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Have your taste buds changed over the years?.

Just counted that we have sixteen lots of tinned food in the cupboard: 5 baked beans; 3 anchovy fillets; 2 sweetcorn; 5 soups; and 1 custard. I remember reading somewhere that older pensioners always kept lots of tinned sardines/pilchards in their cupboards. Not sure how true this is but I guess that it is cheap and nutritious. I do remember, as well as Vivienne, having tinned salmon as a treat. Dave.
 
When l moved to texas in 1958, l knew things would be different but never ever thought food would be the top of the list...being raised in aston on what I would call bland food it was a shock to find there was very view bland tasting foods here...BBQ was the worst stuff l had ever eaten but love it now..and fried chicken was the best and still is but living so near to Mexico the influence is a favourite everywhere l like some of it but not the very hot stuff...l've learned to like tamales burritos and tacos etc but at least we are able to get them in a mild form...l still cook the English way can'nt beat a roast beef, roast potatoes greens and gravy that what we had for dinner yesterday .. don't know if my taste buds or not but if one eats some Mexican chilies believe me those buds will wake up in a hurry....Brenda
 
I have travelled the world a lot during my 85 years and have sampled the local dishes but still prefer English fare. One of my favourite meals is home made steak and kidney pie, Jersey 'mids' and sprouts, may sound bland but I loved it. Alas, since losing my Wife I have to buy ready made pies, not the same by a long chalk. I do like a curry though (not to hot) when my sister in law makes a curry from a recipe given by an Indian neighbour she always give me a portion and I just add the rice. Eric
 
We keep a good store cupboard of packaged and tinned foods. It is known as the 'war cupboard'.
None is pre cooked or ready meals type of food. Good, wholesome salads and cooked food a la Anglaise is the norm although haggis and some French recipes come into play from time to time.
As far as curry is concerned we are lucky in having many folks from SW India in the Parish so real Indian style food is available.
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I use teabags to make cups of tea sometimes using a teapot and cosy. In a reasonably 'posh' supermarket I spotted some packets of loose tea and thought I'll buy one and have a cup of tea tasting just like I remembered from my younger days.

Got home opened the packet and found the tea in a cellophane bag which promptly split when I tried to open it and my worktop was covered in tea leaves. Eventually made a pot of tea, and after a hurried search for a tea strainer, I sat down to enjoy a real cup of tea but was disappointed because it seemed no different to 'teabag' tea.

Later, I experimented by making a 'teabag' cup and a 'tea-leaf' cup, but after tasting I did not notice any difference. Conclusion - it's not the tea, it's me !
A lot of the time it is the same tea. Regular supermarkets will sell own brand Red Label tea in either bags or loose. The difference between bags and loose is in the strength of the brew. You get to decide how much goes in with greater precision.
 
I remember there being a lot more tinned food about when I was young. Then we got fridges and freezers and tinned gave way to frozen. All of it was pre processed in some way which probably changes the taste a lot but preserves the food so it remains edible longer. In more recent years food seems to have got blander and spices more available. It seems there are more fruit trees about in this part of Birmingham on public land. The fruit is left to rot on the tree or drop and not harvested. Pity. Maybe we need to learn what we can eat and how to preserve it.
 
Only ten cans stashed in the cupboard?!! Got much more than that. Well you never know if there'll be a nuclear attack do you? (Ha, ha - a throwback to my 1960s childhood). And remember the Gulf War, the power strikes etc ... or for times when you just can't be bothered to go to the shops, I say always 'be prepared'. But as a rule, though, day-to-day, I rarely use tinned food, only chopped tomatoes and baked beans. So seem to have stuck with the old ways of cooking from fresh rather than out of a tin. One thing we had as a 'luxury' from a tin in my childhood was pink or red salmon. Nothing like fresh salmon, but I loved it. Wouldn't dream of buying a tin these days. Viv.


and if this is to be believed viv we will be stocking up again


https://www.express.co.uk/news/natu...t-Britain-cold-winter-2015-arctic-snow-freeze
 
I can remember during War time venturing into mom's pantry ( do you remember those dark places?) and finding a brown paper bag with strange contents. On asking ,my mother told me the contents were candied peel. I was not allowed to try a piece ,mother telling me that we had got to keep it in case we ran out of food. I can still feel the shudder down my spine that the person who fed me could see an impending food famine . As things improved I took the bag to mom and I was allowed to try the candied peel. I can still feel the delight of that new flavour and ultimately shared the whole package with my mother. Then in the 1970s when I worked as a ships chandler there were 28lb boxes of cut candied peel used on orders. Talk about a "child in a sweet shop" !!!!!
 
I used to love faggots & peas from our local chippy in the 50`s. Sadly, you can get all sorts of exotic grub now, but faggots seems to fallen out of favour. Spam fried in batter, corned beef used to be cheap but seems to be getting expensive. Come winter i`ll be stocking up with extra tins & coffee-mate & a well stocked freezer. And i always have a camping gas stove handy in case of power cuts, & about 20 bags of coal briquettes to burn on my multi fuel fire. I hope we don`t have a bad winter but i`m prepared if we do.
 
