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Food from your early years as an adult or child?

AJB Temple

AJB Temple

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We have done two big birthday parties for paying guests this last weekend. It's really special to do this as you often get a family with four generations, with great grandparents in their 80's or even 90's, and youngest being toddlers or even still in mum's tum.

We allow guests who book the room for these private events well in advance, to choose what they would like us to cook. This time we went back to 70's and early 80's and foods I don't really remember or know. So recipes's have to be researched and either practised or I (and they) take pot luck. I even bought a handful of Robert Carrier cookery books from Abe and discovered some really weird recipes that we would never dream of cooking today. I like offal and it was clearly eaten a lot back then, but people are sniffy about it today in the UK.

Requests for the past weekend included:

Steamed tripe with chitterlings in a suet pudding. With bread sauce spiced with cloves. Jeepers.:eek: Luckily we have a steam oven which extracts to outside as tripe will never be used to make perfume. It should IMO not be used to make anything. You try buying chitterlings or even finding a butcher who knows what they are.
Marrowfat peas. These cost me 85 pence in ingredient costs for a party of 14, soaked forever, and in my opinion were inedible but were fully consumed with gusto by the oldies with butter, salt and some sugar. :oops:
Spotted dick with traditional custard and dark treacle sauce. Seriously, did people used to eat this stuff? Anyway, it was all wolfed down.
Guinness cake as a birthday cake. Actually this was brilliant, though I used a recipe from Anna Hough that is contemporary.
Pigeons cooked in cherries and cream. This was weird really and I had to use tinned cherries as it is the middle of winter.
And finally - prawn cocktail! I don't think I have ever had a prawn cocktail before (I've heard of it of course). It's very weird. Basically pink mayo, chopped lettuce and cold, but cooked prawns. It bears no resemblance to a cocktail. I'm not sure who invented this but ....what were they thinking? One of my young piano students helped with this (it was her family and she wanted to help - which slowed everything down hugely) and she doesn't like prawns according to her mother, but she consumed about 10% of the produce during prep....

So, as 2025 approaches, post your food favourites and past memories. I'm intrigued by what our parents and previous generations thought was the height of cuisine.
 
A not so favourite meal was Liver with boiled potatoes and veggies. Only way us kids could stomach the liver was to slather it with apple sauce.
 
A prawn cocktail (shrimp cocktail on the other side of the Atlantic) has a very short life expectancy around my wife and me. Shrimp in general don't last long in our house. We don't care for what passes for cocktail sauce here (pink mayo). Instead, I make my own when needed.

1/2-cup ketchup
1 to 2 tablespoons of prepared horseradish (the stronger the better)
1 clove of minced or crushed garlic (I use a garlic press)
1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
1-1/2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice
3 to 5 dashes of Tabasco sauce (any hot sauce will do)

The Tabasco is optional and it is best to start off with smaller amounts of the horseradish in case it is too spicy.

Mix all of the ingredients and serve when ready.
 
I was born during rationing after WW2. I can just about remember National Health orange juice and egg powder in those violet tins.

Someone taught our mothers to boil the bejaysus out of every vegetable known to man. My mum even put a sprinkle of washing soda in the cabbage saucepan!

When I got to grammar school in 1961 and had my first school dinners, I probably tasted things for the first time!, especially proper gravy!

My dad's mum used to make all the family's Christmas cakes and Christmas puddings. Never measured anything. Nothing has ever come near to tasting as good.
 
Wow tripe and chitlins, this takes me back to my grandparents house in early 70’s, I have very fond memories of my nans cakes and tray bakes but no so fond memories of the offal they used to consume, my grandad had buckets of eels in the fridge quite regularly to make his own jellied eels, I also remember a tongue press for cows tongues, also home made Braun
 
Mike said:
A prawn cocktail (shrimp cocktail on the other side of the Atlantic) has a very short life expectancy around my wife and me. Shrimp in general don't last long in our house. We don't care for what passes for cocktail sauce here (pink mayo). Instead, I make my own when needed.

