Food from your childhood

[everso]

On another thread in The Kitchen, we're discussing the correct ingredients for a salad, and somehow it started me thinking about the food of my childhood.

In the 1950s food was, as I’m sure our older board members will agree, pretty dull. Chilli con carne was unheard of, and would have been foreign muck anyway, and the only spaghetti bolognaise that you could buy was in a tin and made by Heinz.

Rice was only eaten in pudding form with a blob of jam in the centre, and, so far as I remember, the only potatoes you could buy were Whites or King Edwards (my mother detested Whites).

Although curries were never eaten in our house (were they eaten anywhere in the UK in the fifties?) we always had a tin of curry powder, which was sprinkled liberally on neck of lamb stew (don’t ask me why, but it did taste pretty good).

Sunday dinner was always a roast, and eaten at lunchtime while Round the Horne was on the radio (or was it Beyond Our Ken? I can never remember which came first). Sunday tea was served about 6 pm and was usually cockles and winkles in the winter and a salad (lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes) with Heinz salad cream, ham and cheese, fish paste, and bread and butter, in the summer.

Fish and chips was the only take away and Instant Whip was the best afters ever.

What foods do other board members recall from their childhood?

[Deleted]

Mince n potatoes was always a bit grim. with peas i think. i remember getting home from playing in the park with some mates to find it was mince n potatoes ( tinned potatoes) for dinner and i think it was the first time in my life i felt miserable. it was a grey rainy day.
we didnt have pizza back in them days either.. no pizza, no curry, no spag bol, no chilli con carne.. no chinese, no thai...what the hell DID we used to eat?
YES- sunday was always a roast.

[trubble]

I remember the salads. Ham rolled up into cylinders and lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber. A spring onion sometimes. Always Heinz Salad Cream. Nothing wrong with that.

And the rice with a blob of jam...semolina too...instant whip...the horrible mince was called gang-a-lang-way and was only edible by adding Heinz tomato sauce, plenty of...

You have forgotten Campbell's Faggots in Sauce (served with cabbage), Spaghetti Hoops and Baked Beans. Also gammon steaks with pineapple rings on posh days? And a lot of pork chops.

I ate proper (not from tins) spaghetti but I was the only kid I knew who did - my aunts had lived in Italy and used to make the real tomato sauce/bolognaise sauces for me - with real parmesan from Italy on the top. I loved it so my poor mother had to try to reproduce it on a budget of about one pence. Heinz Ketchup and Cheddar cheese. (I still eat it that way sometimes. How embarrassing.)

Saturday Tea was toast and jam and Jim'll Fix It. I think there were many more jam related meals in the seventies than there are nowadays.

[everso]

As a child, "dinner" was always served mid-day for me, so I had a light meal at tea-time. This usually consisted of Heinz tomato soup with toast or baked cheese with bread and butter or (oh heaven) bread and sugar.

[trubble]

Don't knock the Tomato Soup, lol! It's the only tinned soup I'd ever eat now but I rarely eat it -- but I lived on it for years and years (Mini-Trub still does).



Actually, you've made me nostaligic enough to be cross now. We ate Campbells Tomato Soup. Ate so much of it we had enough labels to send away for a Campbell's Rag Doll for my naughty little sister. It was pretty ugly. Something like this:

but very loved - my sister called him Campbell and he was the toy that got dragged everywhere, through mud and dirt, and then had to sleep with her at night despite the germs, and there was the ubiquitous ''where's Campbell'' hysteria and searches everytime we went anywhere because he was that type of runaway doll. He went bald from all the love eventually and his shoes got chewed off.

Maybe that's why I'm so cross that Campbell's has now changed to Knorr. Knorr? FFFFS. Did Andy Warhol paint a picture of a Knorr Soup Can?

What sort of idiots would buy an iconic brand item like a Campbell's Tomato Soup and re-fluffin-brand it?

[everso]

Mar 5, 2010 8:48:43 GMT trubble said:

Don't knock the Tomato Soup, lol! It's the only tinned soup I'd ever eat now but I rarely eat it -- but I lived on it for years and years (Mini-Trub still does).

I make soup, but the only tinned soup I do eat is Heinz Tomato. It has that comfort factor that reminds you of cold winter evenings in front of a roaring fire. My dad loved roaring fires - my mum didn't. Always a source of argument in our house (flat).

[trubble]

That's it exactly!

[everso]

Trubbs, I feel your pain re the Campbells to Knorr rebranding thing.

All this change isn't good for us.

[Weyland]

Mar 5, 2010 8:25:52 GMT trubble said:

the horrible mince was called gang-a-lang-way and was only edible by adding Heinz tomato sauce, plenty of...

I loved mince'n'taties. Still do. A comedian well known in the NE had a phrase he'd sometimes drop into sketches involving food: "Gizzalegamince." Leg of mince, see? Maybe you had to be there.

No sauce of any description anywhere near mince, puuullllleeeeeease.

Mar 5, 2010 8:25:52 GMT trubble said:

I loved it so my poor mother had to try to reproduce it on a budget of about one pence.

"One penny." Tut tut tut. "A penny" is even better.

There was a Chinese cafe/restaurant at the end of our street in the 50s, but I never knew anyone who ever went there except my sister, and she only went there for la-di-da coffee with her cronies.

At home coffee was practically unheard of unless Father McElduff was visiting, and then it would be Camp, made with milk. "More coffee, Father?"

