To think that the wife in Back In Time For Dinner is a terrible cook

[derxa]

I can barely watch her hamfisted attempts at cooking. She can't even use a tin opener. Her pathetic attempts spoil a really interesting social experiment.

She is a crap cook. Who wouldn't be able to knock up gammon and chips FFS?

but it was a block of lard? i wouldnt have a clue either

I'm just watching it now.

I would have been just as lost with the tin opener TBH. But didn't she and her daughters look amazing in 50s dresses?

I find the dad a bit hard to warm to, somehow. I looked him up and he seems to be one of those people who is always going off on an idea - he's written about how he can't teach a girl philosophy AS because she's wearing a burqua and how he thinks Shakespeare should be banned because no one can understand it any more (weird he decided to quote some on the programme ...).

But, to be fair, I'm only on the 60s one and maybe he'll come across better when he has a bit more to do!

I can't use a tin opener!
Have an electric one. When we went on holiday in a caravan had to get my teen DS to open beans for our breakfast as it was taking me forever to try and open it!!

I would have trouble cooking chips and would be very reluctant to in an old fashioned chip pan. Growing up in the 70s before the electric deep-fat fryer was common I remember lots and lots of emphasis on learning how to put fires caused by these out, at school, brownies and on the telly. And I don't cook chips myself except for oven ones. I'm sure I could manage to work it out, but doing it with the TV cameras on for the first time....
From what my grandmothers have both told me, yes it was hard work, yes it was dull, yes they hated it. And from about aged 4 the kids just got chucked outside in the morning and told to be home for lunch and then tea, so it was full time housework and not the same as a SAHM today (obviously that carries its own pressures). My grandmas were happily married as well I think, so I pity those who weren't.

I've really enjoyed the programme, and I think part of the point is that she isn't the cook in the household usually but is forced into it by the social attitudes of the time.

One thing that really struck me about the 50s episode was that (I think) 60% of men came home for their midday meal - that must have been so limiting if you were expected to prepare a fresh hot lunch for them. You wouldn't be able to go anywhere for more than an hour or so before either your husband or children expected you to be at home.

She's said she was Jewish. So am I. I have never in my life cooked or eaten any form of pork.

I'm sure I'd be be able to attempt it, but I'd struggle to know if it was cooked properly.

Something like bacon or sausages I've seen cooked on tv quite often so I'd know they go in a frying pan. However, I would have presumed the gammon went in the oven and I've never encountered lard in real life before but have seen it on bake off.

I remember the 70s adverts, and they were fucking terrifying, no wonder she's scared of the chip pan. She definitely ruined the eggs but is that down to the lard, I don't know?

Yes mama they were terrifying - put me off chips for life!
Am loving the series though- can't wait for the 1980s one just to laugh at the clothes we used to wear

Also did anyone think Mary looked better now than she did back then?

My mum must've missed those adverts. She still does chips in a chip pan (and still puts a second batch on and leaves them cooking while she eats in the other room! ).

I think the point about her not having cooked pork before makes sense - it's odd, isn't it, because gammon doesn't really change colour much the way beef or chicken does.

Yes I do think it was disgusting for her to have to cook gammon when she is Jewish (serious point - not piss take). Although presumably she agreed to it beforehand.
I think what really annoys me is that in the 50s and 60s people DID have to get on with things. People had a limited choice of everything and women made the best of it. Kids didn't turn up their nose and say, 'That's disgusting!' They just had to eat it or starve. Presumably people now who are on very limited incomes and dependant on food banks are in the same position.

It might be that she doesn't eat it out of habit from a Jewish upbringing, but doesn't mind the idea? I hope so, anyway.

But isn't the biggest difference that basic domestic science was on the school curriculum during the years covered, so women would have had some sort of basic cookery skills? Even if they hated doing it? My mum was a graduate of the late 50s/60s who worked full time but she could do all that stuff even if my sister and I ate a lot of Smash. The researchers always try to find someone who's as clueless as possible for better television. I bet they're hoping there'll be a very modern meltdown between smug husband and increasingly simmering-like-a-chip-pan wife.

I've only seen part of the 70s one, but it reminded me a lot of the Adam & Joe 80s house...

I'm wondering if maybe neither of them cooks much, actually. The dad didn't know how to peel an onion, which is quite basic.

I think women who went to secondary moderns did more domestic science, and less at grammar schools?

Yes Domestic science- what happened to that? At my Scottish comp school we all did it for the first 2 years and very good it was too.

They wouldn't force them to eat gammon against religious requirements, surely they could have found plenty of other non-pork based meals typical of the era?

I find it hard to believe that anyone has never seen a basic tin opener in operation or knows what sort of knife is for cutting meat and vegetables and what sort is for cutting bread.

I thought it was an insult to thousands of 'ordinary' women who were working and bringing up children in the 50s, me being one of them.
I have memories of wonderful food that my mother cooked.
Typical programme put together by university educated morons.
And as for the Father being the cook, he had never sliced an onion in his life.

I thought the husband was possibly pretending to be a 60s husband who didn't know about peeling onions, particularly as he carried on without peeling it even after Giles Coren commented on it. Possibly the producers told him to do it that way?

I have never seen a basic tin opener in operation...

I would have had no idea what to do with the 1950s one.

OnIlkley, that type of tin opener went out of common use in the 60s. There must be millions of people who haven't seen one being used. Or are you perhaps confusing it with butterfly tin openers?

Oh, maybe ici. I found that a bit annoying, though. I'd rather know how he really found it all.

I've never seen that kind of tin opener either.

I don't feel it was meant to be insulting, though? Surely it shows how hard it was.

I think she was chosen for entertainment factor - disapponting really as it doesn't really represent the era being portrayed.
(Though DH and I watch aghast and try not to laugh).

I have used the earliest version of tin opener shown as I am old codger of 57 and would have breezed trough the cooking in the 50's and sixties episodes.
(Onion gravy would have made the liver and cauliflower delicious, and I know not to chop carrots with a bread knife......)

I'm Jewish but wouldn't have a problem cooking/eating gammon etc. I wasn't brought up to observe the dietary rules (or anything else for that matter). There's no way they would have made her cook it I'm sure.

The food on the 70's episode is very familiar from when I was growing up, My mum used a chip pan but I'd be petrified of it and not at all comfortable having to grapple with one. The tin opener I would also struggle with as I'm left-handed and dyspraxic. Some tin openers these days still absolutely baffle me. I do lots of cooking but would really have a job making a nice meal with some of the ingredients back then, especially Smash. It's just totally different to the things I've cooked for the last 30 years or so.

I remember my Mum working in the 70's (secretary) and coming home and having to cook every night and do all the housework. It's just how it was for a lot of women. She was totally knackered and stressed out a lot of the time. 3 kids, a husband who did nothing in the house, a full time job etc. She had a stroke in her 40's :(

Not all women were good cooks or even enjoyed cooking in the 50s and 60s. I remember a friend of my parents telling us how his father did all the cooking in the family because his mother could burn water.

Mary Berry definitely looks fantastic now! I like her - think she's great. I also like the mum in the programme - so she doesn't cook - so what - it reinforces the point that then was very different to now expectations wise. Although it's still my job (FT) to plan the evening meal I don't always have to cook it.

I was surprised how little the children helped out in the kitchen, and why did the older girl move back in the 70s?

Fingeronthebutton I think you've hit the nail on the head. The programme is insulting. Giles Coren et al laughing at a bye gone era as if the people were chimps in a zoo. Life was bloody hard and relentless. I am an old codger as well.