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.

Yes to an earlier poster, we ate all our meals at the kitchen table and dinner in particular was absolutely sacrosanct. And still is in my own house too, though at the moment we generally all eat lunch together also. I think that maybe once in my childhood was I allowed bring my dinner in to eat in front of the television, our strict dinner time coincided with the 100m final in the Olympics. That time sitting around the table was about so much more than eating, it was the anchor of the day where we learned to talk and to listen, where the news of the day - both our own and that in the wider world - was exchanged and where sometimes heated discussions were had, especially as us children got older and joined in. We were and are very ordinary people, we were not always discussing high-blown concepts but politics, religion, social change - this was Ireland in the 1980s where huge social change was happening - were often chewed over. I don't remember or can't conceive of any other point in the day where we would have had the opportunity or been as relaxed to have had those kind of conversations. I am a bit of an evangelist for the daily dinner table gathering I'm afraid and if people can't make it happen most of the time, I'm guilty of thinking there is something skewed about the family set-up. To come together and to break bread together seems to me to be so fundamental to our development as humans that it should never be given up lightly.

There is wonderful social history contained within this thread. Thanks to everyone for sharing their thread in this rich tapestry of social life and social change. Definitely one for Classics

DH's dad was Greek and he was simply the most wonderful cook. Although brought up in the UK my FIL cooked moussaka and spanakopita and the most wonderful salads which DH recalls was considered very strange in the 70s in their rural community.

FIl remained the most extraordinary cook until his death. he was a lover of fresh salads and he taught me what is still my favourite salad.... basically instead of using lettuce leaves he used literally bunches of coriander and parsley. With lemon and olive oil and olives, tomatoes, feta, eggs, cucumber and anything else that might be going. I recall every Sunday he would make baked salmon with this herb salad and it remains one of my favourite memories.

My MIL on the other hand was not an enthusiastic cook and her specialty was beetroot cooked in white sauce [boak]

@BIWI

I love white asparagus! Never understand why we don't get it here.

One of the best meals I had in my life was prepared by a German flatmate. White asparagus, good sliced ham and boiled eggs. It was so simple but so so so perfect.

Whereas beetroot, first boiled then cut into wedges and roasted with the cloves from a whole bulb of garlic, with thyme sprigs, lots of olive oil and a good glug of balsamic vinegar, is really, really tasty with chicken, roast pork or beef.

When I was a child I loved plain boiled beetroot, still warm, sprinkled with sugar and had with cold butter on each bite.

Reading all of these amazing salads, ours was always the same.

Iceberg lettuce or similar, tomatoes, cucumber, spring onions, hard boiled eggs, pickled beetroot, maybe some grated cheese sprinkled over and, if lucky, some ham as well. Accompanied by salad cream. End of.

@KatherineJaneway

Reading all of these amazing salads, ours was always the same.

Iceberg lettuce or similar, tomatoes, cucumber, spring onions, hard boiled eggs, pickled beetroot, maybe some grated cheese sprinkled over and, if lucky, some ham as well. Accompanied by salad cream. End of.

you had SPRING ONIONS. I would have been well jealous!

Mind you we always had grated carrot which I loved. I would mix all the separate parts of the salad up - chop the lettuce, and mix with cucumber and carrot then mash in a Dairylea triangle. Delish!

Did any one else have the annual Christmas Day battle because TOTP Christmas special clashed with lunch?

My mother still cannot have a salad without boiled eggs.

My parents grew spring onions and quite a few herbs too, as well as lots of other fruit and veg.

I remember some Dairylea triangles that were flavoured like other cheese, I used to really like the "gorgonzola" flavour which was green. There was also a creamy cheese a bit like Boursin, that had horseradish in it.

We used to eat breakfast at the breastfast bar in the kitchen (complete with hatch) and also "tea" when younger if we'd had a cooked lunch at school. Other meals were at the dining room table, except for Saturdays, when we used the nest of tables in front of the tv and had something like pitta pizzas, topped with tomato puree and grated Cheddar.

I don't especially remember Vesta meals, though, I can remember crispy noodles!

I remember we ate differently than a lot of my friends. We would eat different foods every day rather than a set menu of the same meals, week in, week out. My mother was a good cook and was interested in food.

We might have fish pie one day, or fish and chips, or fish goujons. It wasn't restricted to a Friday. Another day we would have chicken but it would be cooked in a variety of ways so we wouldn't have chicken pie every Tuesday. I would never have any idea what food we'd be eating for dinner.

I don't think as many people these days still have the same set meals every week but some people do still keep their diets very rigid with little variety.

@quirkychick

My parents grew spring onions and quite a few herbs too, as well as lots of other fruit and veg.

I remember some Dairylea triangles that were flavoured like other cheese, I used to really like the "gorgonzola" flavour which was green. There was also a creamy cheese a bit like Boursin, that had horseradish in it.

