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Why was a glass of orange juice a starter?

449 replies

NutellaEllaElla · 16/02/2024 19:34

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

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14
GetWhatYouWant · 16/02/2024 22:37

Esse1234 · 16/02/2024 21:33

Can you still get doily's? tempted to try them with the DC's 😂

I get them from Lakeland, love a doily. Used them at Christmas to serve a plate of mince pies, to serve other small cakes, also sometimes even do that retro thing where you put one on top of a sponge cake like a stencil and sieve icing sugar over, that entrances my 9 year old granddaughter!

Vladandnikki · 16/02/2024 22:37

Young farmers christmas meal starters orange juice, soup or melon. Occasionally pate as an option in fancier establishments 😂

justasking111 · 16/02/2024 22:38

AHH Berni Inn, memories.

We org a 70's dinner for 80.

Prawn cocktail
Chicken in the basket
Black forest gateau.
Fruit salad with carnation

Everyone had a good time

NotAgainWilson · 16/02/2024 22:39

In the 70s you would be offered a small glass of freshly squeezed orange juice as soon as you took your seat in a plane 🙂

justasking111 · 16/02/2024 22:39

GN637 · 16/02/2024 21:53

Our orange juice was served in these

My mother had those 😂

TinselAngel · 16/02/2024 22:48

justasking111 · 16/02/2024 22:38

AHH Berni Inn, memories.

We org a 70's dinner for 80.

Prawn cocktail
Chicken in the basket
Black forest gateau.
Fruit salad with carnation

Everyone had a good time

I often wonder why chicken was always in a basket, back in the day.

ItLiterallyJustSaysFoldInTheCheese · 16/02/2024 22:49

We used to go to a Chinese restaurant that had a set menu - first 'course' was always orange juice! Late 80s I think!

justasking111 · 16/02/2024 22:53

Anyone remember mushrooms coated in a batter , deep fried served with a dip I think

DottyPencil · 16/02/2024 22:54

Little Chef did them. They were delicious.

Bbq1 · 16/02/2024 22:55

Wish it was a still a choice. I could then still have a starter but manage more of my main.

BestIsWest · 16/02/2024 22:57

My mother still has those red glasses. Think they were Swedish or something.

Cinema and a Berni Inn was a birthday treat.

DottyPencil · 16/02/2024 22:57

Also the Just Juice advert is in my head now...

No flavourings, no stabilisers - Just Juice
No additives, no mess, no fuss - Just Juice.

How the hell has that stayed in my head all this time!

Bbq1 · 16/02/2024 22:58

NigelHarmansNewWife · 16/02/2024 19:43

What about a wedge of honeydew melon with half a glace cherry and a sprinkling of ground ginger? The 70s on a side plate.

And for pudding, tinned fruit salad and evaporated milk. Bleurgh.

Ooh, i love tinned fruit and evap.

BestIsWest · 16/02/2024 22:58

Anyone remember the Little Chef Jubilee pancake made to celebrate the Queen’s silver Jubilee. They were lush. Tinned cherries and ice cream.

asterel · 16/02/2024 22:59

It had definitely changed by the early 80s - as kids in the 80s we had orange juice in cartons at home as a drink, plus the clear brown apple juice which everyone had because cloudy apple juice wasn’t yet a thing. Both from concentrate of course! And pretty ubiquitous for kids as a drink in the 80s, to the extent that I know a fair few contemporaries now in their 40s whose teeth were ruined by fruit juice because all our parents erroneously believed it was “healthy”.

But I knew about the orange juice as starter thing because occasionally we stayed in guesthouses or hotels by the sea for holidays, and there you could always have a starter of orange juice. I remember staying in a really old-fashioned seaside hotel in Devon in 1984, all very Fawlty Towers, and being gobsmacked at the starters being orange juice only! It was a staple of old-fashioned guesthouse menus for quite a long time after orange juice was considered quite ordinary. It was always smooth juice, though - the days of “juice with bits” were quite a way off.

And the soups of those days weren’t at all chunky like most soups today. You’d typically get Heinz cream of tomato watered down really thin, or bouillon style soups - my favourite as a kid was the “Florida Spring Vegetable” from a packet, which was v v 70s and was basically yellow bouillon with tiny bits of tasteless freeze-dried vegetables floating in it, including teeny tiny dried-up peas. I loved that soup (but I fear that it was absolutely vile and would probably give one instant salt poisoning these days…)

My mum all through the 80s did a variation on the melon starter for special occasions like Christmas dinner - melon with either port or cranberry sauce was a favourite one of hers! To be fair she was a very good cook, and often ranged well beyond the usual 70s/80s recipes.

