EATING IN THE FIFTIES and SIXTIES

[KBs PensNmore]

Pasta was not eaten in Australia.

Curry was a surname.

A takeaway was a mathematical problem.

A pizza was something to do with a leaning tower.

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

Rice was only eaten as a milk pudding.

Calamari was called squid and we used it as fish bait.

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

Brown bread was something only poor people ate.

Oil was for lubricating, fat was for cooking.

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

Sugar enjoyed a good press in those days, and was regarded
as being white gold. Cubed sugar was regarded as posh.

Fish didn't have fingers in those days.

Eating raw fish was called poverty, not sushi.

None of us had ever heard of yogurt.

Healthy food consisted of anything edible.

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

Indian restaurants were only found in India.

Cooking outside was called camping.

Seaweed was not a recognized food.

"Kebab" was not even a word, never mind a food.

Prunes were medicinal.

Surprisingly, muesli was readily available;
it was called cattle feed.

Drinking 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!!

But the one thing that we never ever had
on our table in the sixties .....
" Elbows or Phones.

[doug3030]

But the one thing that we never ever had
on our table in the sixties .....
" Elbows or Phones.

Kryn, elbows and phones is two things...

[Chesand]

Kryn, elbows and phones is two things...

Doug, elbows and phones are two things

Sorry, I could not resist.

[BobL]

While amusing, a few are wrong, and mostly they remind me of how ignorant some of us were.

As the child of migrant parents I remember showing aussie kids around our 1/4 acre veggie garden while they gawked and laughed at some veggies they had never seen before. If they got too disparaging I would offer them some small red chillies to taste.

BTW pasta was eaten - heaps of it - it came in cans and tasted like generic tomato sauce.
Macaroni cheese in a box was available

Fishfingers were first mentioned in 1900, patented in the 1920's, and commercialised in the US in the 1950s and once freezer compartments became standard n fridges in the late 50's they were available in Australia. I remember eating many in the 1960s.

Macaroni cheese is first mentioned in an english cook book in the 1700's and in Mrs Beetons cookbooks (~1860) had several recipes. In the 60's as migrant kids we used to laugh at seeing it in a box on supermarket shelves. Mums Macaroni cheese use to knock the socks off the stuff in the boxes.

I remember eating something called Rice-a-riso in the 1960's. It was basically rice and some flavouring in a box but was tasteless compared to Mum's Venetian style mushroom risotto.

Cooking outside was called BBQ and common by the mid to late 1960's

Keens Curry powder dates from about the 1820's and curry was sometimes used even in colonial times to cover the taste of tainted meat. My late very-Aussie father in law only liked curry made with his mother's recipe that dated from the ~1920's. It had sultanas and Keens curry powder in it. He always asked how old the meat was.

[KBs PensNmore]

Thanks for the updates Bob. I only submitted this as it was emailed to me and I thought it would bring back memories to the older generation on here.
I can remember my father making curry with sultanas in it.

[Sawdust Maker]

curried sausages

[BobL]

curried sausages

Perfect for the snags that did not have enough preservative in then and had started to go off.
I worked in a super market in the mid 60's and one of the first fresh meats (although I don't think you could really call it meat or for that matter even fresh) to be sold in plastic packs were several types of thin and fat snags. Contrary to company policy we were allowed to take home out of date stuff and that included snags. Mum wouldn't touch them but offered them to the Aussie next door neighbours for their dogs. The neighbours had a half a dozen kids and were often short of a quid, they would make curried sausages with them.

[AlexS]

Macaroni cheese in a box was available

It tasted like neither macaroni nor cheese, but quite like the box.

[Carry Pine]

Thanks for the updates Bob. I only submitted this as it was emailed to me and I thought it would bring back memories to the older generation on here.
I can remember my father making curry with sultanas in it.

Hey! Isn't that the way to do it?

CP

[BobL]

It tasted like neither macaroni nor cheese, but quite like the box.

I couldn't get past the the cheese sauce having the texture and taste of "Clag"

[joe greiner]

A co-worker once pondered the question, "Why does processed cheese taste so much like plastic?"

I told her, "Take a good look at it. It tastes like plastic because it IS plastic."

Cheers,
Joe

[Twisted Tenon]

Gawd they were boring times...

TT