50s/60s Britain and Now

[Fenman]

7 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

For me it was potato salad & New England style oyster stew. Later, fried beef kidney was sometimes had instead of the stew.

...

Offal was a hugely important part of my childhood diet, though it’s mostly disappeared now — along with suet pastry. 
 

Liver, obviously, with bacon and onion and a heavy gravy. Steak & kidney pudding was also a staple (kidney always seemed to be present as a (presumably much cheaper) partner to steak, whereas now we seem to partner with mushroom, ale or red wine!). Fried chicken livers would often appear alongside bacon and egg — little bursts of intense flavour. 
 

I miss suet in cooking — both savoury and sweet (baked jam suet pudding with custard was a real filler in winter. The jam was always extraordinarily hot). Baked savoury suet pudding, the top a delicious golden-brown crust, was a delightful alternative to dumplings in a stew. 
 

And stews seem to have gone out of favour, too, which is a pity. 

Paul

 

[Hroth]

31 minutes ago, Fenman said:

And stews seem to have gone out of favour, too, which is a pity. 

 

Stews were renamed casseroles and are made in slow-cookers, to increase the posh quotient!

 

The other offaly good meat was heart, stuffed roast lamb heart was my favourite...

 

And then there is black pudding. 

[Colin]

I certainly don’t lament the relative lack of offal in modern cuisine - the last time I ate it in any quantity was a few years ago on a holiday in northern France, when I misread a restaurant menu (so much for A Level French!) and ordered myself a large bowl of pigs kidneys - grey, lukewarm, rubbery and quite revolting. My wife was almost crying with laughter as I attempted to consume one of the worst meals I have ever experienced.

[rockershovel]

Stuffed hearts (whether lamb or beef) are really tasty. I suppose they have fallen out of favour because of the trend to pre-packed catering, they are not a quick, easy thing to make properly. 

 

I’ve had fried chicken brains, I’m not a great fan. Kidney is ok as a pie filler but I don’t care for it otherwise, liver ... no, no liver. 

 

I had a steak pie with suet pastry quite recently, although I don’t recall where. Very nice. Haven’t had jam roly-poly with custard in a long while, shame! 

[Fenman]

9 minutes ago, Colin said:

I certainly don’t lament the relative lack of offal in modern cuisine - the last time I ate it in any quantity was a few years ago on a holiday in northern France, when I misread a restaurant menu (so much for A Level French!) and ordered myself a large bowl of pigs kidneys - grey, lukewarm, rubbery and quite revolting. My wife was almost crying with laughter as I attempted to consume one of the worst meals I have ever experienced.

 

On holiday in a tiny place in Andalucia with a pescatarian friend who misread the menu, ordering what was described as a local delicacy and which she thought was skate wing. In fact it was skate wing, just served with, on top, a large slab of mystery meat -- possibly donkey -- happily dripping its juices over the skate.

 

I draw the line after liver and kidneys, with brains, intestines and hearts on the other side of it. Much of that is, of course, just a weird perception. Most of us wouldn't eat beatles, yet happily consume the "seafood" equivalent of shrimps and prawns.

 

Paul

[Colin]

10 minutes ago, Fenman said:

Most of us wouldn't eat beatles

 

 

A delicacy in Liverpool?

[Reorte]

I've no problem with liver or kidneys, quite like them every now and then and I'm used to them enough that the idea doesn't put me off. Tongue sandwiches used to appear sometimes when I was small, never liked those though.

[Fat Controller]

We were once taken to a restaurant in Lyon called  l' Abattoir; the only thing on the menu that wasn't offal was steak. Such a shame that Lynne had only returned to meat eating a few months earlier...The majority of the patrons were male, all with jacket sleeves rolled up to their elbows; I think they conversed in grunts. Even by Lyon standards, it was a bit extreme; the Lyonnais are said to eat all of the pig bar the squeak, and anything with legs except the chairs. They start young, too; my god-daughter's mother served us roast quail with the heads on. We politely put the heads to the side, god-daughter had them all, sucking the brains out- I think she was about six at the time.

I can handle kidneys, liver (either lamb or calves) and sweetbreads, but not brains or tripe (in all its forms). As for hearts; I was put off these for all time by having to dissect a lamb's one immediately after lunch. 

