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'Sell by dates'

A

Alberta

Super Moderator
Staff member
Everyone nowadays seems obsessed by 'use by' or' sell by' dates on food.
I can't remember when all this started but what I can remember is Mom scraping the mould off cheese and using the rest.
Grandad killing and plucking a chicken days before Christmas and leaving it on a cold slab in the larder,(no fridges in those days)
Eggs being collected and kept for ages ,no little lion stamp.
Milk being delivered in churns and measured into the customers jug.In the summer we used to scoop the little white bits off the top of our tea when the milk was 'on the turn'
My memory fails me when it comes to butter but it must have been quite a feat to keep it from going runny in those days.
 
No such beast

Sell by dates never existed when I was a kid, we ate potatoes with shoots growing from them.
We ate overipe apples we called Specks,
Bacon that was yellow and curling?... fry it..
Butter just a little bit off, that was eaten, so was Milk that had curdled a bit..
We never seemed to suffer bad tummies much either, it was the way of the world back then...our world.
 
I quite liked the btter when it was rancid :roll:

The shopping was done daily wasn't it, so if it was hot there wasn't such a lot of food to go 'off'. The milk was grabbed off the step and put into an enamel bucket almost before the sun was up. But it was all eaten, nothing was thrown out.
 
Its interesting to look at some of the foods from around the world, sour and 'turning' foods are considered a speciallity.
Food was and still is preserved alternatively - brine/vinagar/dry salt and these ways are now the 'in' thing!

My mom worked in the food industry when she was 14 just after the war started -

https://www.astonbrook-through-astonmanor.co.uk/handsworth_ba.htm

Interestingly this is one of the stories that Birminham LEA have asked permission to add to their History curriculum.

My mom also worked as a silver service waitress for a period - and some of the stories she tells me about food being dropped and dusted down, 'turning' and being disguised with spices are amazing.

I seem to recall my father telling me that curry powder was added to food during the war in the POW camps, to take away the taste of the rotton meat?
 
I remember my Grandparents having a scullery where they kept the food, i also remember we had sterilised milk because it kept better i had a friend who loved it she would ask for a glass when ever she came round it was in a tall bottle the other sort pas was in a fat bottle, i do no that they tasted very different but i have never liked milk so never drank much :( Of course in those days you had a local shop and things were purchased daily so eaten before they went off. We had a fridge in the early 60s i remember hurring home from school all excited wanting to see it :D Mom would put the butter in the butter dish on the hearth to soften if she forgot it and it melted to much i can remember her cussing never swearing mind i never heard her ever swear once, the problem was we still had to have it spread on the bread and if it had seperated it tasted horrible :(
 
I stopped drinking milk when pasturised was all you could buy Pam. Do you remeber the meat safes, they sat on a table out in the garden and had wire mesh doors. They are quite popular in the antique trade now. :roll:
 
Saturday morning blues

We shop at various times over the week, what I mean is we only do one 'Main' shopping but we tend to vary it, it might be a Wednesday, Thursday etc but we never usually go at the same times most people do theirs..i.e. Saturday.
Roz has just taken it into her head that its the best time to do it..ok, I dont argue (I never do, I hate the taste of spit in my food)
So in a few minutes we'll be off..
What REALLY bugs me and why I'm writing this is the waste..
Roz never had my upbringing, her Mom and Dad had their own business and a big house in Hall Green/Shirley whereas me, I was just a raggy bummed kid from Nechells...happy for any food just to stop that cold aching in my tummy.
In 2 hours we'll be back and I know her...she'll be throwing out food just because its sell by date was yesterday..it does my head in.
Oranges, apples, cakes, yohgurt...we could feed a starving tribe..
Its been 2 hours since I first started typing this..
We've been out shopping and returned..
Add Spare ribs in sauce and Beef sausages to the list..
It wasn't like this when I was a kid...throwing perfectly good stuff out simply because its gone past its sell by date..
Fridges and Freezers lose us more money than we save..
 
Super old thread, grow up in a grocery store there are no sell by dates that's what we ate along with the dented tins and those missing the label, when my mum said we are having a surprise tea she meant it, we would open several cans before we found something for tea we could eat.
Back in the day we made 1 penny on 4 bottles of milk.
 
Your Ensor name is familiar around here Bob, the local abattoir at Cinderford is, or was, Ensors, not sure if the business is still going, I note they've built a large housing estate on the former site.
 
Eric, a little thread high jack forgive me folks but I have been killing food all my life one plate at a time, I will ask my pop he came from Aston/Nechells area, growing up the all Ensors in the phone book were relatives.
 
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