EATING IN THE UK IN THE 50's

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frank12

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EATING IN THE UK IN THE 50's

For those of you who are old enough to remember, enjoy. For the rest - it's a history lesson!!

EATING IN THE UK IN THE FIFTIES

Pasta had not been invented.
> >
> >Curry was a surname.
> >
> >A takeaway was a mathematical
> problem.
> >
> >A pizza was something to do with a leaning tower.
> >
> >Bananas and oranges only appeared at Christmas time.
> >
> >All crisps were plain; the only choice we had was whether to put the salt on or
> not.
> >
> >A Chinese chippy was a foreign carpenter.
> >
> >Rice was a milk pudding, and never, ever part of our dinner.
> >
> >A Big Mac was what we wore when it was raining.
> >
> >Brown bread was something only poor people ate.
> >
> >Oil was for lubricating, fat was for cooking
> >
> >Tea was made in a teapot using tea leaves and never green.
> >
> >Coffee was Camp, and came in a bottle.
> >
> >Cubed sugar was regarded as posh.
> >
> >Only Heinz made beans.
> >
> >Fish didn't have fingers in those days.
> >
> >Eating raw fish was called poverty, not sushi.
> >
> >None of us had ever heard of yoghurt.
> >
> >Healthy food consisted of anything edible.
> >
> >People who didn't peel potatoes were regarded as lazy.
> >
> >Indian restaurants were only found in India.
> >
> >Cooking outside was called camping.
> >
> >Seaweed was not a recognised food.
> >
> >"Kebab" was not even a word never mind a food.
> >
> >Sugar enjoyed a good press in those days, and was regarded as being white gold.
> >
> >Prunes were medicinal.
> >
> >Surprisingly muesli was readily available, it was called cattle feed.
> >
> >Pineapples came in chunks in a tin; we had only ever seen a picture of a real one.
> >
> >Water came out of the tap, if someone had suggested bottling it and charging more than petrol for it they would have become a laughing stock. The one thing that we never ever had on our table in the fifties .. was elbows!
 
C

Chirimoya

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My mother first arrived in the UK in 1959 - she says that garlic and salad were almost unknown, or were considered very exotic and daring. As late as the mid 1980s I knew people who had "never seen an aubergine (eggplant) until they went to university" or whose parents had never eaten garlic. Avocado was new and exotic in the 1970s, and hummus, which is one of the most popular snack foods in the UK now, was relatively unknown in the 1980s.
 
D

delite

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Well, West Indians arrived in England in droves during the fifties and really "spiced" up the rather bland English gastronomy.
 
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Chirimoya

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West Indian food never went mainstream in the UK in the same way as food from India or China did. What did happen was a general opening of minds, initially towards Mediterranean cooking - Elizabeth David's classic cookbook came out in 1950 - combined with the growth of international travel and tourism.
A friend recently reminded me that in the early 1980s the definition of middle class = someone who had more than three pasta shapes in their kitchen cupboard.
 
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delite

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Chirimoya said:
West Indian food never went mainstream in the UK in the same way as food from India or China did. What did happen was a general opening of minds, initially towards Mediterranean cooking - Elizabeth David's classic cookbook came out in 1950 - combined with the growth of international travel and tourism.
A friend recently reminded me that in the early 1980s the definition of middle class = someone who had more than three pasta shapes in their kitchen cupboard.
Click to expand...

Indians are highly representative in the West Indies. For example, more than half of the population of Trinidad and Guyana are of Indian heritage. The same "Indian" food from India is found in the Caribbean.
 
drstock

drstock

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Chirimoya said:
My mother first arrived in the UK in 1959 - she says that garlic and salad were almost unknown, or were considered very exotic and daring.
Click to expand...

I was born in the UK in 1953 and my parents "forced" me to eat salad always. I think salad has been around in the UK ever since lettuce and tomatoes were invented! :classic:
 
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Chirimoya

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delite said:
Indians are highly representative in the West Indies. For example, more than half of the population of Trinidad and Guyana are of Indian heritage. The same "Indian" food from India is found in the Caribbean.
Click to expand...
I know that - I've been to the English speaking Caribbean and enjoyed such fare. But it has little to do with the Indian restaurants in the UK, most of which are owned by immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh as well as India.
 
F

flyinroom

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Aug 26, 2012
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frank12 said:
EATING IN THE UK IN THE 50's

For those of you who are old enough to remember, enjoy. For the rest - it's a history lesson!!

EATING IN THE UK IN THE FIFTIES.......Pineapples came in chunks in a tin; we had only ever seen a picture of a real one.
Click to expand...

