Re: Do You Remember When.......

All these foods sound familiar to me and were a feature in the homes of many people in the 50s and 60s in Australia too. Especially the English migrants. No offence but it sounds pretty crook. So much fat! But here there was also a big Italian and Greek influence in the food. Then Asian. But I never remember not having a fridge or other appliances. Once refrigeration became widely available here as you can imagine it pretty much became essential especially in the summer. Australia didn't have to endure the kind of rationing you did in the UK for as long

Re: Do You Remember When.......

Yep. I remember the bread and drippin' sarnies too.
My brother and I used to like the brown jellyish bits too.

I remember my dear old Grandad eating Tripe as well. Aggh!

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Hah. when I used to walk to school we always saw the milkman's horse too, Tiff. I even remember she was called 'Topsy.'

She was a clever girl, and knew the round so well that she used to walk on to the next house all on her own, while the milkman was putting the milk on the step of the previous house.
One day the horse was gone and we all asked the milkman where Topsy was.
He was very upset because she had been replaced by one of those little mechanised 'milkfloats' instead.
I remember him saying the float couldn't help him and take itself to the next house like Topsy had. He really missed her.

I also remember my Grandad having a holiday bungalow where they had no flush toilet! A big vehicle used to come round every morning to empty all the toilet bins - were they called Elsans, not sure now.
The kids used to shout "Here comes Dan Dan the lavatory man.' What a job!

And I remember Mum used to send us to the corner shop to get three quarters of spam for tea sometimes too.

Re: Do You Remember When.......

I remember those days very well. My parents did exactly the same. We never had chips until my parents bought a chip pan from the town's largest supermarket at the time..Carrefour. Home made cooked chips with a large slab of melted lard mmmmm, the best .

My parents would leave the lard to cool down and once all cooled down completely, would put the lid back on, cover it with a tea towel and put it back in the pantry or 'larder' as us kids used to call it. Those who know this method of cooking will know the next bit very very well if it was done wrong and that was not aligning the handle of the inner tray to line up with the handle of the pan which meant if the inner tray handle was not lined up properly, once the lard cooled down, the inner tray handle would be sticking out which meant it was difficult to store it properly, especially is space in the pantry/larder was at a premium.

Many a time I would hear my mother say 'You've done it again!!!'. My father was always the one that cooked the chips thus hearing my mother say those words meant us kids knew father had forgotten to line up the inner tray handle properly lol. Those were the days..the best days

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That brings back some memories. My Uncle Ted was a rag'n bone man and my Uncle Billy was a coal man. They both had horses and carts we used to beg them for rides on the cart, although mum hated us going on Billy's cart as we always came home black from the coal dust ("black as Nooker's knocker " my granny always said!). My dad always preferred us to follow the carts with a shovel and bucket, picking up the horse dung for the garden! By the time I was about 10 in the late '50's, that way of life was pretty much over. Ted died and no-one took over his business and Billy swapped his cart for a lorry.

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Yes, I remember most of those things, except that no- one had a horse & cart, they had all moved on to lorries, vans, and milk floats

Everything was fried in lard
I enjoyed watching the colour and patterns on the chip pan changing as the old fat melted
I don't recall its ever being changed, though I suppose it must have been
I'm sure if you look back at old recipe books there will be references for so many ounces or lumps of lard instead of cups & spoons of oil

I remember bread & dripping, sprinkled with salt, I think I used to like it
Years later I had a friend from Glasgow, and we got talking about this sort of thing
He called bread & dripping 'drookit bread'

I remember the first appearances of cooking oil - was it Mazola?
People were suspicious of it for a long time before cooking oil became accepted

Probably like many ladies of her generation my Mum did a lot of baking.
I would be sat on the hearth rug in front of the coal fire to stir cake mixes and melt the butter - and then lick the bowl of course!

Most main meals would have a proper pudding - steamed, suet, pies, or lots of cakes

Mum would make a huge pan of pea & ham soup - for the first meal we would have the ham, either in sandwiches or sliced with new potatoes and veg; then the soup for the next couple of days

I used to like ham ribs; I would sit on the hearth rug (again) with a plateful of ribs & bread & butter eating the meat off the bones and then throwing them onto the fire
But the problem was that they were seen as just a cheap source of meat, and Mum didn't like buying them as people in the village would get to know that
I haven't seen them for ages; I expect they all go for Chinese spare ribs now

I remember getting our first TV Set.
On a Saturday night Grandma & Grandpa would come round and we'd all watch TV
Tea would be a load of sandwiches & Mum's cakes.
Afterwards we would watch TV and eat loads of sweets and pop from the Corona lorry

Grandma & Grandpa called their kitchen the scullery

Early Refrigerators were an expensive luxury
One year we were all sat around slicing & salting runner beans, and Dad said - "That's it.! Next year we're not having a holiday, we're going to buy a fridge!"

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Life moves on.
Appliances became relatively less expensive and more sophisticated. And my parents never had a microwave oven. Who doesn't these days?

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Molly used to do that, but not til she'd had her treat.
I think our house was the only one who did that too, else if they had, the milk would have been sour before he finished his round.

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I don't!

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I know many people who do not have a microwave today.