Back in time for dinner

[hideandseekpig]

Is anyone going to watch this? I'm really torn because the presenter is Giles Coren who I don't like much but the idea is interesting. They are basically getting a family to eat from a different decade each week from 1950s to now

they've got to put on a show after all

For me it fell, not because of Rochelle's general cluelessness, but rather that she wasn't supplied with all the cookery recipes around at the time, starting post war with govt.issued recipes, which, I supposed, led on to The rise of the 'names', both in cookery books and the tele, with the advent of the gloriously hilarious Fanny and Johnny Craddock. Bags of flour,etc, had, and still have, recipes printed on them.

Food historians manage to recreate.foods from way back, so why didn't the programme producers give her the material around to do the same?

Oh, something I forgot to look for...Brandon wears glasses. Have they been changed to reflect styles over the years, anyone know? (Looking back over the epis to check is too cruel a suggestion and one I wouldn't relish...

I know Brandon a little bit as he was my tutor on a course years ago, and again more recently at the Open University. I really cannot express enough what a fantastic teacher he is (he teaches English literature). He is also very kind and thoughtful.

They seem a really nice, close family.

Awww Emilia, that's lovely

I thought he must be a Shakespeare fan given that his daughters are called Miranda and Rosalind

I am 55 and did not do any form of cooking at school. Private school though, thanks to the Direct Grant system. Mind you, my Jewish SILs both learnt to cook very well from MIL. In our 70s bohemian household we ate, amongst other things, beef stronanough with green peppers and rice, lamb chop stew with tomato and cheese topping (yum!), bacon and egg pie (now called quiche!). Me and my teenage sisters loved Toast Toppers, anyone remember them? My mum and dad drank proper wine, not Blue Nun etc, they had dinner parties and I remember Ogen melon featuring as a starter, possibly with some alcohol in the hollowed out bit. They also had fondues but not cheese, with oil. Also veg oil or butter for cooking, not lard. We wore clothes from Biba, Chelsea Girl, Laura Ashley etc. We loved the power cuts and had a brilliant time having endless seances!!!

"bacon and egg pie"

I thought you said they were Jewish.

I'm a year older than you Davro and I'm pretty sure that home economics (or domestic science) was on the curriculum for all state schools in the 1970s.

Bun I assume Dav didn't grow up in her MIL's house

Oops. I misread the post. My mum was a Cordon Bleu cook so we ate far more adventurous foods in the 60s and 70s than most of my peers.

I remember taking a slice of pizza to school for lunch and my friend asking me "what them black things were". I replied that they were olives and she told me she had never seen black olives. She thought they were green with red bits in the middle.

I think rochelle seems lovely- I like her sense of humour! And I think if they had chosen a keen cook, she migt have enjoyed the challenge, and that would make the 50s and 60s seem fun, when I bet it was more drudgery. The kids are lovely too, they come across as a really nice family.

Bun, my DM did a Cordon Bleu cookery course so that she could entertain my father's bosses/colleagues!

I remember toast toppers And Ogen melons - whatever happened to them?

I did Home Ec O'level. It was my hardest O'level, particularly with our post - war cookery teachers (in the late 70's) My cookery partner had us both in stitches most lessons, with her mishaps and cackhandedness. So maybe Rochelle was the same

You really can't say that Rochelle must have had home economics lessons at school. I was at an all girls' school in the 1960s and we never had any cooking lessons at all.

Re Angels Delight, I noticed some in the shopping basket when they were going round the supermarket.

I'm a decent cook but none of it comes from Home Ec lessons at school. We did a variety of one-off dishes, most of which I disliked, and didn't learn techniques particularly. The only thing I learned at school that stuck was how to make Melba toast!

The mum really is useless isn't she. Can't even use a normal tin opener

Know that makes it more fun to watch but surely she can make the odd decent meal

The cheats cottage pie looked like slop - Tho I do rem dp a few years later doing tinned mince and mash pots and tinned carrots for a meal

Rem pot noodles but born in 73 so Prob had them 10+ yard later as a teenager

Artic roll :)

Their house had been blocked off. Said in the first show so that they had a seperate dining room and small kitchen

I like Rochelle. She conveys the bored, dissatisfied housewife of that time really well. She reminds me a bit of Ria in Butterflies.

Yes, that's what I thought, Luna!

I didn't notice that Brendan was very good at DIY when they made him make that set of shelves but no one is slagging him off.Have to admit I am quite shocked at the sexism by other women on this thread

I'm a bit shocked too, lunch.

I think it was a good move to pick a family where the woman isn't the main cook/housekeeper. For one thing it makes amusing telly (although if this is anything to go by, also encourages disparaging comments). But I think it also drives home the thought-provoking idea that women are NOT necessarily automatically better-suited to domesticity than men and that, in the past at least, they've been pretty much assumed or forced to be.

I think Rochelle stands for a lot of intelligent women, either educated or who would have loved an education, but found themselves stuck in the kitchen instead. She really gets across the sense of frustration and boredom that I think has been some women's lot for decades.

If they'd chosen someone wh tought it would be FUN to play at being a 1950s housewife it would have massively trivialised the mind-numbing physically draining HARD WORK that it was to be a 50s housewife.

I like Rochelle and think the family are really nice, they seem to have good relationships

MiL is a bit older than Rochelle, didn't do home ec at school (all girls grammar) and didn't learn from her mother. She also just doesn't like cooking, a typical meal is chicken cooked in a sauce made of water, lemon juice and flour with some ancient herbs sprinkled on top.

As for making chopped liver, Rochelle would have needed eggs, onions and schmaltz or some other solid fat. Not really do-able with dried egg!

I think that because Rochelle knows better it does seem terrible. I suppose the 50s housewife had grown uo in the war and although it seems pretty dire to us, was relieved the war was over etc. However the stuff still being rationed was not good. you don't tend to think about ater 1945 to early 50s much, more later 50s with fab fashion etc

At the girls' grammar school I went to in the sixties, doing home economics depended which class you were in. I did "cookery" as we called it then, right through to fifth form, but my sister, who was in the "clever" class doing Latin, never did it at all! Oddly, or perhaps not, she is now a much better cook than me!

I didn't have cookery lessons either except being taught how to make the Perfect Cup of Cocoa!

Presumably this was needed for us to prepare for when our Home Helps had finished for the day...