On my period I'll have a super tampon and a night time pad just in case.