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Traditional Brummie Food

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mw0njm. said:
Groaty pudding what on earth is that?
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Hi mw0njm,

I used to work with several "Black Country Lads" years ago who always referred to this pudding as "Groaty Dick" even after all this time I'm non the wiser as to its actual content or the origin of its name.

Lozellian.
 
There's another Black Country meal that's quite liked in those parts "Payse and Bacon".
Some friends of ours invited us to enjoy this delicacy and we gladly accepted expecting it to be a similar dish to Faggots and peas. Not so. The bacon part was a ham hock cut into cubes but mainly fat and hardly any meat and the "Payse" weren't mushy green peas but the type that you feed to pigeons and no matter how long they are soaked beforehand remain like bullets. It's no wonder it wasn't widely eaten in Brummagem, no matter how hungry you were!!!!!
 
jmadone said:
There's another Black Country meal that's quite liked in those parts "Payse and Bacon".
Some friends of ours invited us to enjoy this delicacy and we gladly accepted expecting it to be a similar dish to Faggots and peas. Not so. The bacon part was a ham hock cut into cubes but mainly fat and hardly any meat and the "Payse" weren't mushy green peas but the type that you feed to pigeons and no matter how long they are soaked beforehand remain like bullets. It's no wonder it wasn't widely eaten in Brummagem, no matter how hungry you were!!!!!
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i think i will pass on eating that, bet that was a shock when you took the first mouthfull.of peashooter peas
 
To this day I can not eat liver and onions or brains on toast both things my folks liked
I could eat the tined roe from the chippie but not fresh roe.
Kidneys with chips on a Saturday night was a favorite, steak and kidney pie also, the Fry Bentos ones are sold in the English store here I should try one ?.
Several years ago I became anemic and had to drink this iron supplement God it was awful tasted like old liver that was rusty. Could not hack it had take iron pills instead.
 
Robert Ensor (bob) said:
To this day I can not eat liver and onions or brains on toast both things my folks liked
I could eat the tined roe from the chippie but not fresh roe.
Kidneys with chips on a Saturday night was a favorite, steak and kidney pie also, the Fry Bentos ones are sold in the English store here I should try one ?.
Several years ago I became anemic and had to drink this iron supplement God it was awful tasted like old liver that was rusty. Could not hack it had take iron pills instead.
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I must say I love liver, onions and bacon in the same pan...……...However my spouse of 50 years does not!

A few years ago I also became anemic and had to eat liver & onions. In the US I was amazed at how expensive liver was and, it was not the same!
 
Many countries regard any form of offal as a no-no, and it is so here in Greece. You can pick up a large piece of liver for 60c, as my partner did the other day, and with some onions, also cheap, you can make a good cheap meal, if you are so inclined. When my other half bought the liver, the young butcher in the supermarket said, "Do you want two?", and she replied, motioning to me, "No, he doesn't eat it". The butcher turned to me, gave me the thumbs up & smiled and said, "Wise man, I wouldn't eat any of it". :)

Personally the only meat I eat is chicken fillet or fish, so consequently I've had this iron business with the doctors. I still have a large brown mark under my skin near my right elbow resulting from an intravenous afternoon of iron in the local hospital. Now they have decided that iron isn't the problem, so every week I am getting a B12 injection in my rump. Welcome to Guinea Pigs Unlimited, Bob. I still think that the nefrologist was right when he said, "I still think that given your age and general good health, it's nothing to worry about, and your haemoglobin has been slighly below normal for at least the last five years that I've been checking you out". A massive case of doctors protecting their own backsides, I think!

Maurice :cool:
 
Not a Midlands food for humans, (maybe some folk did eat it) but certainly one I recall being purchased for animals and that was known as lights. "Six penn'orth of lights for the cat", I remember being said at butchers shops. I believe the only regular use of this offal is in haggis.
 
Lights are sheep or pigs lungs. You can still get a 'pluck', the lungs, heart, and liver all connected together with the windpipe. The sheep pluck is used to make haggis, along with the stomach and faggots are made from a pigs pluck wraped with kell fat
 
Radiorails said:
Not a Midlands food for humans, (maybe some folk did eat it) but certainly one I recall being purchased for animals and that was known as lights. "Six penn'orth of lights for the cat", I remember being said at butchers shops. I believe the only regular use of this offal is in haggis.
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Also fed to dogs...…..
 
Edifi said:
When I worked at Marsh & Baxter in the garage our cats got a regular supply of liver and lights to feed them .
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Yes, but six penn'orth was a wartime and early postwar cry, when cats seemed acceptable - they kept down vermin - whereas dogs were not encouraged as they ate more. This was of course before the days of tinned and packaged animal foods stuffs and the wasteful society we have become.
 
