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.

My granny (born 1915) used to give me lettuce with brown sugar and vinegar as a treat after school in the 1970s. It was surprisingly yummy.

My grandfather, born over 20 years earlier, used to give me that for lunch with a slice of bread and butter. The lettuce was cut fresh from the garden.

@MagicSummer

The 70s was very much the era of the cheese soufflé! Does anyone make them anymore? We used to have a parsnip & gruyere one.

Wouldn't mind your BFG recipe.

quirkychick
I am adding Indian Onion salad to my official repertoire!

Born in the late 60s so didn't cook in the 70s but grew up eating the food.

We had mince during the week and a roast on Sunday- chicken, beef and boiled ham on rotation. Never had spaghetti, pizza or rice until I left home.

We had potted meat sandwiches, tinned cream and cheap offal such as liver and stuffed hearts. Salmon came in a tin as did peas and carrots!

My mom was and still is a terrible cook, but we all survived on dinners of brains faggots and birds eye beef burgers. Puddings were angel delight and jelly.

Butteredtoast, I often make it (with lemon juice) to accompany a curry .

We had a Cadbury's book full of cakes and bakes. I loved it so much I bought a copy from Amazon for old time's sake.

I am so glad I clicked ‘watch’ on this thread at the beginning! I am going to read the whole thing tomorrow, thank you OP

@quirkychick and @Butteredtoast55. I make a very similar salad and add also chopped fresh coriander and mustard seeds. Yum!

Our diet in the 70s and 80s was very dull. I’d never eaten pasta, pizza, rice, let alone Chinese or Indian food until I went to uni and taught myself to cook. My parents weren’t at all well off, but I remember we had meat every day, although often leftovers, or offal, and the proverbial potatoes and veg, which was always peas and carrots. Never had crispy pancakes, but on Saturdays we sometimes had fishfingers and chips. As a child, Delia’s dishes seemed very exciting and cosmopolitan. I was given a copy of her Complete Cookery Course when I went to uni and I still use it now.

Wine has bought back some memories of food in the early 70s.
We lived in a small village on the English/Welsh boarder. I remember going out about this time of year with my older sister and we picked big bunches of primroses. As we walked home we passed a house of an elderly (to us) women who lived alone. There was a small cross in the garden, and she told me to leave them by the gate.
A little while later we walked past and they had gone, but she was taller than me and could see over the hedge that they were on the ground by the cross.
A few days later we were back at school and as we walked there (me, my older sister and brother) we past this house and the lady that lived there handed over a packet to my brother. It contained still warm Welsh cakes. She just said "thank-you" and went back inside. They were wonderful! I can still taste them today.
She met us a few more times with the same gift, and we used to leave little bunches of flowers by her gate, even the likes of dandelions or cows parsley.
Later on , I found out that she had lost a child at birth & her husband had been 'missing' at sea during the war. The cross in her garden was her own memorial to then both.
It's sad tale, but also uplifting for me, a connection between the generations about a little bit of love that my far more astute sister got and a lady who understood innocent friendship.

We didn't have much money in the "70's. As the years rolled by, we had more and up to the day they died the joy of my Mum and Dad's life was to be able to take the whole family out to a restaurant

We ate plain food. Mum was suspicious of freezers adn did not believe it was safe to freeze meat. So when we got a freezer, she didn't put a lot in it. When we got a pressure cooker she was scared of it and used to run from the kitchen. Everyone had to stand well back when she opened it, incase it exploded

She didn't believe in convenience food but we did get a knocked off bulk vesta packs. Only my Dad ate them, as mum didn't think they were safe for children, we were sometimes allowed a crispy noodle

Cheese and milk were rationed as my dad needed them as he did a physical job. Thank god, we got milk in school.

Meat was eked out, on a Sunday roast, chicken wings were for children and then the chicken would last much longer.
We ate a lot of mince and offal.

Breakfast would be one weetabix. There would never be a choice.
Lunch, thin ham or paste sandwich. If at school we'd get a penguin biscuit as well
Dinner small piece of meat, boiled potatoes and seasonal veg.

It took Mum a long while to accept 'foreign foods'. We'd have pasta, with mince and gravy and mum thought it very exotic.

If my Dad ever found money (he was good at this and used to keep his eyes glued to the l pavement. If it snowed and people had been sledging, he'd be very excited and comb the hills looking for dropped money)
He would bring the money home and throw it in the air for us kids to catch. We'd save it and buy a tin of salmon and if we had enough get feather blade steak which mum cooked in gravy.

My families life seemed to revolve around food.mum saved up stamps and with the milkman to get treat food at Xmas.

