Food you had at your Granny's house

[bibbityisaporker]

My Nana was a wonderful woman who brought up three children during the war (well, actually, two of them were evacuated as she lived in London) and she had some weird and wonderful ways with food. She grew all her own vegetables, well into her 80s, and could be quite eccentrically creative with her recipes. Some of her staples that I have never eaten anywhere other than at her house were:

watercress sandwiches (always on brown bread).

tinned mackerel sandwiches (always on white).

stuffed marrow - it was stuffed with minced beef and vegetables and roasted.

sausagemeat and tomato tart - like a sort of working class quiche

strawberry jelly made with evaporated milk instead of water for a proper treat!

I didn't know a thread could be cosy before I read this. :)

I am blessed enough to have all my grandparents, and they're both feeders. My maternal grandmother (Nain) is a lovely farmhouse cook,making bara brith and lovely roasts and yummy stuff. She makes the best marmalade in the world.
My other grandmother makes the best Christmas cake there is, and she always gives me half. :o

Oh gawd, I'd forgotten my grandma's home-made marmalade

And stewed fruit, too. Always stewed fruit, with thick Cornish cream She had a fantastic Christmas cake recipe as well.

I used to drink dirty washiing up water when I was at my nan's! At least, that's what she called it as that's what it looked like. Basically it was a mixture of whatever soft drinks she had, usually Tizer, Coke, Lemonade and orange barley water. Yum!!!!!

I like this thread. Makes me feel nice about MN after some weird stuff happening here and also having an unjustified fine from TFL today.

pumpkin gnocchi - took her bloody hours to press and sieve the pumpkin...then she served the gnocchi with butter and parmesan - A-M-A-Z-I-N-G - never eaten them that good anywhere since...

heaven am liking the sound of Sunday roast fry-up very much :)

Mars Bar pudding - butterscotch Angel Delight with chopped up Mars Bar. Completely lush!

my DD hates it!

oh and my Greek gran (who was a divine cook by all accounts) used to make us this amazing kids' treat - a raw egg yolk (in the days before Edwina!) beaten 'til really frothy, with caster sugar and best coca powder - then you dipped little French Petit Beurre biscuits into it - was like a frothy, eggy, chocolately shake and although it sounds weird, it was to die for :)

Fish paste
Apple and blackberry pie in a Pyrex dish. Fruit fromgarden, JusRol pastry always slightly soggy.
Brick of Neapolitan ice cream in cardboard wrapper.
Cake from cake mixes, made with electric mix and always tasted odd.
Loaf of bread that was brown at one end and white at the other (from bakery)
Curry (kind of) made with Bisto, dessicated coconut, hard boiled eggs and raisins.

My Granny was a terrible cook.

tinned new potatoes.
Sticks of celery served in a mug, and with salt to dip them in.
Pontefract cakes.
Benedictine liqueur.

My maternal grandmother was an amazingly good cook. Especially when you consider that she didn't even learn until her domestic staff went off to make munitions at the start of the second world war. That was when my teen-aged Mum learned most of her swear words.

I remember roast pheasant, steak and kidney pudding, gooseberry pudding, wonderful veg, bread and butter pudding. And dripping toast. She also made wonderful jams, jellies and chutneys, including crab apple jelly and damson cheese. She even bottled tomatoes and plums.

She hated cooking, wasn't all that keen on eating, and always used to say that she longed for the day when we could exist on a few pills each day.

My grandma was a great cook, lovely casseroles, pies and roast lunches. She also made the most delicious rice pudding with nutmeg on the top. I can smell it now!

But my favourite was when we stayed overnight she would make poached egg for breakfast.

I loved her cutlery and when she died I was given it. I'm still using it every day.

Semolina pudding.
Liver.
Ox Tongue.
Gooseberries and rhubarb from the garden.
Madeira cake.

I miss my Granny.

Neither of my sets of grandparents are/were good cooks.

My maternal grandmother used to make us Velveeta Shells 'n' Cheese...do you have that there? Velveeta is a "cheese product" if that gives you any idea. We didn't have a TV at our house, but Grandma did, and she would let us sit on her couch (she called it a davenport) and watch Loony Tunes for hours, and serve us huge bowls of soupy shells 'n' cheese on TV stands. Oh, and she also boiled macaroni noodles and then put them in a mixture of ground beef and tomato juice. She called it either "goulash" or "worms" depending on her mood.

My other grandmother (she's the only grandparent I have left now, my grandpas and my other grandma are gone) used to serve "homemade" pizza on Fridays. We would go visit her and she would have a box that had dough mix and a little packet of sauce in it...she made it on a rectangular pan and I remember how funny I thought square pizza pieces were! My grandpa kept Little Debbie zebra cakes in the freezer and he would give us one if we finished our dinner. :)

Potted meat sandwiches,
Tinned Salmon sandwiches
Batternburg

But most of all Hash (unthickened beef stew cooked on the stove top).

It was a 3 HT drive to her house and it would be quietly simmering away waiting for us.

My mum is a far better cook than Nan, but somehow her proper stew didn't have the same appeal.

