My 70s party memories include pinwheel sandwiches. I remember my mum slicing the bread longways, removing any hint of crust, then spreading with something “delicious” like sandwich paste. Then you roll the thing up like a Swiss roll, cut into slices and voila - the height of party sophistication. So glad I can just bung a few olives in a bowl these days and call it good.
Yes! My mum made pinwheels too. Marmite ones were her speciality. Sandwich paste is such a weird thing isn’t it? God knows what bits of meat went into it
Shiphams pastes haunted my childhood! I remember when I wanted to be an archaeologist and went on a 'dig'. I found a Shipham's meat paste jar and thought it was Egyptian!
Thank you for clarifying what a blancmange is. I first heard of it through Monty Python as well and was confused, as we had no Google back then to educate us. That green grass jelly, though... 😳
I think the closest thing to that in America, 70s dessert wise, would be ambrosia, which I have actually yet to try, despite the seeming tastiness of its ingredients. And I have several Aussie friends who would eagerly chime in with stories about pavlova, I bet.
Deviled eggs are still going strong, though. They're now adding them to potato and macaroni salads, and improving both greatly, imo.
I don't mind a devilled egg these days, now that they're not wheeled out on the regular. I love pavlova with all my heart. My husband doesn't really like birthday cakes but he loves pavlova so I make them then. He doesn't like soft fruit (grew up on a strawberry farm, very triggering) so I used to make it with Maltesers instead of fruit.
My mother was a dreadful cook. We had a regime: Roast on Sunday, cold on Monday, stewed on Wednesday, sausages on Thursday and fish on Friday. Saturday was very ad hoc - usually tinned soup and cheese and onion sandwiches. It never varied week to week. When my grandmother came to live with us, she would cook her own repertoire - mussels boiled in a huge tin pot, calves brains on toast, pig's tail soup, pigs feet, the dreaded chitlins. Food from days of poverty. Some days I just had a syrup sandwich 'cos I couldn't bear all the ghastly throw away bits of animals! 🤢
Urgh! I hate offal and any animal extremities. My mum used to cook tripe for my dad on his birthdays and although we were forced to eat everything on our plates, this was the one, notable exception. It stank the house out for days and when it was cooking my brother and I would go and stand out in the garden to run away from the smell.
Just scrolled back to this one, Katy. And yay, John Hegley! I've heard John Hegley perform that poem live at some point. Been enjoying his poetry since the 1980s!
I've seen him a few times. Oscar won a competition at a show we went to once, and his prize was to spend the afternoon hanging out with John and doing colouring and singing his poems at a signing. It was wonderful and Hegley was a legend. x
I first saw John Hegley in about 1984 at the Albany Empire, then I took my kids to see him and Otis Canelloni do their kids' shows at Lauderdale House in London early nineties; and this year I took my six-year old granddaughter to see him when he was doing a short performance at a children's book event near us earlier this year. I told him at the book signing about the three generations of appreciation and probably made him feel very old!
This brought so much back, especially school dinner puddings - I remember someone saying, “I’ll tell your Mummy you didn’t eat your pudding!” and saying “My mummy wouldn’t expect me to eat prunes and (lumpy) custard/tapioca pudding!”
One of the very few foods that I can't eat is rice pudding. It has always made me vomit. At primary school we had it and I wouldn't eat it. Eventually they forced me, hysterical to eat it and I threw up everywhere. They were so cross with me, but I did warn them.
Chocolate blancmange was the only one for us. That and angel’s delight were a big treat and made a change from home grown rhubarb being liquidised in to custard as “fruit fool”.
I still have cocktail sticks and…..still stab notable things with them especially at Thingmas and Boxing Day. Cheese and pineapple! Cheese and beetroot bits! Cheese and silverskin onions! But no tin foil or hedgehogs are harmed.
Also cocktail sticks….we plant them in cakes as flags of ownership. “The cocktail stick is in my bit”.
I like the cocktail stick as a post colonial flag idea! I loved Angel Delight. I would save up my pocket money to buy it in non-party season. Butterscotch was my favourite but any flavour at a push. I was in our local Londis last week and they had strawberry Angel Delight ice cream. I didn't try it though because it was six quid.
Oh, the memories! Things on sticks definitely and the jelly/evaporated milk pudding, know in our house as orange fluff. I remember being impressed to the point of intimidation by a party with prawn cocktail vol-au-vents as a kid. How we survived the 70s I don't know.
I thought a vol-au-vent was the height of sophistication. I don't think I ate one until I was about twelve and then I wondered what all the fuss was about!
We didn't eat blancmange, but we did have a wonderful pudding made by whipping evaporated milk into half set jelly, which then set into a glorious frothy mousse. You could also add the appropriate tinned fruit, raspberries, or my favourite, mandarins into orange jelly. My mum also made a dinner party starter of cream cheese beaten into tinned consomme and set with a little curry powder. It was easier than the constant worry of whether the avocadoes on the window sill would ripen in time. And you could grill grapefruit with brown sugar, but getting them out of the grill pan without 3rd degree burns was hard.
