By
Boudicca Fox-Leonard
So, can we guess little BouBou’s views on any subject?
The eating habits we need
We can, can’t we?
The eating habits we need to bring back from the 1950s
As we approach the Jubilee and look back to the time of the Coronation, we were slimmer and healthier back then – here’s why…
Yes, we can.
Dinner in the 1950s would have been cooked from scratch, rather than delivered or out at a restaurant. Meals took place around a dining table. Contrast with today, where approximately five per cent between the ages of 45 to 54, of a 2021 Statista survey, said they ate with family at the dinner table only once a month.
Mindless eating with your various screens wouldn’t have been an option given that in 1953 there were only 2.7 million television sets in existence.
“One of the things that is quite good about a 1950s meal is paying attention to what you’re eating and stopping when you’re full,” says Gray. It’s one of the many lessons she says we can learn from a 1950s diet. Eating proper food and making healthy decisions
Yes, sadly, we can.
Bossy Boots can sometimes be right.
Back to the kitchen girls!!!
FFS. Boudicca. Up there with Tarquin and Jocasta, telling the proles what to do.
I was around in the 50s. The food was not good, at least not for people like me. Carrots in spring, stored from the previous year, more wood than veg. Salads only in the summer months. Strawberries only available 6 weeks of the year.
Maybe we will also go back to spending 1950s levels of disposable income on food.
Oh, wait…
It’s not surprising eating habits changed. People were ready for change.
4 February 1953: Confectionery (sweets and chocolate) rationing ended.
26 September 1953: Sugar rationing ended.
4 July 1954: Meat and all other food rationing ended in Britain.
Were people really healthier in the nineteen fifties than they are now? I’m speaking as someone who is pushing sixty four and swam three miles in two hours this morning.
We lived the way we did because most of us, certainly by modern standards, were poor. We didn’t drink soft drinks on a regular basis. When I passed my 11-plus my parents bought a bottle of Tizer to celebrate. Imagine telling a child today to open a can of coke to celebrate some academic achievement. Occasionally, certainly not weekly, my dad would come home with five different chocolate bars, arrange them in a circle and we’d spin a knife to decide who got what. Take-away fish and chips were a rare treat. I was about 12 before I went to my first Berni Inn.
Few families had cars, you walked or cycled everywhere, and if going further afield, walked or cycled to the bus or train station. We spent a considerable amount of our free time outside because there wasn’t much to keep us inside. If we wanted to dream of being our favourite soccer player, we had to do it down the rec with all the other village kids, not on some FIFA video game.
I have fond memories of my childhood, but I never thought it should be replicated for our children and grandchildren, none of whom are remotely obese. They are perfectly capable of making their own decisions regarding food and exercise.
“walked or cycled to the bus or train station”: it was called the railway station then.
“a 1950s meal is … stopping when you’re full”: oh rubbish. We were told to clear our plates: “think of the poor starving Chinese”.
“We didn’t drink soft drinks on a regular basis”: I used to make a drink from liquorice which proved popular. I can’t remember any details except that (i) the key step happened in bottles I stored in the cubby-hole above the pantry, and (ii) I would sometimes swap some with a family down the lane who kept a “ginger beer plant”.
When my pocket money reached a level to allow me to buy the occasional bottle of pop/lemonade/juice, or whatever you called it locally, I inclined to Dandelion and Burdock, Vimto, Raspberryade, Strawberryade, and American Cream Soda.
On holiday once I took part in the famous taste comparison of Coca-Cola vs Pepsi-Cola. Pepsi was the better but that was irrelevant because neither was a patch on Dandelion and Burdock.
“a 1950s meal is … stopping when you’re full”: oh rubbish. We were told to clear our plates: “think of the poor starving Chinese”.
Bit younger,so 70’s, but it was “the poor children in Africa”, or a cuff over the head if you dared to throw a tantrum over food you didn’t like. Generally followed by no meal at all if you really dared to push your luck…
It’s amazing how magnificent the food in the 50’s must have been to make parents in the 70’s part of the “Be happy you have anything on your plate at all!” faction.
Something tells me mme Boudicca Fox-leonard did not quite have the 1950’s the majority of people had.
“Mindless eating with your various screens wouldn’t have been an option given that in 1953 there were only 2.7 million television sets in existence.”
‘Kay. Let’s shut down the BBC, then.
“We didn’t drink soft drinks on a regular basis”: I used to make a drink from liquorice which proved popular. I can’t remember any details…
Known in the west of Scotland as “sugarolly water” (that being the local dialect for liquorice), which, of course, became a term of disdain for any alcoholic beverage believed to be too weak to be worth bothering with. Never tasted it myself, but my dad used to talk about it.