I often have toast and Bovril for breakfast, DH adds slices of cheese which is good.

Bacon sandwiches. My Dad is a (lasped) Muslim but we never had it at home despite Mum being CofE. So it was sneaky bacon at Granny's house for us.

Chopped onions in vinegar with our Yorkshire Puddings (must be a Northern thing?)

And Rock Buns - rock being the operative word!

What a nice, cosy thread!

My one and only Granny house-shared with her sister all their lives and it was my Great Aunt who cooked (Granny cleaned instead)

Auntie cooked proper roast dinners, egg and bacon quiche, and plenty of other good old fashioned English food, all served with mountains of mashed potato. There was always pudding too, whether it was mandarins and jelly or a big suet-y steamed pudding.

At the weekend, she would make us children a full english breakfast in bed which we absolutely wolfed down. And as a treat, we could have sugar-on-toast alongside.

She baked as well and always had a cake tin - 'Have a look in the tin' she would call to us, and there would be rock cakes or a Victoria sandwich or something else yummy stowed in there.

My DH came from a very deprived background and told me the other day that when he first met them (as a very skinny eighteen year old) that he was absolutely blown away by them. He said he had never known that working class people could live like that and he thought he had fallen on his feet with me

Auntie made this macaroni cheese that was the best and most cheesy I have ever tasted. My grownup daughter said at Auntie's funeral last year, that if you cut her (my daughter) open, you'd find she was actually made from that macaroni cheese, with a side helping of fluffy mash and a mound of peas.

All that, and Auntie worked full time until 65. She was a one-off, like my lovely Granny and I miss them both every day.

Where do I start?
Jerusalem cake, (honey and almonds), Dad's cookies (with a moccha filling), rectangular fruit cake (she left me the special plate she always placed it on), Summer pudding (with fresh raspberries/blackberries she'd picked from the Downs), home-made steak and kidney pie (with one of those little ceramic chimneys in the middle to stop it sinking).
Sardine sandwiches, butterscotch Angel Delight.
Always had butterscotch sweets in her handbag and used to slip them to us during the Sunday sermon. Homemade peppermint creams that were so sweet they'd make your teeth itch.
She used to post one of us kids on grill duty, when we'd crouch in front of the stove and watch the toast to see when it needed turning.
Her only "low spots" were semolina pudding (I mean, come on ), macaroons and cocnut ice.

Great thread, bings back memories!
My nana used to make Smash, mushy peas and fish fingers for me.
Sometimes tinned new potatoes with bisto gravy. Never had them at home so were like a treat.
She made the most amazing pastry for jam tarts, apple pies and bakewell tarts.

I am very envious of your lovely Grannies. My Granny was born out of her time - a hard nosed business women with no time for children (even though she had 9) or domestic duties - I don't think she even made me a cup of tea....

Irish soup with thick fingers of potato in it. Divine.

Ata was a very adventurous cook, though her execution sometimes was not the best (large chunks of onion, garlic and ginger would often turn up in things because she couldn't be bothered to slice/crush them properly). She loved to eat though so we had many adventures in restaurants and delis (jellyfish in a chinese restaurant once!) Her stuffed cabbage was watery and under seasoned but I miss it and we always had bread rubbed with garlic and tomato ad dipped in olive oil for breakfast.

We only saw my other grandma in the States in the summers so I associate her with cape cod potato chips dipped in onion dip (from a packet), corn on the cob and tomatoes from her garden which tasted divine, tollhouse cookies, potato salad with hard boiled egg and celery, devilled eggs, and muffins made with bisquik and tiny wild blueberries. My aunts, and as we get older, my cousins, make all the same things today in exactly the same way - when I got married I was told I could now be given the recipes

What a lovely thread.

We lived with one Granny when we weredc but this was Scotland so cooking wasnt exciting but was wholesome - mince & gravy, stew, fish, chops & of course the chip pan with the lard in it (boak!)

The other granny we only ever visited and I only remember she always had fairy cakes ready everytime we went.

Jealous of all of you with grans who taught you to cook more than mince or stew.

Bananas and custard - the custard was always sitting in the fridge in a beautiful bone china jug.

Bread and homemade blackcurrant jam.

Fish in batter with crinkly chips (all home prepared of course).

Square victoria sponge with buttercream icing in little peaks.

A banana sitting upright in a pineapple ring to look like a candle, with a piece of angelica or cherry to make a wick and jam for melted wax.

Salt and pepper from wooden owls, sugar from a crystal bowl with a big very round sugar spoon and everything served on plates with tropical scenes - palm trees - on them.

Bread dipped in egg with tomato sauce.

Food was done with such care back then wasnt it?

Both my Grandmothers died before i was born but my Grampy's house was the best!

Every Tuesday I would go there from school to have lunch which would be boil in the bag fish with a slice of a 'cob' loaf with real butter . Followed by 2 bars of choc, a pack of crisps and a can of pop . if only my mother knew.....

Otherwise, we'd have pork chops, chips cooked in lard (yum!) with bread and butter . And no I wasn't a plump child! However, after reading that back, it's hardly surprising he had a heart attack and passed away at 69!

Very fond memories though.