Tag Archives: food

Words and phrases

Imagine that a time traveller popped up from the 50’s and 60’s who had somehow missed the decades between then and now. Rip Van Winkle – remember that story? Apart from the very obvious changes in buildings, shops, technology, instant communication etc etc, I think there are many words and phrases which would baffle them in conversation. Here is a very small selection.

Family

When I was starting my family in the early eighties, nobody had events called baby showers. I’m not sure when the idea first appeared here in Britain but it’s certainly massive now. When my children had a friend come to play or, when a bit older, had a friend come to stay the night, these were not called play-dates and sleepovers.

Music

Back in the 50’s and 60’s we had classical, jazz, blues, music from films and shows and rock and roll. In the early 60’s we saw the emergence of pop. Now there is a plethora of musical genres. Garage, hip hop, grime, dub, Indie … to name just a few!

Miscellaneous

The world of famous people has changed enormously, largely due to the new ease of communication. Some words which would bewilder a time traveller from the 50’s and 60’s are fashionista, paparazzi, celeb.

In the 1950s we had newspapers and some people had televisions. Now we have podcasts, sound bites, boxed sets, binge watching,

Back when I was a child ‘environment’ was a word we rarely heard and we never used expressions like ‘saving the planet’ or ‘good for the environment’, plant-based, eco friendly, flexitarian etc.

And finally . . .

Mindfulness, exfoliate, click and collect, chip and pin, glamping, fatbergs. And many, many more.

Note. This is my own work, written from my own memories and opinions. Credit to Wikipedia, Google, Google Images used for fact-checking. I make every effort to avoid infringing copyright. However, if anyone objects to my use of any particular image, please contact me and it will be removed.

Changes Part 2

I have had so many lovely comments responding to my Changes Since the 50s post. Thank you all! So I’ve decided to post another one. A simple list again, brief, no pictures. I hope it rings some bells.

Cars had no seat belts or reversing lights. They had three gears and you had to pull the choke out in order to start the engine – then remember to push it in again.

Most people smoked (80% of men and 40% of women in the early 1950s) and you could smoke anywhere. In cinemas, on trains and buses, in hospitals, cafes and restaurants.

Peaches, pineapples, salmon and cream came mostly in tins.

Nobody wore helmets when cycling.

Suitcases didn’t have wheels.

You answered the telephone with a greeting, your exchange and your number e.g. “Hello, Somewhereton 456”.

All children had ‘hobbies’.

Everyone wore vests, winter and summer.

The word vegetarian was rarely heard. Likewise vegan.

Most people did the football pools weekly.

You used encyclopaedias to look things up. A home set if you had one, in the library if not.

Changes since the 1950s – aka I’m back after a long gap!

First of all, apologies to regular readers (if I still have any!) for the long silence. I’ve had a very busy summer plus it gets harder to think of topics I haven’t already covered. So I thought I’d return with a simple list of things which have changed since I was a child in the 1950s. Just a list, no waffle, no pictures. Readers of a similar vintage to me will recognise them. Memories from other countries will be different. I can only speak for rural Britain which is all I knew.

We’d never heard of or seen duvets. Beds had a bottom sheet, top sheet, a few blankets, a counterpane (a word you never hear now) and in winter an eiderdown.

We didn’t have mugs, just cups and saucers.

TV programmes started in the evening apart from an hour in the middle of the day when there were programmes for pre-school children. Not everyone had a TV.

Nobody had washing machines, tumble dryers, microwaves or freezers. Many people didn’t even have fridges, phones or cars.

Gay meant happy, jolly, carefree. Mobile only meant able to move, not a phone. Remote only meant far away, not a TV control.

Most men wore hats outside and took them off indoors. Women usually wore hat and gloves to go out shopping, visiting or to church. They had winter gloves and summer gloves.

When you were unwell, even if it was just a cold, you stayed in bed. The doctor would visit and your mum would buy you Lucozade.

Toilet paper was hard and crunchy like baking parchment or greaseproof paper. There were no tissues. Everyone carried cotton handkerchiefs (hankies) which were washed on a Monday (wash day) and ironed on Tuesday.