[petethemole]

Mum would cook steak and kidney stew in the 50s, but wouldn't include onions, or in anything else; they were never in the house, because they SMELT.  Fear of cooking smells seems to have been a thing, but only in some houses; you could tell which families weren't bothered when visiting them.  Our kitchen door was kept closed when cooking and for some time after.  Mum did a mean rabbit stew as well.  Liver was a regular item, but I don't recall what sort, probably pig's or lamb. Pigs liver was served at secondary school, with onions, and I loved it.  I still have it occasionally when I'm home alone.  Every Thursday we had haddock steamed in a thin butter sauce, bland and unappetising.  For years after leaving home I would only eat chip shop fish.

[St Enodoc]

19 minutes ago, petethemole said:

Mum did a mean rabbit stew as well. 

Oh yes!

[caradoc]

On a visit to Paris in 1987 the restaurant menu had an item called 'andouillette'; My French dictionary gave the English translation as chitterling sausage, which was equally meaningless. But hey, it was sausage, so we ordered it anyway. As I know now, chitterling is pig intestines, and the dish looked and tasted just as one would expect. And the French turn their noses up at British cuisine !

 

[Fat Controller]

38 minutes ago, caradoc said:

On a visit to Paris in 1987 the restaurant menu had an item called 'andouillette'; My French dictionary gave the English translation as chitterling sausage, which was equally meaningless. But hey, it was sausage, so we ordered it anyway. As I know now, chitterling is pig intestines, and the dish looked and tasted just as one would expect. And the French turn their noses up at British cuisine !

 

 

1 hour ago, petethemole said:

Mum would cook steak and kidney stew in the 50s, but wouldn't include onions, or in anything else; they were never in the house, because they SMELT.  Fear of cooking smells seems to have been a thing, but only in some houses; you could tell which families weren't bothered when visiting them.  Our kitchen door was kept closed when cooking and for some time after.  Mum did a mean rabbit stew as well.  Liver was a regular item, but I don't recall what sort, probably pig's or lamb. Pigs liver was served at secondary school, with onions, and I loved it.  I still have it occasionally when I'm home alone.  Every Thursday we had haddock steamed in a thin butter sauce, bland and unappetising.  For years after leaving home I would only eat chip shop fish.

'Steamed so it wouldn't smell' Trouble is, it didn't taste of anything, either.  'Food that smelt' was a nasty foreign thing.. In some cases, it was; a friend at college had a Polish landlord who lived on stewed cabbage. The miasma when the front door opened had to be smelt to be believed.

[iL Dottore]

4 hours ago, Fenman said:

...Offal was a hugely important part of my childhood diet, though it’s mostly disappeared now — along with suet pastry....

I think it depends on where you are in the world. In France and Italy offal remains appreciated, in Switzerland less so (I suspect that offal is “off” the menu  in many families and countries as it is a reminder of poverty stricken times past).

 

I always stock up on suet when in the UK as I also use it for pie pastry (and for steamed puddings as well. I am trying to recreate my late Great Aunt’s amazing bacon and onion pudding -so far without much success)

3 hours ago, Hroth said:

And then there is black pudding. 

One of the foods of the gods. I love black pudding in all its guises, from the soft textured French and Spanish versions or the various firmer textured variants found in the UK (my preference actually)

2 hours ago, Colin said:

I certainly don’t lament the relative lack of offal in modern cuisine - the last time I ate it in any quantity was a few years ago on a holiday in northern France, when I misread a restaurant menu (so much for A Level French!) and ordered myself a large bowl of pigs kidneys - grey, lukewarm, rubbery and quite revolting. My wife was almost crying with laughter as I attempted to consume one of the worst meals I have ever experienced.

It sounds like the real problem was the skill of the cook, not the fault of the offal. In the right hands, offal is most enjoyable (I can claim some  modest success in this area: I was able to get my [at the time] 6 year old Goddaughter to happily eat fegato alla veneziana with a side order of sautéed spinach!)

1 hour ago, Fat Controller said:

I can handle kidneys, liver (either lamb or calves) and sweetbreads, but not brains or tripe (in all its forms). As for hearts; I was put off these for all time by having to dissect a lamb's one immediately after lunch. 

Me too, although I have tried them both. For me, I don’t like the texture of brains and with tripe - although the texture is OK - the tripe dishes I’ve tried so far have all had a faintly ammoniacal smell and taste.

 

As for really “out there” offal, “curried chicken feet” take some beating (I quite like them, but they are so rich that I can only eat two or three).

 

Now off for scrambled eggs with Haggis.

 

Have a great day!

