Cooking in the 1970s

[ambereeree]

I've been watching Delia Smith cookery shows from the 1970s and some things really stood out so if you were an adult then please enlighten me.
Delia introduces dried beans and lentils as a food of the future because meat is expensive and scarce and we'll all be eating more plant based substitutes. Of course we all know now meat is cheap and not great quality but people eat loads. What was it like in the 1970s?
Also most of her dishes are European-did you cook Indian/Chinese food in the 1970s?
I was born at the end of the 70s and am not ethnically English so always had non English food. I remember my mum making Indian savoury snacks and taking them into an mainly white English primary school and the teachers all excitedly gathering to have a taste of spicy foods.

This. Crispy pancakes were an exotic novelty.

I was born in the 60s so lots of this resonates with me. I learnt how to cook in Home Economics and at home but Delia taught me how to be more adventurous!
My Mum worked in the village Co-op and I used to absolutely love the summer holidays when I would occasionally be allowed to go and 'help' her. I loved helping serve the pensioners who would come in for 2 rashers of bacon and 1 egg...we waste so much nowadays and I often think how much better it was to just get what you needed every day.
My Dad had some health issues which meant our regular menus were very simple and straightforward but always cooked well. Lots of stews, meat and 2 veg, meat and potato pie, my Mum's wonderful vegetable broth, cheese and egg (cooked in the oven like a souffle...gorgeous!), but my Mum was a demon with the chip pan too so chips were cooked fresh and we also had what we called 'specials' which were sliced potato, fried in batter. My Dad would have bacon and egg every Saturday as a treat.
Our grandparents lived next door and my Grandad seemed to know a lot of farmers and 'interesting people' so they would often have a brace of pheasants, a couple of rabbits, a bucket of mussels or a leg of lamb appearing out of nowhere! We had a large front garden that was separated into allotments (over time my parents bought little bits of it to make their own big garden) so there was always fresh produce, and we kept chickens too.
We always had a roast dinner on Sundays and it was delicious. I never ate meat (veggie from about six years old) but vegetables nowadays never seem to taste as nice as they did then, seasonal and fresh from the garden with mint used to make mint sauce, and lovely potatoes from the ground. There were four of us and our Sunday treat was a Heinz sponge pudding which Mum made with custard or - this was my absolute favourite - chocolate sponge pudding with a white sweet sauce she flavoured with peppermint essence.

Goodness, we had that when we went on scout camp etc. that takes me back to damp tents, freezing campsite washing facilities, half-cooked sausages but what a laugh.....

Was there a brand of grapefruit juice in cartons called Bitter Sweet or something like that?

You boiled the sponge pudding in its can in water so perfect for camping!

I remember the powdered juice but I dont think I ever had it, unless it was on one of our Blackpool hotel holidays where Fruit Juice was considered a starter :o

I remember Jack Dee doing one of his rants about it years ago and it made me laugh so much as it brought back so many memories! I also remember my dad saying that a prawn cocktail should have actual prawns in it and not 3 little bits which he considered to be seasoning on lettuce!

Spaghetti came in tins until about 1980 in most British homes. In the 1970s, we nearly all ate traditionally - meat and two veg. Chips were made from potatoes and deep fried. The leftover meat from the Sunday roast would be used on Monday and occasionally on Tuesday. My mother would very occasionally make a chicken risotto, which we considered to be very exotic as it had savoury rice. I, too, remember the first Chinese meal I had when I was nine. Vegetarianism was considered a bit outlandish and suspect by most people, too. Also, Delia’s advice about using oven for several things at the same time was absolutely correct as it saved money on gas or electricity so, for example, if you made a shepherd’s pie you might make a rice pudding at the same time. The main meal in the seventies would almost always be a dinner followed by a pudding.

Just remembered another one.....Berni Inns.

If you watch "That Day We Sang" by Victoria Wood it has an epic song which sums up Berni Inns perfectly. It was considered vairy powsh round here, and looking back it really wasnt!

We did eat curry and Chinese meals in the 60s/70s at our house but it came in a packet made by VESTA. My mum was Italian so we grew up on Italian food. I remember spaghetti came in a very long packet wrapped in navy blue paper

I'm born mid 70s. My Dad is German/Greek Cypriot. Mum was taught to cook by him and then did a French cookery course and had lived in Germany for a while. So we ate plenty of Greek and french dishes!! Didn't really have curry though!

