Eating in the fifties

[Wild Rose]

  EATING IN THE FIFTIES
 
Pasta had not been invented.
Curry was a surname.
A takeaway was a mathematical problem.
A pizza was something to do with a leaning tower.
Bananas and oranges only appeared at Christmas time.
All crisps were plain; the only choice we had was whether to put the salt on or not.
A Chinese chippy was a foreign carpenter.
Rice was a milk pudding, and never, ever part of our dinner.
A Big Mac was what we wore when it was raining.
Brown bread was something only poor people ate.
Oil was for lubricating, fat was for cooking
Tea was made in a teapot using tea leaves and never green.
Coffee was Camp, and came in a bottle.
Cubed sugar was regarded as posh.
Only Heinz made beans.
Fish didn't have fingers in those days.
Eating raw fish was called poverty, not sushi.
None of us had ever heard of yoghurt.
Healthy food consisted of anything edible.
People who didn't peel potatoes were regarded as lazy.
Indian restaurants were only found in India.
Cooking outside was called camping.
Seaweed was not a recognised food.
"Kebab" was not even a word never mind a food.
Sugar enjoyed a good press in those days, and was regarded as being white gold.
Prunes were medicinal.
Surprisingly muesli was readily available, it was called cattle feed.
Pineapples came in chunks in a tin; we had only ever seen a picture of a real one..
Water came out of the tap, if someone had suggested bottling it and charging more than petrol for it they would have become a laughing stock.
The one thing that we never ever had on our table in the fifties .. was elbows!

 

[Biggles]

All very true!  How times change.  Thanks for reminding us just how much they change, and what we take for granted.

Have you seen those purple carrots?  I'd never heard of them until recently.  They're still in the crisper waiting for someone to cook them.

[Sicman]

 

[PaulH]

Brilliant, and all so, so TRUE!!

[HOFFY]

What is a crisper, we have a rotter box in our fridge.

Wife buys the stuff fresh, we stick it in the rotter box and throw it out two weeks later.

She came home the other day and i put the fruit and veg straight into the bin.

She said loudly, "What u doin?"

I said, "Cutting out the middle man."

[Gavo]

What is a crisper, we have a rotter box in our fridge.

Wife buys the stuff fresh, we stick it in the rotter box and throw it out two weeks later.

She came home the other day and i put the fruit and veg straight into the bin.

She said loudly, "What u doin?"

I said, "Cutting out the middle man."

I feel the same pain 

You have my deepest sympathy

[ST2UP]

So true, so true 

[ST2UP]

What is a crisper, we have a rotter box in our fridge.

Wife buys the stuff fresh, we stick it in the rotter box and throw it out two weeks later.

She came home the other day and i put the fruit and veg straight into the bin.

She said loudly, "What u doin?"

I said, "Cutting out the middle man."

  

[alans1100]

Have you seen those purple carrots?  I'd never heard of them until recently.

Saw them in the supermarket this morning. That's where they stayed.

[nealeray]

I remember all that from my childhood so it did carry over to the sixties. 

[saaz]

I don't know about the 50s as I was too young. But I am sure that people in countries other than Australia  might think that pasta, pizza, sushi, kebabs etc etc were actually quite normal.  And in fact they are among my most preferred foods, considering I was brought up on the farm english style diet.

The purple carrots from Tasmania taste quite nice.

[nealeray]

Pasta was unusual but we did have "pasketty" out of a tin.

[alans1100]

Pasta was unusual but we did have "pasketty" out of a tin.

The only thing that came close to pasta that we had (60s) was Heinz spaghetti in the can

I remember fish (most of) and chips being fresh and not frozen as they are now in the fish and chip shop.

[nealeray]

Yeah, they used to fry the chips 2 or 3 times before the final serve up. Reckon they were better back then, out of the rolled up newspaper. 

[Biggles]

Yeah, they used to fry the chips 2 or 3 times before the final serve up. Reckon they were better back then, out of the rolled up newspaper. 

When I was in junior High school, one of my pocket money sources was collecting, bundling and selling newspapers to the Fish and Chip shop. 
There is no doubt about it.  The lead in the ink always made the F&C taste much better than today's wrapped in wimpy butcher's paper (or worse, on greaseproof in styrene).

[ST.George]

Gr8 list. The 60's and 70's were not very different. I was a lad then and we all cooked a lot for ourselves which usually meant going to the store and buying a sealed pack of nassi-goreng curried prawns and rice and a Sara Lee frozen cheese cake. Nobody knew how to make a pizza then and they were amazingly expensive to buy but no-one complained cause they were so delicious. We occasionally tried pressure cooking but heard of explosions and did it ourselves once.

Now,  Terese and I can cook cause the last 20 Years have shown the rise of fast food, obesity and diabetes have taught us that the best food is freshly made. With a microwave, pressure cooker, good oven, wood fire rotisserie, clay pizza-style oven and natural gas BBQ we have the lowest power bills of anyone we know.

However there seems to be nothing we can do about rotting veggies. IMHO the prob is that all the big markets buy produce from the cheapest source and is often frozen in transport. Frozen foods rot quickly after thaw.
I have found rotten tomatoes and potatoes in bags bought the day b4. Sometimes the tomatoes are hand picked and last just one day.

[Sabie]

Oranges at Christmas ??? They were always a winter fruit for us.

Christmas was Rockmelons and Watermelons, it wasn't until my teens that I saw stone fruit, plums and apricots. I never saw an Apple tree until my early Adult life. And now in my fifties I've never seen a Cherry Tree, or a Plum Tree.

[WendyL]

Bananas and mangoes were standard fruits for us as young kids, they came straight from the garden, then we moved from Darwin to Adelaide and had fresh fruit year round. In our backyard we had 18 different varieties of fruit growing.

I'm too young to relate to most of the rest......

[WendyL]

What is a crisper, we have a rotter box in our fridge.

Wife buys the stuff fresh, we stick it in the rotter box and throw it out two weeks later.

She came home the other day and i put the fruit and veg straight into the bin.

She said loudly, "What u doin?"

I said, "Cutting out the middle man."

Would you like to borrow my teenagers for a while?  They can turn it back into a crisper for you.  I shop for fruit and veg 2-3 times a week, fill the crisper, then it's empty a couple of days later....

[Biggles]

Would you like to borrow my teenagers for a while?  They can turn it back into a crisper for you.  I shop for fruit and veg 2-3 times a week, fill the crisper, then it's empty a couple of days later....

Sounds good to me.  They're growing and need the carbs, and everything in the crisper will be better than Chips and Cheezels.