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Sales of Fray Bentos steak pies and Bisto are up. Ahhh, Bisto, pass the gravy boat. You shouldn’t be sniffy about it. In toxic times we reach for the consolation of the breast, get over it.
My mother of yesteryear would often bake pies for us. All from scratch of course, (never EVER Fray Bentos) not even jus-rol pastry.
Steak, apple, you name it; mince rounds…
Man walks into the butchers….
“Can I have a mince round?”
“Yes, but we’re closing in 20 minutes.”
Anyway, were we happy? Were we buggery.
We wanted the new fangled pizza pies, Dream Topping, Instant Whip, Cremola Foam, Kia Ora, and Irn Bru.
That’s right, shock horror, we were allowed fizzy drinks, diluting drinks, cremola foam, and frozen florida orange concentrate, the lot; all at the same time.
It was never either or.
Same with biscuits; there was no biscuit hierarchy in our house, everything was fair game.
We had a breakfast, lunch at school, and a compulsory carnivorous evening meal at the big table and no mucking about with your cutlery. We were never thinner or fitter.
We had no teeth right enough, but so what, the dentist was a sadist, everyone said so, even his poor wife.
Can’t remember my point, oh yes, no it’s gone, sorry.
The Florida orange came frozen in a tubular thing. This was pre ringpull so I can't remember how it opened, anyway, Mater would put it in a big glass jug with water, to dilute and thaw it out for us. It was a treat.
We didn't like it , we thought it was shit. "Is there any pineappleade left?" we would moan.
Still can't remember the point, sorry.
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25 comments:
It was a cardboard tubular thing that unrolled. You were left with a flattened laminate snake. This has been the story of my life.
We always wanted Angel Delight, because on the adverts and the packets, each serving gave you this huge brandy glass full, with a whipped spiral emerging from the top.
And yet, the reality, on the "Serves 6" packet was a teaspoon's worth each.
Did your mum ever make blancmange? Mine would create it in a bunny rabbit mould and put in 2 currents for the eyes
And Ribena. Courtesy of Ribena and my parents thinking a toothbrush should last from toddler-hood to late teens the back of my mouth was the the negative match of Jaws from the James Bond films.
It took all the money the educational system could throw at me to help me work out Dream Topping wasn't even on the same evolutionary tree as real cream but was in fact the main output of an ICI factory in Crewe.
And if I ever have to eat mince and onion again with gravy the consistency of dirty dishwater ...
The trick with Irn Bru is to keep drinking it throughout life. If you ever leave off you can't go back, it's too disgusting.
Cremola foam OTOH I remember as the drink of the gods.
Irn Bru.. it still cures all. Hangovers, thirst, snakebite, and just recently verrucas on the oul dog. May your god have mercy if you're seen buying anything other than Barr's in the glass bottle.
As for the biscuit heirarchy, it's a rammie you're after if your mucky paws are touching my figgies afore me.
Scotch pies - my husband still drools about them and rubbery Scotch pancakes, scones, crumpets and all things bad for cholesterol count.
I used to make junket for the kids - Angel Delight when I felt lazy.
i'd tell all ya'll about the delicacies of mah childhood, but they'd be as foreign to all ya'll as these are to me..and probably just as bad for ya! xoxox
Clarissa! You're right!
It was like a toilet roll tube with metal caps on the end! My God.
Don't worry yourself, I'm sure a bit of gentle snake charming would put the animation back in the flattest of snakes, truly.
Kim she did make blancmange but in an ordinary jelly mould, not a "bunny" rabbit one. We are working class you see. We had to be toughened up for the mill. Butterscotch Angel Delight. I remember that and arctic roll.
ninetyninewords, of course it wasn't cream, that's why it tasted so good. Just think of the effort those chemists put into it to make it creamy good and here you are turning your nose up at it. Real cream comes out of a gland on some animal's nethers. I know which I prefer.
Wasn't it though, Inky? We boys used to take it camping along with Vesta curries. Can you imagine; beef curry, cremola foam and a camp fire? Happy as pigs in shit we were.
If we were given any carbonated soft drink that was not Barr's in a glass bottle, for example, Alpine, or Dunn and Moore, we would spit it out on the ground. All biscuits were fine except wagonwheels which were suspect. Wagonwheels had anti chocolate tendencies.
Club Orange were a good bet with me.
Scotch pies are different now. I know, I know Pat. It's a Godamn crime. They used to have a solid mass of grey indeterminate meat in them that had formed...had formed...what? An alien solid mass. Now they are all granular. Something to do with scrapie and BSE I think. Either that or Jamie bloody Oliver.
I remember chocolate mousse. It came in little plastic containers. We'd keep the containers; mix up some orange squash; pour the squash in the containers; add a spoon; put them in the ice-box and make lollies.
Then suck.
Sx
Sorry Jimmy, the comment about the Club Orange was in reply to you, I missed out your name in error.
Savannah, was it grits and T bone steaks and Hershey Bars and stuff like that? Don't leave us hanging. The recession is here and America is the cause of it so the least you can do is redeem yourself by naming names. I bet we had them here as well. Did you have Kit Kats for instance? Before Nestle took them over and RUINED them?
Scarlet, you tried and you tried but you just couldn't help yourself.
So anyway, did you find that the fruit juice segregated upon freezing or are you still laughing too much to care?
