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.

Just to say for Delia fans- her original 1989 Christmas programme (not the updated 2001 one, which is nowhere near as good) is on Amazon prime - a must watch! I watch it year round; such good recipes and good information and history.

I remember mums spag bol was basically mince with tinned tomatoes and onion - no garlic was involved until about 1981!

I wasn’t an adult but I can remember! We had very small portions of meat, and what we had was mostly cheaper cuts: stew, mince, including as spaghetti Bol (Elizabeth David recipe) and also things like liver and bacon and kidneys. We had chops for a treat. Roast lamb or beef or a frozen chicken sometimes, and then leftovers for several days.
We also had lots of fish, which was much cheaper then, and egg dishes and veg things like macaroni or cauliflower cheese. We always had potatoes and lots of vegetables from the garden. Lots of soup and homemade bread (which was very unusual.)
Actually, we were lucky and I think had better food than lots of people, even though we had very little money. My Mum was a pretty good cook. She was always lamenting the decline of ‘proper’ sausages, (which are now back in force) as 70s sausages were horrible. So we didn’t really have them. We also didn’t have the newfangled convenience foods like crispy pancakes or fish fingers that my friends seemed to live on.
As for non-European food, we didn’t really. We had spaghetti and kedgeree. That’s it.

Another child of the 70s and yes to bread and butter with everything to fill you up.

We grew up rurally so it was meat and two veg, stews and traditional food all the way. I didn't have any Chinese or Indian food until the early 90s! My Dad kept chickens and pigs which he killed to stock the freezer and we grew our own veg.

Probably more 80s but I do remember crispy pancakes coming out and thinking they were really exciting! I really wanted to like smash as it was very spaceage but it was rank.

Power cuts were big in the 70s and even now my mum has a drawer full of torches and candles and would never put the oven on for just one dish. If I ever do this I always 'apologise' in my head to her

My mum says her first yogurt was on French exchange in the mid-60s!

[quote jobobpip08]@BMW6 We had curry with sultanas but also a hard boiled egg, sliced in half, on top![/quote]
We would have bowls of chopped bananas and dried coconut on the table for sprinkling on top of the curry.

It was a very special occasion to have a curry.

We grew up rurally so lots of tough pheasant casseroles, stews, ham or cheese in your sandwich, never both. Soup and a sandwich as a treat on the weekend.

Mum always had a cake baking.

I recall my mother - a child in the 70s - being horrified when I turned on the oven in my uni house to cook lunch for 1 person - how decadent!

She also loves a Delia recipe and a jar of cooking sauce, after reading this thread I feel like I understand her a bit better!

My mum used to make curried mince with sultanas - I wouldn't go near it! But I used to like Vesta paella with 'chopped, shaped chicken.'
Chicken must have reasonably cheap because we'd have it midweek; usually fried with chips. Roast chicken - from the butcher, not the supermarket - was for Sunday.
People had spice racks with about half a dozen jars - and that was it. I have a spice cupboard now.
Spaghetti was 3x the length of today's short spaghetti. So you hadto be a skilled twirler.
Prices shot up - sugar went up to 2s a bag which was considered shocking and a potato shortage made people try rice etc.
Black forest gateau was a huge treat. And cheesecakes with fruit toppings (packet mixes). And lemon meringue pie with a little lemon capsule in the packet. I remember my first Ski yogurt - hated it, but maybe that was late 60s.
I was terribly impressed when I got to university and saw other girls making boeuf bourgignon and cooking with wine. My parents only had wine (cheap, Spanish) at Christmas.
I learned to cook properly from brilliant Katie Stewart, Robert Carrier, Delia's recipe in the Evening News, Rose Elliot for soups/lentils (carnivore boyfriend hated this!). Even in 80s, often had to trawl London for ingredients (Of course, couldn't Google stockists.)

Another child of the Seventies here. Chicken was only for Sunday roasts and in the week we'd eat mince, sausages or pork chops. I remember the first time we had chilli con carne, made with mince, baked beans and a packet of Schwartz spices – it was so momentous my dad took a Polaroid of us eating it.

I was born in 1959. Food I remember from the late 60s, into the 70s include proper thick pork chops, complete with the kidney on them, lamb 'chump' chops, and smoked haddock that came in a plastic bag with a star-shaped piece of butter included. We were very much a meat and two veg household until the mid to late 70s - Colman's came out with their Coq au Vin and Chicken Chasseur casserole mixes, and Mum used them a lot. Then Vesta introduced us to the delights of risotto, paella and curry - none of which were what I would consider authentic, or indeed edible, nowadays!

