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.

@RosesAndHellebores

Ha ha when I was 30 it was all Chardonnay. Pilot took another 15 years and now it's all picpoul

You know what, I think it probably was Chardonnay! I said Pinot as that is my wine of choice now but nearly 20 years ago....yes it probably was Chardonnay!

We were at university in the 60s and used to drink Hirondelle (Austrian wine?) which was a bit rough. By the seventies we were in Yorkshire and there was a shop called Foster's in a nearby mining area that had an amazing range of wines, we used to go and stock up. We enjoyed a glass of dry sherry too.
We definitely had tea bags in the 70s, but now we drink leaf tea using a tea pot as we much prefer the taste. We had a Teasmaid for early morning tea and the sound of it going off used to wake our children for the day. For coffee we had a percolater which stewed the coffee a bit, then a Cona with the glass jugs.

My dm made meat of some type every night, with two veggies, and spuds. Nothing fancy, chops, roasts, chicken, meat loaf, salmon loaf, stews, spaghetti, store bought meat pies. Every few months she made a smoked fish dish, cabbage rolls, fish cakes. I married in the late 70's and was not a big meat lover..burgers, spaghetti, chili, pork chops, lot of fish, cabbage rolls, chicken.

Oh gosh coffee in the 60s. Percolator and Cona machines. The coffee was then poured into a warm coffee pot which matched the set of tiny matching coffee cups. I have dh's grandmas and my grandma's. We had an espresso machine in our old house and they were perfect for that. Then it broke and we realised we both felt better!

In th 1950s/60s many Italians left Italy looking for work (i'm not sure if there was a specific reason). Hence, where I lived in rural Scotland, every town had it's local Tallies, The Italian cafe where they made lovely ice cream and sold fresh brewed coffee.
The coffee was frothy in little coffee cups and saucer - that was enough for people in those days - no need for huge cups. Snacks available and ice cream sodas etc.

Mmm, ice cream sodas! They were such a treat .

My parents had a coffee grinder that looked like a white darlek. You put the beans in the top (there can't have been room for many) with the blade and the bottom had the motor. I also remember a tin opener on the wall.

@PyongyangKipperbang

Someone mentioned wine earlier, I remember a line from The Good Life that has stayed with me in recent years. Jerry says that he and Margot are having....[insert 70's posh meal] ..... for dinner with "a rather drinkable Hock" and I love that as Hock is VILE. I wouldnt use it to clean that drains!

When I was 30 ish my friends decided to throw a 70's style dinner party. The prawn cocktail was ok, the steak and chips was nice, the frozen black forest gateau not so much but the blue nun was undrinkable! We gave up and hit the Pinot!

That has reminded me that HOCK was printed on one of the Wine Gum shapes (containing no wine of course). The round one, I think. In the 70s I had no idea what HOCK meant, my dad told me it was an expensive wine.

Pinky! Yes we often had a ice cream float- with red cola or coke. Is it any wonder my baby teeth fell out? We also had Alpine fizzy drinks delivery. Lime soda was my fave. I think my parents were a bit dumb!

The other thing I remember fondly is fish and chips in actual newspaper. So delicious.

My mum used to also give us soft boiled eggs if it snowed. But rice crispies with 2 spoons of sugar on top otherwise. 😳😳

As students in the late 70s we used to be able to get draught "British Sherry" from the corner shop; you'd bring your own bottle. Also draught takeaway scrumpy from the local pub in whatever the largest receptable was available - usually the pressure cooker!

My parents enjoyed a drink! We had a drinks trolley with gin, whisky, sherry, brandy and liqueurs on it. My father drank gin and lime and my mother gin and French (Noilly Prat). I was allowed watered down wine with Sunday lunch from a very young age, and regularly drank Babycham, sherry and lager from about 13!!!

I also remember Hirondelle wine and Bull's Blood (Hungarian red), also my parents used to get German wine delivered from a company called Pieroth - they used to come to the house to do a wine-tasting and you ordered after that.

I only ever drink French white wine now!

Not forgetting a rabbit shaped jelly
Sat on "grass", which was dessicated coconut with green food colouring.

@EBearhug

Not forgetting a rabbit shaped jelly Sat on "grass", which was dessicated coconut with green food colouring.

One of my earliest memories is Michael Jones’ birthday party where the party table had a blancmange rabbit sitting on a green jelly lawn centrepiece. I was so impressed. I thought Michael Jones’ mum had carved the rabbit from a solid block of blancmange.

