Times Have Changed - Food Of My Childhood

                                                                        Image: Oberholster Venita

It's interesting to observe how 'fashions' change in regard to what food is cooked and how it is cooked. Back sixty years ago, meals (in my personal experience anyway) were plainer and there was less variety but the food tasted good. There was less, if any, awareness of whether a food was 'good' or 'bad' for you. Ah, the days of eating without feeling guilty! Well, I was a young child back then and knew nothing of food guilt, but perhaps there was just a bit of guilt for adults, I don't know.

So what were the people I knew eating for their main meal of the day back in the fifties? It was mostly the standard meat and three vegetables.

I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandmother and have fond memories of her steak. Grandma cooked the steak in butter with sliced onions. She added some home made tomato sauce and then made the juices into a gravy, my mouth is watering at the memory. This was served with mashed potato, boiled carrots from Grandma's garden and tinned peas. Sometimes there were beans and possibly other vegetables but usually the peas and carrots.

By the way, I didn't like the tinned peas. However, I ate them to please my grandmother and I don't think I ever told her I didn't like them. Fresh or frozen peas cooked taste much better to me. Of course, frozen vegetables weren't a thing back then. There was only a small area of freezer at the top of the fridge, enough for some ice cubes and a bit of ice cream. I used to love the Amscol ice cream that came in a waxed carton. Hmm I've gone off topic, was talking about vegetables.

There was the Sunday roast. If this was chicken there was stuffing consisting of bread, egg, onion and thyme. The chicken was cooked in the oven with carrots, pumpkin and potato. Sometimes it was served with sauerkraut, not the fermented type but simply cabbage cooked with vinegar, chopped bacon and carraway seeds. Perhaps there was a bit of apple or onion too, can't recall. 

I don't have a pic of roast chicken from the fifties so this will have to do! Image:henry griman aguilar from Pixabay

Sometimes we had roast lamb with gravy and roast vegetables for Sunday lunch. Monday school lunch would then be lamb sandwiches.

We ate plenty of stews, delicious with lots of gravy that was mopped up with thick slices of white bread, sometimes with a thick layer of butter. These days I would be stricken with guilt at thickly buttered white bread. It should be wholemeal or multi grain bread with a scraping of cholesterol lowering margarine! But I wouldn't be mopping up lots of tasty gravy full of fat from the meat (fat was never cut off the meat because that would have been considered wasteful) and then there was the salt that was added to everything.

I still love lamb chops and we had those when I was a kid but they were usually mutton chops, bigger ones. Mum often crumbed them and I still enjoy them cooked this way.

We had beef sausages but not all the varieties of today, none of the great selection of different meats mixed with vegetables and herbs. There were no pork and Kakadu plum, pork sweet chilli, herb and garlic beef, chicken and parsley, beef with oregano and parsley, tomato with chick pea and spinach pork or carrot with red lentil beef sausages. There were no gluten free sausages. Nothing was gluten free.

Sometimes we had fish. It was usually fried. Dad liked kippers and other smoked fish which were cooked by poaching. On the rare occasions that we had a takeaway meal when we went out for the day, it would be fish and chips. What a treat!

Dad loved curry having spent his childhood in India where his father was a major in the British army.

There were fewer types of vegetables and herbs available where I grew up. There were no zucchinis, red onions, artichoke, egg plant, lebanese cucumbers and certainly no purple carrots or black tomatoes! I had no experience of Asian vegetables/herbs like bok choy, daikon, okra, coriander, lemon grass, Thai basil or garlic chives. 

Carrots were always orange, never purple when I was a child           Image:jacqueline macou from Pixabay

Grandma grew a variety of vegetables. One of my favourite was sweet corn which she would pick just before she cooked it. She served it with plenty of butter, yum. Sweet corn is so much nicer if it hasn't travelled half way across the state before it is cooked and eaten!

Mum grew vegetables and herbs when she was at home with us two children. Once she returned to work there wasn't as much time but Mum still grew thyme and parsley. She needed thyme to add to the stuffing for Sunday's roast chook. 

I loved Grandma's sauce made from home grown tomatoes. It took me a long time to get used to commercially bought tomato sauce. I have made tomato sauce and also plum sauce on occasions. As well, I have bought home made from markets, yum.

Grandma made lots of things. I remember her 'cooked cheese' which was a type of cheese spread but nicer than anything bought from the supermarket. Grandma grated up cheddar cheese and this sometimes included a dry end of the cheese, little was wasted back then. There were carraway seeds in the cooked cheese and perhaps cream, I am not sure.

We have a greater variety of food available now but I certainly enjoyed the meals of my childhood.