Wow. This is so amazing to me. I didn't grow up in the 70s...I'm a 90s/early 00s child but even in the 70s, based on what my mum told me, our cuisine has always been so varied and colourful. There's a mix of Indian, African, Chinese, European and Latin cultures here so food has always been exciting and amazingly tasty. It took becoming an adult to fully realise that. Cooking with garlic and lots of seasoning and spices is heresy here!

@BMW6

My Mum used to cook spag bol and curries in the 70's. The spaghetti came in an extremely long blue paper package. Curries were made with curry powder (I presume a mix of all the usual spices) and came in mild, medium or hot varieties.

For some reason Mum always added sultanas to the curry, but I actually really liked it!

Oh that’s lovely! So nice to hear

I'm remembering now:
Stuffed marrow (with mince, onion, carrot and breadcrumbs) with home made tomato sauce - served with mash!
The frozen chocolate and pink mouses that came out if the mould looking pretty - guessing the pink ones were strawberry or raspberry
Chinese leaves in a salad with one chopped tomato in the late 70s
Yoghurt from yoghurt makers in the airing cupboardboak emoticon
Shape (grannies blancmange)
Rice pudding with grated nutmeg

Does anyone remember spag bol in a double ended tin. Bol in one end; spag in the other. Grannie used to buy it for me as a treat

Cranks in Top Shop and a marvellous restaurant in Dover Street W1 that served cheesy spinach with brown rice - it was marvellous! Grunts in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden with salad in a bath and thousand £sland and Blue Cheese dressing - and the stuffed garlic mushrooms.

I do remember the American cheesecake phase of the late 70s (and have a cheesecake cookbook which is awesome and boakworthy all at once). But I am Jewish (well pa was) and cheesecake should be baked and come from Kossofs stuffed with lemony sultanas and be amazing. A treat was going to Blooms!

Makes note to make a lemon meringue pie at the weekend.

Oh and when rough country pate started appearing in corner shops in big earthenware bowls and making it to parties with crusty bread, cheese and red wine.

And fondues - anyone remember fondue parties, loved by the late 70s ski bores.

Croustades and vol au vents ..............

Houmous and crudités came later

We were a family of 7, dad worked as a foreman and mum stayed at home. They lived frugally but every weekend we would have a roast - usually rolled lamb or pork and it was cheap enough then for them - only one slice each though and lots of boiled potatoes and carrots/cabbage boiled to death in heavily salted water. My posh auntie had brisket or silverside and we were always given the impression it was expensive.

The dc and mum never had steak but dad did occasionally as a treat which mum fried until it was as though as leather 🤣. We had fish/whiting in breadcrumbs every week. Herring was bought when in season (cheap).

Mid week we had stews (beef or sausage) with lots of carrot and turnip but would only get 1-1.5 skinny sausages each. Also had mince, again with lots of carrots and served on a slice of bread with lots of boiled potatoes.

We had some fancy "foreign" food - Macroni and cheese (pasta with grated cheese mixed through) 🤣 or spa bol (which was made the same as mince with carrots and a tube of tomato puree and garlic granules added)

In summer we had salads - slice of cold meat (or spam from a tin), chip pan chips and iceberg lettuce/tomato/cucumber (no dressing).

Constant huge pot of soup on the go, either chicken/rice, scotch broth or lentil. It lived on the hob for 3-4 days, even in the summer, and the whole pot would be reheated each day.

We never got anything bought ready made and never ate out as it was too expensive to buy for 7.

Desserts were oven baked Rice pudding or homemade basic cakes/steamed pudding/scones.

We never had curry until much later and the sauce came out of homepride tins.

I was born in '73. I don't remember meat being expensive. My nan always had ham on the bone or lamb stews cooking. You need a second mortgage to buy lamb in bulk these days! Our fridge always had a bowl of beef dripping and there was a roast every Sunday. My mum made curries (also with sultanas) and spaghetti bolognese. Also stuffed hearts (vom) and liver & bacon (also vom).
My mum's friend's boyfriend was West Indian and introduced us to food that we wouldn't ordinarily have bought, like kiwi fruit. So funny that kiwi was considered unusual, once upon a time!
Might have been the early 80's but I remember my mum having a big freezer and spending hours in Beejams, stocking up on fundus crispy pancakes and ice magic.

