Back In Time For Dinner Bbc2

[Ann]

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 ;)

[shaneystar2]

Yes it's purely for entertainment to show the changes in our eating habits over the years . .They would hardly have had a family who had lived throught the fifties.I didn't think they were silly.In fact they were quite brave to give it a go.
We had plenty to eat in the fifties.I think rural areas had it a bit better than those in towns and cities as lots of people had allotments and kept chickens .
I certainly don't miss it or look back in affection on the tin bath once a week, the cold outside toilet and no hot running water.
I can picture my Mum now on her hands and knees out in the cold yard scrubbing boiler suits and then all that mangling and boiling up a copper .She brought up five us and certainly didn't have time to faff about in a posh pinny.



W

[woofgang]

The "blancmange" over the cake should have been icing. There was a recipe for extending icing sugar by making icing with custard or blancmange powder mixed in. My Mum used to tell me about it,apparently it made delicious biscuit filling.
Here's an american custard frosting, the wartime equivalent would have been made with Bird's custard powder and less butter or maybe margarine. It could be sweetened with saccharine or use sugar but less sugar.
http://bakethiscake.com/2013/05/24/heirloom-custard-frosting/
http://bakethiscake.com/2013/05/24/heirloom-custard-frosting/

[woofgang]

Ann, I don't think anyone was poking fun.

[woofgang]

I don't miss the tin bath in front of the kitchen fire either, the outside loo that used to freeze in the winter even though heated with an oilstove. My Mum used to walk miles every day to go shopping because the busses didn't pass near us. The house I live in now has got three!!!!!!! inside toilets and two baths!!!!!!! We didn't choose it for that but when we moved in DH (from a similar background to mine) and I felt like millionaires.

[netibiza]

Reading all these comments, I realise that we did have it good, we had a full bathroom on every floor and 3 floors, although the house was freezing, there was an ideal boiler in the kitchen, a coal fire in the large dining room and a Parkray (?) in the lounge but the bedrooms were so cold, we had basins in the bedrooms and our flannels would freeze overnight. Tried to get into bed with out undies on but mum would never allow it, so we had to strip off and put on cold pj's. I envied my friends who were allowed to sleep in their vests!

[Supermike]

Thanks Ann for your support regarding not matching the songs with the years being shown. I think it would have brought back more memories for those of us who lived through it.

Regarding the coronation, we were lucky enough to have a TV. My mother invited some neighbours in to watch it thinking only a few would accept. However, they all turned up and we soon ran out of chairs so we had a crowded lounge with people standing at the back trying to see the tiny TV screen. My mother was running round making tea and trying to find things to eat for our guests. It certainly tickled my sense of humour.