# Oh To Be Back In The Fifties



## David H (Feb 20, 2013)

*Food in the 1950's*

*1.* Pasta had not been invented and was a spelling mistake

*2.* Curry was a surname.

*3.* Olive oil was kept in the medicine cabinet.

*4.* Spices came from the Middle East where they were used for embalming.

*5.* Herbs were used to make rather dodgy medicine.

*6.* A takeaway was a mathematical problem.

*7.* A pizza was something to do with a leaning tower.

*8.* Bananas and oranges only appeared at Christmas time.

*9.* The only vegetables known to us were spuds, peas, carrots, onions and cabbage (and even onions weren’t regarded as proper vegetables)

*10.* All crisps were plain; the only choice we had was whether to put the salt on or not.

*11. *Condiments consisted of salt, pepper, vinegar,  brown sauce if we were lucky and there was only one type of mustard.

*12.* Soft drinks were called minerals.

*13.* Coke was something that we put on the fire.

*14.* A Chinese chippy could only have been a foreign carpenter.

*15.* Rice was a milk pudding, and never, ever part of our dinner.

*16.* A Big Mac was what we wore when it was raining.

*17.* A Pizza Hut was an Italian’s shed.

*18.* A microwave was something out of a science fiction movie.

*19.* Brown bread was something only poor people ate.

*20.* Oil was for lubricating, fat was for cooking

*21.* Bread and jam was a treat.

*22.* Tea was made in a teapot using tea leaves and never green.

*23.* Coffee was Camp, and came in a bottle.

*24.* Cubed sugar was regarded as posh.

*25.* Figs and dates appeared every Christmas, but no one ever ate them.

*26.* Coconuts only appeared when the fair came to town.

*27* Jellied eels were peculiar to Londoners.

*28.* Salad cream was a dressing for salads, mayonnaise did not exist.

*29.* Hors d'oeuvre was a spelling mistake.

*30.* The starter was our main meal. Soup was a main meal.

*31.* Only Heinz made beans.

*32.* Leftovers went in the dog.

*33.* Special food for dogs and cats was unheard of.

*34.* Fish was only eaten on Fridays.

*35.* Fish didn't have fingers in those days.

*36.* Eating raw fish was called poverty, not sushi.

*37.* Ready meals only came from the fish and chip shop.

*38.* For the best taste fish and chips had to be eaten out of old newspapers.

*39.* Frozen food was called ice cream.

*40.* Nothing ever went off in the fridge because we never had one.

*41.* Ice cream only came in one colour and one flavour.

*42.* None of us had ever heard of yoghurt.

*43.* Jelly and blancmange was only eaten at parties.

*44. *If we said that we were on a diet, we simply got less.

*45.* Healthy food consisted of anything edible.

*46.* People who didn't peel potatoes were regarded as lazy.

*47.* Indian restaurants were only found in India .

*48.* Brunch was not a meal.

*49.* If we had eaten bacon lettuce and tomato in the same sandwich we would have been certified.

*50.* A bun was a small cake back then.

*51.* The word" Barbie" was not associated with anything to do with food.

*52.* Eating outside was a picnic.

*53.* Cooking outside was called camping.

*54.* Seaweed was not a recognised food.

*55.* Pancakes were only eaten on Pancake Tuesday.

*56.* "Kebab" was not even a word never mind a food.

*57.* Hot dogs were a type of sausage that only the Americans ate.

*58.* Cornflakes had arrived from America but it was obvious they would never catch on.

*59. *The phrase "boil in the bag" would have been beyond comprehension.

*60.* The idea of "oven chips" would not have made any sense at all to us.

*61.* The world had not heard of Pot Noodles, Instant Mash and Pop Tarts.

*62.* Sugar enjoyed a good press in those days, and was regarded as being white gold.

*63.* Lettuce and tomatoes in winter were only found abroad.

*64.* Prunes were medicinal.

*65.* Surprisingly muesli was readily available in those days, it was called cattle feed.

*66.* Turkeys were definitely seasonal.

*67.* Pineapples came in chunks in a tin; we had only ever seen a picture of a real one.

*68.* We never heard of Croissants we certainly couldn't pronounce it,

*69.* We thought that Baguettes were a problem the French needed to deal with.

*70.* Garlic was used to ward off vampires, but never used to flavour food.

*71.* 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.

*72.* Food hygiene was all about washing your hands before meals.

*73.* Campylobacter, Salmonella, E.coli, Listeria, and Botulism were all just called "food poisoning” and nothing to do with kitchens or food production methods

*74.* Peaches came in a tin with syrup:  if you were still hungry you were given some bread and butter to mop it up with and reminded about the starving Chinese.

*75.* You were expected to eat everything and ask permission to get down from the table.

*76.* Monday’s “tea” was Sunday’s leftovers made into something else.

