What did you eat as a child?

[JudithOnHolidayAgain]

I've just been watching some of those shows looking back at food and shopping in the 70s and 80s and it made me think of the foods I ate as a child.
I'm late 50s and grew up in a home with my mum, dad and younger brother. Dad worked full time out of the home and mum ran a business attached to our home. My maternal grandparents lived with us too, although my grandfather died when I was 10.
My mum and gran both cooked, mum liked to try new recipes but my gran liked plain traditional food.....no garlic or chilli for her!!
I grew up eating pies, roast dinners, stews, ham and parsley sauce, egg and chips, fish pie. spaghetti bolognes, curry. Thick soups in winter and salads and cold meat in the summer. Pizza was homemade, my mum taught me how to make the dough.

Almost everything was homemade and snacking wasn't really a thing. We didn't have "kids food", we all ate pretty much the same.

I did pretty much the same with my kids, now 20 and 18 but they did have the occasional mcdonalds, chicken nugget and pizza. Generally we all ate the same.

What did you eat growing up and how old are you?

I'm 51 and I cook from scratch for my kids a lot more than my parents did for me! My mum didn't enjoy cooking.

I’m 45 and we ate a real mix of stuff. My dad was a single parent and is a very good cook.

we ate what might be traditional British food - roasts, pies, egg & chips etc.

then common things like curry, pasta dishes, Chinese dishes like sweet & sour.

occasional junk food like pizza or nuggets - not often though.

occasional takeaways or meals out at the pub.

meals at home were almost all from scratch and very tasty. Usually we all ate the same thing and ate together.

I'm 58 and our yearly treat was a whole chicken for Xmas dinner. We felt so posh 😂

London in the 80's...
Tinned fish, curries, brown rice, cous cous and stews, home made bread, full fat raw milk, oats, lentils, fresh fish - mussels, mackerel, sardines etc... loads of potatoes! (2nd gen Irish)
Not much meat at home... maybe sausages occasionally. Never a full roast!

Absolute rubbish. My mum couldn’t cook so ate loads ready made food. No vegetables, fruit or food as such. No breakfast. In the mornings I had hot water with milk and sugar, called silver tea. Luckily got very good lunch at school (abroad).

i am cooking from scratch and make sure dc eat vegetables and have fruit.

Pasta and rice based dishes were not a thing in our house either! My parents have never been fans of either and now those types of meals are my favourite lol

Liver and bacon, steak and kidney pie, beef stew, mince with beans

In the 60s

That’s why I am very happy that they provide free school meals for more pupils.

Much the same as OP, stews and roasts. Salads in the summer. A lot of home grown veg. I remember being sent to collect apples from a local farm that had been earmarked for development so scrumping was allowed.

We only ate out when we had fish and chips during the family week at the coast. Otherwise everything was home cooked (and over-cooked).

DM could never be accused of liking her veggies crunchy 😂

I cook from scratch but I don't reduce everything to puree, and I use chillies, garlic, spices etc.

Tuna pasta, anything Tesco value, definitely don't miss the Grey bread. In my house the kids even as teenagers ate Tesco value, parents ate good food like steaks. Im not salty at all about it 😂

I was born late 80s. In the 90s I ate

breakfast- cereal like Rice Krispies, cornflakes, weetabix

lunch- ham sandwich on white bread, crisps, banana

tea- beans on toast, cheese on toast, soup, chips, bacon, egg, chicken nuggets

snacks- fruits, chocolate, yoghurt, ice cream, angel delight, cakes

I was ridiculously fussy and wouldn’t eat the majority of meals so ended up with my own separate food. I have thankfully grown out of a lot of my fussiness! I didn’t not eat healthily as a child but I was always a healthy weight even if was a bit skinny, I was rarely poorly and I was very active so I did ok

Sandwiches, crisps, pizza, pasta, baked potato.

When my mum was home I always had home cooked food, she’s a really good cook and was very anti processed food. Now she has DGC she has changed her hard arse no biscuits, sweets, or chocolate stance, but all grandparents are like that I think. She cooked a lot of curries and batch cooked stuff, she also used to make a lot of spaghetti bolognaise, lasagna, pasta dishes. As a real treat she would make us fish and chips but only if we had been really good.

When I was with my dad I had finders crispy pancakes on a good day. I do love a finders crispy pancake, I wouldn’t feed them to my kids but I will admit me and DP do eat them sometimes. I remember one week at his house where I lived off sugar puffs exclusively. As a child I thought it was brilliant, but now I’m an adult it makes me a bit sad, they were knock off brand as well. By the time I was 7 I was cooking his dinner whenever I’d be at his house. Mostly baked potatoes or pasta. Now he’s sober I make him cook for me all the time though, even when he’s at mine. He’s actually a pretty good cook but nothing on my mum.

Beef mince in many different guises. A lot of all-white meals (cod in white sauce with mashed potatoes anyone?) but we also had spaghetti bolognaise and curry (foreign food was considered quite avant-garde in those days). Sunday roasts, occasionally fish and chips from the shop. Soup made from the boiled-up carcass of the Sunday chicken. Apple or lemon meringue pies. Neapolitan ice cream which came in blocks. Vegetables were boiled for at least half an hour to ensure that they were properly dead.

Just turned 40.