I had my first curry in an Indian restaurant when I was 16, and my first pizza in the 'Pizza Palace' in Brighton the same year (1975). Prior to that I'd had the occasional Chinese curry from a takeaway on a Friday night, when the parents had their fish 'n chips.

Our first holiday abroad was to Paris in 1973 - and that was the first time I'd tasted garlic. I remember buying some in the late 70s, and Dad creating hell because the pantry smelled of 'foreign food' :) Herbs came dried, in a jar labelled 'mixed herbs'.

We ate white bread, because no-one ate the brown stuff. Many people still used margarine instead of butter (a legacy from wartime, I think), but I was lucky enough to be in a family which preferred butter. Still can't stand butter substitutes.

For treats, we had 'naice ham', and fish paste sandwiches, followed by tinned fruit salad - the best part was the cherry, you were lucky if you got that.

Breakfasts were either cooked, or cornflakes, milk and sugar, or rice crispies, milk and sugar. Porridge in the winter, but never any other time.

Delia was (Iand is) great - she was just too late to educate my mother, who always hated cooking, and was hopeless at it. Cardboard liver etc. I think my Mum's hopelessness in the kitchen (her favourite TV character was Rhea in Butterflies) was the reason I learned to cook early, and well - and it's been a passion ever since. I'm actually in a FaceBook group for fans of Delia - her recipes have really stood the test of time!

Thanks for the prompt to remember all this stuff about food - it's been fun reminiscing!

I was born in 1960 and both my parents had lived abroad in the 50s and had continental: French, Italian and German friends and my grandad was Russian!

Therefore we did have adventurous foods and mother cooked spag bol, boeuf bourgogne, chicken Veronica and lots of things in scratch sauces, including curries. We also had fresh and smoked salmon and fresh crab, and eels, which were unusual and expensive then.

We used to have to go to soho to buy fresh pasta and herbs and other little delicacies. Olive oil was sold in the chemist and also used for sun tanning.

I don't remember good meat being more expensive than now but I do remember my mother making chicken Kiev for a dinner party and buying 4 chickens because she needed 8 breasts! However we had a freezer from about 1970 so there wouldn't have been much waste.

There was always a Sunday roast: beef, pork, chicken, lamb and sometimes duck.

There were also, however, lots of meat pies, mince stew, toad in the hole, liver and bacon, braised shin, oxtail, pork belly (and home-made brawn), stuffed braised hearts and chops: lots of lamb and pork chops and sometimes even veal chops or wiener schnitzel.

Only salad and soft fruits in the summer and lots of fruit pies in the autumn and winter. I also don't remember brocoli except purple sprouting as a child. Lots of peas, beans, cabbage, sprouts, carrots, and other root veg. Oh and lots of things like pearl barley going into soups.

I could go on and on but have a meeting at 2.15. Will come back.

I was a kid in the 70s and our weekly menu consisted of ,for example;
Ham and chips, egg and chips, shepherds pie (at grandma's) , sausage and mash, pie and chips or corned beef hash. Roast chicken on Sunday (but at other grandma's). Beef and lamb was too expensive for our 6 member, one wage household.
Spaghetti was considered foreign food and the nearest thing to Indian or Chinese food would be in a box made by Vesta.Admittedly my mum hated cooking and even in later life my parents never ate Indian or Chinese food. They did adventure as far as Italian, although my dad initially had the classic Peter Kay reaction to 'garlic bread? !'

I'm always bemused that the British used to say New Zealand was 'ooooo like the UK was 50 years ago' but then proceed to talk about growing up in the 70s and 80s and having never tasted spaghetti or had a freezer . I grew up in NZ and we had a fridge freezer from as far back as I can remember at the start of the 70s. No one I knew had an outdoor toilet or a wringer. Everyone ate pasta and we all drove our own cars at 16. Families didn't gather around to scrutinise funny 'foreign' fruit and none of us had those weird contraptions in bathrooms with pipes and taps to get hot water. We just turned on our mixer taps. I'm kind of wondering what aspects of British life was ahead of anywhere else? Seems so backwards.

I was a child of the 80’s but remember lots of food things that seem quite funny now. Including Spam (or Pem which was a nastier version of Spam, grandparents wanting food with zero seasoning.

My local butchers now does shin and it’s tasty after some time in the slow cooker

Bread, sausages and ice-cream were generally terrible quality - my parents always moaned about these and I couldn't understand why. Who wouldn't love Wall's ice cream!