Radiorails said:
Not a Midlands food for humans, (maybe some folk did eat it) but certainly one I recall being purchased for animals and that was known as lights. "Six penn'orth of lights for the cat", I remember being said at butchers shops. I believe the only regular use of this offal is in haggis.
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Hi Radiorails,

I remember years ago when I was a Butcher we used to sell endless amounts of offal ( lights, chitlins, brains, pigs feet, kidney. heart, liver etc); not for me thank you ha ha!

Lozellian.
 
I love chawl, brawn, and haslett, all still available from Bilston market, and still sold in quarters and other amounts, but I cannot find any decent dripping.
 
wendylee said:
I love haslett :yum and dripping on lovely fresh bread yum
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Hi Wendylee,

how on earth could you eat that stuff it's awful ha ha? It reminds me somewhat of my grandparents diet; brains on toast, chitlins, brawn, pigs feet, neck of lamb, oxtail, tripe & onions etc thanks but no thanks.

Lozellian.
 
LOZELLIAN said:
Hi Wendylee,

how on earth could you eat that stuff it's awful ha ha? It reminds me somewhat of my grandparents diet; brains on toast, chitlins, brawn, pigs feet, neck of lamb, oxtail, tripe & onions etc thanks but no thanks.

Lozellian.
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Mmmm homemade oxtail soup... love it! Never had tripe though I dont fancy that at all haha
 
We shudder at some of the meals eaten by our forebears, but of course most of them were brought up with it, because there was nothing else and in those far off days, there was no choice and you had to eat all that was on your plate, because that was all you would get. These cuts of meat and bits of animals that we turn our noses up at now were the cheapest at the butchers and often all the family could afford and if you were hungry........Nothing saddens me more than to see what is left on plates in restaurants nowadays particularly by children. My granddad had been gassed in WW1 and held a lowly job as a storeman at Carlyle works and Wendylees grandparents diet was as his and he relished it. Even today I hate Brawn, but I would never tell him that as he extolled its virtues. Aren't we lucky we have choices our grandparents never had or could have dreamed of.
Bob
 
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Bob, there was no extravagance with foods in those far off days, nothing flown in by air or the profligate waste that seems to be part of many peoples present way of life. :scream:
I do not usually watch the tv cookery shows, which seem - from those I have seen parts of - to be more entertainment than instructive. Noticeable (but I admit I may have missed it) is the lack of programmes using left overs, rather than binning them!
Before anyone mentions Fanny Craddock and other former tv chefs I mention that my comments refer to today's tv programmes. I notice an American cooking show called Pioneer woman. None of the covered wagon pioneers had food like that, it was what they shot - birds, bison and other animals, plus fruit and grains that were on the prairies. On many occasions some died of starvation and disease.
 
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Radiorails said:
Bob, there was no extravagance with foods in those far off days, nothing flown in by air or the profligate waste that seems to be part of many peoples present way of life. :scream:
I do not usually watch the tv cookery shows, which seem - from those I have seen parts of - to be more entertainment than instructive. Noticeable (but I admit I may have missed it) is the lack of programmes using left overs, rather than binning them!
Before anyone mentions Fanny Craddock and other former tv chefs I mention that my comments refer to today's tv programmes. I notice an American cooking show called Pioneer woman. None of the covered wagon pioneers had food like that, it was what shot they shot - birds, bison and other animals, plus fruit and grains that were on the prairies. On many occasions some died of starvation and disease.
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Best not mention the Donner party

A treat growing up when me mum made scallop potatoes instead of chips.
 
Robert Ensor (bob) said:
Best not mention the Donner party

A treat growing up when me mum made scallop potatoes instead of chips.
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Depends with the Donner-Reed party whose side you are on, there was an established trail which they ignored, but that aside, I only knew potatoes as new, mashed (no Butter or milk thanks to Mr Hitler), boiled, roast, chips and baked (which I still do not like unless done in the microwave) and then I discovered Dauphine, scalloped and my favourite mashed with butter, milk, pepper sometimes cheese, but talking of potatoes and this will be an interesting exercise, the basic bolied potato and the chip were known to us all, with roast on Sunday and mash with our weekly sausage, but when did anyone first experience anything other than the basic potato in your diet. The reason I ask is that having commented on Richards scallops, I do not think any of the meals with my family ever veered from the basic until I met the cook (sorry love) of my life and then she did things with potatoes that I had never heard of. ( bit of bad grammar there)
Bob
 
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