Things you assumed were normal

[meredithgrey1]

DH bought some weetabix to have for breakfast a few days ago and I was amazed to see him preparing it by just pouring cold milk on and then eating it like that! I can't eat weetabix now but when I was little my mum would pour the milk on, then microwave it, then mash the biscuits in to create something similar to porridge. I assumed at the time that this was the only way to eat weetabix but my husband was appalled at the very idea and after a quick google it does seem like I'm very much in the minority. So it got me thinking, what are some things that you thought were normal, but then you realised that you/your family were the only one(s) doing it like that?

(Excepting aforementioned medical reasons, obviously)

I was raised by a very etiquette conscious lunatic mother who had a long list of things that were considered "Very Rude", and on growing up and moving out I've realised no one (except a small MN conglomerate ) also thinks are rude

• elbows on the dinner table
• yawning in presence of others
• asking for a drink (or heaven forbid, a biscuit) at someone's house
• not asking before you can sit down on someone's sofa - my mum has a friend of 40 years who she still asks!!
• not taking your hat off at a wedding until the MOB does - I went to one with her once a few years ago where the MOB had an elaborate fascinator pinned in to her hair. My mum refused to take her hat off. It was August and 32 degrees she nearly fainted!
• not finishing your dinner, be it at a restaurant or someone's house. I had the appetite of a mouse as a child and spent more evenings than I care to remember being eyeballed by mum while I stuffed food down my neck to the point I was almost sick

Suet pastry cooked in the fat around the joint of beef. It goes golden and crispy on top, and takes up the juices from the meat underneath. Also egg in a cup. Hot hard boiled egg mashed with butter and salt and pepper in a tea cup, and eaten with a teaspoon.

@Toddlerteaplease I absolutely love the James Herriot books. I have read them over and over again!!

We used to have strong tea in sippy cups when we were babies.

We also had a number system for manners, eg Number 6 was elbows on the table. My GM used to suddenly yell No 6 at the top of her voice during dinner.

My husband is from a farming family and they have very weird rituals. They call leftovers 'orts' - eating up the orts the next day. Also have 'cut drowns' which are little pancake things.

TrippingonSunshine
You thought apple pips have cyanide in them, if they do I should be dead long ago. I always eat the pips. I don't eat a lot of apples anyway though.

Sinkgirl - no, no salt on potatoes although I do admit shop bought ones are a bit naff so maybe they'd be improved by salt. Actually I do use salt as a form of rebellion sometimes, I have bread with butter and a good grinding of pepper and flaky salt, just to crunch the salt

I used to have baked beans with ready salted crisps crushed into them 😂

If you use a salt mill then add cumin seeds to it, it's lovely

@ImportantWater Another one where a word that was in common usage many years ago but has gone out of use. Stockings USED to be the name for leg coverings like socks, the only real difference was the length as socks were for feet & stockings went further up the leg e.g. knee length. So when you see historical dramas with the guys wearing knee breeches, those are technically stockings underneath not socks.

I have a wealth of useless facts stuck in my brain, leaving little room for much else

My moment of revelation was staying at a friend's house when they had Ready Brek for breakfast. We always used to have it the consistency of porridge, but they had it with about a tablespoonful of the oatmeal in a bowl of hot milk, so almost completely liquid!

Sacrilege - how can you swirl the brown sugar into it when it's that runny!

Anyone else have butter and sugar sandwiches? Yum.

My parents (Irish) also used to do a thing when they wanted to cool a mug of hot tea down a bit. They’d get another mug and pour the tea into it, then back again, repeat several times. And when they’d finished the tea was at the exact right temperature for drinking.

To the PP. Toast done on one side is a pretty common thing I think - it’s even mentioned in English Man in New York by Sting.

My parents (Irish) also used to do a thing when they wanted to cool a mug of hot tea down a bit. They’d get another mug and pour the tea into it, then back again, repeat several times. And when they’d finished the tea was at the exact right temperature for drinking.

My family did this too

@CurrynChips, it's a sort of voluntary
clenching you do in your head - or specifically, in the membrane in your ear. When you do it, it makes a rumbling sound. I didn't know that not everyone can do it.

This isn’t a food one.
I discovered recently that my OH has aphantasia, he can’t see pictures in his head! He always thought he was normal!

I've always had weetabix with cold milk and sugar on it. . I didn't realise people ate it any other way until I read this thread haha

Anyone else have butter and sugar sandwiches Yum

Me!
I want a special family thing to introduce to my DD now, but the sugar and butter sandwiches are so unhealthy! She eats weetabix cold, I'd never heard of the hot way and I don't think she'd eat it (I don't like any cereal).

nornironrock I came here to cite the lyric

“I don't take coffee, I take tea, my dear
I like my toast done on one side
And you can hear it in my accent when I talk
I'm an Englishman in New York.”

As proof that toast done on one side is not unique to your Grandad. Unless your Grandad was also Stings Grandad but PuppyMonkey beat me to it.

@amazedmummy

This is what I like, it makes the toast crunchy!

Some people didn’t just pour drinks from one cup to another to cool it. They used to pour it into the saucer. I’d heard of it but never seen it until one day an old man in a cafe did it. My mum was horrified and dragged me out of there as if he’d exposed himself. But that’s the same mum who recently told me that she had heard of people dunking biscuits but had never seen it done. I know her mum was a regular dunker who taught me and my brothers the same habit so I’m not sure where my mum was when all that was going on.

@inherdefence oh yes, dad poured his tea into a saucer to drink it sometimes too. Now I really DID think that was normal.

I’m still not convinced this isn’t normal but my colleague didn’t believe that I could make goosebumps appear on my skin by sending a shiver down my spine so I demonstrated it and was made out to be a freak of nature. People can do this easily, can’t they?

As a child I loved weetabix made the way your mum made it OP but as an adult I can’t have it that way. I have it the way your DH has it.

@Peachypips78 What were the other numbers? I would have loved a "number system" of manners.

I remember a teacher at secondary school who revealed that punishments have numbers, detention was number 7. Somebody asked what number 1 was: he said "picking up litter". But he would not reveal what number 10 was. Perhaps it was caning, from the school's darker days, which hadn't been written out of the procedures.

I think drinking tea out of a saucer used to be the norm in the dim and distant past, I can't remember where I read it, maybe a book or progamme with Lucy (?) Worsley.

@FruityWidow you remind me of someone I work with. He eats that apple cores and also orange peel as well as the orange. It’s horrific to watch!!