1/2-cup ketchup
1 to 2 tablespoons of prepared horseradish (the stronger the better)
1 clove of minced or crushed garlic (I use a garlic press)
1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
1-1/2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice
3 to 5 dashes of Tabasco sauce (any hot sauce will do)

The Tabasco is optional and it is best to start off with smaller amounts of the horseradish in case it is too spicy.

Mix all of the ingredients and serve when ready.
Click to expand...
That's intersting. I used a very similar method but used a tomato puree (from home grown), horseradish root and confit garlic. Otherwise the same. The pink colour is a bit strange. The recipes I found suggested micing half the sauce with the prawns, and spoon a bit more on top, with a sprinkling of cayenne.
 
Stuffed beasts heart ❤️

Mum wasn’t too keen on preparing it so my grandmother taught me how to do that. Also gutting stuff like rabbits and pheasants.
I walked my GCE biology o level as a result.
 
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I don't care for the tripe bit, but the rest sounds fab.
A couple of years ago I did a 70s dinner for some friends (I even bought a bottle of Brut - yes it is still available).
Prawn cocktail
Cheese fondue
Black forest gateau.

My guests were all old enough to remember those days and everything was a clean plate job.

I've not had spotted dick for many a year. Atora doesn't exist over here, let alone a veggie version.

Lamb's liver doesn't exist over here either, something to do with some parasite or other.

At school, we had a suet pudding called College Pudding. It was fantastic. My Auntie Christine was the school cook, and in her later years I asked her about it. She couldn't remember. The recipes I have found called college pudding don't seem to bear much resemblance to what I remember.
 
Malc2098 said:
I was born during rationing after WW2. I can just about remember National Health orange juice and egg powder in those violet tins.

Someone taught our mothers to boil the bejaysus out of every vegetable known to man. My mum even put a sprinkle of washing soda in the cabbage saucepan!
Click to expand...
Really? I'm astonished. Why add washing soda to cabbage? We use it to get bee wax off bee suits and gloves, but I didn't realise it was edible. I'm not sure it is really edible?
 
Malc2098 said:
Someone taught our mothers to boil the bejaysus out of every vegetable known to man.
Click to expand...

I think it is the same here in Germany. One seasonal food that I can't stand is boiled white asparagus.

The asparagus (Spargel) is harvested before it breaks through the surface of the mound and can react to the sunlight. The outer surface is very tough and must be removed before it is boiled to a tasteless pulp. Then it is served with small potatoes, also boiled to oblivion, and drowned in Hollandaise sauce.

When my wife's sister visited one weekend during Spargel season, I prepared some green asparagus sauteed in olive oil and served with a little Béarnaise sauce. She loved it and had never tasted asparagus as it was intended.

Malc2098 said:
My mum even put a sprinkle of washing soda in the cabbage saucepan!
Click to expand...

I can understand her doing this after the food was removed to assist in cleaning the pan. If she added it to the food, this could be an Agatha Christie plot, as it is definitely not edible. o_O
 
Not sure what Atora is Steve. Never heard of that. College pudding sounds familiar as I think I may have had that quite a lot in the dining hall when I was at university. It's much the same as what we could call summer pudding now, with soaked sponge outer payer and macerated fruit inside. Virtually an inside out trifle?

Andy - alhapbety spaghetti? Is that the stuff that comes in tins. :unsure::D
 
Not had toad in the hole since the 70’s and summer pudding.

atora Vegetable suet is one of the essentials on our shopping list whenever we are in the UK.
 
Asparagus is one of the very few foods that I don't have time for. What's the point of them?
They look pretty but don't deliver anything that is promised.
Ooh, I've just thought of my ex-wife, must get that image out of my head, pronto.
 
Mike said:
I think it is the same here in Germany. One seasonal food that I can't stand is boiled white asparagus.

The asparagus (Spargel) is harvested before it breaks through the surface of the mound and can react to the sunlight. The outer surface is very tough and must be removed before it is boiled to a tasteless pulp. Then it is served with small potatoes, also boiled to oblivion, and drowned in Hollandaise sauce.

