When we grew up there were no supermarkets. Meat came from the butcher shop and bread from the baker. The grocers wore long aprons and served from behind a big counter. They wrapped your parcels in brown paper and tied them with string. We loved to watch as they unwound the string from a tin hanging overhead, made the knot and broke the string with a snap of their fingers. When we tried it, we just got sore fingers.
We ate an English diet of meat and three vegetables. Cornflakes for breakfast, sandwiches or fruit for lunch. Bacon was a treat and chicken was unheard of because it was expensive and my mother loathed the taste and smell. Occasionally, a chicken appeared if it was won in a raffle. But my mother didn't cook it, in fact she left the house while it cooked because she couldn't stand the smell.
Most of my adult life I have seen myself as easy to feed because I eat almost anything. But when I think back on my childhood, I think that we might have been fussy eaters. I remember a lot of discipline around the dinner table. Not only were we expected to eat everything on the plate, but we had to sit up straight and keep our elbows in while we wrangled our knife and fork. Forks had to be held with the tines down, so mashed potato came in handy for keeping peas on!
My mother had a thriftiness that came from growing up in the North of England during the Depression. So when friends gave her produce from their gardens, it was served at our table. I remember when choko appeared on our plates.
It made me gag, but I was left, sad and crying, alone at the table after the others had left because the rule was that we couldn't leave the table until we had cleared our plates. I just couldn't put that stuff in my mouth. Then I had the bright idea of throwing it out the window, piece by piece.
At the time, I thought my mother was hard-hearted, but she must have taken pity on me because she never made me eat choko again. In fact, it's one of the few things that I still don't eat.
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| Our grocery shop was like this. |
We ate an English diet of meat and three vegetables. Cornflakes for breakfast, sandwiches or fruit for lunch. Bacon was a treat and chicken was unheard of because it was expensive and my mother loathed the taste and smell. Occasionally, a chicken appeared if it was won in a raffle. But my mother didn't cook it, in fact she left the house while it cooked because she couldn't stand the smell.
Most of my adult life I have seen myself as easy to feed because I eat almost anything. But when I think back on my childhood, I think that we might have been fussy eaters. I remember a lot of discipline around the dinner table. Not only were we expected to eat everything on the plate, but we had to sit up straight and keep our elbows in while we wrangled our knife and fork. Forks had to be held with the tines down, so mashed potato came in handy for keeping peas on!
My mother had a thriftiness that came from growing up in the North of England during the Depression. So when friends gave her produce from their gardens, it was served at our table. I remember when choko appeared on our plates.
It made me gag, but I was left, sad and crying, alone at the table after the others had left because the rule was that we couldn't leave the table until we had cleared our plates. I just couldn't put that stuff in my mouth. Then I had the bright idea of throwing it out the window, piece by piece.
At the time, I thought my mother was hard-hearted, but she must have taken pity on me because she never made me eat choko again. In fact, it's one of the few things that I still don't eat.
