To ask what did your granny eat?

[PassTheCordialCordelia]

I hear a lot of noise concerning how we ought to eat how our grandparent's/great grandparents did, or something of that description. We know that modern, ultra processed foods are crap, unhealthy and usually very cheap, although many foods from long ago were pretty awful too!

So just in a lighthearted frame of mind - what did yours scoff down on?

Mine were fond of home baking, scones, biscuits, etc. Most meals cooked from scratch, although grandmother was a full time housewife, with a space to grow some fruit/veg. I think the large supermarket chains were still extremely tiny when my GP's were alive, so I have no idea if they might have enjoyed more processed stuff if they had lived to see it.

My grandma was a late diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. She ate the same thing every day for 25 years;
Breakfast: Porridge
lunch: pork chop and veg.
dinner: fish. Not sure what with.
arrowroot biscuits for snacks.

when she was admitted to hospital about 6 months before she died the nurses couldn’t believe it. We got her on to cornflakes for breakfast.
She had a very deferential attitude to doctors, and did exactly what they told her do to. I presume it would never have occurred to her to ask for a dietician referral as you would today. But her diabetes was well controlled though. So she must have done something right.

Lots of deep fat fried stuff. She’s 91 now so the constant fatty diet didn’t do her any harm

Maternal GPs (Welsh borders) grew all their own vegetables and fruit apart from the occasional tin of tropical fruit salad. Shopped every couple of days at their local Spar. Eggs and milk from the farm up the road.

Very plain food and hard work to get it. Not sure that it really did them a lot of good. DGF died of bowel cancer, DGM developed dementia in her 70s.

DM made a lot of stews and casseroles. Served with floury boiled potatoes and frozen mixed veg. Baked every Saturday, heavy cakes like flapjack, ginger bread etc. Cakes which didn't go stale quickly. DM's cooking was all about economy. Didn't matter how it tasted.

I now can't face wet, savoury food and almost never bake.

We do have an allotment and grow a lot of fruit and vegetables but we are doing it for quality rather than quantity.

I think there is a lot of rose tinted hindsight about food in the past. There was an awful lot of bad food.

My uncle used to eat "goody" before bed.
It was hot milk in a cup, with pieces of white bread broken up into it and white pepper, nutmeg sprinkled on top.
He was a sickly child and his mother gave it to him every night for supper before bed.
He loved it. Very comforting.🤢

A little bit of Teisen Lap (welsh for plate cake). She'd stir up an egg a dop of marge, some flour and a spoon of sugar. No recipe. Whatever dried fruit and spice she had and cook it on a plate.
Other than that she leade to nearly 90 on lard and white bread I think! Roast dinners with yorkshire pudding, roast spuds a few veg and a bucket of gravy. Followed up with sponge, milk pudding or fruit pie and custard. Bacon and egg, home made chips, steak and chips, melted cheese on a plate with bread dipped in it. Bread and dripping. Stew and bread. The occasional canned soup or a small leaf of lettuce!!

My paternal grandmother was an absolutely awful
cook, and all I remember her cooking routinely was chips (in a proper chip pan which was encrusted black and never emptied) and fried eggs in lard. Lots of lard. It got poured into a cup after use then used again. She loved biscuits and had a Tupperware of chocolate in the larder and a glass jar of extra strong mints on the mantel.
My other grandma was an excellent cook, she trained in service having started as a housemaid at 14. But she was eternally on a diet, so had grapefruit for breakfast, soup for lunch, and lots of veg with some meat for dinner. Everyone else was fed lots of cake, puddings and access to the biscuit tin.
Weirdly, my mum was way more into weaving her own lentils and local, seasonal, make it from scratch food than either of them.

Oh I miss her 😢 she ate not enough, she didn’t look after herself or make herself a priority, but did for everyone else. I wish I knew her now, and I would look after her.

The only school pudding I’d eat was macaroni baked with evaporated milk and sugar. Still make it now occasionally 🙂

So enjoyed reading through this thread, it's been absolutely fascinating and....quite educational.
Thanks everyone <3

Me too. I’ve enjoyed reading through this thread. Thanks for starting it OP and it didn’t end up in a bun fight 😆

I only knew one and she mostly ate Valium and whiskey from what I remember

Lots of pies, offal, meat and two veg. Having to learn to be resourceful during rationing which I don’t think ever left that generation

Oh. And one of my grans began the day with a cup of whisky laced with tea....and thus began her day in a happy frame of mind! The other one was tee total.

I have no idea. I don’t even know what my parents ate, though they did live through rationing.
But I know my grandmother on my mums side had a cook. They grew much of their own veg too. So it would have been three meals no snacks and no going in to the kitchen to help themselves. They were big in walks no matter the weather too (west coast of Ireland).
My father was born and raised in India and they probably had a book too.
All went to boarding school so can imagine the kind of food they got there in the 30s and 40s
(this is my parents’ generation).

My maternal grandma's favourite dish was apparently tripe. My mum, however, found tripe revolting and never cooked it for us, so I've never tried it, which I'm perfectly content with!

My granny was a tiny woman. ‘Nerves’ apparently. She mostly smoked John Player fags (40 a day) and every morning she ate a bacon sandwich made with two rashers on thin sliced, white pappy bread (delicious) and cut into quarters. I don’t remember her eating anything else! She did drink a couple of dubonnet every night.

boiled egg for breakfast or Weetabix. dinner was meat, potato and vegetables. She would drink the broth post cooking with the meal. Evening meal was generally bread and meat with cheese or eggs or bread and jam. she always enjoyed something sweet and would have cakes in the house. She was very healthy, never took a pill!!

Someone mentioned malt loaf- we still eat this, nice but it welds to the roof of the mouth and teeth!

She ate very well. She was an intelligent Scotswoman who spoke several languages - as well as taught them - and travelled extensively. So there was lots of cheese and red wine! She was a true Francophile.

My other grandmother (dad’s mum) was more working class and a hopeless cook, bless her. So there was lots of meals like ham, coleslaw, chips from the chippy and half a tomato 😁

Coming from a family with 12 children, my grandmother are whatever she could.
Bread and butter
Bread and dripping
Bread and jam
Potatoes with cabbage
Pork chops/lamb chops
Jam suet udding
Kidney pie
Corned beef
Apple pie
Boiled beef
Boiled onions
Tripe
Occasionally salad ( lettuce and tomato)
Usually all washed down with a cup of tea

Her drink of choice as an adult was port and lemon.

She loved sweets as they could rarely afford them in childhood

I think I'll probably ignore the advice to eat like my grandmother.

She was born in 1923, in my childhood in the 80s I remember she was constantly on a diet eating crispbreads with vitalite and pineapple cottage cheese. Tinned tomatoes with sugar on toast also featured heavily.

My mum says when she was a kid in the 60s/70s Nan cooked Vesta ready meals and Fray Bentos pies and also a truly awful gritty curry that she made using whole spices she bought on an Indian run market stall and didn't grind up very well.

In her 90s she ate cake, sweets and the odd ready meal.

She always did an awesome roast chicken with piping hot plates and sugar in the pea water which she then used to make the gravy.

Bog standard traditional Finnish food with lots of sweet buns and coffee.
Dunno what my other granny ate, didn't know her that well.

Small portions!

Home cooked food in small portions, red wine.
Never had snacks or crisps on the table... never ate in from of the TV (maybe a quality st and Christmas).