Back In Time For Dinner Bbc2

[Ann]

Did anyone watch this programme at 8pm tonight? A family is "going back in time" by year through the 50s and 60s etc experiencing life as it was in those days, particularly in the kitchen and eating the food which was around then.

Tonight was the 50s - how pathetic - they didn't know how to open a tin with a tin opener??? What??? Also the teenage children said "Yuk" to bread and dripping - still a rare luxury in my house!! and to pilchards ..... the same brand are still around today and I regularly buy them. The mother tried to make a jelly which obviously was a disaster as it didn't set (why didn't she use less water if she was short of time?) She went next door to use their fridge (can't remember fridges around in the early 50s, all we had was a "meat safe" and we kept milk in a bucket of water. After I married in 1968 we didn't have a fridge until the following year) The family ate liver as if it was poison, and National Bread which was a staple part of the diet in those days (which looked perfectly acceptable but they pulled faces)
In the programme they said a high proportion of households watched the Queen's coronation on a TV - but as a child at Primary school we walked down in classes to see it at the local cinema as nobody I knew had a TV in 1953.
As the programme reached 1959 the Shadows hit "Dance On" was playing but I'm sure that came out in 1961?

Will be interesting to see what they make of the 1960s in next week's programme - OH and I were disputing facts, and shouting at the TV (Wrong! or good grief what's the matter with you, eat that up, get it down you mi lad!!! ) LOL ;)

[Ann]

If you want it on catch up

[Jackdaw33]

I can just about remember the national loaf. When sliced white bread reappeared in 1954 my mother went wild with joy.

[mastercraft]

Bread and dripping..... I'm drooling!

[sherrardk]

I watched it and thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I would have sliced my hand open with that tin opener and would have resorted to a screwdriver and a hammer, and the food looked disgusting. I will admit I am a very fussy eater but my kids, who are good eaters, wouldn't have eaten that.

[Samuraisan]

I think their clothing was wrong too. More like the 40s than the 50s

[DaisyNonna]

Dripping toast, please!
Remember my father and grandfather peeling vegetables in the fifties.
Were we a peculiar family or were they pretending to be middle class?

[Jackdaw33]

When I was set to shelling the peas I was forced to sing all the time, because if I stopped singing it meant I was eating the raw peas.

[paddywak]

Sounds like our time lines run together as your experience ran pretty much like mine except I got married a later In '53 our next door neighbour who was an overman at the pit and well paid bought a TV and invited all the local kids round to watch the coronation I've never forgot it was state of the art with a 10 inch and a magnifying screen that made it up to 14in screen.Going back to the food we ate was put on our plates whether we liked it or not.

[DaisyNonna]

Er, still got a tin opener like that
Funny sort of bookcase he was attempting

[DaisyNonna]

Would a Jewish woman really cook Boeuf Stroganoff, let alone eat it?
Meat and cream involved.

[DaisyNonna]

Forgot the pork dripping!

[Ann]

Think she's Jewish in real life Daisy and .......as an actress who is being paid ........ ;)

[Ann]

I cooked a pork joint on Sunday with crackling etc and it made some lovely pork dripping - not had that for years. Hubby was positively drooling as we had dripping on toast for supper with salt sprinkled on - very healthy! :( He said "O that's fab, taken me right back to my childhood, and it's even got the lovely brown jelly gravy in it too" - heaven! Children today don't know what they missed in the 50s - what about the sugar sandwiches LOL ;)
When we got home from school and asked what was for tea Mum replied "bread and pullet" (an expression from my Grandma) :)

[pastafreak]

Most women in the 1950s would have been experienced homemakers and cooks. Yet in the volunteer family,the wife did not cook. Why choose a volunteer to replicate the meals of her parents when she seemed to have little experience? If she had,maybe she would have been able to make the meals a bit more appealing.
I'm not surprised she was daunted by the tin opener...I know I've never seen one like that.

[tamborine]

Everyone, yes everyone was slim with hour glass figures, tiny waists swirling in circular skirts with sugar stiffened lace petticoats, when men were gentlemen and held women in their arms to dance.....bliss ;)

[DaisyNonna]

So were they a real family or actors as Ann said?

[pastafreak]

I thought they were a real family.

[Ann]

Yes Pasta we had a tin opener like that both at my Mums house and at school for cookery lessons. They were lethal! Then the other kind of metal ones came out where you turned the key - I still use those today!
I can't remember any of my relatives having a smart Kenwood mixer in the late 50s like the family in the programme.

I do remember Mum having a new fangled Prestige pressure cooker in 1952 which was a hissing steaming monster which everyone (including the dog) was terrified of! :) I still have that very pressure cooker and still use it occasionally!

[Jackdaw33]

I can categorically state that men and women did NOT dress up in the home. That was strictly for the adverts. A housewife would normally have her curlers in, wearing a headscarf.

[Ann]

Sorry I misled you - think they are actually a real family but obviously paid to take part so she probably didn't mind cooking pork for the programme.