But the thing about the soft drinks we did drink on a regular basis until about twenty years ago was that they were made with sugar. These days you have to go out of your way to find any that hasn’t replaced it with foul-tasting chemicals. If you can at all. I dream about proper fizzy lemonade in the summer. (The last holdout, to give ’em their due, was Waitrose.)
Grikath
Bit younger,so 70’s, but it was “the poor children in Africa”, or a cuff over the head if you dared to throw a tantrum over food you didn’t like.
My mum wasn’t the greatest cook but I did make the mistake of telling her that if the Africans were so hungry that they’d eat what she made, she can put it in an envelope and send it to them. Got a crack around the side of the head for that. So did my brother for laughing.
Olympic year 1952 my dad got to eat his first orange and drink his first Coca-Cola. His mother would’ve cooked boiled potatoes, macaroni casserole and meatballs (spiced with allspice instead of pepper) in thin gravy as a special treat. Turnips were more affordable then than potatoes, children used to eat sweet raw turnips instead of sweets. In the early 60’s he married a posh city girl from a relatively wealthy family and his diet changed drastically for the better, times were changing but still it wasn’t until 1974 when my aunt visited from abroad and introduced us all to lasagna and curry powder – this was peak culinary wonder.
We were so poor, we had to eat Mrs Fotherskill at No 54. With Angel Delight.
Henry… We all make that mistake ( or something similar..) once.. 😉
The ones needing repeat lessons have no sense of self-preservation..
And olive oil was only available from a chemists to unblock earwax. Lard was the olive oil of a sixties childhood
My memories of the 50s was stocky women. Look at footage taken at Butlins for the idea. They started chunky & got bigger as they got older. You didn’t see gym bunnies in leggings & trainers in their 60s then. Headscarf & red elbows was more their style.
I do recall a TV in ’53. I believe the one in the house was actually pre-war. Wooden thing about the size of a washing machine. Screen was about 8″. Very curved. Picture in shades of green.
Anyone else remember “colour” TV in the late 50’s. Something ITV did to a B/W picture produced a colour effect. Sort of faint reds & greens. I think they used on OXO adverts.
dearieme: pretty much snap! The liquorice drink we called ‘spo’. The small black hard liquorice sticks you could get & dissolved in hot water. I really don’t remember eating out or takeaway before about 1960, though we must have done on holiday. I remember the orange juice and cod-liver oil. D&B was far better then than anything you can get today. They had proper pop factories in Lancashire then.
“Going on holiday” was Mum & Dad dumping us the kids with Great-Grandma for a week. Once was a wet week at a campsite in Anglesey – with an ankle cast so I couldn’t even go in the sea.
My memories of the ’70s is that there was always a kid somewhere with a cast on a limb.
jgh, I was one of those kids (“look, mummy! My wrist looks all funny!”). My brother was one of those whose head was always split and bloody, around that time doctors switched from stitches to glue.
If it wasn’t covered by a cast we all had scraped knees, all the time.
As for food, I don’t remember the early ‘60s and eating such delights as dripping on bread. And fish & chips were cooked in lard and we were allowed to buy a bag of scraps.
“I remember the … cod-liver oil.” Aye, and California Syrup of Figs. And sucking a clove and putting a hot cloth on your cheek if you had toothache.
I also remember the school milk: for part of the winter it tasted of neeps presumably because the farmers were supplementing their hay or silage. What would they use now: maize? How far north can you grow maize?
I enjoyed the recent Steve Davies (the economist not the interesting guy off the snooker) video which mentioned that Labour in the 1950/51 elections wanted to keep the rationing as it was fairer.
“…Labour in the 1950/51 elections wanted to keep the rationing as it was fairer…”
They’d just love to introduce it again – any excuse would do, Covid, Net Zero, Ukraine etc etc.
Only next time it’ be permanent. For your own good, of course.
Oh, and btw +1 for everyone’s reminisce s; as a child of the fifties I recognise them all. I’m just a bit surprised nobody has channeled the four Yorkshiremen : “you had a hole in the ground, you were lucky “ etc
‘wanted to keep the rationing as it was fairer’
Silly of them to tell the truth, Bongo.
Peter Macfarlane
Murphy has called for rationing in response to COVID and the war – you’re spot on
Bit later than most of the fogies here, but it was always “starving children in Biafra” that were the source of concern over me not eating my boiled to death cauliflower.
As for the sickly drinks, it wasn’t so much “pop” that was being traded on our working class estate as home brewed beer, vegetable wines and the occasional distilled vodka made out of potatoes that was far closer to paint stripper than anything else. Had to be careful of that last one in case you got a visit from “The man from HM Customs”. This was before their disastrous Brownite merger with the Revenue.
The summers were sunnier and the winters were snowier. That’s what I most remember, along with the first time your dad splashed out and rented (not bought) a colour TV from Radio Rentals.
