But oh those lonely nights .........

Scarlett123

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Apr 30, 2013
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Essex
How about toasting crumpets at an open fire with a long metal toasting fork and roasting hands at the same time! But then the pleasure of smothering them with dripping! Would we do that now in this fat conscious world?? My mother loved a 'delicacy' called chittlings or chitterlings - literally pig's intestines - which, thankfully, no one else in the family developed a taste for, so that was her treat to herself. Lucky her! Ah memories

Chitterlings - they were yummy! I still have food fancies from yesteryear. For example, if I have a lamb shank (pre-cooked, sold with a divine rosemary sauce, and microwaved for 5 minutes :D), then I have to suck the marrow fat out the bones.

Similarly, I cook a chicken most weeks, portion it, and freeze the cooked portions, then I only have to defrost a portion at night for the next day. But when I've sliced away most of the meat, I then tie a tea towel round my neck, and have a lovely half hour, sucking the meat from the carcass. :D:D:D

I like all the bits of whatsit that hide in the cavities, and every so often, I throw a piece of chicken to Billy, who patiently waits for this largesse. Then, when I think I've got every morsel of meat from the bones, I suck them all over again - just in case. ;) If they include the giblets, I boil these, and give the heart, lungs and liver to Billy, but I adore the neck. And the turkey neck is divine.

The only way to eat crumpets, is to smother them with butter, so that as you bite into them, the butter trickles down your chin. :) And my Mum too had special days for special jobs. I think most Mums did. And if we had beef on a Sunday, then it was served cold for Monday, and minced for Shepherds Pie on Tuesday, but Monday's "tea" for me, when I came home from school, was doorstep bread, spread with dripping and jelly from the beef, and sprinkled with salt. Heaven. :D
 

Alicenutter

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Aug 29, 2015
562
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Massachusetts USA
Chitterlings - they were yummy! I still have food fancies from yesteryear. For example, if I have a lamb shank (pre-cooked, sold with a divine rosemary sauce, and microwaved for 5 minutes :D), then I have to suck the marrow fat out the bones.

Similarly, I cook a chicken most weeks, portion it, and freeze the cooked portions, then I only have to defrost a portion at night for the next day. But when I've sliced away most of the meat, I then tie a tea towel round my neck, and have a lovely half hour, sucking the meat from the carcass. :D:D:D

I like all the bits of whatsit that hide in the cavities, and every so often, I throw a piece of chicken to Billy, who patiently waits for this largesse. Then, when I think I've got every morsel of meat from the bones, I suck them all over again - just in case. ;) If they include the giblets, I boil these, and give the heart, lungs and liver to Billy, but I adore the neck. And the turkey neck is divine.

The only way to eat crumpets, is to smother them with butter, so that as you bite into them, the butter trickles down your chin. :) And my Mum too had special days for special jobs. I think most Mums did. And if we had beef on a Sunday, then it was served cold for Monday, and minced for Shepherds Pie on Tuesday, but Monday's "tea" for me, when I came home from school, was doorstep bread, spread with dripping and jelly from the beef, and sprinkled with salt. Heaven. :D

Oh my goodness Scarlett! I agree with everything you say!
 

Scarlett123

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Apr 30, 2013
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Essex
Oh my goodness Scarlett! I agree with everything you say!

Oh and I also loved the real lemonade that the lady next door made. Do you know, I can close my eyes, and see that lovely doorstep, on a white plate, crisscrossed with faint cracked lines, through constant use, with blue rings round it. It was a Monday, and my Mum was in a state of heightened excitement, because she'd been to the Oil, Coke and Gas Company, in Burdett Road (East End), and bought a new boiler, and a "wringer", that was, apparently, not such hard work as "the mangle".

I think the rollers were made of rubber, instead of wood. To think of the easy labour-saving devices that we now have, and there was my Mum, beaming :D, because she had also "treated" herself to some new tongs, to fish the washing out the boiler. :eek:

Dad was a window cleaner, and worked long hours, in all weathers, cycling to St John's Wood, at 6 every morning, with his ladder over his shoulder, because it was only in the West End that people could afford to pay to have their windows cleaned. He'd had a good few weeks, and had acquired some new customers, including Googie Withers, and Sir John McCallum, who were actors "back in the day", hence the extra money to make Monday washday more pleasurable.