Dustbins were metal and everything went in. There was no recycling apart from glass jars and bottles, many of which were worth a few pence when returned.

There were no charity shops but communities held jumble sales.

Children’s birthday parties involved presents, party games, sandwiches, jelly, birthday cake – and guests were not given a party bag to take home.

I could go on, but that will do for now. Hope you’ve enjoyed it and recognised some things!

Food Shopping

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.

Teatime Treats

When I was a child my mum baked every week. All mums did back in the 1950s and 60s. She used to make sponge cakes, fruit cakes, chocolate cakes, scones, fruit tarts and pies etc. If we had visitors coming it was always in the afternoon for tea. I don’t remember my parents ever having people as dinner guests in the evening. When guests came the thing to do at that time was to serve ‘shop cake’. It was as though home made cake was too ‘everyday’ and that you were making an effort to produce something a bit more special. This was possibly because ‘shop cake’ was more expensive then than home baking. Nowadays everyone really appreciates home baking and if someone is coming here I like to make a cake.

Of course, these are just my memories from the 1950s. Other people who lived through those times but in other areas might have had completely different experiences!

Paper doilies were very popular and were usually only bought for teatime with guests or for birthday cakes.

Mugs were not usual back in the 1950s and tea bags hadn’t even been invented. Cups and saucers and a teapot were the norm.

But for visitors there would be the better set of china brought out or even the set kept for very best. Everyone had a tea set in the dresser or china cupboard which rarely saw the light of day and had usually been given as a wedding present.

The following is what I remember of the shop cakes available back then where I lived. I know these types of cake all still exist but this post is to give a flavour of a what 1950s teatime spread might look like.

Battenberg which I used to call ‘window cake’ when I was small.

Angel cake

Dundee cake

Victoria Sponge. The sponges of the 1950s, home made or bought, would never have had fresh cream in them. There would be jam, butter icing or both. This is because most people didn’t have fridges in the 1950s.

Jam tarts. A box of six usually contained two with red jam (strawberry or raspberry flavour), two with purple jam (blackcurrant of blackberry) and two with yellow jam (apricot jam or lemon curd). The jams were more of a flavoured, coloured gel with no discernible seeds or pips. But I loved them!

Not one of my favourites but a popular teatime treat.

Ginger cake – which always had a lovely sticky top.

There would often be a plate of biscuits on offer too. We have a vast selection available now but these are two old faithfuls which I remember fondly from my childhood.

Credit to Google Images and Wikipedia. As always, I have endeavored not to infringe copyright. However, if anyone objects to my use of an image, please contact me and I will remove it.

Tea

When I was a child, the drink everybody drank was tea. There was hardly any coffee around in the 1950s, not where I lived, anyway. Children drank milk (warmed in winter, cold in summer), orange squash or weak tea with occasionally cocoa, Horlicks or Ovaltine at bedtime. Adults drank tea (most of them took sugar in it, unlike now) and sometimes a warm milky drink at night. People didn’t drink water the way they do now. In cafes and restaurants you were never offered water with your food and many would refuse if you asked for a glass of tap water. We knew nothing about caffeine or about the importance of keeping your body hydrated. This post focuses on just tea, that quintessentially British drink. I really fancied using the word quintessentially, for some reason!

The Tea we Drank.

There were no tea bags then and very few brands to choose from. Tea leaves were the only form the tea came in. I remember Broooke Bond being around and in some grocery shops you could buy loose tea weighed out on scales. Once home, you transferred your loose tea to a tea caddy. Green, decaffeinated, herbal varieties etc. didn’t exist.

The Tea Pots we Used.

Of course, loose tea can’t be made in the cup so we all used teapots. Stainless steel ones didn’t come on the scene until the mid sixties. The everyday family teapot was a sturdy earthenware one, usually dark brown. When anyone came to visit a more decorative china pot would be brought out, often part of a ‘tea set’. A lot of people had a very best set which had usually been given as a wedding present and which never left the glass-fronted china cabinet.

