What did people actually eat in the past?

[BuffaloCauliflower]

Inspired by the finding of some crockery that belonged to my Granny (born 1917) and
conversations with my DM about feeding families, I’ve been wondering a lot about how and what people ate in the past on just normal days, not fancy dinner party stuff. My Granny was an older mum, 43 when she had my DM in 1960, and DM remembers mostly simple meat and two veg type dishes. Cottage pie, casseroles, roast dinners. What was a quick easy dinner, did such a thing exist before 1970?! Egg and chips? Memories of childhood reading conjures up bread and dripp

If you were around in the 50s/60s in the U.K., what did normal family meals look like? Or even earlier maybe, pre war. What sort of things were normal prior

My grandma made lots of the above.
She like fish paste in little jars.
She made her own bread often
Pastry with meat in
Victoria sponge for visitors.
Stew and dumplings.
Horrible things like liver and onions, tripe, tongue, which it annoyed her that we wouldn't eat.

Well in my grans case they were very poor and cooked what was available and what they could afford.
I dont actually find things like cockles and offal bland. Things like neck of lsmb stew can be very rich flavour. There are lots of traditional herbs used to flavour stuff rather than spices like sage, or rosemary, mint and so and lots of fruit parings like pork and apple. Also condiments like mustard, horseradish etc.
Potatoes come in lots ways.

Born in 1950 late father went fishing, nextdoor neighbour shooting,so rabbit and pigeon. Roast on Sunday, minced the following day,then "cold cuts". Tongue,Offal,bacon joint.we had chicken,lots of them,so them plus eggs. Parents grew fruit and veg. Late 60s late mum started making curries. Gran had a Raeburn (old style aga) big casseroles,steamed suet puddings. My late mum made the most amazing deep fluffy Yorkshire pudding, leftover served with golden syrup and custard.

I’ve just remembered my great uncle apparently liked jellied eels - no idea what era that was in though.

I cook all our meals from scratch and these lists are making me realise how complicated some of the meals I cook that I think of as basic actually are. My toddler would probably be fine in the 60s, his best meal is a roast. Perhaps I’d get less refusal if I went a bit historic and simple, though he refused savoury mince last week!

Also, home made custard on stuff-packets of custard ready made dud not exist.
Ditto yogurt
Most people did not eat rice or pasta.

My Gran would get a cows tongue from the butchers for Christmas.
She’d cook it and then press it into a large pudding basin and leave it overnight to cool.
In the morning she’d turn it out and carve it off as cold meat.

I can remember my mum buying olive oil from the chemist to use in some fancy recipe she’d found. It wasn’t available in the local shops.

I can also remember tasting my first avocado, this was in the early 1970s

Bird’s Custard Powder definitely existed!

My granny made stew. It was gorgeous. I have a weakness for stew. And roast dinners. Grandad made cooked breakfasts.

My best friend at school had an "older" mum, she was 45 when my friend was born, would have been born in the 20s. She used to cook with offal a lot, heart stew I remember but it was very chewy. She also made lemon curd tarts almost every day. How were we all slim?

Dreaded stuffed lambs hearts and carrot and turnip,kidneys in gravy with mash and massive pork chops with half a kidney attached .

Neck end of lamb and pearl barley

chicken was uncommon

kippers!

salt fish with brown bread

home made puddings crumble pure suet pudding it was the late 1960s and 70s so absolutely no convenience food

lunch half s sandwich or one sad lice of cheese on toast

Oh yes, home made Victoria sandwiches...."the weight of 2 eggs of butter, sugar and flour" is what she taught me.

Partly because portions were smaller, partly because it was all made rather than ultra processed like so much now. Even basic things like bread are full of lab made ingredients, and it mucks up how our bodies respond to food.

Born very early 50's. I remember toast for breakfast, mince and tatties or home made soup. Then rice pudding or custard with prunes or jam. Teatime we had stovies, liver, mostly fried stuff. Sometimes it was mac and cheese. On a Sunday we had brisket and veg, potatoes etc. apple crumble and custard or arctic roll or neapolitan ice cream.

If we were hungry we got a slice of white bread with a sprinkle of sugar. Hardly ever got sweets as there wasnt the money.
I never tasted cucumber till i was14 and coleslaw when i was 18. Our cookery teacher at school when i was 14 showed us how to make curry and i made it for my family.

Ooh I've often thought this, my parents eat a lot of the above and it's what I grew up on but we still had crisps and cereal in the cupboards.

As a PP said, my dad says meals were often a bowl of something caught or grown locally and a load of bread (plate of bread and butter with meals is still a working class staple).

Same with alcohol, you had to wait for the pub to open or keep a bottle of scotch/gin (no tonic or coke) in.

We've got so much choice now, I ate a big bag of bloody revels just waiting for my kids earlier, that should be a treat not something to pass time .

My mother's family were quite well off. She didn't eat a cooked tomato until 1954 when my aunt came home from a foreign honeymoon and made them spaghetti bolognese.

