What was food like when you were a child?

[Yourinmyspot]

I was cooking our tea the other day and did boiled potatoes I said to DD they were old potatoes as we both prefer them to new potatoes. She said something about old and new potatoes to her friends at school and they didn’t have a clue what she meant.

I was born in the early 70’s and we had old potatoes either boiled or mashed in the winter months and new potatoes (the small ones) in the summer months but couldn’t have them mashed. I always remember it was good when we could have mash again in the winter!

Fruit was seasonal too, we were allowed one portion a day as it would have been to expensive for us as a big family to have more than that. You only got strawberries for a short window in the summer there was no way we had then at any other time. We had oranges in winter usually around Christmas time. My Mum would buy a crate from the local greengrocer and keep it in the porch, they were great oranges.

I remember the first time we had lasagne it was so exotic! Never had pasta growing up. We always had a roast dinner on Sundays and had the leftover meat with chips on Mondays.

We often had mince and mash (or new potatoes) with tapioca for pudding as it cooked at the same time.

I loved it when we had bacon chops as we could dip our potatoes in the bacon fat so tasty had to fight my Dad for it!

At one point my Mum used to heat up a bag of ready salted crisps to go with a roast chicken dinner not sure why. It stopped as she got fed up of us arguing over who had the most.

For pudding we had things like blamange in a rabbit mould or a sponge that was hollow in the middle that my Mum put jelly mixed with fruit in.

Happy memories

Plentiful and healthy. My parents didn’t fry anything and it was all fairly low fat, bread always wholemeal etc.

Seasonal and not flash, but very good. We had 2 roast dinners a week usually and then things like sausage and mash.

Not much pasta or rice but we had chilli and curry sometimes.

I was a really fussy kid for a while and had the same thing in my packed lunch every day out of choice.

For a treat or on holiday or a school trip I could have an individual Lyons Fruit Pie, apricot was my favourite, I can remember them being bigger than the more modern Mr Kipling ones and being delicious

Most things were some form of meat, potatoes and veg. Occasionally we were treated to deep-fried chips and chicken drumsticks. The most exotic thing was "curry" but this was mince with curry powder and raisins in. We were also forced to eat liver and onions, kidney pie (no money for steak and kidney pie) and stuffed marrow all of which were vile but we ate them anyway, you didn't get to have an opinion unless you were the one paying for it.

But we did get jelly in a rabbit mold so it wasn't all bad.

I was born early 60s. We ate well, my mum was a brilliant cook. My dad could just about boil an egg.
We had a pudding every night after our main course. As much fruit as we wanted. We never had Chinese, Indian, Italian food as my dad wouldn't eat "foreign muck"- he did like a plate of tripe or cowheels etc. though!
One thing I loved was my mum's homemade cakes and pies, they were wonderful. There was always at least one tin full of baking.
I remember the old and new potatoes too- I didn't much like boiled or mash, only chips or roast.

Never went to restaurants. Sometimes got a chippie or Chinese.

Breakfast was rice crispies
lunch was a tin of Heinz something

dinners were

mince and tatties
spag bol
chops and veg
casseroles
roasts

puddings were crumbles and custard

I was born in 1959 and everything was home-cooked. We didn't have a fridge or freezer until I was about 14. There weren't any supermarkets where we lived when I was a child, anyway. The milkman brought the milk (kept cool on the steps of the cellar at home, and my mum used to go shopping every day for things we needed. Typically, we had some type of meat/stew with potatoes and vegetables for every meal. Not a lot of fruit (only whatever was in season)

people need to put their ages/decade when they were born.