*77.* Fresh cream was unheard of but might appear once a week with the bakery delivery, along with vanilla slices (which contained custard)

*78.* skimmed milk would have been thought of as a heinous crime and a farmer’s way of thieving

*79.* The one thing that we never ever had on our table in the fifties …. *elbows.*

__________

*Love No. 65 & 71*


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## Caroline (Feb 20, 2013)

I had a conversation with my mum and then one of my aunties quite recently. ANother thing I would add is you hat to wait for your black and white photes to be precessed and a memory card was something you used when revising for exams


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## David H (Feb 20, 2013)

Caroline said:


> I had a conversation with my mum and then one of my aunties quite recently. ANother thing I would add is you hat to wait for your black and white photes to be precessed and a memory card was something you used when revising for exams



Good ones.


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## AlisonM (Feb 20, 2013)

Hah, I remember when we returned from a posting Cyprus in 1959 my gran saying I hear you like pineapple as she put a bowl of something in front of me. "There you go lassie, enjoy" she said. Apparently the look of horror on my face as I had my first taste of the syrupy nastiness was hysterically funny. We had been used to crossing the road and cutting a fresh one from the landlord's field whenever the mood struck so my three year old self had never encountered the tinned version. Needless to say I was scarred for life and still avoid tinned fruit at all costs.


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## Caroline (Feb 20, 2013)

My friend sent me some patterns from the 50's that I am having a go at knitting them up. They look quite in keeping with some of the stuff about now and I have the pleasure of having knitted them myself.


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## fencesitter (Feb 20, 2013)

My in laws had a bottle of olive oil in their bathroom, never used it in the kitchen. When I was cooking them a meal and grinding on the black pepper, my FIL said "What is that exotic spice?"  They died about ten years ago now, we do miss them. They were real Edwardians - Martin's mum was over 40 when he was born, and her father was in his sixties when she was born!! Long generations - so Martin's grandfather's year of birth was, amazingly, 1853, and he would have been 102 if he'd lived to see his grandson


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## caffeine_demon (Feb 20, 2013)

I can vaguely remember seeing "minerals" listed on some cafe menus!
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"Hah, I remember when we returned from a posting Cyprus in 1959 my gran saying I hear you like pineapple as she put a bowl of something in front of me. "There you go lassie, enjoy" she said. Apparently the look of horror on my face as I had my first taste of the syrupy nastiness was hysterically funny. We had been used to crossing the road and cutting a fresh one from the landlord's field whenever the mood struck so my three year old self had never encountered the tinned version. Needless to say I was scarred for life and still avoid tinned fruit at all costs."
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I can remember the first time I saw fresh pineapple after only having seen it in tins!


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## FM001 (Feb 20, 2013)

Many are so true, where did it all go wrong


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## Hazel (Feb 20, 2013)

thanks for posting - now feeling VERY old, cos I can relate to them


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## trophywench (Feb 21, 2013)

Caroline, a young good looking chap called Roger Moore used to model knitwear for Paton and Baldwins patterns.  Maybe brandishing a pipe in one hand ......  maybe posed with a bicycle, or a 5-bar gate ......  Looked quite dashing in his woolly pullies !  (with flannels and brogues)

Well Spaghetti grew on trees.  I know this for an absolute FACT, because it was on the BBC TV 6 o'clock News, with Richard Dimbleby visiting the farmer that grew it.  Ergo it was TRUE.

I don't think we (me and my sister) thought it sounded or looked right, but we didn't know for a fact how it DID really grow ....

(Just happened to be the 1st April.)


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## robert@fm (Feb 22, 2013)

As is often the case with these lists, a lot of the items are wrong:

2 and 47: Indian food, and restaurants, came to Britain as a result of the British Raj of the 19th century. Indian restaurants may have been rare in the 1950s, but they weren't unknown; my local Indian, the Maharani in Clapham High Street, opened in 1958. I suspect a similar timeline is probably true of Chinese and Italian.

28: Actually, mayonnaise is _far_ older than salad cream; Heinz wanted to create a non-thixotropic (one which could be poured instead of spooned or squeezed) version. It's called "salad cream" because when Heinz came to market it, they found that because it isn't thixotropic they couldn't legally call it "mayonnaise"; hence they called it "salad cream" for want of a better name.

32 and 76 contradict each other. 

36: Raw fish isn't called "sushi" today either; it's called "sashimi".  "Sushi" is vinagared rice, and need not involve any kind of fish.

Some of them are true, however; I remember when the first kebabs came to chip shops, around 1976 or 1977, and they never had that revolting chili sauce as an option back then.  McDonalds arrived a year or two earlier, and were a revelation; miles better than Wimpy hamburgers (which had to improve sharpish) or those meat-flavoured slices of cork tile served up at roadside stands.


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## Austin Mini (Feb 22, 2013)

Back in the '50s, Olive Oil was Popeyes girlfriend.


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## David H (Feb 23, 2013)

Austin Mini said:


> Back in the '50s, Olive Oil was Popeyes girlfriend.



That one should be on the list! LOL


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## LeeLee (Feb 23, 2013)

21. Bread and jam... 
Mu Mum grew up in the War, so despite it being the 70s we were given bread/butter/sugar sandwiches as a treat.

64. Prunes...
My Dad was disabled and had trouble keeping regular so he ate half a bag of prunes every night.


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## HOBIE (Feb 23, 2013)

Class !!   No six my fav


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