My mum would drink evaporated milk and condensed milk straight from the tin! I didn't eat an avocado until I was twenty one. I had a boyfriend whose family were very fancy and I was invited to lunch where his mother served avocado and prawns. It was a strange meal. She halved the avocados and kept them in their skin and poured prawns into the hole where the stone had been, which was fine, except she served them on Tupperware plates and I remember wrestling to keep the avocado stable enough to attempt to eat it. Also having to watch my boyfriend to see how he did it!
Weirdly, I contemplated making the mandarin evaporated milk jelly pud just yesterday after finding my mum's exercise book of recipes clipped from magazines
Heavens, no 😂 Didn't even manage to remember it long enough to put it on the 'things I'd like to make' list, which is my latest attempt to make sure I do a handful of the things I think of. Additions this morning were crab apple jelly, rowan berry pickle and teeny weeny rowan berry necklace for my garden goddess. Plus adding 'patchwork sofa cushions' to the adjoining list of 'things I HAVE made that weren't on the first list', which calms me when I start stewing in a sea of perceived ineptitude.
The cream cheese, consommé and curry was Margaret Thatcher’s favourite! My teen read this recently and told me and we both decided she must have made it up cos it sounds mad.
This is the best! Brought forward further memories, fondue. A pot of boiling cooking oil on the centre of the dinner table, chunks of chopped beef on the long fondue fork. Then when cooked (I’m not sure it ever was ) stuck in various exotic sauces, plum, soy and the basic tomato.
I didn't have a fondue until I lived in Germany where my landlady would invite us over for fondue, always cheese. It was great but she used to lace it with cherry liqueur which was something of an acquired taste.
I’m still quite partial to a cheese fondue, although not all the gooey washing up afterwards. I’m fairly sure I had a fondue set as a wedding present, but it was dispatched to the charity shop many moons ago.
My 70s party memories include pinwheel sandwiches. I remember my mum slicing the bread longways, removing any hint of crust, then spreading with something “delicious” like sandwich paste. Then you roll the thing up like a Swiss roll, cut into slices and voila - the height of party sophistication. So glad I can just bung a few olives in a bowl these days and call it good.
Yes! My mum made pinwheels too. Marmite ones were her speciality. Sandwich paste is such a weird thing isn’t it? God knows what bits of meat went into it
My mum mostly went for the fish paste varieties which were very *interesting* Marmite would have been a blessed relief, frankly!
Shiphams pastes haunted my childhood! I remember when I wanted to be an archaeologist and went on a 'dig'. I found a Shipham's meat paste jar and thought it was Egyptian!
Blancmange - oh the horror!
Such a weird, weird foodstuff.
Angel Delight! I still love it, manna of my childhood x
I still love it too!
Thank you for clarifying what a blancmange is. I first heard of it through Monty Python as well and was confused, as we had no Google back then to educate us. That green grass jelly, though... 😳
I think the closest thing to that in America, 70s dessert wise, would be ambrosia, which I have actually yet to try, despite the seeming tastiness of its ingredients. And I have several Aussie friends who would eagerly chime in with stories about pavlova, I bet.
Deviled eggs are still going strong, though. They're now adding them to potato and macaroni salads, and improving both greatly, imo.
I don't mind a devilled egg these days, now that they're not wheeled out on the regular. I love pavlova with all my heart. My husband doesn't really like birthday cakes but he loves pavlova so I make them then. He doesn't like soft fruit (grew up on a strawberry farm, very triggering) so I used to make it with Maltesers instead of fruit.
My mother was a dreadful cook. We had a regime: Roast on Sunday, cold on Monday, stewed on Wednesday, sausages on Thursday and fish on Friday. Saturday was very ad hoc - usually tinned soup and cheese and onion sandwiches. It never varied week to week. When my grandmother came to live with us, she would cook her own repertoire - mussels boiled in a huge tin pot, calves brains on toast, pig's tail soup, pigs feet, the dreaded chitlins. Food from days of poverty. Some days I just had a syrup sandwich 'cos I couldn't bear all the ghastly throw away bits of animals! 🤢
Urgh! I hate offal and any animal extremities. My mum used to cook tripe for my dad on his birthdays and although we were forced to eat everything on our plates, this was the one, notable exception. It stank the house out for days and when it was cooking my brother and I would go and stand out in the garden to run away from the smell.
I cannot hear or read the word “blancmange” without this playing in my brain:
http://montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Series_1/48.htm
That’s amazing
Just scrolled back to this one, Katy. And yay, John Hegley! I've heard John Hegley perform that poem live at some point. Been enjoying his poetry since the 1980s!
I've seen him a few times. Oscar won a competition at a show we went to once, and his prize was to spend the afternoon hanging out with John and doing colouring and singing his poems at a signing. It was wonderful and Hegley was a legend. x
I first saw John Hegley in about 1984 at the Albany Empire, then I took my kids to see him and Otis Canelloni do their kids' shows at Lauderdale House in London early nineties; and this year I took my six-year old granddaughter to see him when he was doing a short performance at a children's book event near us earlier this year. I told him at the book signing about the three generations of appreciation and probably made him feel very old!
