My dear old mum said to me "Do you ever look back on your childhood and think what appalling food you were given?"

[sandyballs]

Bless her, she really wans't the best cook in the world and this seems to be bothering her in her old age. It made me wonder what we will look back on and stress about regarding our kid's childhood .

Faggots. Brains Faggots. Salad cream. And boiled pots with everything - can't eat them now.

Porcupine - I don't get the carving knife/age bit??

Do you mean your MIL has never owned a carving knife even though she's 60?

Cos I don't own one either - no need in this house (unfortunately)

OMG becaroo! Just reminded me of a somewhat drunken conversation my dad had with my DP last time we visited! He was going on and on about how great REAL LARD is and that all this vegetable oil stuff just isn't the same.

My mum used lard till I turned vegi aged 11, she changed the chip pan to veg oil (cause god forbid we forgoe the chips) and my dad never ever noticed till my mum told him months later!!!

But still, apparently, lard is the way to go!!!!!!!

I swear my southern DP now thinks that all northerners live on lard and black pudding! (which only my dad does )

We never had any money but my Mum was a good cook and we always ate well. She still cooks really amazing stuff. Shame about all the other stuff.

The mother of a bloke I know suffers badly from macular degeneration and he has been heard to say it's her own fault because she never gave them broccoli.

Surely nobody ate broccoli 40 years ago? (Or is it just his family and mine?)

noodles ah yes faggots we had those - and dad said to her apparently

"when we have some more money NEVER feed me or the faggots again" and to this day he's never/won't eat them.

I remember going to meet boyfriends parents they gave me bizarre food like chicken kievs and spaghetti bolognaise of which at 22 I had never tried.I bluffed it.
I remember my mum once making pasta twists but using ketchup cos she thought it was the right stuff to use for the sauce it was rank - we still laugh over that now!

did anyone else have ifits?

My mum used lard whenever fat was needed, inc in pastry, and she used to put bicarb in sprouts (but then everybody did), and we used to be fed brains (out of a tin IIRC) on a regular basis. But she was a good cook really.

oh yes and now it all comes back - we had a pudding called "Flummery" and some cold custard thing "Queen of puddings". Pickled onions in the salad. Orange squash. Frozen fish fillets. Tins of meat that quite frankly were like dog food.

We had fruit salad for every pudding. I'm convinced it put me off most fruit (especially boring fruit like apples) for life

Munz, never heard of ifits, please explain!

We were really poor and every now and then they used to do a food delivery at the local community centre where my mum got tins of stewed steak and 'real' butter! I can still taste the salt now.............

Our fruit salad swam in orange squash!! I know it was the 70's but I am mortified now.

yes Frabby you must find out what went into kitchen sink pie!
the first time i went to visit dh's mother i was surprised to note that she had three freezers (inc one chest in the garage, obv) stuffed to the gunnels with hash browns and chicken breasts. the only two things she willingly eats, apparently.
she invited us round for dinner and gave us an uncle bens feast of boil in the bag rice, with sweet and sour chicken from a jar. she's a headmistress.
(which i know makes me sound awful but i don't give a toss cos she's a monstrous pita).

Ours was mostly cooked from scratch (though we did have those nasty frozen burgers or Ye Olde Oak hot dogs from a can on Saturday night as a treat). We seemed to have the same sort of repertoire every week - Sunday dinner, Monday was leftovers, then we'd have things like pasta (spag bol), curry, corned beef mummy (as mentioned on the pasty thread) and generally fish and chips on a Friday. We had proper chips a lot and there was always a plate of bread and butter on the table. And we drank Co-op orange cordial til it came out of our ears (we did get proper orange juice from the milkman but it was for Dad, and we weren't allowed to touch it).

My brother and I were both skinny kids - I suspect my children would get fat on a similar diet as they don't play out like we did. But it clearly wasn't a healthy diet - my Mum had her first heart attack at 49, my Dad at 50.

mercy - it's if it's in the cupboard you can have it if it's not you can't we had those at least once a week without fail. lol.

Oh and we used to have that 'ham' in a rounded triangle shaped can , sliced with parsley sauce and new potatoes. And cauliflower or macaroni cheese.

And chopped ham and pork sandwiches for packed lunches. Also Heinz sandwich spread and Shippam's pastes. Ugh.

we didn't have puddings. just a main meal and squash yes lots of squah - at xmas we had fizzy pop form the milk man - brought about 6 weeks before hand and up in the wardrobe till xmas week.

Do you know I had a feeling that it was going to be something like that .

We used to have fried farts and onions in our house!

Snake and pygmy pudding too (home-made - it was a 'treat' if it was a Fray Bentos one )

Sandwich spread and meat spread. Yuk. All I ever wanted was cheese and pickle.

Monday night we always had either rissoles or shepherds pie, every week, moo - was nice though!

Roast chicken was a huge luxury in those pre-battery days - we usually had beef or lamb on Sundays (remians minced on Monday as above).

We had a chip pan for proper chips - used to have fresh fish dipped in egg+breadcrumbs every week - nothing even remotely exotic like spaghetti or curry though, I can't remember what we did have most of the time

We didn't even have a fridge until I was about 10 and even then we were ahead of most of the neighbours!

Chicken was a luxury, wasn't it - we mostly had beef, lamb or pork. And chicken tasted like chicken in those days - even the free-est of free range, organic, corn fed chicken doesn't taste as good as I remember it tasting when I was a child.