Food And Sweets We Used To Eat.
See also, Member's Recipe Page
Tell us about your favourite foods (Not forgetting Sweets) from the old days on this new page
I remember being given savoury ducks for my dinner when i was young
i use to get 2 in a bowl they would be cut into four then had oxo poured over
them i have never like them since my mam loves them still. my mother had a
habit of putting oxo over most things sometimes she would get my a meat and
potato pie from sharples then cover it in oxo she would also give me a thing
called junket she use to mix this powder with milk then put nutmeg on the
top of its not the best desert i have ever tasted but there you go. there
are a few food things i miss from my early years remember walls sausages in
a tin real sausage not hot dogs they were covered in lard you had to separate
them then fry them they great also home made rice pudding i always had the
skin off it i have made it since but it never tastes like it did way back
then. nutty bars they were great washed down with a glass of lucozade always
had that see through plastic wrapper round the bottle i use to look at everythig
through it everything turned a yellow colour i thought this was great as a
kid strange what made you happy when you are young isn't it
R egards, Steve 02/09/06
Many Thanks Steve
Cowheel Stew uses either shin of beef or the cheaper cuts of stewing
steak and the recipe is flexible.. Cowheel is a gelatine and cartilage joint
which melts when cooking to create a sticky gravy, there is NO fat. It is
very difficult to obtain these affluent days . The best bet is from a REAL
butcher or abbatoir. You will find SILLFIELD FARM very helpful. enquiries@sillfield.co.uk
Serves 2 unless you're greedy;-
1lb beef, half lb carrots, one onion, one pint beef stock/oxo, salt &
pepper (no fancy herbs).
Brown off meat in large pan (I prefer to leave meat in larger pieces), Break
up the cowheel into the pan (add the bones, which can be removed after the
cooking) and add the rest of the ingredients. Simmer very gently for 2 hours
at least, longer won't usually hurt. Thicken to taste. Don't worry if there
are small pieces of cowheel remaining, they're delicious - once you've acquired
the taste! Leftovers will form a jelly when cooled and will re-heat very nicely
for a repeat meal the next day. As I say, I like chips and bread & butter
with it - and a large bib!
I don't know how all this will go down with interested parties, I know it
sounds like a Desperate Dan diet, but it was popular in the old days- put
hair on your chest.
Can't wait to get at it!
Regards; Don Mycroft 27/08/06
Many Thanks Don
Re: SWEETS WE USED TO EAT.........
Forum extract by Marjorie
« Reply #5 on 16/08/06 at 10:43pm »
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HI Julie, If nobody can spell k- lie lets call it rainbow crystals! remember
rainbow craystals and pear drops, arrow bars, fruit salad, lemon bonbons ,
sherbet lemons, aniseed balls, mint imperials, kof kops, knipps, floral gums,
coconut ice loved it, dolly mixtures, fruit cushions,dont know if i have got
the right name there,still buy licorice pontrefact cakes every week from Wilkinsons
in Ashton , love em. marjorie.
Many Thanks Marjorie
SWEETS WE USED TO EAT.........
Forum extract by Lisa Redford
« Thread Started on 16/08/06 at 5:33pm »
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What does anyone remember of their childhood days and visits to the 'Sweet
Shop'? I remember:
BLACKJACKS, SPEARMINT CHEWS, BULLSEYES, LICORICE LACES, LICORICE WHEELS, GOB-STOPPERS,
BARRATTS SHERBET WITH LICORICE STRAW, SHERBET DIP, HUMBUGS, LUSCIOUS LIPS,
LITTLE GEMS, LOVEHEARTS, LICORICE & BLACKCURRANT, CHOCOLATE LIMES, BANANA
CHEWS...........Come on folks, let's have your additions to the teeth-rotters
of the 1950's
Many Thanks Lisa
Re: SWEETS WE USED TO EAT........
Forum extract by Barbara Welsh
« Reply #1 on 16/08/06 at 5:48pm »
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HI LISA
You are like my son licorice mad.
I remember as I said ,sherbet flying saucers,colts foot rock.penny arrow bars,mushrooms,rainbow sherbet,and the licorice stick that was like a piece of tree trunk.one of my favorites is jelly babies,I still bite the head off first,told you I was strange as a kid. chocolate buttons with all those different colored balls stuck to them. when I go to wales I have to buy the breakfast made of rock . we had the fair near us this week I have to go and get candy floss I still love it . you can get most of these sweets now at the old toffee shops.
BABSxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Many Thanks Barbara
Food from my childhood. (extract from the forum)
Most kids learn from their Mothers about cooking, mostly girls but sometimes boys too. I came to my cake & milk when I was seventeen and moved into my first flat on my own and I realised that I didn't really know how to cook a proper meal. Having lost my Mam young I guess I hadn't completed my training for life and I can remember doing my first grocery shopping. In 1962 it was still mostly the Grocers rather than Supermakets, so you could ask questions about what to buy to make your meals. It wasn't until I sat down with my shopping at my feet and I began to think about all the gastronomic miracles that my Mam used to perform. I set out to try and replicate each meal as I remembered it. One of my favourites was steak & onions. All I could remember was that it was cooked in a frying pan and the wonderful aroma as it simmered in the gravy. I never did replicate Mam's steak & onions but I don't do a bad'un. My next was tater hash, traditionally made with Sunday leftovers, it's an easy recipe to adjust to personal taste because the only imprtant ingredient is a Mothers Love. Next on my list was Lancashire Hot Pot. This one is a very important dish of our heritage. In the 1960's I remember the Chefs from the Cafe Royal and The Midland arguing about the correct meat for Hot Pot, "worrapairapillocks" Traditionally (and I did a lot of research at the time) the meat was Mutton and the reason for that was that it was the cheapest and went the furthest, bearing in mind that steak when I was a kid was poor mans fair. Now then Hot Pot, I could remember that you sliced the onions, spuds & carrots and arranged them in layers together with the meat, and I could remember that you ended up with a double layer of spuds on the top which you finished with butter (and would go brown & crispy) I clearly remember drooling at the smell from the oven and thinking that this memory turned out to be the easiest to remember........... What dissapointment when I came to tuck in, I had made the slices too thick and they hadn't cooked, "Al dente" in those days meant raw! I didn't do bad though I had remembered in principal. Another quest was my Mam's potato cakes. She made the most sublime little rounds of cullinary heaven that actually tasted of real potato. After 45 years I still don't have a recipe, more a rough guide and the knowlege that the variety of spud is the most important ingredient.
Happy childhood food memories, and d'you know? I never remember going hungry as a child, in the days of rationing and I suppose hardship, then that in it's self is a miracle. Mam's eh?
Tony Tunstall 05/08/06
Many Thanks Tony
I remember sweets I was given in the late 60's and early 70's, when
I was a kid. There were Coltfoots Rock, Cinder Toffee, Toasted Tea Cakes,
Blackjack Rock, Barley Sugar, Sarsaparilla Tablets, and many more. We got
mineral delivered by Alpine on thursdays, Cherryade and Dandelion and Burdock,
great. I still buy these sweets from Ashton Market. I also buy them on the
internet now as well.
Steve Gorton
Many Thanks Steve
Woolton
Pie
I cannot take the credit for this interesting wartime recipe: this must go
to an old friend who was around at that time and distinctly remembers his
mother making Woolton Pie. This was of course an austerity recipe and was
named after Lord Woolton, who was at that time the Minister of Food. Imagine
a beautiful crusty pie, looking on the outside just like a real meat pie.
Then imagine excitedly cutting it open and finding, yes, vegetables! That's
what a Woolton Pie really was! Various vegetables were mixed together - I
am told that cauliflower was always included - and mixed with an ersatz meat
extract (Goodness only knows what that consisted of!), a small amount of water
was added, and the whole concoction was then placed in a previously-prepared
pastry case and baked. I am told that, on the outside, it looked delicious,
until you cut it open and realised what was actually inside. Like many other
austerity recipes, it was apparently very filling - which was probably the
object of the exercise in those days. My friend can also remember two cartoon
vegetables used by the Ministry of Food to encourage people to eat their "veggies":
these were "Potato Pete" and "Doctor Carrot". All I can
say is "Yuk".
