Fifties Food

[englishangel]

Ooh, it was wonderful. Sticky, sweet, caramelised ee-vap, I tried it on a digestive biscuit, having also run to the local deli for a small piece of really good cheddar.

I was reminded of a Norwegian variety I tried years ago while sharing a house with a girl who knew all about cheese. It was called gjetost - I've probably spelled that incorrectly!

Caroline, I love to think of your grandmother boiling beetroot in an aluminium saucepan! A very 50's memory. And your grandfather growing vegetables in a greenhouse. It reminds me of the gardening personality of the time, Percy Thrower, who would mow lawns in a shirt and tie, whilst smoking a pipe.

It's not food, but I used to adore having new shoes at the Clarks shoe shop, Streatham Hill, because they had an X-ray machine. You put your feet in the aperture at the bottom to see if the new shoes were constricting your toes. My feet must be hopelessly irradiated, but it was so exciting to see the bones of your feet glowing in spooky green!

Love

Munch

and the smell of new shoes too mmmmm.

Munch, what are you doing posting at 6.13 am on a Sunday, I thought I was the only one who did that?

[J.R.]

The good old 50's.

I remember the metal meat mincer so well.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned going with mum to the clinic to collect the FREE National Health concentrated orange-juice. A sure sign that fresh fruit was still scarce and Vitamin C deficiency a worry !

On another point from the early 50's and food. Remember Christmas, with all the turkeys and sides of meat hanging outside the butchers shops ? Look where environmental health has got us. B.S.E., bird flu, obesity !!!

Development in the modern world has got a lance to answer for !

[Angela Woodford]

The good old 50's.

I remember the metal meat mincer so well.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned going with mum to the clinic to collect the FREE National Health concentrated orange-juice. A sure sign that fresh fruit was still scarce and Vitamin C deficiency a worry !

On another point from the early 50's and food. Remember Christmas, with all the turkeys and sides of meat hanging outside the butchers shops ? Look where environmental health has got us. B.S.E., bird flu, obesity !!!

Oh yes JR! That concentrated orange juice in the square sided bottle was absolutely delicious! And I do remember all sorts of things hanging outside the butcher's shop. Rabbits, ooh! You're right, everyone seemed much healthier - but remember the great Smog of '63? i know it was a terrible time for vulnerable people, but I and my schoolfriends loved it as we groped our way to school, from lamp post to lamp post..

Munch

[J.R.]

The good old 50's.

I remember the metal meat mincer so well.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned going with mum to the clinic to collect the FREE National Health concentrated orange-juice. A sure sign that fresh fruit was still scarce and Vitamin C deficiency a worry !

On another point from the early 50's and food. Remember Christmas, with all the turkeys and sides of meat hanging outside the butchers shops ? Look where environmental health has got us. B.S.E., bird flu, obesity !!!

Oh yes JR! That concentrated orange juice in the square sided bottle was absolutely delicious! And I do remember all sorts of things hanging outside the butcher's shop. Rabbits, ooh! You're right, everyone seemed much healthier - but remember the great Smog of '63? i know it was a terrible time for vulnerable people, but I and my schoolfriends loved it as we groped our way to school, from lamp post to lamp post..

Munch

Smog of 63 ? I thought it had almost been eradicated by then. I know in the 50's it was bad in London. At the time as a wee sprog, I lived in Farnham, Surrey, and I well remember the teachers at my primary school talking about the London smog. Some of the old black & white newsreels of the time captured the situation very well.

[midget]

Oh yes, the great smog. I worked in N London at the time, and the journey was horrendous. Tube to Kings Cross, Change to Picadilly line to Manor House then wait for a trolleybus. Doring the smog these were so unreliable as to be nonexistent, so a group of us (about 10 people) walked hand in hand to the nearest train station, so that nobody got lost on the way. Horrible.

With regard to the food, my mother would have given her eyeteeth for today's freezers, making huge casseroles for the future. It seems to run in the family- my sister and I both do it,as do her daughter and grand daughter. The latter is so keen that she has an allotment to grow veg (she's single, no kids too)

[sejintenej]

Ooh, it was wonderful. Sticky, sweet, caramelised ee-vap, I tried it on a digestive biscuit, having also run to the local deli for a small piece of really good cheddar.

I was reminded of a Norwegian variety I tried years ago while sharing a house with a girl who knew all about cheese. It was called gjetost - I've probably spelled that incorrectly!

Glad you liked it! Yes it is very like Gjetost (and you did spell it correctly! It is made from goats milk though the last one I had had been adulterated with cows' milk - not the same somehow. Either one is murderous on your cholesterol - have both and I hate to think about the effects.

