Nostalgic Food - Good and Bad!

nompere · 16-08-2019 3:28pm

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

I use semolina for my pizza dough but to show the kids what we had for pud when I was a kid, I added some to boiling milk and added sugar. It was gluupy and quite disgusting. Is there a better way or would I get the same result regardless?

Start with cold milk, add semolina and sugar, then whisk as you heat it.

rubadub · 16-08-2019 4:10pm

anewme wrote: »

We had the ice cream in lemonade - called them ice cream sundaes

had them with coke and called them coke floats. I remember getting one as a treat in the Ilac centre, place I think called "the soda fountain" on the stairs up to the library.

We got those 10 pack stacks of frozen pizza. Used to do them in the microwave but it was actually faster to grill them as if they were microwaved the father would make you wait 6-7mins before eating them otherwise "they will cook your insides".

Got frozen chinese meals in dunnes cornelscourt for the oven in foil trays, think the brand was "mr chow" made in bray. I remember frozen quarter pounders coming in and everybody shocked at the massive size of them!

L1011 · 16-08-2019 5:51pm

Remembering some of the awful stuff now. My mother won't buy burgers that don't have nearly 100% meat content which for many frozen ones means utterly tasteless. Burger, baked, served between two slices of sliced pan, boiled potatoes and microwaved mush of veg turned up a few times a month

Plain chicken breast oven baked and served with unadorned microwave white rice and the micro mush - effectively prison food!

Canned soups with extra micro mush veg added "to make it healthier", as if there was a shred of nutrition left in them

We were all told that we could cook for ourselves if we told her what to buy in the supermarket. She shopped in Superquinn, so no restrictions on ingredients really. Surprisingly enough 4 out of 5 of us took her up on that and can cook proper food

igCorcaigh · 16-08-2019 6:55pm

L1011 wrote: »

Burger, baked, served between two slices of sliced pan

Ah yes, the infamous burger sandwich.

Grandeeod · 16-08-2019 8:01pm

igCorcaigh wrote: »

Ah yes, the infamous burger sandwich.

Two grilled burgers, between two slices of batch loaf with ketchup is a thing of beauty.

But I'd never post on boards about it. Credibility ruined in one click of the mouse.:eek:

the beer revolu · 17-08-2019 8:58am

As a kid I didn't appreciate how well we ate. I do now.
For the people who's mother's gave them some of the awful food described here, it must have been an awful chore for the said mothers.
It must have been some drudge serving up dinners daily when you have no interest or knowledge of food and cooking. And then get little or no appreciation as the food is so bad.
What a horrible job.

Rows Grower · 17-08-2019 9:57am

Fried bread with an egg, a hole was made in the center of a slice of bread and it was put into the frying pan along with the egg in the middle, the small piece of bread was fried too and used for dipping.

Homemade apple tart and cream.

Tayto sandwiches.

No one was fat, and we never heard of diabetes or cholesterol. Mainly because the only time we sat down was to eat or to watch telly for an hour or two a week.

Gloomtastic! · 17-08-2019 10:16am

Rows Grower wrote: »

No one was fat, and we never heard of diabetes or cholesterol. Mainly because the only time we sat down was to eat or to watch telly for an hour or two a week.

I remember my mum starving herself every Monday because she had Weight Watchers in the evening.......

tickingclock · 17-08-2019 1:01pm

Noone was a coeliac either or allergic to anything and the words childhood obesity weren't linked together. I was well fed with a Mammy who was a good cook. My Daddy could do steak and bread and a fryed egg and banana sambos for lunch!! Looking back now I didn't appreciate it at all

odyssey06 · 17-08-2019 1:10pm

tickingclock wrote: »

Noone was a coeliac either or allergic to anything and the words childhood obesity weren't linked together.

Yes there were not so many fad avoidances back then. But I also heard sth interesting about gluten.

A lot of food cupboard items were reformulated to remove butter and animals fats. They were replaced with worse fats and then also more gluten containing products to be vegetarian friendly.
A lot of glutebn intolerant - as opposed to allergic - coaeliacs didnt know they had it. they just thought they had sensitive stomachs or sth nebulous.

One reason why ppl may have preferred the taste of the good old days and its not just nostalgia.

0lddog · 17-08-2019 2:10pm

tickingclock wrote: »

Noone was a coeliac either .......

I think you might mean that no one was diagnosed as coeliac.
.
.
.
Coeliac disease was first put forward as a possibility in the late 1940's

For many years knowledge of the possibility of its existence was limited mainly to a few gastroenterologists.

