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Foods you wonder how past generations (UK) managed without...


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Old 19-01-2008, 19:04
ithisethat
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So what foods could you now not live without and wonder how your grandparents and/or parents managed without them.


Pasta, Humous, Pitta bread, Cous Cous
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Old 19-01-2008, 19:14
fannyadams
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taramasalata, garlic and ginger purees for those quick meals, fajitas, parma ham, mozarella, fresh basil, Green and Black chocolate (not for me, but my daughter loves it) expresso coffee. Ther are loads more I am sure.
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Old 19-01-2008, 19:44
diablo
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Olive oil is the one that sticks out to me. When I was young it only came from chemists in tiny bottles - for medicinal purposes.

I use gallons of the stuff.
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Old 19-01-2008, 19:58
BrideXIII
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Olive oil is the one that sticks out to me. When I was young it only came from chemists in tiny bottles - for medicinal purposes.

I use gallons of the stuff.

yep olive oil for me, i cook with it all the time, also sweet potatos.
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Old 19-01-2008, 20:00
fannyadams
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I had sweet potatoes in Australia about 32 years ago, so some grandparents would have had them, just not here!!

I forgotl olive oil, yes certainly couldn't be without it
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Old 22-01-2008, 17:33
CABINET
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I know its not food but I don't know how people managed without kitchen towel
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Old 22-01-2008, 18:33
Elanor
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I know its not food but I don't know how people managed without kitchen towel
Um... I've never really understood what kitchen towel (I assume you mean the paper kind) is for. I've never bought it. What does it do that fabric cloths don't do?
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Old 22-01-2008, 22:00
urbanmiffed
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Brocolli - Where did that come from?
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Old 22-01-2008, 22:05
Elanor
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Broccoli has been around for ages!

from Wiki:

Roman references to a cabbage-family vegetable that may have been broccoli are less than perfectly clear: the Roman natural history writer, Pliny the Elder, wrote about a vegetable that fit the description of broccoli. This would imply that the Romans grew their own broccoli for culinary uses during the 1st century[1]. Some vegetable scholars recognize broccoli in the cookbook of Apicius.

Broccoli was an Italian vegetable, as its name suggests, long before it was eaten elsewhere. At that time it was a sprouting type, not the single large head that is seen today. It is first mentioned in France in 1560, but in 1724 broccoli was still so unfamiliar in England that Philip Miller's Gardener's Dictionary (1724 edition) referred to it as a stranger in England and explained it as "sprout colli-flower" or "Italian asparagus." In the American colonies, Thomas Jefferson was also an experimenting gardener with a wide circle of European correspondents, from whom he got packets of seeds for rare vegetables such as tomatoes. He noted the planting of broccoli at Monticello along with radishes, lettuce, and cauliflower on May 27, 1767. Nevertheless, broccoli remained exotic in American gardens. In 1775, John Randolph, in A Treatise on Gardening by a Citizen of Virginia, felt he had to explain about broccoli: "The stems will eat like Asparagus, and the heads like cauliflower."

Italians brought broccoli to North America by 1806[4], but it did not become popular until the 1920s. Commercial cultivation of broccoli in the United States can be traced to the D'Arrigo brothers, Stephano and Andrea, Italian immigrants from Messina, whose company made some tentative plantings in San Jose, California, in 1922. A few crates were initially shipped to Boston, where there was a thriving Italian immigrant culture in the North End. The broccoli business boomed, with the D'Arrigo's brand name "Andy Boy" named after Stephano's two-year-old son, Andrew, and backed with advertisements on the radio.
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Old 22-01-2008, 23:09
urbanmiffed
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Broccoli has been around for ages!

from Wiki:
But i can't remember it really being popular until around the 1980s.
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Old 22-01-2008, 23:25
diablo
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But i can't remember it really being popular until around the 1980s.
It didn't exist in the shops round here until 2000 or so. And it still isn't popular in this household!
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Old 22-01-2008, 23:59
fannyadams
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Yes it was, I ate it for every meal when I was pregnant in 1990, couldn't get enough!!! Have only eaten it a few times since mind you. I do love the tender stems however.
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Old 23-01-2008, 00:50
5th Horseman
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I manage just fine without any of the items listed already, food must have been dull before the advent of foreign cuisine, imagine the UK with no Indian, Chinese, Italian, Thai, Mexican, etc food or spices.

I don't remember ready meals when I was younger, I think the first I can remember seeing was the Vesta Chow Mein or Kraft Cheesy Pasta. I wonder how many could survive without them now.
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Old 23-01-2008, 07:28
fannyadams
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Oh yes, I remember the dried vesta meals, when you just added water, my favourite was the chicken supreme with rice. Yuch, I can't imagine serving that to any of my family. I can't understand what my mother thought she was doing serving us that!!!(especially as she was an excellent cook most of the time)

Last edited by fannyadams : 23-01-2008 at 07:29. Reason: typo
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Old 23-01-2008, 08:22
Kacey
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Couldn't live without Olive Oil, Garlic and the ingredients to make a good curry!
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Old 23-01-2008, 08:44
stud u like
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I manage just fine without any of the items listed already, food must have been dull before the advent of foreign cuisine, imagine the UK with no Indian, Chinese, Italian, Thai, Mexican, etc food or spices.

I don't remember ready meals when I was younger, I think the first I can remember seeing was the Vesta Chow Mein or Kraft Cheesy Pasta. I wonder how many could survive without them now.
It depends on how far back you want to go!

England has always had spicy food. Spiced foods were very popular in medieval times. Spicy sauce making was a speciality.

We were having curry from India with pilau rice and mango pickle in the 1700s.

Ready meals. There were tv dinners in the late 1970s/ early 80s. lasagna and chicken korma were popular. Only problem was,they were frozen and not like the fresh ones we get today.
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Old 23-01-2008, 11:07
newkid30
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When I was growing up, my mother never used olive oil, garlic, ginger, chillies, and fresh herbs like I would.
I had pasta for the first time when I was in my teens - I'm 34! I had my first Chinese when I was 18.
We never had pesto, or lemongrass or basil and many other spices.
I think that's what I would miss spicey food.
Also things like olives, sundried tomatoes, pinenuts, rocket, that I take for granted but I would never have eaten growing up.
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Old 23-01-2008, 13:54
Frood
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Garlic is the obvious one. Those generations seemed to have absolutely no idea about it.

Spices generally, and herbs to a large extent.

I think the only herb myy mum used was mint, and that was for mint sauce.
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Old 23-01-2008, 13:57
jigsawjake
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i had vinaigrette dressing for the first time in my 20s, in arestaurant, and wondered why we only ever had salad with salad cream at home.

I often wonder how people used to eat way back in prehistoric times, could they season meat etc, did they have any sugary foods?
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Old 23-01-2008, 20:57
TheFirstCut
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It didn't exist in the shops round here until 2000 or so. And it still isn't popular in this household!
Here is the Midlands it has been around a lot lot longer than 2000. We've been eating it for such a long time I can't remember when we didn't.
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Old 24-01-2008, 07:34
RootsFran
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Broccoli has more vitamin C in it than Orange Juice, good for colds and flu!
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