12 months of Silence

Twelve months since I've last made a mark on here! I seem to have fallen out with the written word. Had a couple of short pieces on the National Flash Fiction Day prompt accepted and not much else. I'm so absorbed with Family History at the moment. I've just sent this to the Tutor as he asked us to write about our childhood food memories. Killing two birds with one stone as the saying goes. Family History and a bit of Creative Writing! 

                                                Food, Glorious Food   

    By Stella Turner                            

I remember coming home from school and asking my mum what was for pudding? She’d get a bit exasperated and exclaim don’t you want to know what’s for dinner. We always had our main meal at teatime. To be honest our main meals were a bit predictable Monday leftover cold meat from Sunday, Tuesday sausage, Wednesday pie, Thursday mince, and Friday fish. My mum did vary it with liver and onions and other dishes but all I wanted was the puddings especially her home made spotty dick and my favourite bread and butter pudding. As I got older and if we’d had an argument or my mum thought I needed cheering up there would be a bowl of bread and butter pudding waiting for me.

My best friend moved down from Scotland with her family in 1960. When I went to her house she and her big sister would be making tablet. It’s like a type of fudge made with condensed milk and sugar.  A real Scottish delicacy

Recipe   (taken from Nestle Carnation recipes)

Butter 55g

Semi skimmed milk 250ml

Cane or granulated sugar 900g

Carnation condensed milk 397g

You will also need 20cm square cake tin lined with baking parchment.

Method

In a large non-stick pan melt the butter with the milk, slowly add the sugar and boil briskly for 4 minutes. Gradually stir in the condensed milk making sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. Bring back to the boil for approximately 20 minutes stirring regularly until the mixture is thick and a honey caramel colour. Take care while the mixture boils as the tablet will be VERY HOT!

To test if the tablet is ready drop a small amount into a bowl of ice cold water – if you can pick up some of the mixture and form a soft ball in your fingers it’s ready. Just be careful it will still be quite HOT. Remove the pan from the heat leave to cool for 5 minutes then beat until set. Pour into the tin and leave to set fully in the fridge for 2 or more hours. Then remove from the tin and cut into squares.

I can’t remember any adult being present when the two young girls prepared it. No health and safety in those days.

Another memory was being surprised when I had sausage for tea at their house. I was expecting the normal sausage when on my plate was a square slice of meat. My friend announced its Scotch sausage. The sausage I was accustomed to was held in casing whilst this had no casing to hold the meat into shape so served as slices from a block. I preferred our English sausages.

A memory from primary school was having to drink a bottle of milk at first playtime. I didn’t like milk and still can’t drink a glass of it unless it’s flavoured. We all had to collect a bottle and return an empty one or be forced to drink it. So I’d stand at the back and exchange my full bottle for an empty one from one of the boys. I was at primary school between 1958- 1964. In 1968 free milk was abolished in secondary schools and in 1971 Mrs Thatcher who was Education Secretary ended free school milk for children over the age of seven hence the nickname Thatcher the milk snatcher. I can’t remember milk in secondary school so I presume you were given the choice whether to drink it or not!

My dad was a baker and he’d come home with a bagful of cakes on a Saturday lunchtime. I would so look forward to the iced buns, doughnuts and cream cakes. My sister and I would be allowed one each providing my dad had his favourite an iced bun. My dad did not like “Foreign Food” saying he ate enough of that in his days in the army when he was in Egypt. So we never had pasta, curry nor rice unless it was served as rice pudding. I remember in my late teens telling my dad how lovely foreign food is but he never ever ate anything that wasn’t everyday plain food!

He would never eat corned beef again after the Typhoid epidemic in 1964 that occurred in Aberdeen. The outbreak was traced back to a single tin of Argentinean corned beef sold in a supermarket. 500 people had to be quarantined and fortunately no one died. Media attention helped to raise the importance of hygiene and cleanliness. I was eleven at the time and remember it well. After a few years my mum resumed buying corned beef. I still like corned beef to this day. My dad died in 2015, aged 89, and never ever ate it! I’m now wondering if he liked it pre 1964 or used the excuse of the epidemic to stop having to eat it or maybe yet again it reminded him of his army days! 

I have my own food idiosyncrasies like loving bacon and pork but hating ham and gammon. I dislike pineapple and cabbage, together sounds disgusting! I like sausage if it’s hot hate cold sausage!

Lots of food if I’m served it I’ll eat but out of choice I wouldn’t have it on my plate for example stuffing, Yorkshire pudding, Christmas pudding, Christmas cake! I’m not a lover of vegetables and my mum who loved vegetables would despair that I’d only eat peas and carrots. These days we probably have too much choice. In my childhood it would be eat it or go hungry although I can never remember being forced to eat anything or going hungry. Happy memories!