GinnyWizz · 16/02/2024 23:00

WibblyWobblyWeeble · 16/02/2024 19:49

Definitely a thing in the 80's.
There was a place my parents used to take us for Sundayunch, and it hac orange,or grapefruit juice, or soup or prawn cocktail for starter, then the roast, and dessert was from the trolley.
I loved the dessert trolley.

I actually worked as the desert trolley girl in a v nice hotel in Ireland. Was really stressful. Big farmers asking me for a bit of that one AND a bit of that one. Wjat could I say.....After a week, management took me off the desert trolley 😫

Tilllly · 16/02/2024 23:01

JellyfishandShells · 16/02/2024 19:58

Mostly wasn’t freshly squeezed - it was Britvic in little bottles, often proudly announced as Britvic Orange or Pineapple. Often chosen as a ‘slimming ‘ starter, or if you were planning on something large for a main and didn’t want to fill up on soup, prawn cocktail, pate and toast, chilled melon with port or the bizarre grilled grapefruit. I did feel a bit silly sipping away from a small wine glass alongside my mother whilst my father tucked in to actual food.

Orange juice was a small helping squeezed at home when you were ill, from frozen packs as a summer treat (Birds Eye Florida Orange !) or some stuff from a can that always tasted metallic.

We always had actual oranges freely available in the house but orange juice wasn’t a casual drink.

Oooh britvic pineapple
I loved that!

Puzzledandpissedoff · 16/02/2024 23:02

BestIsWest · 16/02/2024 22:57

My mother still has those red glasses. Think they were Swedish or something.

Cinema and a Berni Inn was a birthday treat.

If you mean like the ones below they were Luminarc from France Smile

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275353895860

GinnyWizz · 16/02/2024 23:03

Also, just to explain to the youngsters on this thread...you opened the massive can of OJ concentrate, tipped the thick orange sludge into a big jug, used the empty tin to measure out the water, poured it into the sludge and then stirred it vigorously. Voila. Orange juice. 🍊

RustyBear · 16/02/2024 23:03

I worked in a guest house in Devon between school & university in the summer of 1974. Starters were soup, juice (orange, pineapple or grapefruit) or melon. I used to prepare the melon slices, cutting along the inside of the rind & slicing it, then putting a slice of orange threaded on a cocktail stick in the middle to make the sail of the melon boat, with a cocktail cherry on top of the ‘mast’, then sprinkled with ground ginger.

asterel · 16/02/2024 23:07

TinselAngel · 16/02/2024 22:48

I often wonder why chicken was always in a basket, back in the day.

“Country style” was fashionable at the time; and the baskets were, on the one hand, serving gimmicks that looked “rustic”. On the other, they’d come with paper napkins in the bottom under the chicken to catch the chicken grease 😂

The baskets then got reused. Nice. Bit like the fad pubs had before Covid of serving pub food on wooden boards, or chips in metal baskets or mini trolleys or whatever. I was glad to see that all died something of a death during the pandemic - not dishwasher safe I imagine 🤣

NannyGythaOgg · 16/02/2024 23:08

If a person doesn't have a big enough appetite for 3 courses of food. A drink like (hopefully but not usually) fresh orange (or other fruit) juice enable that person to enjoy the whole of the meal out. (It was also (almost) accepted that the females in the party would have fruit juce, whilst the males had an extra course

Puzzledandpissedoff · 16/02/2024 23:10

justasking111 · 16/02/2024 22:53

Anyone remember mushrooms coated in a batter , deep fried served with a dip I think

They still do them at my local Marstons pub/eatery!!

TheBayLady · 16/02/2024 23:10

BIWI · 16/02/2024 19:56

... and Birds Apeel!

Nectar, I wish they still sold it.

Libby's Tomato juice was awful

aitchteeaitch · 16/02/2024 23:13

TinselAngel · 16/02/2024 19:38

I remember it being from concentrate rather than freshly squeeezed

Yes, I vaguely remember it being frozen concentrate and in a cardboard cylinder, about the size of a small can of tonic. It was a luxury and not cheap.

You couldn't by fresh juice in the chillers or in big cartons like you can now, and the only other alternative was to buy oranges and squeeze them yourself. I don't know anyone who did that, it was far too expensive and wasteful. I used to get given the juice from a can of mandarin oranges sometimes, that was the closest I got!