Benji 15/05/06
Many thanks Benji
TRIPE
Yes, tripe! It tasted as repulsive as it sounds and, in a recent survery,
was found to be the most reviled of foods ever! Tripe is actually the stomach
lining of a ruminant, e.g. cow, sheep, and was, would you believe, a popular
dish in the fifties. It was boiled and served with vinegar and perhaps a tomato
if you were lucky enough to have one. It tasted just like a glutinous mass
of rubber: it really was appalling in every sense of the word. There were,
I remember, two types, white and grey, and both were equally repulsive. In
Manchester at that time, there were numerous U.C.P. tripe shops dotted around:
it was popular simply because it was filling, and for no other reason. A former
girl-friend of mine actually worked at the tripe processing plant, which was
in Levenshulme in those days. What she told me about tripe processing was
more than enough to put me off for life. It was an inexpensive filling meal
( we had tripe every Tuesday night) but was never to become as popular as,
say, cow heels or chitterlings. I won't tell you exactly what chitterlings
were - but yes, we ate them as well!
Hope this is of interest.
Kind regards
Benji 30/04/06
Many thanks Benji
MOCK GOOSE
I cannot really take the credit for this one: that must go to an old friend
who lived through the war years and distinctly remembers being "clouted"
by his mother for lying to the family next door. He invited them in to enjoy
some of the "goose": rather sadly he did not understand at the time
the real meaning of the word "mock" - he assumed incorrectly that
a mock goose was just another member of the goose family. The recipe is as
follows: simply place some large slices of potato at the bottom of a dish,
add some slices of cheese (if of course you were lucky enough in those days
to actually have some, as it was rationed) and then slice an apple and places
the slices on top of the cheese. Add a pastry crust, and cook in the oven.
The result - mock goose.
Having some spare time this week-end, I thought I'd experiment with a mock
goose of my own, so I prepared and cooked one and served it with vegetables,
as in the days of yore. Well, it tasted, I suppose, nice enough - and it was
certainly filling, which must have been the object of the exercise all those
years ago, but even with the most vivid imagination in the world, it really
could not be described as goose. Mind you, if one had never tasted goose during
the war years or before, I suppose kidology might just have come into it!
My friend tells me that this recipe was issued by the then Ministry of Food
- home of the famous "Woolton Pie". He also remembers a cartoon
carrot (but cannot bring to mind the name) which the Ministry used to encourage
people to eat vegetables. He distinctly remembers his mother making home-made
fish paste in those days, too.
Hope this is of interest
Kind regards
Benji 17/04/06
Many thanks Benji
Many thanks Benji
SNOEK
The name says it all: it really was as repulsive as it sounds! Snoek, pronounced
"snook", was a large edible fish found off the African and Australian
coast. It was a wartime dish and was tinned by our Commonwealth friends and
sent over here to "sustain" us during the years of austerity. It
was repulsive - just an oily mess tasting of nothing you can possibly imagine.
Although I was not born until 1943, I can remember snoek being available until
just before the fifties. Perhaps it was Hitler's secret weapon!
POWDERED EGGS
Honestly, I kid you not! Real powdered eggs, reconstituted with water. Except,
of course, they weren't real: they were supposed to contain a small amount
of egg, but no-one really believed that one!
A BONE FOR THE DOG?
In the very early 'fifties, I would be sent to the local butcher's shop for
a bone for the family dog. Actually, we didn't have a dog at all, but the
butcher wasn't to know that! Adhering to this bone - which was quite free,
by the way - would be small scraps of meat. Into the stockpot the bone went
- and the result? A broth consisting of vegetables, potatoes and real meat!
Hope this might be of interest:
kind regards: Benji 10/04/06
Many thanks Benji
MOCK CRAB
This was a traditional poor man's sandwich filling - and boy, were we badly
off in those days! It consisted of a cheap fish paste to which was added a
little vinegar. The whole concoction was then stirred briskly and was then
used as a sandwich spread. If you had never tasted crab - and who had, in
those days - it tasted nice. Certainly not delicious, but nice enough when
you were hungry.
SCRAPS
These were of course the batter scraps from the chip shop. At home, Monday
evening "tea" - we never ever called it "dinner", which
was at lunch time in Manchester - consisted of "six pennorth o'chips
and a pennorth o'scraps". For a penny (for the benefit of younger readers,
an old one!) you got a big bag of scraps wrapped in newspaper. If you were
very lucky indeed, you might find one containing a minute piece of real fish.
That little lot, with a couple of pieces of bread apiece (no butter, just
marge) fed two adults and a child.
CRISP SANDWICHES
Yes, honestly, we made them and ate them!
Hope this might be of interest for your site.
Regards Benji 28/03/06
Many thanks Benji
Many Thanks Don
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