To ask if there’s a social class issue surrounding Findus Crispy Pancakes ?

[Jumell]

I’ve read some things in mine and sort of sense this might be the case but not 100% sure

Also is there a class issue around Fray Bentos pies ?

I love those !

Oh no darling, I've can buy frozen seafood and high end lasagne

I'm physically disabled & wanted to use some pancake mix this morning.
(my Mother used it,so I have - unthinkingly: mind, she also used Fray Bentos, Crispy Pancakes, Vesta Curries & Oven chips galore, none of which I use today)
I have one shop in a 12mile radius & they no longer stock the premixed packet.
So, I looked it up & used milk, eggs & flour.Given I used to use the packet mix,which requires egg & water & oil it was just as easy. Slightly gobsmacked.

But yes, OP all these packet convenience 1970's products are 'working class'.

Fray Bentos breakfast pie is next level lol

Crispy pancake on an oven bottom muffin food of the gods! A

I grew up on a council estate and live on the same estate now in a council house as a single parent with my own kids. Never had a crispy pancake.

I've never heard of the Findus stuff so I must be very upper class.

Fray Bentos yes, but the pies are awful as is their corned beef.
Sorry

We usually have a couple of FB pies in the cupboard, for the odd day, every couple of months or so, when I really just CBA to cook. One each, just with frozen peas. We quite like them! In such circs I dare say many people would get a takeaway, but we’re just not in the habit of that. We do have the odd ready meal, though- usually Waitrose or M&S.

Oh no I feel seen in a bad way!! 😄

There absolutely is, and I'm what some people would term a working-class oik, but I don't care. Love them both, although the pie tins are a pain to open.

Didn't actually realise crispy pancakes were still available! Not had them in years. Going to have to have a trip down memory lane, methinks...

I was brought up by working-class parents in the 50s and my mum cooked almost everything from scratch as was the norm then. We did eat some tinned veg as we didn't acquire a fridge until I was 10 or 11 and when time was short we did have Fray Bentos steak pies. The pastry was lovely - crisp, golden and flaky - the meat was beyond disgusting. However, since a regular meal in our house was baked hearts, which looked and tasted like old bike tyres, or pigs liver, which probably was used for bike tyres, a Fray Bentos pie was one of the more acceptable meals. I cooked Findus pancakes a couple of times for my kids in the 70s, but always seemed to burn them. I loved the Vesta packet range as a teenager and Angel Delight, especially the butterscotch flavour, was and remains, my favourite pudding!

my theory is that these food items are eaten by aristocracy and council dwellers, on the basis neither give a shit what others think of their dietary choices. Everyone in between would be shopping for these at 3am, wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap and sneaked back into the house in a thick, dark tote, lest anyone sees the labels through the carrier.

Completely off thread, but im remembering the "vegetarian shepherds pie" my mate once made me on his canal barge. It was a packet of beanfeast, a packet of smash on top, and the whole thing browned with a plumbers blowtorch.

Used to love the cheese crispy pancakes but haven’t had them in decades.

*FigTreeInEurope *
I remember beanfeast. It tasted like something dredged off the bottom of a swamp . Topped with Smash would be quite a culinary experience. Love the initiative of the blowtorch to brown the mash 🤣

Don't knock Fray Bentos pies. After nuclear war breaks out and the apocalypse comes, the few lucky survivors will emerge from their underground bunker to survey the barren desecrated landscape and all that's left will be Fray Bentos pies and cockroaches.

Don’t be embarrassed. Food is food and the Co-op is extortionate. Probably showing my peasant class here because I couldn’t afford to even look in the directions of Waitrose and such like. 😬

Omg right but if you get the waitrose own brand you're not posh so it's fine relax 😂

I got both cod and haddock own brand, couldn't taste the difference between the fish, both bland 😅

@TheBiggestMuffInCheshire yes or sometimes in the fresh fish shelf that's in the chilled section- they are my go to for 'high end' fish finger sandwiches , tartar sauce, rocket, good bread- immense!!

my theory is that these food items are eaten by aristocracy and council dwellers, on the basis neither give a shit what others think of their dietary choices

I think there's something in this. Story from a grand friend.

A woman he knew in the 1970s (also grand) liked entertaining, but served boil in the bag fish with sauce. Her brother dated Princess Margaret for a while, and this woman invited PM and the Queen Mother for lunch. All her friends told her she couldn't possibly serve boil in the bag fish and she should get caterers to do the lunch.

Not only did she serve boil in the bag fish, she served it in the bag on a plate with some pretty little antique scissors to cut the bags with. Went down a storm apparently.

I have never come across either of them.

I've often thought this about clothing. Colourful silk Pucci and cheerful polyesters for upper and lower, beige plain boring linen for for the middle who want to look classy.

I ate findus pancakes as a kid.

I liked them then.

Now I think they are gross. So I wouldn't buy them.

I have not changed class.

The world has moved on, and if I was to eat a frozen prepacked item, I would not choose a findus pancake.

They can stay in the 80s/90s thanks.

I loved them as a child but they've ruined them now!! Tinned stewed steak was always welcome too!

They are the best ones. But do remember never as main meal, only as fish finger sarnie for lunch 🤣

The working classes and uppers/gentry are absolutely fine to eat crispy pancakes and frey bentos and generally whatever they fancy, but if a middle class person wants to eat the aforementioned delicacies, then they absolutely MUST assume an attitude of irony before tucking in. Just to be on the safe side, middle class people should really stick with eating whatever the latest fad foods are. 😁

Maybe generational? I had them as a kid in the 90s but can recall seeing them in a shop any time soon.