Cups and Saucers

It’s hard to believe now, but nobody drank out of mugs in the 1950s. Every hot drink was drunk out of a cup and saucer. Everyday ones were fairly robust, best ones prettier and more fragile. I have a lovely tea set from the 1920s which was my grandmother’s.

Other Essential Equipment

In addition to the ubiquitous teapot, everyone needed tea strainers to filter out the leaves. As with the pots, there were plain everyday ones and fancier ‘best’ ones. Tea cosies were essential for keeping the tea warm while it brewed in the pot for the standard three minutes. Tea caddies stored the loose tea leaves and there were special little scoops for measuring out the right amount of tea into the pot.

Credit to Google Images and Wikipedia. As always, I have endeavored not to infringe copyright. However, if anyone objects to my use of an image, please contact me and I will remove it.

When Tea was Tea and Bread was Bread.

This could be subtitled ‘Another Way in which Things have Changed’. It’s not a complaint, more choice is mostly a good thing. I’m just making a comparison.

Last week we were visiting relatives and whilst with them we made a trip into their nearby city. When we were ready for something to eat we dived into the first café we saw – it was pouring with rain! – to get some lunch. It was a lovely café and we were all able to choose a light lunch from their menu. When it came to choosing our drinks we looked at the drinks menu. There were eleven different teas and seven coffees to choose from. I know this is an unusually large selection but it occurred to me that even the simplest of small cafes will list three or four different teas and in the likes of Costa and Starbucks the choice of coffees is bewildering.

THEN . .

Typhoo tea vintage advertising

And NOW

UK Companies Prepare to Stockpile for Christmas Time No-Deal Brexit

Back in the 1950s and 60s, when I was a child, visits to cafes were usually associated with day trips and holidays. The drinks to choose from would be tea, coffee, orange squash, lemonade and milk. Perhaps a milk shake in some places. Then we come to the milk you put in your tea or coffee. Whole, semi-skimmed or skimmed? Oat, soya or almond milk?

THEN . . .

1950's Memories - The Milkman | Colin Pickett | Flickr

And NOW

Milks of Human Kindness | Veggies

I could cover so many menu items which are different from the 1950s but the next one I’m going to look at is bread. I never, ever remember brown bread being offered as an option when you bought a sandwich in a café. Bread for sandwiches was always white sliced bread. If you ordered a hot meal like fish and chips there was usually a plate of bread (white sliced bread) and butter served with it. In a café or restaurant now it’s normal to be asked if you want white or brown bread. The more up-market you go, the more choices there are. It’s quite usual to see a list of different sandwich fillings and a footnote saying served on white or brown bread, ciabatta, panini or baguette.

THEN . .

Cheese & Tomato – southdownscoffee

And NOW

Chicken ciabatta sandwich recipe | Schwartz
Baguette sandwiches filled with tomato, mozzarella and rocket - Stock Photo - Dissolve

A 1950s ‘Woolies’ cafeteria. One kind each of tea, coffee and bread. I loved those cafeterias! We never even hear the word cafeteria now.

1950s Woolworths Restaurant

A few more memories of British cafés in the 1950s to round this off. Salad was lettuce, cucumber and tomato. No rocket, peppers, olives and certainly no salad dressing. The only thing which was ever put on salad was salad cream. Tomato sauce was often on the table in a red, plastic tomato-shaped container. Pickle meant Branston, Piccalilli or pickled onions. Egg sandwiches were made with salad cream and some cress and were not known as egg mayonnaise sandwiches. Cafes and restaurants rarely offered tap water as a drink option and would even refuse it if asked.

THEN . .

And NOW

8 Healthy Salad Dressing Recipes You Should Make at Home | Wholefully

Pictures sourced from Google Images and Wikipedia. As always, I go to a lot of trouble to avoid infringing copyright. If, however, anyone objects to my use of an image please contact me and I will remove it.

Saint David’s Day – Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant

Today, March 1st is St David’s Day and a very important day in Wales.

Saint David is thought to have been born around 500 AD in Pembrokeshire on the Welsh west coast. David’s reputed mother Non was also a saint, and he was trained as a priest under the tutelage of St Paulinus.