Due to limitations of early flexible endscope technology it wasnt really feasible to diagnose coeliac disease before the 1970's

Sorry for the off topic post

Leg End Reject · 17-08-2019 5:38pm

Anyone else have ready brek in winter?

My mother used to cremate food, I hated red meat as a child because it was always like old boots. Veg was boiled to the point of nearly being liquefied too.

Sunday - roast beef or chicken, rock hard roasted, lumpy mash and liquid veg
Monday - left over from Sunday, mixed and fried
Tuesday - lamb or pork chops, mash and beans
Wednesday - steak, fried onions and mushrooms, mash
Thursday - mince stew and mash
Friday - egg, chips and beans
Saturday - gammon steaks, pineapple and mash

Desserts were a mixture of angel delight, or jelly and ice cream in summer
Rice, semolina or custard in winter

To this day the smell of home cooked chips reminds me of Friday afternoons and the happiness of no school for 2 days.

Rows Grower · 17-08-2019 5:39pm

odyssey06 wrote: »

Yes there were not so many fad avoidances back then. But I also heard sth interesting about gluten.

A lot of food cupboard items were reformulated to remove butter and animals fats. They were replaced with worse fats and then also more gluten containing products to be vegetarian friendly.
A lot of glutebn intolerant - as opposed to allergic - coaeliacs didnt know they had it. they just thought they had sensitive stomachs or sth nebulous.

One reason why ppl may have preferred the taste of the good old days and its not just nostalgia.

Not in my house. There was no such a thing as vegetable oil, everything was fried using Frytex. Big white blocks of natural beef dripping.

It was left go cold and harden in the pan too ready for the next time, proper recycling before it was heard of.

Black pudding was another thing that was made with pure fat (and raw blood.) and there was no such thing as a health inspector visiting wherever it was made.

Anything used as a spread on bread that wasn't real butter was known as margarine and the people using that were frowned upon. A bit like the vegans of today.

odyssey06 · 17-08-2019 6:40pm

Rows Grower wrote: »

Anything used as a spread on bread that wasn't real butter was known as margarine and the people using that were frowned upon. A bit like the vegans of today.

Fair play there!
But I should have been clearer, I meant the ingredients were reformulated in shop bought soups, stocks, sauces, cakes, biscuits.

Leg End Reject · 17-08-2019 6:49pm

The above has reminded me of Heinz sandwich spread. Vile stuff.

Rows Grower · 17-08-2019 7:07pm

Bovril, the drink of the Gods.

Made from ground up beef bones, take shagging that vegans!

Served in a mug with a Calvita sandwich if you were lucky to get to the cupboards before your siblings.

(Calvita was cheese in a small cardboard box and was wrapped in the thinnest tin foil ever known to mankind.)

odyssey06 · 17-08-2019 7:11pm

Rows Grower wrote: »

Bovril, the drink of the Gods.
Made from ground up beef bones, take shagging that vegans!
Served in a mug with a Calvita sandwich if you were lucky to get to the cupboards before your siblings.
(Calvita was cheese in a small cardboard box and was wrapped in the thinnest tin foil ever known to mankind.)

Still in our cupboard... to thicken beef sauces.

No Calvita then or now... Galtee singles I think.
Lovely melting into hot toast.

phormium · 17-08-2019 7:20pm

I like sandwich spread, still buy the odd jar for old times sake, nice with the banned white sliced loaf

Bovril, how I hate it! Never liked it and my mother insisted on a cup of it every day for lunch in my flask. The smell of it would be enough to transport me back to being about 8 and sitting in the back row of an empty classroom having my lunch. She was the teacher

the14thwarrior · 17-08-2019 7:32pm

boiled ribs
stuffed hearts, picking out the string. dunno how i ate them
granby burgers (and one for the dog with bits of bread mixed into his bowl)
findus pancakes

cod fillets in a plastic bag with the sauce in it, the trick was to get it out of the pan and cut it so that you did't burn your fingers

stealing a slice of my mothers wonder slim bread

my mother adventurous she cooked spagetti blog with pasta and mashed potatoes as well just in case..........

Yester · 17-08-2019 8:05pm

I remember coming home from school and getting a slap of a dead pheasant that was hanging from my bedroom door. It sounds bad but I remember thinking yah pheasant for dinner tomorrow. Another memory from childhood was that after a heavy bout of rainfall I would go fishing with my parents and it was fresh trout for dinner.

Rows Grower · 17-08-2019 8:19pm

Yester wrote: »

I remember coming home from school and getting a slap of a dead pheasant that was hanging from my bedroom door. It sounds bad but I remember thinking yah pheasant for dinner tomorrow. Another memory from childhood was that after a heavy bout of rainfall I would go fishing with my parents and it was fresh trout for dinner.