I used to love faggots & peas from our local chippy in the 50`s. Sadly, you can get all sorts of exotic grub now, but faggots seems to fallen out of favour. Spam fried in batter, corned beef used to be cheap but seems to be getting expensive. Come winter i`ll be stocking up with extra tins & coffee-mate & a well stocked freezer. And i always have a camping gas stove handy in case of power cuts, & about 20 bags of coal briquettes to burn on my multi fuel fire. I hope we don`t have a bad winter but i`m prepared if we do.

Our local Waitrose sells Brain's faggots in gravy, I love 'em but She Who Must Be Obeyed doesn't, so it's Stand Down on that one !
The army called Spam fried in batter "Spam Fritters"' I don't remember them being very popular though !
 
Has anyone been brave enough to try the Vesta curries still on sale? I loved these in the 70s with a chopped boiled egg added. Doubt I'd enjoy them now as I do appreciate a real curry. Think Vestas were made with soya. So might not be too bad for you. Think I might get one and do a taste test - last eaten in about 1979.

Viv.image.jpg
 
Our local Waitrose sells Brain's faggots in gravy, I love 'em but She Who Must Be Obeyed doesn't, so it's Stand Down on that one !
The army called Spam fried in batter "Spam Fritters"' I don't remember them being very popular though !

I never thought of looking in the supermarket for faggots. Will look next time but i`ve got a feeling that when i look at the ingredients it may put me off!! Sometimes ignorance is bliss.There was no such thing as a list of ingredients back in the 50`s but i do know that faggots were scrumptious. I even tried sheeps brain once just to impress my girlfriends father. Can`t remember if i enjoyed them or not. I do remember spam fritters & chips used to go down a treat in my army days, just the thing to set you up for a night of shandy drinking :-}
 
At my husband's request we had Brain's faggots a couple of months ago. He decided never again as, according to him, they didn't have the same taste as they used to!! I have made them in the past but you need to make a largish amount to make the fiddle worthwhile. It is also hard to find a butcher to get the caul from to wrap them in - bacon works but gives a different flavour.
Janice
 
The first time i went to Spain in the 70`s i took half a dozen vesta curries with me. I`d heard that Spanish food was "dodgy", which of course it wasn`t. Loved paella but squid was like chewing rubber!
 
Blimey Viv, Vesta ! I'd forgotten about the brand, I used to be mad on their paella, with chips of course.

I suspect you must be of the same vintage as me Smudge, if so, as well as spam fritters you may remember that collection of left-overs that the ACC laughingly called Nasi Goreng, (or Nazi Goering as we called it).

Moving back to Brum.
I remember coming on leave, in the 60s, to find Brum in the midst of a craze on Fleur-de-Lis pies. Shops selling them popped up in all sorts of places. I must say, I thought the chicken and mushroom ones were wonderful.
 
When younger (a teenager) the only cheese I would eat was Cheese Slices the processed stuff and the only coffee I would drink was the bottled liquid Camp variety. Now I wouldn't touch either with a barge-pole. Then the same as now I wouldn't touch any food that came out of water and I wouldn't eat offal of any kind. I remember once in a dark nightclub ordering a large mixed grill with chicken, steak, bacon, sausage, egg, chips and pretty well everything. I remember cutting into what I thought was a piece of steak and thinking this looks like a tender piece of meat. I popped it into my mouth and it was liver, I don't know how I made it to the toilets before I was sick. I couldn't finish my meal and I couldn't drink anything but lemonade for the rest of the evening.

I think our tastes do change over the years, but I also think that there is the possibility that as we get older it's no longer a case of "eat what you are given" and we can have more choice in what we decide to eat. Therefore we develop more choices based on what our own finances dictate, I have to state that my wife says I am the most difficult man in the world to feed (I'm not quite sure how she would know that).
 
Tinned peaches - weren't they delicious? And of course had to be served with lots of Carnation condensed milk. I still have the peaches but the ones in plastic tubs and they're in natural juice. But alas no Carnation condensed milk to go with them - no-one likes it in our house. So for my War/Fuel shortage/Severe weather cupboard I'm going to pop in one of those teeny weeny tins of Carnation milk. Special treat for me.

Spam Fritters were a regular of our school meals menu and my worst nightmare. They used to make me physically sick. The memory and experience of Spam Fritters is not a good one.

Think I'll bite the bullet and add a Vesta curry to the emergency cupboard too, just for the hell of it. Viv.
 
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Viv
I agree about the fritters, but the worst was the liver. In most cases it must have come from a 50 year old oxen or something like that, it was so tough and full of nasty lumpsthat you could chew for ages and still not get them down. And I probably got better than many as my aunt worked in the kitchen and I tended to get better than most (though I was terribly embarrassed when i was offered something different than the others and often refused it !)
 
Love liver Mike, especially liver and bacon casserole, nice and tender. But it has to be lambs liver. Never liked it when I was younger, for that very reason, too tough and chewy. Also acquired a taste for black pudding and haggis now I'm older. Things I never touched when young. Yet my kids love the stuff. The one thing I've never really got to grips with is heart, although would eat it if there was nowt else to eat - ditto kidneys, providing they've been soaked beforehand. Oh and fish with heads on. Never like and never will like a fish with its 'ed on my plate. Viv.
 
I remember buying in the 1970s and 80s jars of Shippams Paste. You could get salmon, other fish and various meat pastes and they were used as sandwich fillers. I believe that they are still produced but haven't used any for years. Dave.
 
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