Ha ha ha! I’m sure he would prefer to think of it as evidence of an illustrious and lengthy career!
Weirdly, he was off to see Otiz Cannelloni (just checked spelling!) that very evening. It’s like some things just stand still!
So many memories here! 😂
Terrifying isn't it?! x
I can’t stop laughing! You are such a great guest.
The party snitch! x
This brought so much back, especially school dinner puddings - I remember someone saying, “I’ll tell your Mummy you didn’t eat your pudding!” and saying “My mummy wouldn’t expect me to eat prunes and (lumpy) custard/tapioca pudding!”
One of the very few foods that I can't eat is rice pudding. It has always made me vomit. At primary school we had it and I wouldn't eat it. Eventually they forced me, hysterical to eat it and I threw up everywhere. They were so cross with me, but I did warn them.
Bunny jelly moulds. Now there’s a memory. 💕
Chocolate blancmange was the only one for us. That and angel’s delight were a big treat and made a change from home grown rhubarb being liquidised in to custard as “fruit fool”.
I still have cocktail sticks and…..still stab notable things with them especially at Thingmas and Boxing Day. Cheese and pineapple! Cheese and beetroot bits! Cheese and silverskin onions! But no tin foil or hedgehogs are harmed.
Also cocktail sticks….we plant them in cakes as flags of ownership. “The cocktail stick is in my bit”.
I like the cocktail stick as a post colonial flag idea! I loved Angel Delight. I would save up my pocket money to buy it in non-party season. Butterscotch was my favourite but any flavour at a push. I was in our local Londis last week and they had strawberry Angel Delight ice cream. I didn't try it though because it was six quid.
How much?! o.0
Oh, the memories! Things on sticks definitely and the jelly/evaporated milk pudding, know in our house as orange fluff. I remember being impressed to the point of intimidation by a party with prawn cocktail vol-au-vents as a kid. How we survived the 70s I don't know.
I thought a vol-au-vent was the height of sophistication. I don't think I ate one until I was about twelve and then I wondered what all the fuss was about!
We didn't eat blancmange, but we did have a wonderful pudding made by whipping evaporated milk into half set jelly, which then set into a glorious frothy mousse. You could also add the appropriate tinned fruit, raspberries, or my favourite, mandarins into orange jelly. My mum also made a dinner party starter of cream cheese beaten into tinned consomme and set with a little curry powder. It was easier than the constant worry of whether the avocadoes on the window sill would ripen in time. And you could grill grapefruit with brown sugar, but getting them out of the grill pan without 3rd degree burns was hard.
My mum would drink evaporated milk and condensed milk straight from the tin! I didn't eat an avocado until I was twenty one. I had a boyfriend whose family were very fancy and I was invited to lunch where his mother served avocado and prawns. It was a strange meal. She halved the avocados and kept them in their skin and poured prawns into the hole where the stone had been, which was fine, except she served them on Tupperware plates and I remember wrestling to keep the avocado stable enough to attempt to eat it. Also having to watch my boyfriend to see how he did it!
Umm...we still drink evap from the tin....
My mum applauds you! I shudder!
I do use a teaspoon for the condensed milk.....
Standards must be maintained!
Weirdly, I contemplated making the mandarin evaporated milk jelly pud just yesterday after finding my mum's exercise book of recipes clipped from magazines
Did you do it?
Heavens, no 😂 Didn't even manage to remember it long enough to put it on the 'things I'd like to make' list, which is my latest attempt to make sure I do a handful of the things I think of. Additions this morning were crab apple jelly, rowan berry pickle and teeny weeny rowan berry necklace for my garden goddess. Plus adding 'patchwork sofa cushions' to the adjoining list of 'things I HAVE made that weren't on the first list', which calms me when I start stewing in a sea of perceived ineptitude.
I have lists like that!
The cream cheese, consommé and curry was Margaret Thatcher’s favourite! My teen read this recently and told me and we both decided she must have made it up cos it sounds mad.
ha ha! I'm surprised it didn't come wrapped in aspic. I am very grateful that my mum never went down the aspic road.
This is the best! Brought forward further memories, fondue. A pot of boiling cooking oil on the centre of the dinner table, chunks of chopped beef on the long fondue fork. Then when cooked (I’m not sure it ever was ) stuck in various exotic sauces, plum, soy and the basic tomato.
I didn't have a fondue until I lived in Germany where my landlady would invite us over for fondue, always cheese. It was great but she used to lace it with cherry liqueur which was something of an acquired taste.
I’m still quite partial to a cheese fondue, although not all the gooey washing up afterwards. I’m fairly sure I had a fondue set as a wedding present, but it was dispatched to the charity shop many moons ago.
They do crop up in charity shops, along with punch bowls. Whenever I see them I always think 'wedding list'
Ha ha! Immortalised.