80s child - lots of home cooking, but frozen food too. Quite traditional fare, went out for curries etc

boiled potatoes with everyone meal meat and veg cold meat leftovers from Sunday with warm gravy on top yuck yoghurt angel deligh jelly or blancmange for desert or tinned fruit and libbys milk gome made chips once a week with cheap pizza cheese and tomato or fish fingers
Mum made shepherds pie mincing left over meat or minced meat pie left over meat or egg and bacon pie
Sometimes we would have cheap sausages or live and bacon
in the winter desert was bread pudding bread and butter pudding or homemade rice pudding or semolina
occasionally dad would make a curry with peas mince and curry powder or a spaghetti bol with mince and tomatoes
for dessert he would buy a flan case and fill it with strawberries or tinned peaches sometimes we would have the ice cream with it that came in a cardboard packet
mum would make rock cakes little fruit cakes or butterfly cakes to fill us up
fruit was apples and pears mainly and bananas
Very little swets etc and biscuits biscuits were rich tea or digestive and carefully rationed!
Penguin bars were for packed lunches alongside a packet of crisps and a cheese sandwich and an apple always the same
rarely had fizzy drink always orange or blackcurrant squash
ready meals were unheard of

@Chocolatecustardcreamsrule chicken kiev is still one of my favourites

to add i was a child of the 70s very occasionally we would get a take away fish and chips or Chinese usually sweet and sour something!!

Mostly stodge in the form of stews that lasted all week based on whatever meat we had on the Sunday - just more veg added each day to bulk it up and re-heat, must have been at least 50% potato! I remember mother scraping off the solidified fat from the top every day. If it was getting too watery, we'd put a tin of baked beans in to thicken it up a bit!

Pudding was usually likewise with a huge pot of rice pudding which lasted several days, just re-heated daily with extra milk added to bulk it out!

Lunches were basic sandwiches, sometimes a slice of ham, sometimes just tomato or meat spread, but usually meat & potato pies on Saturday lunchtime which mother brought back after shopping in the morning.

By the end of the week when the stew had finally run out, we'd probably get fish and chips for Friday tea, and something basic like a tin of beans and mash for Saturday tea, then we were back to meat on Sunday.

It was years later that we started having ready meals such as lasagne, cottage pies, pasta, etc for evening meals, along with frozen food like frozen chips, fish fingers, burgers, pies etc.

I really don't recall much in the way of fresh fruit and vegetables, other than potatoes and carrots for the stew!

Fizzy soft drinks were once a year at Christmas - never at any other time - drinks were always tea, coffee, milk or water, or occasional orange cordial which had to last for months!

Born in the mid 80s. Food was freezer food. One day frozen fish (half a piece or 2 fish fingers) and chips the next frozen pizza and chips. Sausages occasionally with egg, chips and beans. “Roast” was usually a frozen chicken portion with frozen roast potatoes and over cooked frozen veg.

not much money, lots of kids and mothers mental illness meant we had just enough to eat and no more.

I've never heard of them being called old potatoes. That's tickled me.

For me food grown up almost exclusively came from the freezer, oven chips, turkey dinosaurs, turkey drummer, findus crispy pancakes, micro pizza. Craft macaroni from the red box.
Very occasionally my dad would make a roast chicken or bolognese but that was quite unusual. I don't remember my mum cooking at all.

Packed lunches were sandwiches with billy bear meat, frubes, a packet of crisps and maybe a piece of fruit. Tuna pasta ina tupperware pot if we were being really fancy.

As a teen I would go through periods of eating the same few food for months on end. Plain pasta with cheese grated on top, microwave tikka masala, cheese nachos. My palette is wider now and involves fresh fruit and veg but I still eat the same things for months on end, at the moment it's Caesar salad. I do wonder if there might be more to it.

Indian family and parents really good cooks.

Roast lamb would have spices and garlic, but also Aunty Bessie’s Yorkshire Pudding.

Rabbits, pheasants and pigeons through the winter.

Mum was very much influenced by wartime recipes but of the scrimp variety. We had way too much carb and not enough meat. My diet was so poor I've had bad teeth all my life.

Food at home was disgusting.
It was the same thing every day tbh hard boiled potatoes.
If we got anything different it was from a bin you know the biffa bins behind the shops thats where our food came from.
Now as an adult im very fussy with food and spend out on it so i have the best to eat.

It was always freshly cooked. Nothing what my mum would call 'adventurous' but it was delicious comfort food. The best ever chips which I'd help her put in the pan of cold water to get the starch out. Apple crumble, home made rice pudding. Roast chicken, cottage pie and home made biscuits. Absolutely no SPF in those days (1970s) I do really enjoy cooking but like to try new things and different cultures, prefer mostly vegetarian food.