Edited May 4, 2020 by iL Dottore
Typo

[rockershovel]

I do enjoy bangers, but I learnt a long time ago that the less you know about what’s in them, the happier you will be

[great central]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

I do enjoy bangers, but I learnt a long time ago that the less you know about what’s in them, the happier you will be

 

Surely you find out when you light the blue touch paper.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh THAT sort of banger

[Londoner]

That isn't my general perception of how things were then at all. Perhaps it depended where you lived, or how you were brought up, as it still does today. What was dreadful about the food? Immediately after the war perhaps, but within a few years food quality and range was back to normal. The range of food wasn't the same as it is now, but is that really significant, I don't remember people complaining about food once rationing ended. There was a fear of TB, but Terramycine and Streptomycine ended that soon after the war.

 

'Empire' attitudes weren't all bad, far from it, and engendered behavior which was beneficial for all British people, integrity, honesty, loyalty, good manners, respect for others etc. All pervading racism? Rubbish, there was no more racism then than there is now, what's changed is that laws and enforcement have driven expressions of racism underground, not "...…..no longer being accepted as part of societal norms" is meaningless, perhaps you've just stopped listening to the complaints of ethnic minorities. I'm afraid that, in spite of protestations from many, there's a racist undercurrent with most people, (less in the British than many), which is now suppressed. Perhaps you should take the Guardian or the Independent for a while. I agree that attitudes to homosexuals and women have changed for the better, but there's a way to go with both of them.

 

I don't understand which stereotypical group you're referring to in your second sentence as having become marginalised and violent. Do you mean homosexuals, or unmarried mothers?

 

You don't mention any of the undesirable things that have taken root. Fundamental schisms in society based on religion, creed and/or colour. Crime. Consumerism. Fossil fuel dependency. Disrespect for others. Victimhood. etc, etc.     

[Nearholmer]

35 minutes ago, Londoner said:

I don't remember people complaining about food

Probably because they didn’t know any different. Food in Britain was for the most part objectively dull, un-interestingly prepared, deeply uninspiring. That's why celebrity cooks emerged, because they pushed the boundaries a bit, and made it all a bit more interesting. That's why people flocked to curry houses and Italian restaurants when they emerged; because the food was interesting, with a bit of zing to it.

 

Food seems to have split away from a dull centre ground of adequacy since the 60s:

 

- good ordinary food has become more varied, tastier, and better prepared; while,

 

- poor-quality food has become truly bl**dy awful, stuffed with cheap, dreadful quality ingredients.

 

The sad fact is that a surprisingly high percentage of the population generally eat the latter.

 

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Joseph_Pestell]

4 hours ago, caradoc said:

On a visit to Paris in 1987 the restaurant menu had an item called 'andouillette'; My French dictionary gave the English translation as chitterling sausage, which was equally meaningless. But hey, it was sausage, so we ordered it anyway. As I know now, chitterling is pig intestines, and the dish looked and tasted just as one would expect. And the French turn their noses up at British cuisine !

 

 

Andouilette is a "high risk" dish, like Black Pudding. When it's good, it is wonderful. But often, it is awful (no pun intended). So I usually give it a miss unless I am somewhere that I know it will be good. The key is proper preparation of the offal before it is made into a sausage. Caradoc mentions the taste but the smell can be enough to stop me eating it.

 

In June 2016, we finished our tour of Portugal at a lovely hotel on the river in Porto. We decided to eat in the hotel restaurant and I spotted on the menu a dish that I had seen mentioned in my tourist book. It's a local speciality, created when the city was under siege: a sort of cassoulet (bean stew). I duly ordered this (because I like to experience local products) and the waiter looked a little hesitant. A few minutes later, the maitre'd approached our table and asked if I was absolutely sure that was what I wanted. They had obviously had many visitors who did not like what they were served. It contains tripe. Definitely the best tripe dish that I have tried.

[Reorte]

36 minutes ago, Londoner said:

You don't mention any of the undesirable things that have taken root. Fundamental schisms in society based on religion, creed and/or colour. Crime. Consumerism. Fossil fuel dependency. Disrespect for others. Victimhood. etc, etc.     

 

I like the general trend of your post but some of those certainly aren't new. Worries about crime seem to be almost inversely proportional to how much there is, there was very little fuel use then that wasn't fossil fuel (although maybe the overall total was still lower as populations and general economic levels were lower). And people have always been depressingly consumerist, although as time's gone on they've had more and more opportunity to demonstrate it (often with no real gain). Wanting more stuff is a sensible evolutionary trait when you've evolved in conditions where getting enough is tough, so wanting more is hardwired in no matter how much we've got (is not as if having more than enough was a common enough occurrence for means to deal with it to evolve).

