What did you/your family consider a treat growing up that really wasn’t?

[ClassicStripe]

I’ve just randomly remembered that when I was younger me and my sister thought it was the most amazing treat to have our mum’s bath water after she was finished with it. She didn’t even use bubble bath so it was literally just lukewarm water but we absolutely loved it. This was in the early 90’s and we had regular hot warm bubble baths which makes it even stranger that we were so pleased by using mum’s old water!

A chocolate cupcake in front of the TV every Sunday whilst watching the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Butterscotch angel delight.

A Viscount biscuit.

Microchips (not the computing kind!)

A cube of raw jelly.

A midnight feast where my dad ate pretty much a whole roast chicken 🤢 and played gramophone records of dogs singing popular songs

Coke with a dollop of ice cream in it.
Another ice cream related one - vanilla with chocolate sauce that hardened on top. Grim

I used to do this with the phone box on the corner of our street. I think I found 10p once 😂

A bottle of Orangina from when my parents staggered back from the pub pissed as farts on a Saturday night.

Cream soda and crisps ( the original ones with pack of salt in the bag) 😅 Saturday night treat

I used to watch the ready brek advert with such longing as the kids on it walked to school with a warm glow while I froze in unsuitable clothing and holes in my ballet pumps in rainy Manchester.

So in a flip to this thread a treat now is porridge for breakfast in winter.

My dad worked shifts when I was little (before school age), one of which was 10pm until 6am. Sometimes he would come home and get me up, and he and I would have porridge together which he cooked on the hob - salted for him and with honey in it for me. It was obviously so my mum got a bit of a lie-in and then he went off to bed, but I used to think it was such a treat. On a very rare occasion - like if it was a really cold winter day - he would make us hot chocolate to have with it, that was brilliant.

I've enjoyed reading this thread!

When I was a child there was only an ice cream van near my grandma’s house, 100 miles away. We didn’t ever see one apart from that, so it was a fabulous treat.

My father use to make scolops (large fried potato slices) for Saturday afternoon tea or sardines on toast.
No one could make chips like him , my mother would be upstairs reading her book.
She didn't cook on a Saturday. He still made them until we all got married.
Triple cooked, pah!

We used to have a capon for Christmas lunch. Do they still sell them?

My brother and I got a selection pack of mini cereals every birthday and Christmas! Tbf, we were actually really excited to get them

I have since insisted on doing the same for my daughters, niece and nephew 😂

Yes true - the very idea that the kids would have a say in anything like what their mum and dad would be ordering for them to eat feels like a very, very long time ago lol

For Saturday tea, we'd often have baked potatoes (massive, with grated cheese and butter) and be allowed to eat it in the lounge, in front of the TV, on our laps in front of the fire. That was a huge treat because most meals were eaten at the dining room (cold room) table.

Top of the milk was a total treat, and life is sadder without it. A particular Christmas season delicacy was big muscatel raisins on a saucer with some top of the milk, eaten with a spoon. They came in a flat triangular packet.

I’m like this with pancakes. I love them, but it’s a once a year thing.

Sometimes my grandad would let me scrape the ice off one of the side car windows using the special scraper

Helping my nan do the brass with wire wool on a Saturday morning and grandad bringing us tea and an egg tart

Digestive biscuits spread with butter and sugar

Soup out of a flask on a walk (no other drink tho lol )

Hot water Ribena

Being allowed to lick the stamp or envelope for mum

Giving the shop lady the money lol -besides myself over this one lol

Pancake day was an excitement like no other
only fillings available-
Jif lemon, strawberry jam and caster sugar (and Rothmans fag ash most likely while my mum resentfully cooked them for us lol)

Being allowed to stub out mum/grandads ciggy

My parents still have Vienetta every evening although lament the poor choice of flavours now. I tell them it's just a deconstructed choc ice 🤣

They weirdly still love corned beef and always buy a tin when they stay at mine. It gets put in the fridge for 24 hours then my mum solemnly slices it up and serves it on a bed of iceberg lettuce. One of my cats goes mental for it though and tries to steal it from their plates 🤨

Fresh orange juice. We nicknamed it 'Rich Mans' and we still call it that. It was heavily rationed.

Were they the ones that came with a pattern of almonds on top? We used to get those too.

I got the chocolate sauce that hardens in Aldi recently.
Comics
McDs
Quality Street tins at Xmas - they were huge and then you could use the tin
Dessert every Sunday - Artic Roll, Vienetta , Black Forest Gateau for extra special occasions .

We were more contented I think as waiting for treats just added something. Instant gratification is so short lived that it has become meaningless.

Our mom ordering Corona fizzy pop from the pop man. I remember him driving up our road in his lorry. It definitely was a treat as we never had fizzy pop in our house as it would be gone in an instant!

I'm vegetarian now, but in the past I loved corned beef hash - corned beef mixed with mashed potato and served with brown sauce. 😋