Mum and Dad would never have anything on hire purchase, and money was carefully saved, until things could be bought. I can see myself, sitting in front of the fire, with the fireguard surrounding it, and the clothes horse festooned with washing, and me trying to find a little gap, so that I could feel some fire on my legs! But oh! - that beef dripping and jelly was divine, and could not have tasted better than the Ambrosia served to The Gods. :)
 

Sasky

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Jan 29, 2014
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Ashford, Kent
Oh Scarlett you take me back. I also remember on a Sunday in London a cart coming round selling prawns, cockles and other seafood. Some things in the old days were so so good
 

Scarlett123

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Apr 30, 2013
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Essex
Oh Scarlett you take me back. I also remember on a Sunday in London a cart coming round selling prawns, cockles and other seafood. Some things in the old days were so so good

Oh and the okey cokey man, selling icecream from a tin cart thing, that was attached to his bicycle! If we went to Dad's sister, in Hoxton, we always had winkles for tea on a Sunday. She would get out the "best" tea set, and beside each plate, was an old, but beautifully darned, napkin, and placed, diagonally, across the napkin was ..... your own pin. :)

There would be brown bread and butter, and a bowl of radishes, and as you say, other seafood, like whelks, which I hated! I find that as I get older, I get more and more nostalgic, which I suppose is a sign of getting older. :)

Thinking about the roast beef and the dripping (I've been dreaming about it all day!), I remember that one of my jobs was to help operate the mincer, on a Tuesday. My Mum would clamp the mincer to the table, put some cold beef in the top, and then you'd turn the handle for ages. Then she'd do some of the handle turning, and then someone else.

But the best bit, oh it was heaven, was that when she dismantled the mincer, prior to washing it, I had to poke out the bits of beef that were stuck in the holes - and I could eat them! I wonder if our grandchildren will nostalgically reminisce, in 60 years time, about the way you went to fast food shops, and ate, on the hoof, all day.

Because no doubt by then, we won't have food as we know it now - just a tablet. :(
 
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Kjn

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Jul 27, 2013
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Lovely to read your memories , I love tales from past.
My gran loved whelks , I hate them and found I'm actually allergic to shellfish as is my brother .
my gran used to steal coal of the railway line to keep them warm :D
 

truth24

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Oct 13, 2013
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North Somerset
Ooh, naughty, Kim. My maternal grandfather worked on the railways too so probably did the same thing. How about junket, Scarlett, and do people still make blancmange? Stuffed hearts were another favourite and many a time my mum would come home to find teethmarks on the cheese - Cheddar of course, as it's only a few miles down the road! The memories are endless when you start delvIng! BUT, and a big BUT, we were never allowed to eat in public, even a sweet when they came off rationing, let alone fish and chips or similar. They had to be wrapped in newspaper and taken home to be eaten. Let alone smoke in the street in the days when I did. Still feel guilty if I occasionally have a nibble at a choc bar or somesuch if I've missed lunch and am out and about. Some things are obviously so ingrained that they will be with me for ever!
 

Sasky

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Jan 29, 2014
103
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Ashford, Kent
Do you remember shops used to sell broken biscuits cheap. Now we pay full price.

I lived in North London, it is so very very different now and not for the better either
 

Spamar

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Oct 5, 2013
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Suffolk
Oh, memories!
Love junket, still have it occasionally. Stuffed hearts,mmmm! I lived in Leicester for a time, broken biscuits from the market a must for eking out student grant! Plus shops that sold ends of materials, made a lot of my clothes in those days. Skirt for 9d, suit for 1/3d, for instance! Things seemed so much less complicated 50 years ago!
 

stanleypj

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Dec 8, 2011
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On our way to school, after crossing our nearest bombsite (!), there was a blacksmith's and we were fascinated by all the fire, the massive and noisy sparks, the patient horses and the fact that with all the fire around no-one seemed to get hurt. This may have had been responsible for the fact that both my brothers developed pyromaniac tendencies. :(
 

nitram

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Apr 6, 2011
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Bury
"When I saw "Oklahoma", I remembered the line "with isinglass curtains you could roll right down .... in case there's a change in the weather". When I was in it, in 1966, nobody knew what "isinglass curtains" were. So was it a fabric that you put over your eggs?"

No, it was a fish gelatin used to seal the porous eggshell, you could also use water glass (Sodium Silicate) but isinglass was cheaper and water glass had to be handled with care.

You can still get water glass
http://www.amazon.co.uk/500ml-Water-Sodium-silicate-liquid/dp/B00BVZ66JC
but now-a-days it is mainly used for sealing concrete or cast iron blocks but 'Food preservation' is listed in the uses.

I've just looked up 'isinglass curtains' and the best I can come up with is either curtains made with some transparent flexible material or fabric curtains with holes which are filled with a transparent flexible material.
 

Scarlett123

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Apr 30, 2013
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Essex
Thank you nitram. Every day I learn something new. :) You're quite right Verity, regarding eating in public. You just didn't do it, unless you were at a fun fair and had candy floss, or the seaside, and had an icecream.