When my wife's sister visited one weekend during Spargel season, I prepared some green asparagus sauteed in olive oil and served with a little Béarnaise sauce. She loved it and had never tasted asparagus as it was intended.
Click to expand...
Mike. MIKE!!! You are a heathen. White asparagus in season is the food of the gods. My MIL comes over with it big bundles of it wrapped in wet tea towels and newspaper in season. Peel and steam and it is 10 times better than green asparagus.

I do however admit that my MIL can't cook it either as she was trained in the school of boil veg until it disintegrates. New potatoes, Jersey Royal say, with minted butter and sea salt (or a sprinkling of caviar if you have a new lover visiting...) is frankly the best thing you can eat with white spears.
 
AJB Temple said:
Not sure what Atora is Steve. Never heard of that.
Click to expand...
It's the brand leader of prepared suet. Looks like white maggots :)
You can buy a vegetarian version, too (i'm not but S is).
AJB Temple said:
College pudding sounds familiar as I think I may have had that quite a lot in the dining hall when I was at university. It's much the same as what we could call summer pudding now, with soaked sponge outer payer and macerated fruit inside. Virtually an inside out trifle?
Click to expand...
No, Summer Pudding is a bread case stuffed with summer fruits, no suet involved.

I'll have to ask around here for suet, given that France is very heavily meat-based. It's hard being veggie here, no Quorn, for example (makes excellent spag bol). If S ever gives up eating fish as well, I am screwed.
S
 
AJB Temple said:
Mike. MIKE!!! You are a heathen. White asparagus in season is the food of the gods. My MIL comes over with it big bundles of it wrapped in wet tea towels and newspaper in season. Peel and steam and it is 10 times better than green asparagus.
Click to expand...
Adrian, you are not the first to suggest I would look better tied to a stake surrounded by kindling. Before green asparagus started showing up at the Spargel stands, I would buy the white version by the kilo, peel away half of it, and steam or saute it.

At the risk of further angering the gods, I can eat raw oysters, but am not fond of them. However, I can eat my weight in fried oysters with my cocktail sauce. I also love escargot, but only because my first exposure to it was in a dimly lit bar in Berlin. It was served in a ceramic dish slathered with melted butter, garlic, and parsley. It was love at first bite, but I doubt I would have been tempted if they were presented in the shells.
 
Steve Maskery said:
Are you sure it wasn't baking soda? Still strange, but at least it would make (slightly) more sense.
Click to expand...
I think she said it was something to do with retaining the green colour of the cabbage.
AJB Temple said:
Really? I'm astonished. Why add washing soda to cabbage? We use it to get bee wax off bee suits and gloves, but I didn't realise it was edible. I'm not sure it is really edible?
Click to expand...
I think she said it helped retain the green colour of the cabbage.
 
Steve Maskery said:
No, Summer Pudding is a bread case stuffed with summer fruits, no suet involved.
Click to expand...
Who mentioned suet? ??? Is that a northern perversion? I said sponge. But that was my memory and agree that soaked bread is used nowadays if you can stomach white sliced bread.
 
Grandmas neck of mutton and all the veg done in an enamelled roasting pan...
Big oval green and cream striped affair with dimples on the lid.
Always fresh spotted dick and a plain dick (one of my brothers didn't like the spots :unsure: :LOL:) and homemade custard.
Her melt in the mouth mince pies prepared every Sunday of the year on an old Cuban mahogany Pembroke (kitchen) table which used to rock back and forth with the rolling pin. I still have it after taking it away and repairing all the joints and removing the added castors. It never did see the suet pastry ever again :unsure:😢 Man and boy I had always sat at that kitchen table every Saturday and Sunday
Thanks for the memories.....
I might have just drooled on the keyboard 😂
Andy
 
Spotted dick and custard......oh yes!

It's hard to beat bread pudding, though.
 
Steve Maskery said:
Baking soda, or bicarb, is added to mushy pease to retain the green colour. No idea if washing soda does the same. Maybe she was into clean eating? :)
S
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Hard to understand. She had a hard upbringing. Her mum died when she was 2, just after the end of WW1. She was brought up by her sister only 8 years older than her. Their father was a labourer. She said on a Friday, they had 'bread and scrape' for lunch because that was all that was left and they were waiting for their father to come home with his pay so they could go and buy some food.
 
