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

Dp and I have just watched and really enjoyed. Mum did seen a bit useless in the beginning but as stated she didn't cook much and dad did - plus eating sepratley was weird. I thoight families always are together

We said the same when the dog appeared plus the cold liver pots etc. Why didn't she heat it up

just came to start a thread on this
seems fascinating. mum seems quite miserable about it though, as she explained, after the war years when women went out to work for the war effort, then back home again. but i guess in 1950s you would stand and chat on your door step

oh just caught up with the beginning, which i had missed yesterday, and mum doesnt usually cook, it is dad. so a culture shock for all!

I watched this on catch up today and found it really interesting.

I bet the dog got the left over cold liver

I'm watching on iPlayer now.

next week 1960s shoudl be interesting
he has another programme out - he was talk ing on the radio this mornign aobut it.

oh its tonight, Eat to live forever, bbc 2 9.30

I didn't realise Giles Coren was on the thing last night, or I would have watched.

He is my guilty pleasure. I know I shouldn't like him, but I can't help myself

what's not to like

Must be hard from being a career woman to suddenly being tied to kitchen sink - plus not having mod cons !!!

And dad and children still go to work and school as normal so it's really only a few hours of their day that changes

Tho one year a day so only 10 days so far / not if its forever and now has a few mod cons

Her birthday cake for dd was funny

felt sorry for the dad as well - sitting alone and wanting to be spending time with his family but not being "allowed".

(the patriarchy is bad for men as well, although not to the degree that it is bad for women)

Oooh we got to see the kids!

(watching the weird diet thing now)

My dad would never have eaten alone, but what I remember is that the meal was served up the minute he walked in from work - and then we all ate together, but it all depended on the time he arrived home. He literally took his coat off and sat down to a meal!

I don't think father eating alone was the usual thing in the 1950s. The mother was only doing the cooking 1950s style. She wasn't doing the family washing by hand, and she would have had the film crew to chat to while the rest of the family were out.

Has someone already mentioned Never Did Me Any Harm? That's the programme this reminds me of (as well as another decade-based one Coren did with Sue Perkins where ISTR them eating prawn cocktail, and some kind of cheese fondue for apres-ski).

The main thing is the food - but thought they may have shown mum scrubbing clothes or brushing dirt off the floor with a dust pan and brush

Really not sure where the eating alone came from I checked with my dad who would have been 11/12 in early 50's and he said as soon as his dad was home mum served up and the 3 kids and m&d all ate together

In my 50's/60's childhood, we kids had tea at about 5pm - and DM and DF ate together at 7 with me begging for bacon rinds if they had liver and bacon The meal would always be accompanied by a pot of tea, and after the entree, there'd be bread and butter, and cake.

I remember using that kind of tin-opener well into the 80's, although I prefer a butterfly type. Have they reappeared yet?

The main thing that surprised me is that they didn't set the table. That crocheted runner thing would have been taken off before the meal, and the table laid.

It did seem somewhat pointless for a cooking novice to be at the helm. Shame Mary Berry couldn't have advised.

I don't think the wife factored in the ages her older friends would have been, back in the fifties.

Just watched this on catchup tv. Really interesting I thought, bet the kids were on facebook snd Twitter as soon as they got to school!
Love how they redecorate the house, I'd love to take part in something like this too.

I think I would be as stressed as the woman was, no fridge for a start!

It was totally ok for the dad wasnt it, digging up vegetables that he hadnt even grown on the allotment.

Yeah, the scene where one of them chucked a marrow(?) to someone, larking about - my dad would go white if I tret his precious nurtured babies like that

I started grumbling as soon as I saw the clothes they were wearing; the mother looked like she had on some sort of hooped petticoat which they would NOT have worn in 1950

yep the dad has it easy/escapes to work/uses internet etc - bet he still used his car/train to work location obv matters but if local hopefully made to cycle there, then comes home to a meal which wifey cant cook and then peace and bed

The very full skirts with lots of paper nylon and hooped petticoats weren't worn until the mid to late 50s. Hooped petticoats weren't that popular, they were difficult to manoeuvre on a crowded bus.

she had to serve up the cold liver because of food rationing. The liver took up all of the family's meat ration for that week. She had cooked the liver at lunchtime for her husband as most men went home for lunch in the 50's

The programme that Glies Coren made with Sue Perkins was called the Supersizers. They lived on a diet from a different period in history each week. They would go for medical tests before and after each diet to see what effect it had had on them. I wish they would repeat them as they were really funny and interesting.