Further Back in time for Dinner!

[Akire]

With the Robshaws!! Something to watch on a Tuesday hooray.

Agree about the house Davros .

Yes that was funny Trills Though I must say I didn't think it first came out in the 30s!

I love this show! Was so glad it was the ribshaws back again.

I feel so sorry for Rochelle. She knows she isn't a good cook but she gives everything a bash. And she is getting all these comments about it on this thread yet she is the only one doing anything!! What does Brandon do? Other than sit and get fed? Same with the children, lovely as they are, they all just sit around waiting for her to finish sweating in the kitchen and then discuss what would have been nice to eat while eating what she has cooked!

And yes debbie is ace. Really hope she has a brilliant career ahead of her. She really brings home how much we have lost in terms of cooking skills. Pigeon?? I would run away from it before I'd try and pluck it!

I feel so sorry for Rochelle I don't think she values skills like cooking. It's not for the likes of her.

Well you've clearly a large (probably home grown and cooked by your own adept hand) chip on your shoulder about Rochelle for some reason but my issue wasn't about her interest in cooking or her ability, it was about the comments she is receiving here about it.

At least I can cook chips!

I think the domestic dynamics between Rochelle and Brandon in the show are simply a reflection of how it would have been at the time, with the wife doing everything in the home and the husband doing little except going to work and sitting around waiting to be fed, but it's true that they haven't shown him going to work as much in this series, in the first one they did show him going to the office each day, leaving Rochelle to shop, cook and clean but there has been less of this, but he has had a couple of 'businessman's lunch' type things with Giles.

Maybe they haven't mentioned their real life work, so they could just focus on the food and social history aspect? I think Rochelle's been a great sport and it's obviously a very different world to what she's used to, but in the first series, when they got to the modern era, they showed Brandon in the kitchen too, because in real life, I think they said he was an equal if not major contributor in the kitchen.

Plenty of people don't cook much these days, people are always lamenting the loss of cooking skills. I would expect that in real life, they eat out a lot, or eat a lot of prepared food, like many other well off full time workers.

What a thing to feel superior about.

I agree they are just showing how the family would have functioned at the time. Rochelle is just getting on with it in accordance with the shows instructions despite it not being where her talent lies but she is getting ridiculed here for it.

What a thing to feel superior about.

Properly cooked, crispy chips are a real treat - so being able to cook them IS a skill to be proud of.

Re. Rochelle not having the skills - I think she was chosen because she doesn't have the skills to just get on with it. If they had chosen someone who did a lot of cooking, and had grown up in the 60s and 70s, learning to cook with far more basic equipment, it wouldn't have been such good TV, because they would have coped better.

I suspect Rochelle is a fairly similar age to me, but it's clear she didn't get taught cooking as a child, in a fairly basic kitchen, in the way I did. Which is not a criticism of her or her upbringing at all - it just explains, for me at least, why she has struggled with things someone with more practical experience in the kitchen could have done more easily. But as I said, that would not have been good TV.

Although, strangely, it was good TV to watch Debbie in the kitchen - whilst her catering college training would not have included using the sort of equipment she faced in the programme, the cooking skills she did have made it easier for her to cope with the archaic equipment and still cook skillfully and without too many struggles. It's a paradox.

I think the contrast is interesting.

In the earlier program in particular (50s/60s) they could easily have got a family where the mother thought that dressing up in a pinny was a jolly laugh. After all, it's only for a few weeks.

It would have been a very different program.

I much prefer the version where we see that life was a bit shit for women, rather than the rose-tinted "isn't it fun to play housewife?" version.

Chips are chips. If you've managed to perfect them to a fine art then good for you, be proud. But that certainly doesn't make you any better than someone who isn't bothered about chips. There is no morality in chips

Saw this on another forum. They're advertising for a family to take part in Back in time for tea

'The makers of hit series Back in Time for Dinner and Further Back in Time for Dinner are looking for a food-loving family to immerse themselves in the lives and diets of working people in Northern England over the last 150 years'.

I wonder if there will be a place for Debbie in it?

I don't think she values skills like cooking. It's not for the likes of her.

What a rude and sexist thing to say.
I hate the underlying tone from some posters on this thread that Rochelle's inability to cook makes her less of a woman and something of a snob. Would you say the same if she was no good at putting up shelves? It has been made clear several times in the program that Brandon is the cook in the family. Just because she is female it doesn't make her the default cook.
All this looking down on her because she can't cook is dreadfully sexist.

And as for Brandon and the girls sitting around waiting to be fed, this is because they are living the roles they would have had at the time. Just like they all sat round and waited when they had Debbie.

that Rochelle's inability to cook makes her less of a woman I actually think the opposite. She doesn't cook at home usually and thinks it's a bit of a joke. Of course it's all set up. Some of the recipes were obscure and picked out of nowhere.
On another thread about this, I said that it was an insult to all the women like my mother who cooked through the 1950s 60s and 70s. She didn't like cooking either but just had to get on with it.

Indeed desolate. And yes that was my point about brandon and kids. They're sitting around waiting to be fed because it's what is expected for the show yet attracting no criticism. Rochelle is doing as is expected just like they are yet she is being criticised for not being very good at something she never claimed or desired to be any good at.

Rochelle is just getting on with it!

They aren't really living those roles though are they. The girls are, I think, 19 and 17. They'd be expected to help Rochelle hugely in the eras depicted.

I said that it was an insult to all the women like my mother who cooked through the 1950s 60s and 70s. She didn't like cooking either but just had to get on with it.

I think the opposite.

If they had someone who thought it was fun and a game, that would be an insult.

Having someone who points out the relentless thankless drudgery, and who tells us that the 60s might have been fun for the young and free but not so much if you had kids to feed, recognises how much your mother went through and how much she had to put up with. It shows us how thankful we should be that we don't just have to "get on with it".

She doesn't cook at home usually and thinks it's a bit of a joke.

She is making light of the situation. If she was sat there complaining and moaning then it wouldn't be much fun to watch.

Well Trills If we have small children and little help then we still "have to get on with it". I remember feeling ill but having to "get on with it". When dh was working away.

Sorry for starting a 'bun fight'

We do have to get on with it, but at least we have microwaves now. :o

I am enjoying the series and don't believe Rochelle is as miserable as folk are making out. She seems to me to have a dry sense of humour, and a real appreciation for what women of previous generations went through.

The series wouldn't work as well with a better cook. We need to see her struggle.

As well as thinking they picked Rochelle, because she would struggle more in the kitchen than someone who did a lot of cooking, I also think they pick daft recipes for her to cook - setting her up to mess up. The one where everything was wrapped in paper springs to mind.

I thought the pressure cooker was going to be another example - purely because it looked like such a terrifying piece of kit - but Rochelle had that one licked!