I'm having an MM in your honour.
Cheers,
Ax
Ahh now, I'm used to being overlooked. It's what comes of being born after the first eight or so siblings.
There was no stopping my fayther after he stole that oul bike from the GPO.
Orange Squash, Dr Maroon, not fruit juice.
We tried freezing vodka, but it didn't work...
Sx
Fry's Chocolate Cream, but also Fry's Peppermint Cream, Fry's Five Centres and particularly Fry's Orange Cream, which is still available, although only in selected confectioners.
In 1968 I bought a plain chocolate Flake from a little kiosk in Skelhorne Street, Liverpool. Although I sound as if I have never left Guildford, I am a native of Merseyside and thoroughly ashamed of it. The Flake was in a red foil wrapper, and no-one else in the world has ever admitted to sharing this experience. Luckily, I stuck the wrapper in a scrapbook, along with some bus-tickets, a few flattened-out fag packets of my grandfather's and a postcard from Spain. Therefore, I have proof.
i remember when mom cheaped out and bought sunny delight, instead of orange juice.. you'd have thought someone took a whip to us.
she often did that as well, but not over fruit juice.
kraft macaroni & cheese - the cheese came in a small container in the box of noodles.
t-bone steaks? are ya'll kiddin me?
grits, oatmeal, farina (wtf was that?), cream of wheat and some other grain that i have purposely blocked from my memory *shiver*
my grandma used to buy a tin of meat from argentina, some sort of corned beef in a can...i think they still sell it...i swear i don't know how i'm not dead, sugar.
oh wait...tang...i mean. REALLY?
yeah, and swanson tv dinners...christ almighty!
as to kit kats, i was an adult before i had one of those in london, in fact...they are rubbish now, you're right.
xoxox
(so, have i redeemed mahself, sugar?)
ohmygawd...it was malt-o-meal
thanks for bringing back THAT memory, darlin :(
Was it a BSA Bantam Jimmy? Ex GPO Bantams could be had very cheap I remember. Clouds of blue smoke. Such fun.
Vodka lowers the freezing temperature Scarlet. In a good freezer, you can make it smoke in the glass, but hey I'm talking to the converted arn't I?
Ax
Clarissa, a plain chocolate flake? It sounds an obscenity, and yet in your hands an obscenity in a very very very good way.
Only the crumbliest flakiest chocholate, tastes like chocholate never tasted before...
I should live so long, Oish.
What the hell's wrong with sunny D Sarah. Our brave fighting men in Iraq and Afganistan were raised on it. Britain's hardy sons, every one of them. I think it's what makes them so aggressive, sorry effective.
Malt o meal? Is that like ready-brek, the radioactive breakfast for kids?
Kraft cheesy pasta, still available. It's all Mrs Maroon can manage with a hangover. Staying in Scotland we are big meat eaters so chops and steaks and stew and mince were the order of the day. I'm a steak expert since I had one, once a week for years. Because I was little I got an entrecote [sp?] steak wich is a fancy name for a small sirloin steak. And what's wrong with corned beef? I still eat that by the tin load and look at me.
Merciful god.. I think it was a Bantam. I remember the feathers flying anyhow, and the priest putting out his hand for a wee drap after returning it on the oul fellas behalf.
It was another 7 years before the postie would do more than leave the letters in the coal hole after the oul man cuffed him for his squawking to the polis.
The whole kerfuffle started over Bridey McSweeney from the village, and her awfy turnip mash.
I've remembered the point, Doctor.
The point is that in a recession, people buy BRANDS. Not particularly good brands, it's true, but brands nevertheless. So, as you say, we are seeing Bisto, Bovril and (probably) Bontempi boom. It's all in the psyche, you see.
However, typically, this has disintegrated into an I-Remember-Spangles type shtik which - although enjoyable- is lazy posting. I urge you to drag the discourse to a higher level. If not, someone is bound to mention Horniman's Dividend Tea, which is not the tea the monkeys drink.
Clarissa, how right you are: it is masturbation at its most base.
Forgive me.
Jimmy Bastard, what, for the love of Christ, is "turnip mash"?
Oh and Clarissa, I am sorry I said "nor I" when it should of been "nor me". There is a touch of the sadist in me and I thrill sometimes at setting your teeth on edge. Sorry.
Right, I'm off for a Midland.
Dr Maroon, neep mash was the backbone of the fighting man in every Scottish hamlet across the West coast.
God have mercy.. if you're not au fait with the tatties and the neep mash, you must have been born monied or lived in Milngavie on top the hillside.
sir, i was speaking of meat from a tin! literally and i am only guessing it was corned beef! anyway, i think a post on things remembered is a worthy idea that i shall endeavor to emulate at some date in the future.
thank you for the inspiration, if not the tutorial (in the american sense) on mystery meats.
i remain, szaw
Sav I know corned beef comes from a tin. How else would it get like that?
Anyway, only Kim (and not even him actually) and Pouncer, got the fact that;
a)we were fed better but hankered after rubbish
b)in times of crisis we cling to the familiar.
maroon, you're wrong, tis the whippings they got that made them aggressive, err effective. ask anyone. i was there. we all were.
sunny d is full of brominated vegetable oil.. perfectly harmless, merely stays in the fat cells of laboratory rats for a century.
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