[sejintenej]

For a normal working class woman, my mother was quite adventurous about food, and during the immediate post-war austerity period, we frequently enjoyed whale or reindeer meat, each cooked for ever in a casserole.

Properly prepared whale meat can be delicious. My (then) fiance had had it where she was brought up but in Norway one day she was saying how good the 'steak' was. I had overheard another diner asking and had learned what we were eating; when I translated to my fiance she put the fork, laden with the last bit, back on her plate and wouldn't trouch it!

I can't say I was that keen on reindeer but then I don't like mussels either.

My mother was the cook in a "big" house so meals had to be traditional fare.

[J.R.]

What about that tinned powdered egg ??

The chickens must have had a really hard time !!

[Angela Woodford]

I never encountered powdered egg until I arrived at CH, JR! On encountering the puddle of dubious bright yellow something, known as "scrambled egg", I recoiled, as one would. My next-door breakfaster, Janet Woodcock, gently broke it to me that this curiously coloured concoction was made from powdered egg and breadcrumbs. Actually not too bad.

Munch

[englishangel]

You can get powdered egg whites (cholesterol free) in the US, but never seen it here.

[sejintenej]

And I do remember all sorts of things hanging outside the butcher's shop. Rabbits, ooh! You're right, everyone seemed much healthier - but remember the great Smog of '63? i know it was a terrible time for vulnerable people, but I and my schoolfriends loved it as we groped our way to school, from lamp post to lamp post..

Munch

How we loved rabbits when I was at primary school. At least twice a term they would send round rabbit stew for lunch and our antiquated teacher would be taken over all funny - rolling on the floor sweating like a whatever-it-is. We would get two days off whilst she recovered from her allergic attack.

Can't remember what it tasted like - long pig I suppose.

[sejintenej]

What about that tinned powdered egg ??

The chickens must have had a really hard time !!

I can't remember powdered egg (my mother probably dealt with it when I wasn't looking) but I well remember dipping eggs in isinglass to try to preserve them. It didn't always work as my nose told me on many occasions.

Later when there were ,more eggs around we used isinglass to make "chemical forests" which were very attractive and cheap decorations.

[jhopgood]

And I do remember all sorts of things hanging outside the butcher's shop. Rabbits, ooh! You're right, everyone seemed much healthier - but remember the great Smog of '63? i know it was a terrible time for vulnerable people, but I and my schoolfriends loved it as we groped our way to school, from lamp post to lamp post..

Munch

How we loved rabbits when I was at primary school. At least twice a term they would send round rabbit stew for lunch and our antiquated teacher would be taken over all funny - rolling on the floor sweating like a whatever-it-is. We would get two days off whilst she recovered from her allergic attack.

Can't remember what it tasted like - long pig I suppose.

We still eat rabbit but I remember Xmas 1959 when I was just back from my first term at CH. Parents working and everyone else at school so I was alone in the house when my Grandfather arrived. He was an infrequent visitor so I was surprised. He asked me where the rabbits were and I discovered that my father had two rabbits in a hutch in the garden shed.
He opened the cage, gave me one to hold and grabbed the other either by its ears or rear feet, I can't remember. Then with his penknife, he cut its throat and split it down the middle, gave it to me to hold and did the same with the second. I was surprised to say the least.
He scrapped out some innards, I think, tied the feet together and told me to hang them up in the larder and tell my father that he'd done it when he came home. Ten minute visit and he didn't even bring the bags of cockles, winkles, whelks etc that he normally did. I suppose it didn't phase me too much as I hadn't reared them but my brothers and sisters were upset. We still had them for dinner.
During my time at CH there was a contemporary, Howland, I think, who used to set rabbit traps around the school with loops of wire. I saw the first he caught which he pronounced to have mixamatosis, and he stopped laying the traps after that.
My wife uses rabbit in paella.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

Can't remember what it tasted like - long pig I suppose.

Hmmmm. Hope not. Long pig is what Maori's called human flesh - back in the days when they still ate it.

[sejintenej]

Can't remember what it tasted like - long pig I suppose.

Hmmmm. Hope not. Long pig is what Maori's called human flesh - back in the days when they still ate it.

I wasn't going to be quite so specific - I expect that there may be one person here who has a weak stomach. "Apparently" it tastes like chicken

FWIW, cutting a rabbit's throat as explained is not the best way; a quick twist of the neck is instantaneous and beleived to be painfree. Then you can bleed them etc.