Various miracles are attributed to him, including restoring the sight of his teacher and, most famously, creating an entirely new hill (now the village of Llanddewi Brefi) during an outdoor sermon. The version of this story which we were told in school was that he was preaching to a large crowd, many of whom couldn’t see or hear him properly. A man stepped forward and put his coat on the floor for David to stand on. When he stood on the coat the ground rose up and a small hill was formed.

St David

Saint David became a renowned missionary in Wales and beyond, and is credited with founding monasteries in his homeland, the south-west of England (including Glastonbury) and Brittany.

When I was in Primary School I remember that our village always held a St David’s Day concert. Our little school was used as a village hall for this sort of event. Various people – adults and children – throughout the evening would take turns to sing, recite or play the piano. One local farmer had a beautiful tenor voice and always sang ‘Jerusalem’. There would also be singing where we all sang together, many of the songs in Welsh.

The traditional dish which all families would eat on that day was ‘cawl’ – pronounced cowl – which is a simple but hearty and nutritious stew made with lamb, root vegetables and leeks. Oddly, it’s the smell of it cooking in our kitchen which I can remember more than the taste.

Our version of the traditional spiced fruit loaf is know as Bara Brith which means speckled bread. It is eaten sliced, buttered and with a paned (cup of tea).

When I was in the Secondary School there was always a St David’s Day Eisteddfod in the school hall. Pupils who were known to be able to play and instrument were often pressured into taking part. Others were happy to volunteer. Most children would have a daffodil pinned to their jumpers. Those who hadn’t been able to locate a daffodil would have a leek pinned to them instead, some of them enormous! I can clearly remember the all-pervading smell of leeks as some of the kids got bored in the audience and started nibbling on them.

Cawl.
Welsh cakes are very popular in Wales and are sold in most bakeries and cafes. Cooked on a bakestone or a griddle pan, they are eaten all year round but especially on St David’s Day.

I have lived in England now since 1973. I have worn a daffodil on March 1st every year of my life as I am doing today. Occasionally if I’ve been in my local town shopping on St David’s Day (not this year, thanks to COVID-19) and seen another person wearing a daff we greet each other and have a little chat.

Happy St David’s Day to you all!!

Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus!!

As usual – images courtesy of Google Images, Pinterest, Wikipedia. Anyone objecting to my use of an image can contact me and I will remove it.

Wait until your father gets home!

I was thinking the other day about things which adults used to say to children back in the 1950s which you don’t hear so often nowadays. It wasn’t just parents who said these things. Teachers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, family friends, adults in story books – they all dished them out.

Some readers who date back to those years will recognise these even if they didn’t hear them all said in their own households.

At meal times; 

We’d have been glad of that when food was rationed.

There are children starving in . . . my mum used to say China, I’m sure adults used used a variety of countries!

There’s no pudding until your plate is empty/ you’ve eaten your greens.

Eat your crusts or your hair won’t curl.  They  couldn’t be said to me as I had curly hair – but I still had to eat my crusts.

In the 1950s, the war was a very recent memory. Six years of hardship and rationing meant that parents had little time for children being fussy about food. It was seen as ungrateful.

WW2 Ration Book largeThese books were a recent memory for our parents.

The rest;

Children should be seen but not heard. What a dreadful thing to say to a child – but it was something we heard it said to us then. I don’t remember my parents saying it but older relatives would come out with it if they thought the children were talking to much – or just annoying them,

Money doesn’t grow on trees. This was commonly said to children when they asked for something which couldn’t be afforded. When we were a little older, my siblings and I used to joke that it actually did grow on trees for our family because my dad was a forester.

Wait until your father gets home. This one probably has a long history. It is redolent of eras in the past where the fathers were the absolute head of their households and were quite remote and strict. Punishment would be administered by the father on return from work when the work-weary mother (all mothers were home based then) related the child’s transgression. Most modern fathers would hate to be used as a threat in this way.

Your school days are the best days of your life. I promised myself when I was a teenager in high school that I would never say that to a child because at that time I didn’t believe they could possibly be the best years of your life.