Haha.......good one.
Not only in the U.K......In North America too.
I can remember at the table being served dessert.....Canned peaches.
We (my sister and I) would smell the spoon that we were using to eat the peaches. Eghhhhh !!!
Bloody awful.
Much hilarity would ensue until one or the other of us got sent from the table wth a stern warning.
Are there any other dr1'ers who smelled their spoon when eating canned peaches?
LOL......
 
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delite

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Point taken, but my overall message was the added variety of "spicy" food to the rather bland English palate. Apologies to all English in advance :)
 
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kampinge

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A joke in the fifties was: How do you think its look like in hell.
The answer was; english food, greek politician and german police
 
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Chirimoya

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drstock said:
I was born in the UK in 1953 and my parents "forced" me to eat salad always. I think salad has been around in the UK ever since lettuce and tomatoes were invented! :classic:
Click to expand...
Allow for some Latin exaggeration on my mother's part, I should have said.
 
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jrhartley

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sorry Delite but Caribbean cooking never made it past Watford, you would be hard pressed to find much even nowadays
 
R

ROLLOUT

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jrhartley said:
sorry Delite but Caribbean cooking never made it past Watford, you would be hard pressed to find much even nowadays
Click to expand...
Dude,
are you serious? Been to Swindon, Reading, or better still, Woolverhampton. Maybe you don't consider Jamaican fare to be Caribbean
 
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jrhartley

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there was one caribbean place in Blackpool in the 1990s it lasted about a month, but we are talking about the 1950s here so yes there would be the odd one around but nothing that you could call a big influence

reading and swindon are not really north of watford though are they ?
 
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Chirimoya

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Caribbean/Jamaican restaurants in the UK are mostly limited to specific areas where there is an Afro-Caribbean population and cater mainly to that population, compared to Indian restaurants which are everywhere and cater to the mainstream.
 
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jrhartley

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...and when did Mcdonalds arrive in the uk ?

McDonald's opened its first restaurant in the UK in 1974. It is still there today in Woolwich, London
 
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Beenaway

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Must say the first thing I did when I got back to the UK was get some good old traditional English food -

Curry, Kebabs, Chinese, Pizza etc....


But the idea that English food is either bland or boring is nonsense - you just need to eat the right food.
If you are into that kind of thing we have plenty of Michelin stars dotted around but go up north and eat some traditional food - unless you know this stuff personally you will probably just spout the usual stereotypical rubbish.

English food is bland, the Germans are robotic, the Irish are stupid, the French are lazy, the Italians are cowards, the Dominicans are dishonest... oh erm wait a minute....
 
W

wrecksum

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Sep 27, 2010
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Beenaway said:
Must say the first thing I did when I got back to the UK was get some good old traditional English food -

Curry, Kebabs, Chinese, Pizza etc....


But the idea that English food is either bland or boring is nonsense - you just need to eat the right food.
If you are into that kind of thing we have plenty of Michelin stars dotted around but go up north and eat some traditional food - unless you know this stuff personally you will probably just spout the usual stereotypical rubbish.

English food is bland, the Germans are robotic, the Irish are stupid, the French are lazy, the Italians are cowards, the Dominicans are dishonest... oh erm wait a minute....
Click to expand...


We are talking about the 50's when us baby-boomers were growing up.
I think you were not there in the 50's?
For the working classes,English food in the 50's was dire!!
I used to dread the school holidays when I would stay with my grandma and have to eat pre-war cooking.It was standard fare for the midlands where I grew up and anything with flavour was considered suspicious.'Foreign' was out of the question!
What in the world is 'Garlic'.?
School dinners were stodge,lumpy gravy and watery custard.

My epiphany came when I visited France on a college tour and ate real food for the first time.
I was enchanted.
It amazed me that small portions of good food could be more satisfying than a pile of mash and boiled cabbage with unidentified brown stuff.

It changed my way of life for ever...
 
L

London_Calling

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Aug 19, 2004
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wrecksum said:
We are talking about the 50's when us baby-boomers were growing up.
I think you were not there in the 50's?
For the working classes,English food in the 50's was dire!!
I used to dread the school holidays when I would stay with my grandma and have to eat pre-war cooking.It was standard fare for the midlands where I grew up and anything with flavour was considered suspicious.'Foreign' was out of the question!
What in the world is 'Garlic'.?
School dinners were stodge,lumpy gravy and watery custard.

My epiphany came when I visited France on a college tour and ate real food for the first time.
I was enchanted.
It amazed me that small portions of good food could be more satisfying than a pile of mash and boiled cabbage with unidentified brown stuff.

It changed my way of life for ever...
Click to expand...

The good thing is that Britain has moved on and food is so much better now (deep-fried Mars Bars). In France they are still stiuck with their horsemeat and sauces!

The other thing is that in the 1950s rationing and recovery from the war was still an issue.
 
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