Thanks to BritFood, I have just read a great blog post about British food memories. So of course, I have to write my own version...
The writer of the blog (see here) is, I'm afraid to say, considerably younger than me. I was born in 195-something which means that I was brought up by a mother who was brought up in the war.
And my goodness, didn't we know it. But the economies she practiced are still with me. I still wash the kitchen floor with the water I used to wash the pots and I can still make a damn fine meal out of a potato, a stray onion and a stock cube.See that Yorkshire pudding picture? Yorkshire puddings were always served before the main Sunday lunch. An appetizer, we'd call it now. But the idea was that you'd stuff yourself with puddings (made economically with some milk, some flour and an egg) and therefore be too full to eat lots of (expensive) meat.
Desert after Sunday lunch was more Yorkshire pudding, this time served with a dollop of Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup. So you saved your appetite for it, foregoing too much meat...
(By the way, I say "lunch" now because I'm old and posh. In those days, "lunch" was unknown in Yorkshire. It was "Sunday dinner" - served the minute yer dad got home from the pub).
Sunday dinner preparations started at the crack of dawn. Vegetables were boiled to smithereens and a fond memory is listening to Two Way Family Favourites on the radio whilst the windows steamed up in the kitchen, thanks to cabbage which - for some reason - had to be boiled for three hours...
To get back to Yorkshire puddings for a moment, I still don't understand the tradition whereby females got three or four small Yorkshire puddings as their starter, whereas blokes - no matter how young - got a big plate-sized one.
My sister and I used to look at our younger brother's plate - he was only a toddler - and say "if I only had a willy ..."
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