What do you want to be when you grow up? Adults probably still ask children that. I hated being asked the question because it used to throw me into a panic! I always felt I should be coming out with something definite and impressive. In fact, I didn’t have a clue. Many of the jobs I fancied as a child (fireman, for one!) couldn’t then be done by women, anyway.

Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves. I think people talked in proverbs a lot more then. We actually had to learn a whole list of them for the 11+ exam! A stitch in time saves nine. Make hay while the sun shines. Many hands make light work. Too many cooks spoil the broth.etc. By the way, those last two totally contradict each other which always puzzled me when I was younger!

Vintage-1950s-Hand-Embroidery-Pattern-Kitchen-Proverbs | 자수 도안 ... Picture of a 1950s embroidery.

It’s worth remembering that our parents had been brought up by parents who had Victorian parents and some of the rigid expectations of children from that time were passed down through the generations. There were grisly stories written for children to shock them into behaving. These were known as moral tales. There was one collection of stories written in the 19th century which contained a dozen or so such stories. We had a copy of it at home and it fascinated us! The only two stories I remember from it now are Naughty Little Suck-a-Thumb and Shock-Headed Peter. I’ve just looked these stories up for this post and I’ve learned that they were originally written in German by a man called Hoffmann who wrote them for his young son. Having looked up the two I remember best, I am amazed to find I remember every word of both. We read and read that book! My sister was a confirmed suck-a-thumb and was both horrified by and strangely drawn to the picture of the severed thumbs!

The English Struwwelpeter: Pretty Stories & Funny Pictures

 

 

The gruesome picture above is especially for my sister – who still has both her thumbs! Just to explain; in my family we weren’t read these stories as a warning. Things had moved on since they were written. My mum found them entertaining and enjoyed reading them to us and telling us about how Victorian children were brought up.

 

 

 

 

 

As always, I acknowledge that I have sourced my images from the Internet and made efforts to copy only those which are marked as available for re-use. If anyone objects to my use of any image, please contact me and it will be removed.

 

 

Time Travelling

This is a fun one. Not a virus in sight! Much of it has been covered in earlier blog posts but I’ve put a few ideas together for a quick, hopefully entertaining read.

 

If I, or anyone else who was alive in the 50s and 60s, had been suddenly transported in a time machine to 2020, what would puzzle, amuse, or confuse us?

 

Paying for goods in a store by touching a small rectangle of plastic onto a gadget.

UK: half of all debit card payments now contactless | Mobile ...

Cars being plugged in to charge up instead of filling with liquid fuel.

England home electric car smart charger

People walking their dogs with little bags of dog dirt dangling from their fingers.

The Best Dog Poop Bags | Reviews by Wirecutter

People walking along talking on a phone which doesn’t look a bit like a phone and fits into the palm of a hand.

People pointing the same object at a thing, person or view and photographing it.

person, talking, mountain focus photography, mobile phone, smartphone, taking photo, wireless technology, communication, smart phone, portable information device

People using the above gadget to find the way somewhere, check the time or the weather, look at their bank balance, buy something, etc etc etc.

Choosing from dozens and dozens of different television programmes – without touching the TV.

Brits have 100 names for a TV remote control - what do you call it ...

Sending a written communication to someone in another country and receiving a reply within minutes – without any paper being used.

Add Gmail and Other Email to Windows 10 Mail & Calendar (Updated)

Reading a book or a newspaper which is not made of paper.

Why Amazon is tracking every time you tap your Kindle - The Verge

Being able to buy strawberries, raspberries, lettuce, and many, many more food items in the middle of winter. For readers out of Britain, you will be able to think of equivalent seasonal produce.

Buying books, electrical goods, clothes, holidays, food and much more – without actually speaking to anyone, visiting a store, or using a mail order catalogue.

Tesco - Click & Collect Groceries - Logo Design - Portrait… | Flickr

Homes having several different refuse bins outside on the path or drive – each one with a different function.

Kendall Drive – bins collection | Howard Sykes

 

There are many, many more of these! I could go on and on.

 

 

 

As usual, all photographs are sourced from images available on the Internet. If anybody objects to the use of a photograph please contact me and I will remove it.