So bite me, I was about three. I would still be impressed if I saw it today, but now I would be wondering how she got it out of the mould in one piece.

Hirondelle was an Italian wine. Thankfully no longer around!

20 years ago chardonnay would have been the very heavily oaked variety. Totally different from today's stuff. It was really hard to drink, I used to think, but people loved it for some reason. The company I worked at in those days always had wine in the fridge, and we used to celebrate the end of the day with a glass - always the oaked stuff. (I did manage to force it down, of course )

British sherry was terrible stuff. Like British wine - as opposed to English wine - it was made from grape juice, and not made like real sherry would be. But it was cheap, and I do remember my parents buying that. When they started drinking wine, it was usually large bottles of cheap Valpolicella.

Oh those rabbit shaped jellies and blancmanges were a thing of beauty.

It was beer and cider around our way. I posted up thread about Mateus Rose at Christmas lunch - we were allowed a tiny glass each.
DM drank Old English cider and DF pretty much anything beer-wise with Bells or China’s Regal whisky.
DM became a member of the local wine circle in the late 70s though so they converted to wine, German Liebfraumilch initially then they stared going to France on holiday and it was red all the way.

@MagicSummer. We had Pieroth wines for some years, and always visited their stand at the Ideal Home Show (our own rep. was usually there, which was nice) It got very expensive though, so we stopped.

It was beer and cider around our way. I posted up thread about Mateus Rose at Christmas lunch

Likewise at my house, though neither parents drank much. For us at xmas it was a drop of dubonnet and a lot of lemonade (which itself was an xmas only drink).

Later on a bottle of 'Concorde' British wine was the nearest I got to drinking wine, I don't think it was until my late teens at college I had my first glass of proper wine. To be honest I wasn't that impressed and couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

I was born late 70's so don't remember too much but early 80's we had a fortnightly trip to Bejams frozen food shop as a big event! My dad would sit outside in the car and do his crossword while my mum did the shop lol

We ate meat, but Sunday roast was still special, Saturday nights were egg & chips night and if we were lucky we had a fish & chip takeaway on a Friday!

I didn't eat a curry or pizza until the early 90's

I didn't eat a curry or pizza until the early 90's

I did have pizza in the 80's but the very thick crust stuff. When I went to Italy in the 90's, authentic pizza was a revelation.

I never liked curry until I went to India. Then I finally understood what everyone was on about.

I'm so happy that this has turned into a historical goldmine of British food culture. I've really enjoyed reading all your posts.

1970's wine NZ Style - Muller Thurgeau, Vivante, Cold Duck, Bernadino Spumante, the ubiquitous Mateus Rose, home-made wines (a lot), rose-hip wine, parsnip wine (these were the good ones), and thankfully I've blotted out the bad ones. And home-made beers.

1970's wine in NZ was vile, lol!

Oh how times change. . . sorry, I know it's Brit, I hope you don't mind me flicking in a Kiwi recollection.

This brings back memories. In the seventies I worked at a local firm of rather posh solicitors and our lovely and very grand book keeper took a shine to me She would go to France to attend cordon bleu cookery courses.

She would invite me to the dinners, rather hilariously as she was in her fifties and I was 16! I would have to walk the couple of miles there usually wearing a fetching kagoule and the one pair of flared jeans I owned. I was always treated as an honoured guest and I was completely unconcerned about the other rather grand attendees. The food was lovely and she served Grande Marnier liqueur. Remembering you Isabel - whose nephew was also in 10cc!

Add on from earlier -
I remember having lots of curried meat and fish dishes but didn't have many curries with rice. I had quite a lot of pasta bows with curry instead and sometimes with potatoes.

We had curried minced steak pies, curried pasta salad and hot and cold curried chicken which was more like coronation chicken but without the almonds. I think volovants were always stuffed with curried chicken.

I remember spice racks were conversation topics and spice rack envy.

We had vol au vents with creamy mushroom (which Mum made, and was mildly horrified when a relative admitted to using Campbell's condensed soup for this.) Also egg mayo (with a sprinkle of paprika), some fish thing (don't eat fish, so only paid enough attention to avoid those,) creamy chicken thing.

My first experience of pizza was Findus Frozen French Bread Pizza. Which my grandmother proudly served every week. With baked beans. And coleslaw.