Mike G said:
Spotted dick and custard......oh yes!

It's hard to beat bread pudding, though.
Click to expand...
Absolutely! My nanna's bread pudding was the best ever! She never measured anything. I'm sure there was some sherry and stout in the mix. :)
 
I do remember my mum waiting for dad to come home with his pay packet so that she could send me up to the shop to buy some sausages for tea (dinner was what you ate at lunchtime - I don't think I knew what lunch -let alone luncheon- was until after I left home).
 
Lobby. A sort of beef stew, with carrots and potatoes and onions. No spices and probably no herbs either, just salt and pepper. The gravy was thin rather than thick and unctuous. Bloomin' good, though.
 
I've never heard of Lobby. I wonder if that is a northern thing?

Someone who lurks pm'd me and asked if we had ever cooked head cheese. The answer is no, though I have had it. It's sheep's head brawn excluding brains, and so the main meat is tongue and cheek. I think these things are just what we would now call terrine without being explicit about the content.

I had very thinly sliced tongue at Villa Feltrinelli in Italy 15 years or so ago, after a proper Italian minestrone. Twas the first time I had knowingly eaten tongue and it was surprisingly good with pasta and a crisp and sharp green salad with some sort of jelly/relish.
 
AJB Temple said:
I've never heard of Lobby. I wonder if that is a northern thing?
Click to expand...
I don't know about Northern, but certainly Stokie (that's probably Northern to you, Adrian :) ) Here, I found a recipe:

cooknfreeze.co.uk

Staffordshire beef lobby

A traditional stew from the Staffordshire Potteries. Freezing tip: Bulk cook this dish and freeze in individual portions to defrost and reheat for a tasty midweek meal. Calories are per portion and…
cooknfreeze.co.uk cooknfreeze.co.uk

I think we probably used onion rather than leek. Some other recipes use garlic (never saw it as a child, so that didn't go in) and Worcestershire sauce. We did have that so I wouldn't be surprised.

It was a cheap way of feeding a family with only a small amount of a cheap cut of beef.
 
My mother was a fantastic cook, even more so after consuming the Cordon Blur course. Her stuffed olives, or beef Wellington or any number of wonderful meals were beyond anything I had ever eaten before.
But I will mention Soused Herring Rollmops. Haven’t had them since but utterly delicious.

B56D772F-B2E6-493F-A09F-530C86A6B298.png
 
Prawn cocktail sauce is known as Marie Rose sauce here. It’s Thousand Island dressing in the states. I used to love prawn cocktail as a starter to steak & chips followed by Black Forest gateau or a sundae. In my memory, you could get that meal at every single dining establishment in the UK in the 70s.

Marie Rose is good with burger and chips too.

One food that I only ever had at school and never saw anyone eat anywhere else is gypsy tart. A kind of burnt sugar and pastry dessert if I remember correctly. It was good, but not so good that I’ve ever had the desire to track it down or recreate it, I guess.

I’m assuming sweetbreads are on the banned list now? Strong 70s vibes for me. Home cooked.
 
Malc2098 said:
Absolutely! My nanna's bread pudding was the best ever! She never measured anything. I'm sure there was some sherry and stout in the mix. :)
Click to expand...
Bread pudding, yum . It was what we use the veg suet for and one of the reasons we buy bread every day whether or not we need to. Always a few slices to put aside and probably a bread pudding every 4 or 5 weeks.
 
Prawn cocktail (in avocado, no less)
Duck à l'orange
Maybe Black Forest gâteau, but mum did try various desserts from her French cook books.
(Had to collect the spellings in google)

Those are the bits I remember from posh dinners, when friends came for the evening. Brings back a host of memories. Mum dressing up, wearing her charm bracelet and sorting her lippy before people arrived. Dad sorting the drinks and laughing at his own jokes.

Day to day, I think maybe regular cooked breakfasts stand out - before people generally realised they're not so good for you. And 'curry' made with mince meat, curry powder and bits of banana on the side. Spag bol, of course. I can't really remember much of the normal meals beyond that.
 
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