[The Johnster]

I meant that the only racists that are left are violent extremists, the moderates (yes, but would you let your daughter marry one?') have largely become more tolerant and accepting along with mainstream societal opinion.  That said, living in the mean inner city streets I could point you to unmarried mothers who are marginalised and violent...  I agree there are bad, very bad, aspects of modern society, but many of them existed 60 years ago as well.  Cities like Liverpool and Glasgow were divided by religious sectarianism, and as for Belfast...

 

Violent crime is at about the same level as it was back then, very much reduced from the height of Empire before WW1.  The big difference here is so big that I will use capital letters; DRUGS.  These are the greatest curse of modern life, destroying the lives of those who have succumbed to them and their families, and affecting the lives of those whom they rob, mug, or constantly try to prostitute themselves to.  Cardiff, like many city centres, features a begging drug addict who may or may not be homeless about every 20 feet or so along both sides of the main shopping streets, and I find this disturbing enough to avoid the city centre; enough of them are threatening and intimidating by their presence to put me off.  At least with spice they are comatose and harmless.

 

I was well ahead of the curve regarding 'forrin' food as a child.  Father was a former Merchant Navy officer who'd become enamoured of curries, and picked up several recipes from the Afghan cooks on the ships (F & C Strick, later bought out by P & O, trading general cargo to India, the Gulf, and East Africa; the Afghans were the crew cooks and general bosuns, I think because the crews, the sweepings of every dive bar, opium den, and brothel on the shores of the Indian Ocean, and a bit 'lairy', were scared of Afghans).  Mother and me were less impressed, but he was also a big fan of Chinese restaurants, and we found these far more acceptable.

 

I turned my nose up at offal, and still would not touch tripe, but in later life accepted kidney, liver, or heart quite happily, and still do.  Chitterlings, brawn, and the like less so.  A friend's grandfather ordered a sheeps head every month from the butchers' and boiled for a couple of days until the wool, skin, and outer layers had detached themselves and only the skull was left; he then cut the top off and spooned out the contents, like the Thuggees in Temple of Doom with the monkey heads, ah bom shivai and all that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TheQ]

33 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

 

I turned my nose up at offal, and still would not touch tripe, but in later life accepted kidney, liver, or heart quite happily, and still do.  Chitterlings, brawn, and the like less so.  A friend's grandfather ordered a sheeps head every month from the butchers' and boiled for a couple of days until the wool, skin, and outer layers had detached themselves and only the skull was left; he then cut the top off and spooned out the contents, like the Thuggees in Temple of Doom with the monkey heads, ah bom shivai and all that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I liked your this part of the post but not much of the contents. . Mum used to make tripe for dinner  in the sixties and I used to like that.  But I've not had it since.. 

Edited May 4, 2020 by TheQ

[Unicorn1]

How about a nice cup of tea at this point.

 

Dad brewing up - probably on the A3 - in about 1965.

 

We seemed to do this on every journey that was more than an hour or so- and at the destination the whole kit would reappear, with tins of new potatoes etc.

 

Note the proper tea pot - and there were no tea bags!

 

Les

 

 

 

Scanned from an old print.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Unicorn1
to mention scan

[Reorte]

4 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I meant that the only racists that are left are violent extremists

 

I beg your pardon. Being a miserable so-and-so who's had it with the entire human race, and must therefore be extremely racist, I must contradict you. I'm not violent.

[Steamport Southport]

On 01/05/2020 at 09:59, soony said:

Just quietly perusing this thread and it jogged my memory. There was a radio program favourite of mine - a science fiction program , once a week, on what was the equivalent of radio 4 today, with a sound effects bonanza from the BBC radiophonic workshops. I have never been able to remember the name of the prog, but always thought it was " A for Andromeda", but it doesnt fit todays Google searches, anyone else remember that prog in about 1957-1962, when I was using a crystal set-

you havent lived till you have tried wiring the bedsprings to a few electronioc components.!

 

Book at Bedtime --- Ahhhhhh

 

Journey Into Space?

 

First broadcast in the mid 1950s but repeated for quite a few years after. Still broadcast regularly on BBC Radio Four Extra.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_into_Space

 

 

 

Jason

[62613]

22 hours ago, petethemole said:

  Mum did a mean rabbit stew as well.  Liver was a regular item, but I don't recall what sort, probably pig's or lamb.

Underground chicken; lovely!. There was a butcher's near my paternal grandparents, lasted until the early 60s used to hang the rabbit carcasses outside the shop, I too am partial to liver, and kidneys, although I don't have them any more because SWMBO hates them. Has anyone any views on haggis?