I never had Chinese food until I went to college in Newcastle in the 60s -- I can still remember the very first one -- king prawn foo yung with crispy noodles and soy sauce. It's never tasted anywhere near as good since.

foo yong noun: a Chinese dish or sauce made with egg as a main ingredient.

ORIGIN: from Chinese foo yung, literally 'hibiscus'.

Hibiscus?

No Indian or Italian until 1969 -- chicken biriani, some ham dish. I particularly remember that year because that's when I met my first wife, who liked exotic food (great cook too).

Love this thread.

[Weyland]

Mar 5, 2010 8:56:13 GMT everso said:

the only tinned soup I do eat is Heinz Tomato. It has that comfort factor that reminds you of cold winter evenings in front of a roaring fire.

Yes, indeed. And one fire was <violins> the only heating we had in the house I was born and brought up in. Which is why I arranged to be born in mid-summer. Talking of which, I love strawberries and Carnation milk, but can't stand cream.

Tinned tomato soup is one of those foods that bears no resemblance to the ingredients. Like tinned salmon and tinned pears.

I don't like "proper" tomato soup or salmon. Funny old world.

[Patrick]

You have the evil Premier Foods to thank for the name change:

It is the kitchen favourite that inspired a Sixties' pop art masterpiece and became a worldwide icon.

But now the famous red and white cans of Campbell's Condensed Soup are to disappear from supermarket shelves across Britain.

By the end of December all Campbell's cans will have vanished, to be replaced by ones with new labels bearing the message: 'Soon to be Batchelors.'

From March, the product will be rebranded Batchelors Condensed Soup, although the recipe will remain unchanged.

The rebranding follows last year's takeover of Campbell's UK by Premier Foods.

And it has led marketing experts to predict a bidding war on internet auction sites as collectors rush to get their hands on the final cans produced.

The original design became a cult classic in 1962 when New York-based pop artist Andy Warhol created an eyecatching silkscreen work showing 32 of the cans.

He said: "I just paint things I always thought were beautiful - things you use every day and never think about . . . because I used to drink (soup).

Although somewhat ironically, I notice that the U.S Campbell's Soup website is alive and well and still kicking with all the flavours. So, along with Jif and Cif, Marathon and Snickers, Oil of Ulay and Olay. Big Corporate brother knows best when it comes to trampling across several decade's worth of history.

Saying that though - In reality - Premier Foods - iconic as the Campbell's name is - are doing us a favour! Campbell's is American - Bachelors is British. So you could say that they're putting the latter 'back on the map.

Batchelors is a brand of predominantly dried food products. It was formerly a Company founded in 1895 in Sheffield, England. The company now makes instant soup, in particular Cup A Soup and noodle products such as Super Noodles. The company is the UK market leader in dried soups. The most popular flavour Cup A Soup is Chicken.

Since early 2008, the Batchelors name has also been applied to Premier Foods' condensed soup range, previously sold as Campbell's.

Also, Batchelors is a manufacturer & distributor of ambient food and drinks in the Republic and Northern Ireland. The UK Batchelors brand (above) has no relation to Batchelors Ireland which is Irish owned and based in Cabra, Dublin. Batchelors in Ireland holds the portfolio of some of the leading consumer brands in Ireland, such as Batchelors Canned Foods, Sqeez Ambient Fruit Juices and the Erin portfolio of products.

William Batchelor was born in Sheffield, to Zechariah Batchelor who was a grocer from Camp Lane in Sheffield. William discovered a way to can vegetables such as mushy peas and formed Batchelors Foods in 1895. He died in August 1913 whilst on holiday in Bridlington. He was 53. His daughter Ella (who became Ella Gasking), aged 22, took over leadership of the company and developed it to include processed peas, eventually becoming a household name.

Due to staff difficulties and rationing in the war, the company was bought by James Van den Bergh of Unilever in 1943, where it became part of Van den Bergh Foods (later based in Crawley). In 1948, Ella Gaskin retired and her younger brother Maurice Batchelor took over. The company took over Poulton and Noel, another soup company. In 1949, the first dried soup, chicken noodle flavour, was sold. In 1972, Cup A Soup was launched.

In January 2001, Unilever took over Bestfoods. To be allowed to take over the American company, Unilever had to sell off some brands for monopoly regulation. It sold off Batchelors and Oxo to the UK subsidiary of the Campbell Soup Company.

Unilever retained ownership of the 'cup-a-soup' brand in America and Australia, rebranding them under Lipton and Continental respectively.

In 2006, Campbell's soup withdrew from the UK market, and sold its assets, including Batchelors, to Premier Foods. The Campbell's name was licensed to Premier Foods until 2008, following which Campbell's Soup was rebranded as Batchelors.

So it's badge engineering better than Herbert Austin could come out with!

[everso]

Mar 5, 2010 10:17:41 GMT Weyland said:

Mar 5, 2010 8:56:13 GMT everso said:

the only tinned soup I do eat is Heinz Tomato. It has that comfort factor that reminds you of cold winter evenings in front of a roaring fire.

Yes, indeed. And one fire was <violins> the only heating we had in the house I was born and brought up in. Which is why I arranged to be born in mid-summer. Talking of which, I love strawberries and Carnation milk, but can't stand cream.

Tinned tomato soup is one of those foods that bears no resemblance to the ingredients. Like tinned salmon and tinned pears.

I don't like "proper" tomato soup or salmon. Funny old world.

Youngsters today don't know they're born, eh?

I well remember that winter of 1962/63. With only one fire in our "front room" (we didn't have a back room, but it was always called the front room) my bedroom was like an ice box.

In that respect, I'd never ever hanker for the old days.