It does in all fairness, unless there was another 30 pheasants hanging around the house.

odyssey06 · 17-08-2019 8:22pm

Yester wrote: »

I remember coming home from school and getting a slap of a dead pheasant that was hanging from my bedroom door. It sounds bad but I remember thinking yah pheasant for dinner tomorrow.

Based on my one experience cooking pheasant... it smells a lot worse!

Grandeeod · 17-08-2019 8:24pm

Some really nice diversity on this thread in terms of memories. With respect to my Mother who learned to cook from me, but refuses to accept it, she did make a good Coddle using Oxtail soup for an acceptable colour/appearance. Eatin and drinkin in it.

Cushtie · 17-08-2019 8:29pm

Dizzyblonde wrote: »

Someone mentioned buttered Marietta biscuits. When you sandwiched them together the butter would ooze out through the little holes. Marietta were long gone but the time I had children, but I used to give them buttered Rich Tea biscuits for old times' sake

You can still get the Mariettas.

rubadub · 17-08-2019 8:34pm

igCorcaigh wrote: »

For desert, angel delight was awful.

I loved it, even used to buy own brand versions with my own pocket money!

I used to sometimes get money to buy my own dinner at weekends. The mother used to go mad at us always turning up late for dinner on saturdays so I think eventually said "you can make your own bloody dinners" as a threat, but we did it. Was typically frozen pizzas at first, but later was proper stuff like chinese, I use to watch "wok with yan" on sky one.

Granby burgers are still about, I used to squash 2 together to make a 1/4 pounder

https://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=250834016

We used to have beef curry and I think it was before you got jars of sauce, it was made with powder and those hard blocks of creamed coconut.

Cakes were made using margarine. I think they were 2kg square semi transparent tubs of it and the tubs were rock solid plastic so kept for storing stuff like spices. I still see several of the tubs around. Not sure why they used such good quality tubs for the cheap stuff, maybe to withstand people having to spoon out the hard marg.

Dizzyblonde · 17-08-2019 8:50pm

Cushtie wrote: »

You can still get the Mariettas.

Ooh I'll look out for them.

My mother used to make her own sandwich spread for our school lunches. She had an old hand mincer that weighed a ton, and she'd clip it onto the side of the kitchen table. We'd all want a go at turning the handle - they were simple times

She'd put in slices of corned beef (the square one that you get at the deli counter in supermarkets) with diced tomatoes and onion. What came out was a delicious savoury spread, and I still make it sometimes in the food processor.

rubadub · 17-08-2019 9:01pm

Dizzyblonde wrote: »

Ooh I'll look out for them.

garibaldi biscuits still about too, but relatively expensive. "squashed fly biscuits"

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Dizzyblonde wrote: »

She had an old hand mincer that weighed a ton, and she'd clip it onto the side of the kitchen table.

many were "spong" brand. Many of the modern copies are meant to be terrible quality

Lots of people had the same electric knife too.

L1011 · 17-08-2019 9:10pm

tickingclock wrote: »

Noone was a coeliac either or allergic to anything and the words childhood obesity weren't linked together. I was well fed with a Mammy who was a good cook. My Daddy could do steak and bread and a fryed egg and banana sambos for lunch!! Looking back now I didn't appreciate it at all

People just went through life "sickly" instead of being diagnosed. All the issues existed.

We had that ^ electric carving knife but my mother never cooked anything that needed it. Bacon joints would fall apart if you looked at them funny they were so overdone

goldlocks10 · 17-08-2019 9:31pm

The electric blade my mother still has. Fish on Friday. Roast on a Sunday but was like Christmas dinner every Sunday bread stuffed meat,gravy etc. We always had dinner at 1 every day. Soup, dinner and dessert and tea and biscuit were every day. Supper was a slice of bread and sauseage or ham with tomato. Always had 11 o clock and 3 o clock tea. Good times

ldeayton · 17-08-2019 10:04pm

Rows Grower wrote: »

Bovril, the drink of the Gods.

Made from ground up beef bones, take shagging that vegans!

Served in a mug with a Calvita sandwich if you were lucky to get to the cupboards before your siblings.

(Calvita was cheese in a small cardboard box and was wrapped in the thinnest tin foil ever known to mankind.)

The local shop (polish shop run by a Sikh family from Afghanistan) where I live in London has Galtee/ Calvita in stock. Still in the same weird box and ultra thin foil.

Even to this day I tell my own kids the horror of my mothers cooking. Everything that has been discussed and mentioned already. I recall one beauty was a “sausage meat pie”. Even the thought of it makes me nauseous.

Nostalgic Food - Good and Bad!

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