Quintin Jardine's blog

Sorry about your disrupted sleep pattern. Your wife should be able to answer the question for herself; it’s there and it should be easy to work out. If not, she’ll have to wait until June 6, for I ain’t saying.

UK Food in the 1950s…
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* Pasta had not been invented.
* Curry was an unknown entity.
* Olive oil was kept in the medicine cabinet
* Spices came from the Middle East where we believed that they were used for embalming
* Herbs were used to make rather dodgy medicine.
* A takeaway was a mathematical problem.
* A pizza was something to do with a leaning tower.
* Bananas and oranges only appeared at Christmas time.
* The only vegetables known to us were spuds, peas, carrots and cabbage, anything else was regarded as being a bit suspicious.
* All crisps were plain; the only choice we had was whether to put the salt on or not.
* Condiments consisted of salt, pepper, vinegar and brown sauce if we were lucky.
* Soft drinks were called pop or fizzy drinks.
* Coke was something that we mixed with coal to make it last longer.
* 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.
* A Pizza Hut was an Italian shed.
* A microwave was something out of a science fiction movie.
* Brown bread was something only poor people ate.
* Oil was for lubricating your bike not for cooking, fat was for cooking
* Bread and jam was a treat.
* Tea was made in a teapot using tea leaves, not bags.
* The tea cosy was the forerunner of all the energy saving devices that we hear so much about today.
* Tea had only one colour, black. Green tea was not British.
* Coffee was only drunk when we had no tea….. and then it was Camp, and came in a bottle.
* Cubed sugar was regarded as posh.
* Figs and dates appeared every Christmas, but n! o one ev er ate them.
* Sweets and confectionery were called toffees.
* Coconuts only appeared when the fair came to town.
* Black puddings were mined in Bury Lancashire.
* Jellied eels were peculiar to Londoners.
* Salad cream was a dressing for salads, mayonnaise did not exist
* Hors d\’oeuvre was a spelling mistake.
* The starter was our main meal.
* Soup was a main meal.
* The menu consisted of what we were given, and was set in stone.
* Only Heinz made beans, any others were impostors.
* Leftovers went to the dog.
* Special food for dogs and cats was unheard of.
* Sauce was either brown or red.
* Fish was only eaten on Fridays.
* Fish didn\’t have fingers in those days.
* Eating raw fish was called poverty, not sushi.
* Ready meals only came from the fish and chip shop.
* For the best taste fish and chips had to be eaten out of old newspapers.
* Frozen food was called ice cream.
* Nothing ever went off in the fridge because we never had one.
* Ice cream only came in one colour and one flavour.
* None of us had ever heard of yoghurt.
* Jelly and blancmange was only eaten at parties.
* If we said that we were on a diet, we simply got less.
* Healthy food consisted of anything edible.
* Healthy food had to have the ability to stick to your ribs.
* The only criteria concerning the food that we ate were … did we like it and could we afford it.
* People who didn\’t peel potatoes were regarded as lazy so and so’s.
* Indian restaurants were only found in India .
* A seven course meal had to last a week.
* Brunch was not a meal.
* Cheese only came in a hard lump.
* If we had eaten bacon lettuce and tomato in the same sandwich we would have been certified.
* A bun was a small cake back then.
* A tart was a fruit filled pastry, not a lady of horizontal pleasure.
* The word \”Barbie\” was a lady’s name! , not as sociated with anything to do with food.
* Eating outside was called a picnic.
* Cooking outside was called camping.
* Seaweed was not a recognised food.
* Offal was only eaten when we could afford it.
* Eggs only came fried or boiled.
* Hot cross buns were only eaten at Easter time.
* Pancakes were only eaten on Pancake Tuesday – in fact in those days it was compulsory.
* \”Kebab\” was not even a word never mind a food.
* Hot dogs were a type of sausage that only the Americans ate.
* Cornflakes had arrived from America but it was obvious that they would never catch on.
* The phrase \”boil in the bag\” would have been beyond our realms of comprehension.
* The idea of \”oven chips\” would not have made any sense at all to us.
* The world had not yet benefited from weird and wonderful things like Pot Noodles, Instant Mash and Pop Tarts.
* We bought milk and cream at the same time in the same bottle.
* Sugar enjoyed a good press in those days, and was regarded as being white gold.
* Lettuce and tomatoes in winter were just a rumour.
* Most soft fruits were seasonal except perhaps at Christmas.
* Prunes were medicinal.
* Surprisingly muesli was readily available in those days, it was called cattle feed.
* Turkeys were definitely seasonal.
* Pineapples came in chunks in a tin; we had only ever seen a picture of a real one.
* We didn\’t eat Croissants in those days because we couldn\’t pronounce them, we couldn\’t spell them and we didn\’t know what they were.
* We thought that Baguettes were a serious problem the French needed to deal with.
* Garlic was used to ward off vampires, but never used to flavour bread.
* Water came out of the tap, if someone had suggested bottling it and charging treble for it, they would have become a laughing stock.
* Food hygiene was all about washing your hands before meals.
* Campylobacter, Salmonella, E.coli, Listeria,! and Bot ulism were all called \”food poisoning.\”
* The one thing that we never ever had on our table in the fifties … elbows.

Thanks for those Fiona, I post them for general comment. Many of those match my recollection, but where I grew up, ‘pop’ and ‘fizzy drinks’ were called ‘ginger’. Also we must have been posh, because we had sprouts too, and jelly quite a lot.

A reminder. for all those interested, of the 2013 publication schedule: Funeral Note, in mass market paperback, and Deadly Business (primavera 4) in hardback and trade paperback, both publish on January 31. Pray for the Dying, the eagerly-awaited Skinner 23, is out on June 6, again in hardback and trade versions. Signed copies can be pre-ordered though Campbell Read Books, via the link on this page.