Stanley, I too played on bomb sites, and there were loads in the East End to choose from. I remember when one site was cleared, and real grass laid (!!), and it was called the King George V1 Playing Fields. Oh the excitement of having somewhere to play ball. We all only had a back yard, which was miniscule, and Victoria Park was over an hour's walk away.

Stuffed hearts - heaven! And no Birthday Party was complete without blancmange and jelly. :) Because these things were treats, they were revered. Nowadays, we all have chicken whenever, but years ago, it was something special.
 

disi

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Aug 4, 2014
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Ex pat living in Sweden
Ooh, naughty, Kim. My maternal grandfather worked on the railways too so probably did the same thing. How about junket, Scarlett, and do people still make blancmange? Stuffed hearts were another favourite and many a time my mum would come home to find teethmarks on the cheese - Cheddar of course, as it's only a few miles down the road! The memories are endless when you start delvIng! BUT, and a big BUT, we were never allowed to eat in public, even a sweet when they came off rationing, let alone fish and chips or similar. They had to be wrapped in newspaper and taken home to be eaten. Let alone smoke in the street in the days when I did. Still feel guilty if I occasionally have a nibble at a choc bar or somesuch if I've missed lunch and am out and about. Some things are obviously so ingrained that they will be with me for ever!

Love hearing about the good old days. I was never aloud to eat in public also. Loved junket, blancmange and jelly, but only on special occasions, like a birthday party. When I visited my Grandma, she made wonderful egg and cress sandwiches and made lovely pastry. Fish and chips wasn't the same if it wasn't in newspaper. I also love stuffed hearts and kidneys . I asked the butcher here in the village if he could get me some lamb kidneys, he looked at me very oddly and said we don't sell them, I was quite upset :eek:
I also remember when paying in a certain food shop the money went into a machine and then on rails to a woman sitting in a room high up and she would put the change into the cup and down it would come. As a small child I thought this was magic.
 

truth24

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Oct 13, 2013
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North Somerset
Wow, disi, I remember that too and it went on for quite a while, probably late 50s, early 60s. Gosh, Scarlett, this thread is now making me realise just how old I am
 

Scarlett123

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Apr 30, 2013
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Essex
Love hearing about the good old days. I was never aloud to eat in public also. Loved junket, blancmange and jelly, but only on special occasions, like a birthday party. When I visited my Grandma, she made wonderful egg and cress sandwiches and made lovely pastry. Fish and chips wasn't the same if it wasn't in newspaper. I also love stuffed hearts and kidneys . I asked the butcher here in the village if he could get me some lamb kidneys, he looked at me very oddly and said we don't sell them, I was quite upset :eek:
I also remember when paying in a certain food shop the money went into a machine and then on rails to a woman sitting in a room high up and she would put the change into the cup and down it would come. As a small child I thought this was magic.

What on earth does the butcher do with the kidneys then? It's not as if the modern day lamb doesn't have any!!!! Oh, egg and cress sandwiches! Yummy yum yum! When we lived in Gants Hill, there was an old fashioned drapers called Fairheads, and when we first moved there, in 1971, the money was whizzed round on one of those rail thingies too.

And you're quite right. Fish and chips is not right, unless it's eaten out of newspaper. :) My Grandpa, who lived with us, was a fishmonger, and from 1910 till the late 1930s, had a fish and chip shop, with a wet fish stall outside.

When I was a child, he always cooked fish and chips at home, at least once a week, buying the fish from Izzy Ginger, who had a stall in Burdett Road (how come I can remember all this, like it was yesterday?), and though the adults had theirs on a plate, the children's was wrapped in newspaper. :)

When he stopped doing this, as he wasn't safe round the hot oil, we bought the fish and chips from the shop, 6 doors away. I would be sent for it, and my treat was a penn'orth of crackling. :D These were the bits of batter that escaped from the fish, or the odd tiny chip, and were skimmed off with a basket, and put at the side of the fryer.

And a wally (pickled cucumber) and a roe! How I adored roe. :) I remember moaning about something, and my Dad berating me and telling me that when he was a child (his Mum was left with 6 children, after his Dad was killed in WW1), that sometimes, all they had to eat was the crackling, and day-old bread, which the baker put in a pillowcase that his Mum had provided.

And when my kids wouldn't eat their braised heart, or ox tail, I too berated them, telling them that children starving in Africa would be grateful for these lovey meals!
 

Izzy

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Haven't read all the posts so sorry if this has been mentioned already. I loved the wet fish shops which had the water cascading down the window. :)
 

Scarlett123

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Apr 30, 2013
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Essex
Lovely to read your memories , I love tales from past.
My gran loved whelks , I hate them and found I'm actually allergic to shellfish as is my brother .
my gran used to steal coal of the railway line to keep them warm :D

I don't think there will be a retrospective prison sentence ;)