I've never heard of 'old potatoes' either! It was potatoes or new potatoes!

Seasonal fruits in puddings. Apple crumble, plum crumble, strawberries and cream.

Crap. Everything was processed and there was never enough. I remember stealing food and hiding to eat it. We would regularly eat sugar or tomato ketchup sandwiches. There was never any fruit in the house.

Very much like OP described. Born mid 80s.

We ate very seasonally veg wise, fruit too but we never had much fruit. Grandad had an allotment and we got a lot of stuff fom the local greengrocer when I was young. The first time I had strawberries in winter was at a boyfriend's house when I was 16! Mum just didn't buy them and we didn't eat out a lot.

I hated liver and onions, liked baked potatoes but we only had butter on them as a side dish. We had stuff like toad in the hole, tinned salmon with boiled potatoes, roast on a Sunday. Spaghetti bolognese felt very special. I loved when chicken Tonight came out! We ate a lot of things like potato waffles, crispy pancakes, Bernard Matthews turkey leg things dfor weeknight tea. Mostly I just remember everything being bland, ut wasn't bad, just dull.

We also had new and old potatoes.

Similar OP, 70s child and we had a mixture of proper dinners as I would call them like shepherds pie, liver and bacon with onions, mince and mash (again old potatoes), lots of greens and veg, mum is a big believer in the power of cabbage water as it contains all the nutrients so we draink that down us as well, in the summer was a salad with ham, tomatoes, proper lettuce (none of this iceberg crap), watercress (barely see it now), pickle, hard boiled egg. Or smaller dinners like cheese on toast egg on toast, sardines on toast, beans on toast. My dad would often have bacon and beans as a dinner. Tomatoes on toast was a nice one. Omlette or a baked egg with mushroom and cheese and onion. Beejam tubs of mousse as afters. The odd vesta ready meal but that was expensive. Sometimes spaghetti bologenese but that was considered quite fancy. Also fancy was chilli con carne, with a ring of rice, really liked that. Sundays posh tea was tinned salmon sandwiches, with cucumber and vingegar.

Smiths crisps, dont remember chocolate much. Didnt have a lot of cake. But then I never had a sweet tooth so perhaps we did have them in the house but I didnt prefer them. Didnt have fried foods as my mum thought a deep fat frier or a chip pan would set the house on fire so Ive never had home cooked chips. Packed lunches usually cheese and pickle or egg and butter (never salad cream and we didnt have mayo)

Very occasionally my mum would buy marks chicken in breadcrumbs, and we would have that with marks coleslaw and potato salad. Fancy.

Sometimes had tinned fruit with dream topping, again not often as expensive for the dream topping. Tinned pineapple was a real treat every now and then

All home cooked food, nothing processed, apart from vesta although not sureif that was overly processed. Strict rule that you only ate what you wanted, do not eat more than you need its ok to leave it

Ended up massively overweight. The myth of the 'you wont get fat on home cooked meals'!

Every day began with porridge which kept you full until mid-day. Our main meat was bacon from our own pig. I won't describe the slaughtering process but suffice it to say that it did not involve a trip to the abattoir but did involve a cut-throat razor. An occasional treat, including Christmas dinner, was an old hen that was past laying. Fresh meat was rabbit caught out in the fields by my brothers armed with stout sticks. Mum would make a cake with dried fruit and a fresh egg which would last all the week. All other kids in village in the same boat so never envious. We were all farm labourers' kids and pig poor but because we didn't know any different we were content. No TV to tell us what to want. We would all go blackberrying and the mums would make enough jam to last the winter.

It was always potatoes- old potatoes made jackets and chips and mash, new potatoes and salad

rice at Christmas with the curry ( with sultanas )

whats pasta?

thinsg were seasonal - the first peaches in august

the only frozen things were peas and green beans

tinned sweetcorn came in sometime in my late teens. Carrots and cabbage or cabbage and carrots

fish and chips was the only takeaway in town and was a few times a year

processed food didn’t really exist beyond weetabix , baked beans and fish fingers