Once again, I’m apologising for such a long absence. I began to fear that I was running out of topics to cover which relate to the 50s and 60s. But I miss blogging and I have acquired a number of followers so I’m going to start again with a topic I know I’ve covered before. Hopefully it’s a bit different this time.
I did a ‘big shop’ this afternoon at a local supermarket. I often find myself musing whilst shopping on how very different food shopping was when I was a child. Not that I ever did the shopping!
As I was browsing along the fruit and vegetable aisles I was choosing between various types of peppers and mushrooms, picking out the best avocados, kiwi fruit and pineapples and wondering which apples to buy. Way back in the 1950s pineapples only came in tins. We had mushrooms when we picked them in the local woods and fields and I’d never heard of peppers or kiwi fruit.
In the aisle displaying tinned goods I bought a tin of coconut milk which I use in curries. Once a year, when the fair came to our local town, my dad would buy or win a fresh coconut. Once home he would drill a hole in it and pour out the coconut milk to share out as an exotic drink. Then he would break the shell up in his garage and share out the pieces so that we could eat the fresh coconut.
In the cereals aisle I walk through two sides of shelves lined with every sort of breakfast cereal from the Corn Flakes, Shredded Wheat and Weetabix of my childhood through a plethora of types too many to list.
There was often a free toy in cereal packets.
Then on to dairy (and non-dairy). Back in the 50s we had milk and we had cheese. There was normal milk and long life (sterilised) milk. Now there are dozens of different kinds of milk, dairy and non-dairy. Where I lived, deep in rural Wales, our village shop sold one kind of cheese and Kraft cheese spread triangles – which I loved! Yoghurts didn’t come on the scene until the mid 60s.
There were a couple of different tea brands available in the 50s, no frozen goods, no ready meals, no dietary choices such as low fat, vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, sugar free, organic, decaffeinated. Fruit and veg were largely seasonal apart from oranges and bananas. Very limited and much simpler! But I would rather have the choices of today than the limited range available in the 1950s – even though it’s fun to look back.
Childhood Memories of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. 
Hi there
What a lovely story you made me laugh. Yes shopping for food is just so different but what I did notice while I was watching FOOD FOR LESS,( I LOVE that programme with Gavin and his co presenter) is that the UK has SO much instant food eg, frozen baked potatoes or roast, it just has so much to choose from and I feel that while it is handy, it doesn’t teach people to cook. Id love to come to the UK and browse the supermarkets, the varieties of cereals you guys have are enormous compared to us in NZ. When I was a child I read my Mums English Weeklys and there was Birds custard, milk loaf, Mars bars advertised in them. I remember Mum phoning up the local grocer for food and I was mad keen on Peanut Butter and stood by the phone hassling her to buy some, Lawrie the grocer would deliver it and Mum would pay at the door, then the fish truck would visit the neighbourhood along with the vegie truck and of course the ‘milkie’ with boys jumping on and off the backs of the trucks to leave your milk. Then came the superette, aww exciting and that was the start of supermarkets, the gradually grew bigger. I quite like going for the groceries, it can be a social event at times but there are a lot of angry people these days out there that stand and abuse you for a small detail. The names of meat has changed in all, like lamb shoulder chops used to be called stewing chops and liver is now called Lambs fry, poor wee things lol, casserole steak used to be called stewing steak
You also have lovely markets with different cheeses that I don’t see here. I watch Rick Stein and his tours around Cornwall and he visits and names a few different cheeses. Meals in the 50s and 60s were finished with a pudding, like lots of fluff type pudds, steam pudds with custard baked apples etc now I don’t think people today know where to start. My Mum was a good cook
Well lovely to hear what it was like for you as you grew up, your parents sound like they really cared for you with the coconut saga lol
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I’m glad I’ve made you smile! Yes, meals always ended with a pudding. Usually either a milk pudding or a spongy one. Sunday tea was often finished off with a trifle. As I lived in the countryside we too had delivery vans. A bread van, a fish van, groceries and butcher. We went to a farm in the village each evening at milking time and got fresh milk in our washed out glass bottles. I still cook and my three grown up daughters cook too. But you’re right, it would be possible to live on ready made food. Thanks for commenting!
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My memories of shopping in the post-war years are not fond ones as I was assigned the chore of doing the weekly shopping. This meant going to the various shops armed with a list of items and quantities needed along with a basket to carry them in.
There were no supermarkets so it was necessary to go to the butcher (who would cut the meat you wanted), the greengrocer for the vegetables (all loose and requiring weighing, the grocer for cheese, eggs, butter, etc, and the bakery for the bread.
Some of the tradespeople (not many) would take advantage of children and pawn them off with lesser-quality. When this happened, I would be sent back to the offending shop with instructions to “tell them off” and get better quality. This was usually settled satisfactorily, though it would be accompanied by sneers and cheap remarks from the vendor.
Shops were (mostly) the domain of women in those days and a small boy (I was about 8 – 10 and therefore an easy target) would sometimes be jostled out of turn as a result. Of course, to complain would only bring verbal abuse so not worth it.
None of the boys and girls I knew were entrusted (!) with the weekly shopping but I was living with my grandma after my mom died and she had a lot on her plate and I recognized it.
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I was spared that as we just had one small village shop. I can see why your grandma needed help but it must have been hard for you at 8/ 10 years old!
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yes.remember it well…brings back a lot of memories..I even remember the blue bags of white sugar.
glad that u r back
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Oh yes! I’d forgotten about them! My mum used cut a triangle off the corner to open the bag.
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Glad to see you’re back. Very enjoyable article.
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Thank you!!
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Ah, yes – coconuts and the annual fair, and the year I spent all my pocket money on failed attempts at winning one at the shy. I was convinced they were glued on. But shopping in the early ’50s is also about the ration book and the Co-op divi number.
We’ve just moved to a house on a new estate and the local co-operative shop is housed temporarily in a long, prefabricated building while the new store is being built. I’ve been sent with shopping list and ration book. There are long lines of customers each leading to a different shop assistant standing behind the counter which runs the entire length of the building. I join the back of one of the queues. There are long periods of time when the queue does not move at all. Then someone will leave with laden bags and we all shuffle up a couple of feet. Eventually I reach the high counter. But it’s so high that five-year-olds can’t see over it – and shopworkers can’t see me. I lose count of the adults who fail to notice me, or pretend to, and are served first. At this rate, I’ll be here all day.
Someone at last takes pity on me and draws the attention of the assistant who leans over to take the shopping list from my up-stretched hand. Each item is placed into a brown paper bag which she secures by deftly using both hands to spin it over a couple of times. I hand her up some money and the ration book. I say “forty-two” when I’m asked for my co-op divi number and wait for the inevitable “Not your house number, love, your divi number.” I may only be five but I’m already tired of this response and insist that forty-two is indeed our divi number. I don’t add the explanation that ours is a lot smaller than the usual five-figure number owing to its original issue to my grandfather who worked at one of the first co-op stores in the town when the local society was formed.
I return home with the shopping only to undergo a parental interrogation of why the simple errand has taken me all of two hours. It’s no wonder children want to be older than we are – we can’t wait to be taller.
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What a delightful memory! I was with you there in the shop as I was reading it.
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I remember my dad doing the same thing with a coconut!
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