Crap, packaged food was marketed as 'modern.' Things we wouldn't dream of eating today: Angel Delight and Instant Whip, for mash get Smash, Findus Crispy Pancakes; Surprise peas (dried).

Avocados seemed impossibly glamorous - only ever served filled with prawn cocktail. That was a huge treat, birthdays only.

I'm not sure whether fresh cream (from the milkman) was expensive but we only had it on special occasions; for normal Sundays it was tinned cream - maybe a hangover from the days when people didn't have fridges.Knew a few people who had sterilised milk in tall glass bottle with a metal cap; I loved it, very creamy tasting - but it was considered rather low-class. Bought by old ladies and the fridge-less poor.

I remember that really long spaghetti, used to take five minutes to get it all into the pan!

I was a child. My favourite dinners were egg and chips; spaghetti with butter and grated cheese on top (still my go-to comfort food); fishfingers (2) with potatoes and peas: sunday roast dinner with a chicken (my share was a drumstick and a slice of breast, breast of lamb, or brisket.

We always had plenty but not much variety. Mum used to make big stews with a cheap cut of meat, veg and pearl barley, in a pressure cooker that were filling but not very nice to me then, although I love stews now. Homemade pies, usually steak and kidney. Dad grew lots of our veg.

A Chinese takeaway a couple of times a year was a massive treat and very exciting.

I didn't eat any Indian food until I was over 30!

I was at Uni in the late 70s & starting to cook more meals for myself & flatmates ... loved Delia (still do, her 'Basic'' cookbook is still my favourite). I can remember bring given an avocado and no one knew what to do with it (we used it as a face mask ).
My mother was a fairly adventurous cook, in the Elizabeth David style, but a lot of friends used to have very simple meals - chops and tinned peas sort of meals!

Just remembered those tiny drums of grated, desiccated Parmesan that smelled of old men's feet. Very small amount would be sprinkled over spag bol - because nobody really liked it! You'd aim for a neat blob about the size of a half-crown on the centre of your plate.

I also remember when you could only get olive oil from the chemist for medicinal purposes. Nobody cooked with it.

My mom was quite an adventurous cook. At one point in the 70s we had jamaican neighbours one side and indian the other so they taught her some of their recipes

I also remembering we all went round each others houses and that house cooked. Jerk chicken, curry and my mom would do.fish and chips or a roast. All the kids loved it too.

Anyone remember the Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook? I learned to cook through that book and also through Rose Elliot’s Bean Book. The Hamlyn book had great pictures which showed what your creation should look like when complete, which seemed to be quite innovative at the time. As a student in the late 70s, the meal of choice when entertaining was always spaghetti bolognese or chilli. The more adventurous used Rose Elliott. I did like a Vesta chow mien, though couldn’t get the crispy noodles to puff out properly when frying.

@withmycoffee

I'm always bemused that the British used to say New Zealand was 'ooooo like the UK was 50 years ago' but then proceed to talk about growing up in the 70s and 80s and having never tasted spaghetti or had a freezer . I grew up in NZ and we had a fridge freezer from as far back as I can remember at the start of the 70s. No one I knew had an outdoor toilet or a wringer. Everyone ate pasta and we all drove our own cars at 16. Families didn't gather around to scrutinise funny 'foreign' fruit and none of us had those weird contraptions in bathrooms with pipes and taps to get hot water. We just turned on our mixer taps. I'm kind of wondering what aspects of British life was ahead of anywhere else? Seems so backwards.

I don’t think that comment is about Kiwi backward-ness in living standards, exactly. The people I know who have said this were being what they considered complimentary. They meant things like the smaller scale of towns and cities and lack of massive urban sprawl in NZ, plus a good community feeling, and an atmosphere of still being quite close to farming and food production.

And quite honestly, they liked the lack of modern British ethnic diversity, albeit they couldn’t say this out loud.

This is fascinating and bringing back so many memories! I was a child in the 70s and remember a lot of stews, roast beef on Sunday followed by cottage pie on Monday and quite often rissoles on Tuesday. Cauliflower cheese, Macaroni cheese, toad in the hole are all things I remember. Fish fingers and peas too. We were quite well off and my mum was (still is) an excellent cook, always cooking from scratch, so we were very well fed.
It's only threads like these that remind me how different things are now. Mum didn't teach me to cook but she gave me the Delia Smith cook books when I left home.
I'm quite a good cook now but through a lot of trial and error.

I remember watching Delia Smith when I was quite young, so late 1970’s and my parents being appalled at her putting garlic into everything 😂