1930s Continued - Food

Catering for a family of 6 was always a challenge for our mum. So what did we eat?

For starters their was no school dinners so every lunchtime involved a trip home for our main meal. No fast foods then so all meals cooked fresh e.g. Steak&kidney pudding/pie, cottage pie rabbit or mutton stew, conger eel. sausage toad.As for sweet, this could be baked rice pudding , spotted dick, fresh or tinned fruit with custard.

Sunday was special, late Saturday afternoon mum would go to a small market called the "Kingsland Waste" where at the end of trading the local Butcher would sell off cheap any remaining meat enabling us to get our Sunday roast. What a feast!

In the afternoon you would hear the cry "Shrimps Winkles" and outside there was a man with an open barrow laden with seafood. A pint of Shrimps and a pint of Winkles became our tea.

Snacks for example, bread and margarine dipped in sugar, fish paste sandwich etc.

Breakfast was usually porridge and bread and jam.

Sunday boiled egg or "fry up". As our small gas cooker had no grill, toast was a winter luxury only obtainable when our living room fire was glowing enough to toast bread on an extended fork in front of it (toast has never tasted better).

We very seldom ate chicken as it was too expensive, all free range in them days.

Saturday morning was treat breakfast. A breakfast roll with real butter and a chocolate teacake.One treat was bread and "dripping" or "dripping" toast .When our roast Sunday dinner was finished the residue in the roasting dish was poured into a pudding dish and when set was used to spread on bread or toast .this mixture of lard and meat juices was our "dripping.
Saturday was another time for special meals, Kippers, Smoked Haddock,pie &mash,

The nineteen thirties

my profile... I was living with my father,mother, and three older sisters in a typical 2up 2down terraced house in Hackney bordering Shoreditch in London. No electricity just gas for lighting and cooking. A poor but very happy family.

All my relatives lived (with one or two exceptions)within a 2 mile radius which was the norm in those days.

For a Sunday treat in the summer mum would make some banana sandwitches and a bottle of drink consisting of water and lemonade powder (sugar and lemon flavouring). We would catch a no.47 tram to London docks walk through to tower bridge and at low tide a flight of stair was lowered to a small beach .With the docks being so busy the raising of tower bridge was quite common.

The real big day out was a trip to Southend. A 49 tram to Liverpool street station and then a train ride . A special treat being a "Rossi" ice cream cornet on the front This being our main holiday about twice a year but "magic"

Welcome to my new Blog

I plan to use this blog as a repository of my memories of London during the 1930's to 1960's.

Please come back soon.