I remember a aunt treated us to McDonald's in the 70's when it had just opened. None of us liked it, and mum was sure 'rubbish' food would never catch on. By the time she was in her 70's she loved a McDonald's

I remember when I got my first full-time job, in the 80's having enough money to take Mum to pizza hut, I was so proud that I could afford to buy the meal

As a family now we have found our lives in the pandemic revolve aorund food yet again. We are very grateful to have so many different foods to choose from now

@ScribblingPixie

Yes to the greenhouse full of tomatoes. Actually I think that's how we first had courgettes too which seemed very sophisticated - Mum made ratatouille with them and I remember her lying & telling Dad there was no garlic in it otherwise he wouldn't have eaten it.

When we were in France and my English grandparents came to stay, my Grandpa loved visiting my French Grandma, who lived close by, because she was an awesome cook. But he always took pains to warn her (politely) that unfortunately he couldn't eat garlic at all -even one clove ruined food for him and he could always taste it.

And my Grandma would smile, and say, "Of course" - and serve him her amazing meals, all loaded with garlic. And Grandpa would wolf them down, have seconds and thirds, and tell her how kind she was to adapt her cooking especially for him

Lovely posts, @Ifailed and @catnidge.

One thing I don't think we've touched on yet - did everybody else sit down round the table as a family for the main meal of the day? We always did. Breakfast was eaten in the kitchenette in relays, as my Dad left very early and my brother could get up later than I did, as his school was nearer. We perched on a folding chair, with the food on the counter. Lunch was at the dining table if we were all at home (only Sundays normally), otherwise Mum got out the folding table and chairs and put them in the living room (Saturdays and school holidays). We did the same on Mondays when my Dad always worked late. This was less work than using the dining table as that necessitated moving the houseplant which stood in the middle of the table when we weren't eating there, getting out the protective mats (the table had a French polished surface, my mother's pride and joy), putting on a tablecloth and getting out the table mats and coasters.

My parents still have that table, with a new set of chairs. It was a wedding present in 1960. It's a liability as any water spilt on it could damage the French polished surface.

Those old Delia shows on iPlayer are fab!

Not the 70s but in the early 80s meals I remember we're:
Beef olives
Steak pie with puff pastry and a funnel thing in the middle
Mince and potatoes
Gammon with a pineapple slice on the top
Pork chops with a slice of cheese on the top
Spaghetti Bolognese - no other pasta
White fish deep fried in briskoline- the deep fryer was used almost daily for chips (cut from real potatoes)
Roast beef with bisto
Veg was cabbage, sprouts, carrots, turnip
Potatoes or chips with every meal
We had soup as a starter every night- always made from stock not a stock cube- never vegetarian
Desserts were things like stewed apples or rhubarb
I also remember the skooshy cream and dried fake parmesan

I remember french bread pizzas coming in c late 80s, they were horrible and hard and I decided I didn't like pizza at all!

We had a chest freezer in the garage so mum bulk cooked and froze everything.

I remember the grill being used a lot more than we ever use ours now.

Veg was only ever cooked by being over boiled. Often mashed.

@felulageller
Beef Olives ! Still a favourite in this house but a rare treat. No self respecting butcher in NE Scotland would not have a selection of olives with various stuffings. 😬

There are so many lovely stories in here 💕

It's so interesting to me that the memories are warm no matter how wealthy or poor the families were. I guess the thing with food and families is that it's a reason to gather and share, the favourite foods of celebrations evoke happy memories as much as stimulate taste buds.

We have changed so much since the 70s and it's lovely to remember the nice things about a time before convenience foods and takeaways. I remember mum being so excited about the arrival of boil-in-a-bag dinners that dad could eat when he was late 😂

@TatianaBis - here's the BFG recipe. Hope you can read it OK - sorry it's rather dog-eared and stained!

@felulageller What on earth is briskoline? I couldn't find it on google.

French bread pizzas were definitely 70s. I used to have them when I was at school if my parents were out. Or crispy pancakes or that white boil in the bag frozen fish in sauce.

Ruskoline, maybe? Bright orange pretend breadcrumbs that came in a white and orange cardboard box.

Boil-in-The-bag. Now there’s a phrase you don’t hear anymore. I suppose microwaves have largely replaced the need. DH was reminiscing yesterday about boil in the bag chicken casserole and instant ‘Surprise’ peas which his mother would leave him for tea when she went out (often).

@MagicSummer - great, thanks!

@Ifailed - what a poignant story.

Gaspode my mother still has her 1961 table (with new chairs) and we all sat round it every day until we were older teens and we all ate at different times.

I remember those bright orange breadcrumb things! My mum loved them, me not so much.

I remember the pizza things which we were never allowed as they were “rubbish” and expensive!

@catnidge. How lovely was your dad? The story about the coins made me cry.