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The Brummie for Lunch?

Hi Big Gee i lived in Harborne many years ago and the area was described as all kippers and curtains,meaning you eat cheap food
kippers,and have expensive curtains,so it looks like your posh,your mother may have meant something like that.
 
Hi Elizabeth,

you may well be correct - my ma did tend to get things mixed up a little. But she used to say 'corned beef and net curtains' when she wanted to describe a family of low means but high aspirations.

I could just eat a good Craster kipper right now, actually.

Big Gee
 
Big Gee they had them in the market at Perry Barr today. I admit I do quite like them. I used to love cows udder but you can't get it these days. It took an eternity to cook though. Jean.
 
Big Gee said:
Hi Elizabeth,

you may well be correct - my ma did tend to get things mixed up a little. But she used to say 'corned beef and net curtains' when she wanted to describe a family of low means but high aspirations.

I could just eat a good Craster kipper right now, actually.

Big Gee
Click to expand...
I think it differed depending where you were,like the fur coat not much else saying,
 
Hi Jean,

do you remember the cow-heel and pigs-trotter shop on the corner of Bevington Road and Trinity Road, opposite the Rat Pan? The perfume that emitted from that place was glorious! Local West Indians used to queue up there. I like both, but have to say I prefer pig's trotter.
 
G G Jean said:
I am watching The Hairy Bikers and guess what it's home made haslet they are doing. If anyone wants to take a look in it is on at seven o'clock. Mike they only added liver not the other offle. It is on bbc 2 now. I bet Alf is watching it as it is filmed in Lincoln. Jean.
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Hi Jean, normally I watch 'The Weakest Link" but it was again replaced with political junk so I too watched 'The Hairy Bikers' and for once I enjoyed it. Quite by coincidence this afternoon I had made a steak & kidney stew; Flemish style. These past few years the British kitchen has come on in leaps and bounds but they still have a long way to go.

Graham.
 
Big Gee no sorry neither does Pete but he wouldn't as he hates that sort of food. I always had pigs trotters with pea soup and the left over hock on Sunday evening while watching the London Paladium. I used to sit in my dads chair. Was allowed to do that once a week. I still love them but have to eat them while Pete is not around. Jean.
 
Sorry Graham I think we posted at the same time. My two lads are bikers and they love to watch the Hairy Bikers. They made horse radish sauce last year and made it look so easy. Great to see you posting again. All the best. Jean.
 
Elizabeth Redmond said:
Hi Big Gee i lived in Harborne many years ago and the area was described as all kippers and curtains,meaning you eat cheap food
kippers,and have expensive curtains,so it looks like your posh,your mother may have meant something like that.
Click to expand...

In Flanders they say "the prettiest curtains hide the ugliest misery".
 
Graham that is so true. I used to teach a private school once a week and believe you me most of it was kippers and curtains. I cannot say which school but my cousin teaches there now and nothing has changed. Jean.
 
Thanks everyone for a lovely thread, bringing back lots of fond memories. When I lived in Sparkbrook in the mid-1950s we used to stop on the way to school at a shop where you could buy a slice of toast and dripping for a penny. And I can remember a great aunt from Wolverhampton saying disapprovingly: "You don't want butter with fat ham!"

The mid-day meal was always "dinner" for us, until we moved to Sydney, Australia, in the mid 1960s, when it became "lunch". The evening meal remained "tea", though in Sydney it was always a cooked meal.
 
G G Jean said:
Big Gee they had them in the market at Perry Barr today. I admit I do quite like them. I used to love cows udder but you can't get it these days. It took an eternity to cook though. Jean.
Click to expand...
just been looking at this post, as anyone else eat cows udder
 
Tripe is lungs. Udder, when cooked and salted is called elder. They used to sell it sliced in Leeds market, though not sure if they do now
 
There were five meals/snacks in a day, if you were lucky. Breakfast to start the day. Mid-morning there was lunch (a snack). Midday you had dinner. Early evening was the main meal of the day, tea. Finally, just before going to bed you had supper.

I think that the mid morning snack might have been an agricultural relic. Farmer workers rise early and break their fast. Then mid morning they have need of a second breakfast. Certainly I took lunch with me when I started grammar school, usually just a 'piece'.
 
It’s all so beautifully British - we had our ‘school dinner’ at lunchtime; preceded by our ‘lunch’ during the mid morning break.
 
Funnily enough, I still have my 'tea' in late afternoon/early evening. It is my main meal. No actual tea though. Wine with and coffee after.
 
Recently came across another old rural name for lunch: ‘Baggins’ (baggings) - delivered to field workers by their wives/children, in tightly woven flour sacks, of the smaller variety; which were relatively narrow, compared to their length. Perhaps the origin of R.R.Tolkien's ‘Bilbo Baggins’ ???

Seemingly, these white(ish) flower sacks were also much prized as single leg ‘knickers’ - each attached to a cotton strap which went around the waist, leaving a gap, fore and aft, for bodily functions. They were commonly, or vulgarly, known as ‘Free Traders’ - a reference to a type of economics which allowed a trader to do anything they wanted, without having to pay tariffs. I suppose the analogy meant that wearing ‘Free Trader’ allowed the wearer certain ‘freedoms’ without recourse to taking them off.

I was told the above, by an older friend, whose grandmother/great grandmother used the term. Further, before converting the flour bags to knickers, they had to be washed, and rollered several times, to soften the fibres. One method was to anchor them with a stone, and leave them in a stream for several days (?) before beginning the washing process. It all sounds a tad ‘itchy’ - but the absence of a ‘gusset’ must have made them rather more bearable. Truly a case of make-do and mend!
 
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