I taught myself from Elizabeth David so cooked mostly French. They are still wonderful books about food- absolute classics, and very purist - no compromising. Dinner party food was from Robert Carrier. It really wasn't that primitive. In many ways we were better informed, though it wasn't always easy to get hold of the ingredients. And we did eat meat, far too much of it in fact. I think the main difference was that food was still quite seasonal, but when it came to, for instance, apples, there were far more varieties to choose from. Just don't get me started on fondues!

on dinner party nights my mam used to do fried bananas in rum and orange juice with vanilla ice-cream and a dollop of sweet mincemeat on top for pudding.. .........

My parents lived in the Far East for a year in the early 70s so did cook authentic curries etc. But I remember lots of things being treats, like grapes. Bananas were 17p in 1975 which was unaffordable (not sure if that was 17p a pound, or a kilo, but it stuck in my 11 year old brain) - so we didn't have them often. The sunday roast was always turned into soup, stews or goulash. We kids ate frozen pies, fishfingers and beans, and sweet top and angel delight as puds......

Ooh and Mum made bread and butter pudding, summer pudding, and baked apples stuffed with raisins and sultanas. I'd want cream, custard or ice cream with those now, but we loved them!

There were chocolate cakes that we had on Saturday afternoons in the sixties called Kunzle cakes. they were chocolate shell cases filled with lurid coloured cream stuff and a decoration like a cherry on the top.

My parents had cocktail parties and made canapés, ritz crackers with cream cheese and a stuffed olive on top or homemade pate on little squares of toast.

My mum also had the Home and Freezer Digest books and was also a member of a cookery book club by subscription and used to get a cookery book sent every month, popular reprints.

Habitat made lots of things available like garlic presses, red and yellow enamel mugs and plates and teapots and terracotta chicken bricks. eating in the kitchen at pine tables and pine dressers with Portmeirion coffee sets and Botanic garden china was a big thing.

My Mum was very adventurous when it came to cooking in the 70s. We were eating homemade spaghetti bolognese before most of my friends had even heard of it. She misread the recipe the first time she cooked chilli and used 1tbsp rather than 1tsp of chilli powder. We couldn’t eat it! I now put about 3tsps in.
Curry always had sultanas in. Stews were a weekly staple. I hated liver and tripe but had to eat at least a small piece if it was served. Lots of salads with ham. Tinned fruit salad or rice pudding is what I remember having for pudding. Butterscotch Angel Delight for a big treat.

Mum had a lovely recipe for ham that had curry powder and apricots in it. It was my favourite but I didn’t find it in her cookery books.

I grew up on a farm in N.ireland eating meat three times a day in the 50s and 60s. Lived in Kent for a while in mid seventies and bought a big chest freezer then which was full of meat. I did cook Italian dishes and curries then. In 1977 moved to Devon and discovered a wholefood shop at same time as becoming concerned about factory farming and hormone and antibiotic use in farm animals so started experimenting with vegetarian cookery which led to us all becoming vegetarian within 10 years. We,and most of our friends, did cook Indian, Italian and Chinese food in the 1970s but not as ever day fayre, more for entertaining.

We had buffets for parties with all homemade food e.g. Cole slaw, rice salad, coronation chicken, mackerel pate, mushroom pate, quiche Lorraine, whole salmon with cucumber scales, melon balls, potato salad, Russian salad, vol au vents. Celery was served standing in a jug of chilled water and eaten by dipping into a little pile of salt on your plate. Pudding was very rich chocolate mousse, brown bread ice-cream or profiteroles.

The baking dish for the quiche usually had a picture and a recipe printed inside.

My parents had Irish coffee glasses with Irish coffee printed on the gold rim and you used the back of a teaspoon to make the cream float.

I'm in NZ but much of what we ate was the same, only maybe we had more meat. I can remember Mum making curry with curry powder and using sultanas, and I loved it. The first time I had an actual Indian curry I was disappointed, it wasn't nearly as nice as the one Mum made! To this day I don't really like Indian curries. Fish and chips was the only takeaway, other than pies of course. We used to be able to get 'dressed pies' at school for lunch - pies with mashed potato, peas and a slice of beetroot on top. I fancy one right now!

Looking back we had good plain food, and plenty of it, but we didn't eat snacks as much as now, we didn't go out for coffee (and cake) all the time, and we were thinner and healthier. There was always baking in the tins and for a treat we might have afternoon tea out if we were in the nearest large town, or the city, but the food they served was much smaller than the muffins/cakes these days.

I forgot - we had milk puddings such as rice, semolina, tapioca. Loved them all. I see some mention of kiwifruit on this thread, when I was a kid they were known as Chinese gooseberries.