When we were little mini kievs, potato alphabets, turkey dinosaurs. Spaghetti hoops. No veg, I honestly think my mum decided kids won't eat veg so never bothered, but it was never on our plates, never offered/suggested.

I'm 44 and ate the same food as my parents 97% of the time. So ate butchers' sausages, spag bol, casseroles, chicken kyiv, breaded fish. Salads with quiche, smoked salmon, cooked meats. Pizzas, stuffed peppers.

On the times I ate different to my parents was when they had lambs liver and kidneys, which I like now. It was usually something which came in a pack of 4 (such the breaded fish).

I definitely think that my parents' making me eat the same food as them has kept my food dislikes low. Most foods I don't like is due to texture - cottage cheese, banana (ok in banana bread).

I’m mid 50s so grew up in 70s and 80s. Food was all cooked from scratch, potatoes, meat and veg style. No foreign food. Crisps only on my birthday, 5p worth of sweets on a Saturday. Breakfasts were weetabix or cornflakes. Puddings were rice pudding, semolina, tapioca etc.

There was no option for not liking my meals, I had to sit there until they were eaten. Fruit bowl was always full so could snack on that but otherwise had to wait until the next meal.

My mum did make nice homemade cakes though but I longed to have processed junk food that my friends had.

Grew up 60s/70s

Mince and suet dumplings

Breast of lamb and other cheaper cuts of meat with potatoes and veg

Lots of casseroles made with braising steak

Roast dinners on Sunday always

Almost no processed food except plain biscuits or crackers

Lots of dairy - milk butter eggs cheese etc

Very few bought sweets or snacks - if hungry we had jam sandwiches or cornflakes

Milk pudding home made

Tinned and fresh fruit

No freezer only small fridge with tiny icebox that was unusable really so ice cream was a rare treat in a block purchased from shop and rushed home

Fish and chips another rare treat once every three months or less

No pop or fizzy drinks whatsoever,
just water or occasionally Ribena

When we were ill though we got Lucozade with the orange cellophane around it, still remember that fondly!

I forgot about desserts!

Homemade tarts, cakes, pancakes, sponge cakes, scones welsh cakes and bara brith. My gran was always baking!!!Tinned fruit with ice cream or evaporated milk.
Blancmange in a rabbit mould with green jelly for birthday parties was a real treat!!!

I always nagged for Angel delight but mum wouldn't buy it......I remember being allowed to pick a fruit yogurt when I went shopping with her.
Ski peach was my favorite!!!

We only had puddings occasionally, rice pudding was a favourite, and apple or blackberry pie. We had strawberries or raspberries with "top of the milk" and banana custard was another favourite.
We never had fizzy drinks at home, so dandelion and burdock at Grandma's was a rare treat. We didn't usually have snacks between meals, though we might have coffee & a biscuit for elevenses if we'd had a busy morning.

I remember the Lucozade @redrocke, you knew you'd been properly ill when the Lucozade appeared! It was part of what my Mother called recuperating or convalescing.
Back in the mists of time the NHS ran Convalescent Homes, where you went for a few weeks after a serious illness. Hard to believe now, when you are lucky to get a bed at all!

I was born in 1963,so my earliest food memories are from the late 60s/early 70s. I remember a lot of sandwiches and rolls with corned beef,or paste of some kind such as salmon or sardine. My dad grew all our vegetables so we always had a good supply of salad in summer and veg in winter. My DM used to make a curry out of what was left of the Sunday roast,it always had sultanas in it.🤢 Another meal I remember that I loved was bacon and onion roll,which was a bit like a Swiss roll,but made of suet pastry with pieces of bacon and onion in it. The 70s was the decade when frozen food started to be a 'thing' and my parents bought a large chest freezer which was kept in the garage. There was a ready supply of fish fingers,crispy pancakes and oven chips. Also something called 'brunchies',which were shaped like fishcakes but made of sausage meat and egg,with a breadcrumb coating. And for some reason,Ryvita seemed to feature quite largely in my diet,with everything from Marmite to peanut butter on. Crisps and fizzy drinks were a rarity. Another thing I remember liking was those tins of minced beef,which I'd have with peas and bread and butter. Wouldn't touch the stuff now! And Vesta curries. I loved the chicken supreme and paella ones. Wish I could still buy those!

I'm 44. Both parents worked full time. We ate a mix of stuff - convenience food like chicken kiev, fish fingers etc. And homemade stuff - quiche, pasta of various kinds, chicken casserole. Usually always had fruit salad for dessert or a shop bought lemon tart on a sunday.

Only times I ate fish fingers, chicken nuggets, chips/Alphabites was when my fussy eating friends came over after school or spent the day with us. As DM was an assistant cook at a primary school (not the one I attended) so had the school holidays off. Then going to theirs after school or during teacher training days for my school. The school where DM worked had different days to me.

80s/90s - ham and chips, egg and chips, stew, peanut butter on toast, pate (the cheap stuff that came in a tube from ASDA) on toast, bacon chips and beans, findus crispy pancakes, hot dogs, fish fingers and chips. All chips were cooked in a chip pan. Snacks were a chocolate biscuit and a bag of crisps, drinks were cheap pop that stained your mouth. I sometimes ate a tangerine on a Sunday because you know, health.

And yet here I am 40 odd years later and still alive and well!