We used to eat breakfast at the breastfast bar in the kitchen (complete with hatch) and also "tea" when younger if we'd had a cooked lunch at school. Other meals were at the dining room table, except for Saturdays, when we used the nest of tables in front of the tv and had something like pitta pizzas, topped with tomato puree and grated Cheddar.

I don't especially remember Vesta meals, though, I can remember crispy noodles!

Swiss Knight did a triangle assortment of unusual flavours www.innit.com/nutrition/swiss-knight-assorted-cheese-and-cheese-spread/p/00073015601302

@BestIsWest

My mother still cannot have a salad without boiled eggs.

When I moved to Yorkshire one of the strange things I found was that salad always had boiled eggs in it. You couldn’t have an egg salad sandwich, you had to add cheese or ham.

suelleker, thank you, it might have been those, I just assumed they had been Dairylea. I'm pretty sure they didn't have much to do with real gorgonzola.

I don't recall iceberg lettuce being used much in the UK until the 1980s. When I was growing up it was always round lettuce, which we rarely have now and every time I do have it I think we should get it more. Iceberg has no flavour, but adds texture. Round lettuces have flavour but no crunch. They need a good wash as they can be a bit gritty/dirty (like spinach and leeks).

@BestIsWest

My mother still cannot have a salad without boiled eggs.

My Dad can't have beef that isn't nuked. If any part is pink, it means you'll be 'sick'.

you had SPRING ONIONS. I would have been well jealous!

We didn't call them that at the time, in my part of Wales they were shibwns. We grew them as far as I remember.

Oh Swiss Knight cheese! I used to love those.

I'd forgotten about French Bread pizzas too - Findus made them I think. It's something I used to make when we were on holiday in France (we went for several years in a row, along with another family), as it was a really good way to use up stale baguettes. Also something that the children, when they were younger, were guaranteed to eat, and also very easy to make.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g we always, always ate our meals together, at the table in the dining room. It was part of the evening routine - my mum would cook, I'd stand and chat with her, and then just before it was ready, I'd set the table. We always had a table cloth and placemats.

I'd forgotten all about those lovely round boxes of cheese triangles, with each one a different colour/flavour. At primary school we made some sort of pretend clock using Dairylea boxes. That's how omnipresent they were - the teacher could safely assume that every child could bring in an empty Dairylea box.

TOTP Christmas special clashed with lunch?

No one had lunch in the 70s, unless you lived in a house with servants.

asenseofplace.com/2014/08/17/food-in-the-1970s-what-went-wrong/ Nice blog here with pictures of several things/people mentioned on this thread.

@Ifailed

TOTP Christmas special clashed with lunch?

No one had lunch in the 70s, unless you lived in a house with servants.

I was being posh! Dinner then. It still clashed!

Ermm, actually we used to have Christmas Lunch in the 70s, around 2 pm, and it always clashed with TOTP. I was not allowed to watch it until we had finished eating!

I've just remembered another one. My parents always had a sherry party between Christmas and New year (lots of drink driving I imagine). My mum used to make a dip from sour cream & dried French onion soup. I wonder if you can still get dried French onion soup? She also used to get mixes for dips.

Oh God! School lunch salad. One leaf of curled round lettuce, on which were arranged: one slice of tomato, one slice of cucumber, one slice of egg. It was served with either: two boiled egg halves, a tablespoon of mousetrap or corned horse with the compulsory addition of a scoop of lumpy mash from which the eyes gave you the side eye and a dollop of salad cream thinned with vinegar.

MIL who was a teacher still serves salad like that. My parents ate well and adventurously but MIL did not cook from scratch.

DH and his sisters remember growing up hungry. Every meal for 5 was stretched from something for 4. MIL stretched an egg round her, dh and his sisters by making egg bread. Regular dinners were:

Egg, chips and beans (one tim between 5)
Vesta curry
Fray bentos tinned pies, between 4
Mince gruel with onion and bisto and lots of white sliced
Tomato soup and cheese on toast
1 lamb chop, mash and frozen veg
Chippy fish and chips
Incinerated joints with boiled spud, frozen veg and bistro
Watery stew.

In later years when the dc had left home they had tins of chilli and boil in the bag rice and started to rely heavily on M&S ready meals. The three children shared a bloody cornet on holidays having a lick each.

The meanness knew no bounds and it still makes me cross that dh and his sisters all recollect being hungry. Their mother was a deputy head and father an engineer (admittedly v poor as children). They all talked about how poor they were as children and uni grants not fully made up because money was so tight. When FIL died and DH had to sort out the estate, he had a million in his bank account alone. Yet they eyed out food and lived in the house that time forgot.

Funnily enough although MIal couldn't help herself about counting food, in my house they never held back from making pigs of themselves. Sadly this has been replicated with SIL one and her DC and SIL 2 is also somewhat greedy. i've knocked it out of DH but I still find mars bar wrappers in his pockets, guiltily bought and eaten on the way back from work. MIL used to slice a Mars bar into 10 slices and make it last for two days