Back In Time For Dinner Bbc2

Ann | 22:23 Tue 17th Mar 2015 | Film, Media & TV

86 Answers

Did anyone watch this programme at 8pm tonight? A family is "going back in time" by year through the 50s and 60s etc experiencing life as it was in those days, particularly in the kitchen and eating the food which was around then.

Tonight was the 50s - how pathetic - they didn't know how to open a tin with a tin opener??? What??? Also the teenage children said "Yuk" to bread and dripping - still a rare luxury in my house!! and to pilchards ..... the same brand are still around today and I regularly buy them. The mother tried to make a jelly which obviously was a disaster as it didn't set (why didn't she use less water if she was short of time?) She went next door to use their fridge (can't remember fridges around in the early 50s, all we had was a "meat safe" and we kept milk in a bucket of water. After I married in 1968 we didn't have a fridge until the following year) The family ate liver as if it was poison, and National Bread which was a staple part of the diet in those days (which looked perfectly acceptable but they pulled faces)
In the programme they said a high proportion of households watched the Queen's coronation on a TV - but as a child at Primary school we walked down in classes to see it at the local cinema as nobody I knew had a TV in 1953.
As the programme reached 1959 the Shadows hit "Dance On" was playing but I'm sure that came out in 1961?

Will be interesting to see what they make of the 1960s in next week's programme - OH and I were disputing facts, and shouting at the TV (Wrong! or good grief what's the matter with you, eat that up, get it down you mi lad!!! ) LOL ;)

Not Going Out.

M.p Caught Playing On Ipad...

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Jackdaw33

In my neck of the woods everything, meat, spuds and veg was thrown into a frying pan to make a hash. Locally called Panhackelty or 'cold-warm-up'.

dunnitall

Our left over roast minced up next day and turned in to shepherds pie, lovely.

sherrardk

I don't think it was meant as some social study into the accuracies of 1950's eating - it's a light-hearted look at how food has changed over time.

pastafreak

Snap Ann! Same age.
But I grew up in the States,and we carried on as normal after the war. ( I feel almost embarrassed saying that ) Of course,my childhood memory may be different from reality...but I remember always having plenty to eat.

Jackdaw33

Rationing was stricter after the war than during it. Bread was not rationed during the war but was after it. The only items which were never rationed, if I am right, were fish and potatoes, hence the popularity of fish and chips.

woofgang

Ann, I think that was part of the point. She didn't know about heating a dinner between two plates or how to use that kind of tin opener because that had never been a part of her experience. Pasta, the meat ration was fresh meat or things like ham and bacon. Tinned meat was brought in from America and there was also fish and tinned fish.
I think that, like today, the ability to cook varied from person to person. My Mum was a good "plain" cook, some of my friends' mums were diabolical cooks, they used to love coming to tea at my house! My Mum was also probably in the last generation where the local baker did the baking because the gas pressure in the oven was unreliable and you wouldn't want to risk wasting the ingredients by home baking. Mary Berry didn't mention it but one of the miracles of electric cooking was the even reliable heating and the controllable constant temperature. that's why she sold so many ovens by making a victoria sponge.

woofgang

I loved using the mincer to mince the leftovers. If things were tight, Mum used to mince stale bread through with the meat to make it go further.

Jackdaw33

Even up till the early sixties, when rationing had long gone, women would not say, "I'm going to the shops", but, "I'm going for the rations."

woofgang

again jackdaw, i have never heard that used, maybe not a London thing?

Jackdaw33

I remember when my mother made scrambled eggs she would add one tablespoonful of milk per egg to "make it go further"

Jackdaw33

Probably right, Woofgang, definitely a northern thing. Another one was, "I must go and get my messages", messages meaning groceries, although I have an idea as to the origin of the word in this context.

Ann

Question Author

Yes woofgang - I do remember helping Mum put bread through the mincer with the meat to make it go further!

I also remember going to our local co-op to "fetch the rations" with my Grandma. I still remember her co-op divi number was just 60 so she must have been near the top of the list when they were handed out!

Ann

Question Author

... and while we were at the Co-op we bought the milk tokens for the week wrapped in a cone shaped piece of newspaper.

Jackdaw33

You couldn't buy milk in the shops in those days, it had to be delivered on a daily basis. You either bought Coop tokens, which you placed in the empty bottles overnight on the door step, or used an independent dairy who would come calling for his money on a Friday evening. I remember the colours: a black token was for half a pint, a yellow token was for a pint, and a red token was for sterilised, also known as Puroh.

tamborine

Gravy was missing. Water over the fried liver would make it palatable. She was a useless cook & the kids table manners were lacking those of us 50s kids. We knew how to hold a knife & fork. As for the bored lad, my bruvs made stilts & trollleys or mecano stuff.

quizzywig

What a miserable family. In our house (a new council house) when I was growing up there was no separate dining room just a big livving room and a 'front' room which was hardly ever used. Our family virtually lived in the kitchen/living room. I've been a vegetarian for over twenty years but still remember bread and dripping - what joy! our children loved it too.

janbee

Haven't seen this prog. They're never really very authentic are they?

netibiza

I lived in those days and we certainly ate better than that, never ever a cold dinner unless salad, and always a mid week roast as well, we had school dinners so tea was usually cheese on toast or baked beans or boiled eggs and soldiers. Breakfast was always porridge or cornflakes, always lots of veg as Dad had an allotment.