“One of the things that is quite good about a 1950s meal is paying attention to what you’re eating and stopping when you’re full,” says Gray
Bollocks, we were told to eat it all or no pudding / it will be breakfast / may not leave table / think of starving Africans
For a few weeks in 1960/70s we were so short of money I only had school shoes & slippers. School shoes only for school. When out playing with friends wasn’t mocked. Now ‘the poor’ insist they must have latest ~£100 white trainers
@Arthur the Cat
Yep, veg/fruit was mostly tinned
@DocBud
+1 Coke etc were a rare treat, food mostly potato, peas and meat/offal and we were upper middle class
@dearieme
“soft drinks”: remember Cremola Foam?
Conclusion: Boudicca Fox-Leonard “One of the things that is quite good about a 1950s meal is paying attention to what you’re eating and stopping when you’re full,” says Gray
Bollocks, we were told to eat it all or no pudding / it will be breakfast / may not leave table / think of starving Africans
@Arthur the Cat
Yep, veg/fruit was mostly tinned
@DocBud
+1 Coke etc were a rare treat, food mostly potato, peas and meat/offal and we were upper middle class
@dearieme
“soft drinks”: remember Cremola Foam?
Conclusion: Boudicca Fox-Leonard annihilated for his fantasy land garbage
Lots of similar memories here from a 63 year old. Pcar/Deireme, I have a suspicion Cremola was just Alka Seltzer with a different label.
For some unknown reason ‘Vesta Chow Mein’ came into my head last night. Never had one (couldn’t afford it) but they looked so posh. Oh yeah, Tupperware parties and Fondou nights.
John Galt, I remember my in-laws had a rental telly up to the early 1980’s, with a slot on the back to put the two bob (half a bar later on due to inflation) in. Most frustrating when it went off half way through some high quality BBC light entertainment programme such as Billy Cotton, the black and white minstrel show or the Good Old Days (That might have been a blessing actually).
Lots of similar memories here too (I’m 62 tomorrow)…
I remember being fascinated by the lard melting in the chip pan…
Like others, I didn’t got to a restaurant until I was in my teens – whenever we went out we always took sandwiches.
Holiday was a caravan on Hayling Island with the rain beating down on the roof and the hiss of the gas lights as we played Ludo.
Happy days!
Well, I think you all may enjoy this little song from Richard Digance
https://www.facebook.com/Richard-Digance-Official-1718131295129151/videos/200-remembers-the-richard-digance-podcast/435073140600525/
Mmmmmmm, Cremola Foam was a treat when we visited rellies in Edinburgh, and we stocked up to bring some home. Would all be gone in a week. Ten years later it was one of the benefits of going to university in Stirling.
Sitting on the back step, rhubarb dipped in sugar, scraped knees, little kids for goalposts….
We would have two weeks in self-catering accommodation somewhere along the south coat, Bognor, Hayling Island, Bournemouth and the Isle of Wight. One year mum and dad decided to take us to Bognor Butlin’s, which meant they could only afford a week. We enjoyed ourselves, but us kids felt cheated.
Back in those days, my dad would withdraw all the holiday money as cash. One year, when we were staying at Sandown, he realised as we got off the IoW ferry that he’d left it behind. We all had to wait on Ryde Esplanade while he went back home. Nowadays you’d just load up the credit card.
5% of those between 45 and 54 don’t have a family to eat with anyhow …
I think we were fortunate to have holidays most years. We missed a couple – one when I had tonsillitis and the other when we moved into a bigger house. None abroad of course, unless you class the Isle of Man as foreign. Bognor was a bête noir with my dad as where we were going to stay, and where my grandmother and aunt were joining us, was totally unsuitable. We ended up in a chalet in someone’s garden for a week then moved into a hotel when Grandma turned up. The holiday I most remember from the 50s was a Youth-Hostelling holiday from Totnes down to Plymouth by boat down the Dart, Shank’s pony & buses. We also made liberal use of pre-Beeching railways to get to holiday haunts as we didn’t have a car – didn’t need one living with good bus & train services north of Manchester.
@Addolff
Vesta Chicken Curry was a treat for us in early/mid 70s
When at Uni I loved Vesta Paella
@jgh
No Cremola Foam? Where did you live?
Rhubarb dipped in sugar – yes, We had two Rhubarb crowns
@TG
Isle of Man holiday was first time I was on a plane (iirc 1971, 8yo). I remember dad explaing to me what a ‘turbo prop’ engine was after I asked why it didn’t sound like car, spitfire. Favorite part of hol was the trampoline park near hotel.
Prior to and post most holidays were only in summer: our caravan at Tollymore Forest Park or Castlewellan Forest Park. Hated the smell from the gas lamps
I should have pointed out that my dad’s trip home was by ferry, then train, Portsmouth Harbour to Byfleet and New Haw, followed by a one mile walk to and from home. We were waiting a long time.