Old-fashioned foods which should make a comeback

[BarbaraVineFan]

I am just making a cheese and potato pie for lunch, which I last ate circa 1988. It's basically mashed potatoes mixed with an egg and a fuck load of cheese, more cheese on top and then baked in the oven. Bloody lovely, relatively cheap and filling.

Which other old-fashioned foods do you make /have you made recently which you think should make a comeback?

My ex used to do that but was with lime flavour jelly. 🤢🤮I'm not fussy but the thought of eating a lime flavoured blacmonge made me queasy. I never did try any.

You can still get them from the milkman, assuming you have one!

And these bad boys not seen them for ages. Apparently you were supposed to defrost them I always eat them frozen.

Chocolate blancmange recipe, in case anyone would like it.

1.5 oz, 40g cornflour
1 oz, 25g cocoa powder
3 oz, 75g caster sugar
1 pint milk
Vanilla essence (optional)

Measure the cornflour, cocoa and sugar into a basin big enough to take all the milk later.
Mix to a smooth paste with a little of the milk taken from the pint. (Only a little). Make sure it’s well blended,
Heat the rest of the milk until almost but not quite boiling. Stir it into the cornflour blend, mix well and then pour it all back into the saucepan.
Cook over a moderate heat, stirring constantly, until it’s boiling and has thickened. Cook for 1-2 minutes then take off the heat. Add a few drops of vanilla essence if you like it (I don’t) and pour into a serving dish.
Serve warm or cold, plain or with cream.

I will look tomorrow but this sounds like a Mrs Beeton recipe

Well, obvs, you gotta do it right: about 5 grains of rice and a gallon of milk and a dose of sugar...

Then it is easy...

I worked in the boarding hostel for a school when I was in college. Corned beef hash was always a popular tea - the cook used to boil and then chop onions and add them to the mashed potato.

In those odd weeks before the first lockdown in 2020 when we were stocking up on things I bought both tinned corned beef and spam-a-like (chopped pork and ham) in Lidl. The spam surprised me by being much less nasty than I expected - spam fritters are actually nicer than I remembered from 50 years ago - and diced spam is fine with peas and pasta.

For a variant on stuffed baked apples, add a spoonful of marmalade to the sultana filling.

Haven't caught up with the thread but has anyone mentioned that great staple of the skint, mince and potatoes?

DM used to do God knows what to the mince, with pepper and herbs and stock cubes and Worcestershire sauce and it was delicious. Spuds boiled and served with pepper and salt and butter, and plenty of cabbage.

<happy sigh>

Given how desperately broke we were, we ate remarkably well.

My grandmother would make this, but without the seasoning. With boiled old floury potatoes and carrots. It was surprisingly nice, I think she probably bought decent quality mince from the butchers.

@Igneococcus those look amazing.

I think I need to message my family with all these rose and violet cream links as a very heavy Christmas hint...

In the crisps line, does anyone remember those tiny puffed crisps shaped like pigs that were ( appropriately enough) bacon flavoured I think?
I’m also now remembering Macintosh’s Highland Toffee bars…I think both these and the pig crisps were available from the school ‘tuck shop’ in less health conscious days!

Treacle tart! Growing up it was a real treat if we got that from the shop, I've not really seen it anywhere in years other than a few "healthier" versions that just don't have the same syrupy deliciousness.

This one on YouTube comes out really close to how I remember though, and he has a lot of other classic dishes on his channel.

Yes pig crisps!
And yes highland toffee. They also made Fizzy Lizzies which I really miss.

I got some butter in Aldi that had salt crystals in it, fabulous on crumpets.

What gets me is that we are remembering all these stodgy puddings, high carb food and other unhealthy stuff we all ate, yet we were all skinny.

Oh wow, that’s really taken me back, thanks! I too used to eat them frozen, I didn’t realise you were meant to defrost them until you said this 😆

Batchelor's Mushy peas are excellent, and quite greyish, just as they should be.

I buy them at ruinous expense in the International section of Coles in Melbourne, so they must exist in the UK.

Mmmm... I didn't like blancmange as a child, but will try anything chocolate!
Thanks for posting the recipe!

True, I was tiny in those days, I have a black velvet pencil skirt I kept from my youth partly because it is such a nice garment and partly to remind me that I used to have a 24 inch waist! The label says Size 12, i think that would be an 8 these days. In those days, the only fast food around where I lived was one MacDonalds, and one KFC; they were both a few miles on foot from out house.

Ive only read the first page but already this should be in classics

So
Blancmange
Lardy cake (that is not a watered down version that I keep seeing in West country bakers, I want full on lard and sugar, heavy)
Bread pudding not poncy bread and butter pudding
Treacle sponge, not treacle tart
Suet, anywhere, with anything
Rarebit
Simple 'dinners' like things on toast without it being looked down on
cup cakes not muffins
Proper sponge cakes
Proper bakers rolls, not 'baguettes'.
Cream inside cakes not 'crem pat' urgh
Cream inside victoria sponge or at least very very buttery buttercream

Im sure there are tons more as I go through the thread!

It's odd isn't it. Looking at old footage of crowds etc from the 60s, 70s, 80s is like looking at a different species of human. Is it the shite in ultra processed food I wonder? Less of a snacking culture/eating late in the evening?

my mim would put smarties on a dish of hot semolina when it came out of the oven, they would melt slightly and the colours would make coloured streaks on the white surface.

OMG, mousse for 'afters'. A staple in the 70s

I also did not know you were supposed to defrost, why? Surely its like eating ice cream?

Thats a real Heston touch. She was ahead of her time.

Brown Windsor Soup
Wincarnis Jelly
and Queen of Puddings

were some of my favourites that you don't see nowadays.

For the posters craving rose & violet chocolates Whitakers of Skipton do lovely and reasonably priced fondant chocs which can sometimes be found in garden centres as well as on Amazon or direct via Whitakers Chocolate Shop – Whitakers Chocolates UK