Funny food

[kags]

When I was little, on hot days we would have boiled potatoes and salad for tea. The "salad" used to consist of a hard boiled egg and some lettuce cut up really small and sprinkled with sugar and vinegar. Did anyone else used to have this? What foods were you served as a child that you wouldn't dream of eating now (or feeding to your owbn kids!)

[kags]

just remembered - my mum would put bicarbonate of soda in the cabbage so that when she cooked it for 40 minutes it would stay green!

[kags]

oh - and the hard boiled egg would be sliced with one of those things you sued to pretend was a guitar.

[kags]

sued = used

[kags]

let's see if I can break the record for answering my own question.............

[B00]

Lol kags- off on a roll huh?

I STILL have one of those egg slicey thingymejigs!

[Peri]

My mum was always on a total health kick.  We never had baked beans, fish fingers or anything remotely processed.  She made her own baked beans with Soya beans and a lovely homemade watery tomato sauce.  If I had a temperature I had to drink yarrow herbal tea.  To even think of all that now turns my stomach.  I was also made sit at the table until my sprouts were all gone.  Yummmmmmmmmmmm

[dmsjps]

Meals I've always hated because we had them so much when I was young: bangers & mash, (with beans or egg usually), egg & chips, sometimes with beans. I never gave those meals to my kids, but one day both my husband and I were working too late to go to the shop or defrost anything, so I got sausage out of the fridge, did some mash and we had it with beans & egg (except me, cos I don't eat chicken periods). The kids were so impressed, they thought it was a real treat! Doesn't say much for my culinery skills, does it?

 

Can't say I've ever had lettuce with sugar on though!

[FP]

Hi Kags,

My grandmother always used to give me white bread spread thickly with butter and sugar for breakfast or tea!  This was about 1950/1955.  I was also given condensed milk spread on bread.   Fried tomatoes were also sprinkled with sugar whilst they were cooking.  And when I had an apple I was given a small bowl of sugar to dip the slices in.  Healthy diet eh!!  I presume I was a skinny child because I walked everywhere and had loads of outdoor exercise. 

I also remember the bicarbonate of soda in the greens.  My mother still cooks greens for about 40 minutes!!  Lovely yellow soggy sprouts - great. 

xx

[mystress]

kags,

A big thanks for bringing back memories!We used to have meals like yours in hot weather,with addition of tomatoes and cucumber.I can taste the Heinz Salad Cream now!

Like others,my Mother cooked Brussels Sprouts until they were so "open" they could have been in a flower arrangement! It took me years before i could eat them as an adult!

One time my Mother (who wasn't really a good cook) decided to make "real" Fish Cakes for me,it took her nearly all day.However when they were cooked I would not eat them,I just wanted the frozen ones!
Talk about ungrateful child. LOL

[johnny5]

the worst meal i was forced to eat and could not get down from the table until my plate was clean was boiled tripe with onions YUCK !!  probably my favourite was mashed bananas with double cream and soft brown sugar YUMMY !!

[dmsjps]

FP, you reminded me with your memories of toppings for bread: when I was little, all the sandwich shops used to have - apart from the ordinary fillings - beef dripping, which people used to have just spread on their bread - YUK-YUK-YUK! It was really popular then, but I guess the health implications kicked in early with that one!

 

My gradndad used to love his boiled tripe and onions too, johnny5, but luckily we were never forced to eat it.

[LiverpoolLou]

Hi Kags, got to admit, mum's food was always brilliant, especially her roast dinners....Roast Lamb, with mint sauce, Crispy Roast Potatoes, sprouts, carrot and turnip and cabbage........and the gravy made from the juices of the lamb, proper gravy though, none of the gravy granuels but real OXO gravy...MMMM...

 

Must admit I had a bad experience with Baked Beans as a kid, the shells of the beans got stuck in my throat, yenno when you cook them and sometimes the outer coating comes off them.......I've never eaten them since then. Terrified it might happen again........LOL..mind you it has been about 35 years.

[kags]

lots of good memories there - all that saturated fat and sugar on everything - our poor arteries!

[pixi]

Like johnny5 my parents and sister loved tripe and something called sack.  GROSS.  they ate it every Thursday teatime-always on newspaper (no idea why) I was forced to sit at the table with my tripe and was told eat it its good for you (?????)  I swear I can't stand it but I never even tried it.  I would sit there gagging while everyone tucked in then start crying (honest) until I did my mams head in so much she sent me away from the table.  Its defo a fear factor meal

[natalie_1982]

My nan used to make 'homemade' vegetable soup by chucking a few tins of carrots, potatos and peas into a pan.

Her favourite dinner she treated us with was corned beef, chips and egg.

My mum used to feed us egg and chips, sausage and chips, pizza and chips, burger and chips, nuggets and chips (see a theme appearing here?), fish fingers and chips.... hence I very rarely eat chips, and never eat frozen ones!  (cooked from frozen obv, I don't think many people eat them frozen).

[Scarlett]

I wouldn't eat anything now that my Mum used to give us in the 70s!! Can you believe she used to let us have SUGAR SANDWICHES?!??!?!?! White bread and butter and white sugar?!!!

All the meat I remember from that time had fat on it too- was it just more acceptable to eat fatty meat then, rather than the obsesively lean stuff we have now? I also remember eating an inordinately large amount of sweets. Surprising I have any teeth left really.

[FP]

I love fatty meat!!  I don't think meat tastes the same if there's no fat.  Meat used to be much nicer.

[kev100]

It sounded fine to me kags until you put the sugar and vinegar on it..

[dmsjps]

I agree about the meat. I never buy supermarket meat, but always buy it from a butcher. You know you're getting good stuff from a butcher, not mass produced, pre-cut, pre-trimmed, pre-packed rubbish with over-inflated price tags.

 

I converted my very posh boss to butcher's meat several years ago. He lent me a car while mine was being repaired after the watchamacallit popped out of the top of the engine and so I repaid him by buying him a lamb from the butcher's, all cut into the relative chops, joints, etc. After his initial shock, he was so impressed that he said he'd never eat supermarket meat again.

[EssJay1]

No-one's mentioned the tinned fruit cocktail or tinned mandarins with evaporated milk. 

We used to have tongue with our salad (lettuce, tomato, cucumber and spring onion.)

Mum's cooking was really good, but her spag bol used to be mince,can of tomatoes and an OXO cube - no garlic or herbs of any kind.  And her gravy contained no stock cubes at all - just made from the meat juices.