To think that a roast isn't the only thing that's a 'proper cooked dinner'?

[lalaland30008]

A minor thing, it really irritates me and don't know if I'm being stupid or if I'm the only one who thinks like this.

My mum has got this thing with calling a roast a 'proper cooked dinner', so if you have a chilli or a spag bol it's not a proper cooked dinner.

So I'm having a conversation with my mum about what she's had and she says 'oh we didn't have a proper cooked dinner' just eggs and chips/pie, mash and beans, you name it, but if it's not a roast it's not proper.

We're talking about aunty x, aunty x does a proper cooked dinner most nights. By that she means she does a roast.

Why do I get more than slightly irritated by this? Why not just call it a bloody roast as if it's cooked on the cooker it's a bloody cooked dinner.

Ooh see a spag bol is my idea of a proper dinner! I could eat one every night.

I'm not sure I could afford a roast dinner every night, even though they are yummy.
When I was little, there was Sunday Roast followed by Monday Cold Cuts and Tuesday Curry/Rissoles/Risotto/Whatever. So the roast meat was stretched very thin.

I also tend to eat veggie food about 3 or 4 times a week. Not sure how that would fit into a 'proper' dinner.

InSPsFanjo, My Nan is well Irish... Her idea of a dinner involves boiling a ham. I'd settle for some bacon ribs, boiled, then the cabbage boiled in the rib water, with mashed potatoes. That was always my Nan's specialty .

YANBU, the term "proper dinner" confused me no end when I was back in England on holiday (been away 30 years). My cousin said she was going to cook a "proper dinner" because she hadn't done one for a couple of weeks. She was always a good cook so I thought she must have changed her ways or turned into a lazy cow until I realised what she meant. I had many lovely and delicious other dinners that were not proper ones during my trip.

I might have to start a thread about what's still available in England for my next holiday face-stuffing enjoyment. Battenburg cake, little chocolate cakes with miniature flakes on top, Yorkshire curd tarts ... I digress.

Cooked dinner to me is meat with potatoes and veg and gravy

I do a cooked dinner about 3 times a week, not always a roast, but chops/chicken breast etc

Think it has to have gravy to be a proper cooked dinner!!

Am off to put my beef in oven in a minute

We had a fry up yesterday.

Does bacon, mushrooms & baked beans count as meat & two veg??!!

Ooops-forgot to say-if it´s cooked & served for dinner-it´s a cooked dinner!!

Worra, rice is for dessert ONLY, you heathen

How do you make pasta/rice etc without cooking it? if it has been cooked, then its a cooked dinner!

My dear, late mother discovered sweet and sour chicken in her 70's and to her amazement, quite liked it. She had to phone me every time she had it to get instructions for cooking the rice.

I don't understand the concept of "jut shove it all in th oven" are your vegetables all roasted too?
I went to mil's once where she was doing a "light lunch". To me that means a sandwich. Shed done chilli, rice, jacket potatoes, bread and salad. When I asked about the light lunch she said "ah well its not a proper dinner".

And does it not all need preparing? I really don't see how a roast dinner can possibly be a lazy option

YANBU but my mum would probably have agreed with your mum.

When I was growing up, a 'proper' dinner involved a joint of meat or a pie, two different cooked vegetables plus roast potatoes and gravy. In fact, that's all I can remember eating - apart from baked potatoes.

We never, ever had pasta or rice until mum learned to cook lasagne, which of course she served with roast potatoes, vegetables and gravy

oh and DH feels the same. A 'proper' dinner must have gravy. So sausages and mash is a proper dinner if it has gravy

A roast is a gravy dinner in our house. Problem solved.

Cooked dinner is anything else cooked ie not sandwiches

And my mom calls a roast dinner a DINNER dinner. Anything else cooked I'd just cooked dinner

How odd. I've come across people who don't think a meat-free meal is a 'proper dinner', but am why spag bol would be less 'proper' than roasted meat and potatoes...

Blimey-I´m nearly 50 & this would have been an old fashioed way of thinking even for my mum!

Do vegetarians never eat a "proper dinner" then?

How is roast chicken any less a roast than a joint of beef??

I moved to Wales a few years ago and according to my Welsh colleagues:

Cooked dinner = roast
Dinner = any hot lunch
Tea = dinner (evening meal except a roast)

Not sure if that's all Welsh people's use of those terms though.
So OP, maybe your mum is Welsh?!

I also don't understand the obsession with a 'hot' dinner. Food is food. And people who don't eat salad in winter - I can understand it from the point of view of eating seasonal vegetables, but not a rule that salad is for summer and roast veg are for winter. Eat what you want to eat.

Your mum is obviously being unreasonable, but, to be honest, I would never describe bacon, eggs and baked beans as a "proper" dinner (yes, it is a cooked meal, but to me not a dinner - a lunch maybe!). By the same token I would never describe soup as a "proper" dinner - fine for lunch, but I would make it as a starter for an evening meal and we would have a main course with it, although it's something I might do once in a about ten years! (Now I have got my wonderful new soup maker I might do it more often).

I think it's a generational thing. It may goback to the time whena roast was eaten every Sunday and that was the main meal of the week.
In our house[in the 60'sand 70's] we had a roast [usually lamb or chicken, never beef as that was too expensive] on Sunday. Other meals were sausages, mince, tinned ham or corned beef ie cheaper meals.
And yes, potatoes, alongside bread, were the main part of our diet. Themeat part was always a very small portion.Spaghetti was a luxury item, it came in 3 foot lengths in blue peper.Rice was found in puddings.

My take on that is that if the meal is cooked from scratch (chopping onions and frying them....), it is a "PROPER cooked dinner". If it is a hot meal even if it involves battered fish, oven chips or a jar of sauce (oh horrors, but FT working does that to one at least once a week) - it is still a "proper cooked dinner" (just less PROPER, IYKWIM).

But once it is a proper HOT meal, roast, prepared from scratch, (egg, beans and chips), or using convenience foods, then it counts.

My grandmother is like this

'proper' cooking would be a roast dinner, or a meat pie with potatoes and veg. Spag Bol or chilli is 'new fangled' and therefore not 'proper' food.

Another one who describes it as a gravy dinner! As we eat a lot of pasta and rice, a gravy dinner is just to describe a meat 3 veg and potatoes dinner. I only do roast potatoes if I am doing a Sunday roast, if we have it in the week then we have boiled.