Why was a glass of orange juice a starter?

[NutellaEllaElla]

I learned this recently. Is it true? What don't I know that might help me understand this?

And you had to get to the bottles before the birds did. I'd forgotten bachelor's soup.

I don't remember skippers though.

I will forever remember the scene in The Railway Children, their first night in their new home ( or morning ) when the toast was put in front of them and one goes to put jam on their buttered toast and mum says " just one or the other, we cant afford both "

Mayo? Salad cream more like!

I remember getting 20p back for glass bottles (ginges or glass cheques) and I took enough to the shop to get 20 fags when I was 18!

You can still get skippers. I'd forgotten about them and used to love them as a kid. Better than sardines as you didn't get the backbone.

I quite often have a can of skippers for lunch. I don't remember having them as a kid though, we had sardines on toast, or pilchards with a salad. Tinned salmon for special occasions... I actually liked the bones.

They had a programme about the 1963 freeze last night, on the telly. I was 8 at the time, and didn't realise how bad it was.

I was 7 (8 by the time it thawed) and I remember it well, possibly because we had such a long walk through deep snow in the woods to get to school. The outside toilets eventually froze solid so school closed for a while although they were still frozen when we went back. Girls were allowed the privilege of wearing trousers instead of bare legs and socks while there was still snow on the ground.

Sounds interesting.

What was it called?

Just found it!

Was looking on the wrong day!

I was 2 so don't remember the freeze but there's a family photo of the sea with ice in it.

Going back to the orange juice starter, it was always weird-tasting Britvic and never fresh in the 70s - unless we stayed in much cheaper places than the fresh juice lot!

I was seven. My brother was born prematurely at home no way to get to the hospital but the midwife got to us.

School was closed for a bit, we were transferred to another school because of frozen pipes, loo. I remember coal burning stoves in our classroom the teacher topped up all day. The Thames froze.

@Ilovemyshed
You may have had salad cream, but people did have mayonnaise in the 1970s.

In around 1970/71, we had a French student who was teaching at our school, and she lived with us for that year. It was she who introduced us to 'French Dressing' for salads, instead of salad cream. (We definitely didn't have mayonnaise then). But we didn't have olive oil, (olive oil was something you used to buy in small bottles from the chemist, to treat earwax build-ups) or wine vinegar, so my mum used to make it with veg or sunflower oil and malt vinegar. Still much more interesting on a salad than salad cream!

That was the point of Eggs Mayonnaise as a starter - it was something a bit posh you wouldn't normally have at home. Especially if dusted with paprika or cayenne pepper!

Yes - Chicken in a Basket and Scampi in a Basket were really big in the 1970s - especially in pubs. A basket, real or imitation plastic, well lined with paper and serviettes, a portion of chips and then chicken/scampi on the top.

Why it was a thing? Not sure but I have several thoughts.

• I can see it being an easier option for pubs during the energy crises of the 1970s when energy was really expensive and power was often off for several hours a day. No need to run dishwashers - the plastic baskets probably got a dunk in soapy water whereas the real baskets likely did not get anything other than a brush out.
• Cheaper. No need to do a fancy salad garnish or wash plates so few kitchen staff needed -no need to wash dishes and in some places no cutlery either.
• Cross over popularity - it was both a meal and a snack so people would order them - sometimes to share - and snack on while drinking. A bit like people order chicken wings etc and before kebab shops rose in popularity.
• The "rustic" trend of the 1970s - the fashion for stripped pine and country kitchen styles - IMHO putting food into rustic-style baskets was a part of this fashion

Yes - my nanna's "go to" kids' teas if we were there after school in the late 60's/early 70s was pilchards on toast where she mashed up a tin of Glenryck Pilchards in tomato sauce and spread them onto toast,

Her other staple was beans on toast. Oddly, she didn't cook the beans by tipping them into a saucepan and heating them for a few minutes as people usually did - but instead used to punch a hole in the baked bean tin, place it in a saucepan of cold water, brought the water to the boil and then simmered for 15-20 minutes. It took almost 30 minutes to heat up a small tin of beans. Then she tipped the beans onto the toast and smothered it with white pepper.

@Lunde. My uncle did that when he was a student-until he forgot to put a hole in the tin and ended up with baked beans everywhere!

When I was a student the guy in the house next door put a baking potato in the oven without pricking it and went off for an hour while it "cooked" - it exploded in the oven and burnt on to the walls and the smell of bonfire potato lasted days.

My mum did exactly the same when she cooked baked beans of tinned spaghetti and boiled the tin in water for about half an hour. My husband never believed that she did this so I'm glad someone else can remember this happening 😆

We definitely had mayonnaise in the 1960s, although I don't remember it generally being as popular as salad cream, but it was one of my mum's favourite things. I think Hellmans Real Mayonnaise was first introduced in the UK in 1961.

My dm cooked chestnuts in the oven but didn’t know you had to pierce the skin.

They went off like fireworks and she didn’t try again.

thanks to this thread I have actually started giving my Dcs a little glass of orange juice before dinner. One of them has a range of disability-related food issues and almost certainly is not getting enough iron (and can't have orange juice in the morning as it interferes with some of his medication) and they are finding the process of a little crystal port glass of juice to be charming.

Have you tried adding malt vinegar to your mashed up pilchards on toast? It's really good...