Nothing was especially spiced (although they did eat kedgeree) but the food was mostly fresh and a lot of it cooked at home. Lots of seasonal fruit and veg so plenty of flavour, even if not the variety we would consider normal, and made into an incredible range of jams, preserves and pickles. Lots of egg dishes. Routine cakes every week, summer pudding to use up stale bread and scones to use up milk on the turn. I still miss top of the milk on puddings.

Even in the 70s, I remember blancmange, junket and shape, all of which have been replaced by yogurt now and good riddance

My mum didn't like milk puddings so we never had them but they were a staple at school at least until the early 80s - tapioca, semolina, rice pudding, sago pudding. All revolting IMO.

To add to my previous post, I'm 40, my mum was a bit more adventurous than friends mums, we had 'curry' watery with raisins in, spag Bol, but she could never stand still long enough to break the mince up so it was big horrid greasy chunks, I just had the spaghetti, we had lots of casseroles, stuffed marrow but nothing was nice as there was no care taken. My dad was better but didn't cook much, he had an operation and couldn't do his manual job for about 3 months but could cook, that was the first time I ate mince willingly. But then dad grew up in poverty so made the most of ingredients, but was very much a man who didn't believe in eating before a big meal, like at all, so even much later than this when he was well enough he'd make Sunday dinner, but the rule was nobody could eat before, but we would eat at gone 6, so no breakfast or lunch, as a hungover 20 something it was torture as he'd been cooking on and off all day so not only were you hungry you could smell food. This was before just eat etc and we lived rural.

My mum born 1940s said chicken was only at christmas. She remembers her first savoury rice dish (ie not rice pudding) when in her 20s so late 1960s. Sausage and egg pie is a family tradition still. Pasta did not enter our house til
mid 1980s.

I was born in 1956, working class family, seven of us, so not a lot of money. We ate one cooked meal a day, when depended on what shift my dad was working.

Weekday breakfasts were cereal. Sunday was a fry up, eggs, streaky bacon, tinned tomatoes, and fried bread.

Cooked meals were roast chicken on Sunday, leftovers on Monday (so that’s fourteen portions from one chicken, pretty near as good as the mumsnet chicken); liver and bacon; hearts; toad in the hole; stews and casseroles, steak and kidney or bacon pudding - anything that cooked for a long time, so my mum could use cheaper meat. All with potatoes and whatever veg were in season. At weekends, there would be dessert: rice pudding, a crumble, yet more steamed puddings generally jam or golden syrup, and custard.

The other meal (tea or lunch) would mainly be bread and jam, or a Dairylea cheese triangle sandwich, or homemade soup with - inevitably - bread. On Sunday, it was salad.

We rarely had snacks. At Easter, there would be one hot cross bun each for tea on Good Friday, and an egg each on Easter Sunday. At Christmas, there would be one or two mince pies and a selection box each. Every now and again, we’d get to sit outside a pub (while my dad was inside) and have a lemonade and a packet of crisps.

We certainly had rice pudding, tapioca and semolina as school dinner puddings in the 70s. I loved tapioca and would get loads as no one else would eat it!

dgm (born 1917) did a good pea soup.
I was a 1970s child we had a fair amount of mash potato, Boiled cabbage and mince beef and onion was a staple.
stew.
Omelette and chips
Yellow fish(think it was cod) with mash and peas.
Boiled potatoes and meat.
corned beef hash.
There was a lot of potatoes and bread and butter.
we didn’t really have puddings - had a chocolate biscuit after tea every night though.

Lots of offal, tripe, liver, kidneys, hearts, brains, intestines were eaten in WW2 as they were off ration, my mum remembers braised hearts & sheep's brains on toast. A Yorkshire delicacy is Tripe & Onions, it's the only one I will eat, a massive dish full with crusty bread, I would rather eat that than a steak. Food rationing didn't end till 1954, there were very few convenience foods so everything was cooked from scratch, no cooking oil, only lard or dripping, no air fryers so lots of frying or roasting in the oven, chips were cooked in lard or dripping, no frozen food & lots of people didn't have a fridge or freezer so had to shop daily, my mum had to choose between a fridge or a washer in 1962 & chose to continue going to the launderette for another year until she could afford a washer.

As a child in the 70’s I clearly remember fish and chips from the shop was a very cheap meal and roast chicken was reserved for special occasions. Very different pricing today!

I loved my Nan for lots of reasons. Top two were her roast potatoes (made with meat juices from the previous Sunday's roast). I defy anyone to do better!

And tinned salmon and cucumber sandwiches for tea. With lashings of vinegar and real butter (not the crappy, healthy stuff we had at home).

Surprisingly, it wasn't blocked arteries that did her in!

Ooh, and proper sage and onion too.

She really was the best

My local bakery sells dripping mixed with Bovril, it is so tasty, I used to buy a dripping cake on the way back from taking ds to school every day.

I’ve just remembered chitlins.

Some kind of offal. Looked utterly disgusting.