'Funny food'

The marrow and ginger jam was fine.

It looks looser in the jar than the normal jams I make but is actually quite spreadable and firm once opened.
All but one jar sealed properly.
We have already worked our way through one jar and will start the non sealed jar next.

My Aunty used sometimes to give Mum jam to bring back when we visited.
Marrow or Rhubarb and Ginger I seem to remember.
We ate so  much junk back then that it tasted 'funny' to have real Jam and I expect mum and dad finished it off between them.

My mother seldom made preserves of any kind.
I remember seeing tins of Marmade but never Seville Oranges used to make marmalade.
One year they had an awful lot of onions from somewhere which they  pickled .
They were very strong tasting to we kids who were  only used to little silver skinned onions from the xmas hamper.

I cant help thinking we were walking junk food zombies.
Nearly everything was laced with sugar or salt back then.
Those huge Wagon Wheel biscuits, Jammie Dodgers, Tea time fancies.
We had them every Sunday tea, 'dip in and grab' sandwiches of cucumber or beetroot in vinegar (never without).
A salad made almost entirely of lettuce with a few slithers of tomato in a bowl.
Shiphams Meat paste or fish paste in tiny jars shared between 5.
We were allowed to take the bread (already spread with cheap marg) and load it with the other ingredients.
No one was allowed biscuits or 'cakes' till they had had the sandwiches.
Mum would say 'who wants the last....'and my brother no doubt hungrier than we girls would already have his hand on the offering before the article was even named ,with a loud aggressive MEEE.

To drink there was water from the tap but usually there were no drinks at the table,you just helped yourself at the sink throughout the day.
You could have tea though and we were given it with sugar in our baby bottles and so were quite used to being caffeined up to the eyeballs and sugared to the point of cavities.
Dad drank nothing else and always had 3 sugars (He had about 3 peg teeth in his whole head).

Dinners during the week were usually something and veg.
We ate a lot of cheap tinned sausages or pressed meats.
Now and again mum would make a pie but usually she bought processed meat products that she would divide up into small amounts and there would be that awful powdered potato that you were supposed to add milk and water to with a dot of butter.
I think the more expensive 'mash' had those things incorporated already but the cheap ones were cheap for a reason and tasted of nothing very much when only how water was added.
We ate processed peas that were mushy and granular with a thick dropping consistency. They cooked up a sort of khaki colour and were heavily salted by us as we automatically put salt and white pepper on everything labeled dinner.
Carrots were almost always tinned too and had a sort of slippery,slimy property to them.

We would have real meat on Sunday for Dinner which was mid day.
Real potatoes too .

There was pudding every day.
Sometimes jelly and something.
Mostly those little pots of slop that are coloured and flavoured and called things like 'smooth melody' or 'top pudding'.

There was always Supper too .
This often consisted of toast or bread and something.
We quite often had dripping which was the juices of the Sunday roast ,mashed up with the little meaty bits.
This was lovely with some salt.
Other times it would be banana sandwiches with sugar.

We hardly ever had fruit as a whole piece of food.
It was chopped up in one form or another .

Dad would bring home jam donuts if he won anything at the betting shop.
That and the cigarette voucher Christmas and birthday gifts were the only time I ever remember him 'paying' for anything.
Did mum get Gifts too?
I really cant remember.

Anyway, Breakfast..
Usually this was cereal in a box.
Mostly Kellogs something or other.
We sometimes had boiled eggs and even fried eggs and bacon very occasionally.
The milk was I think watered down as it always tasted of nothing .

We never drank actual milk on its own or juice of any sort.

Once in a while there would be 'orange or lemon squash' which tasted of chemicals and was highly sweetened.

Pop was only bought at Christmas,birthdays or if the cousin visited.

If it was a school outing, we would be bought a tin of cola or some such thing.
Iced fancies were usually given and a sandwich.
(I hate icing so often threw my biscuits away).

Now and again we would have actual real food.
I visited various friends after school and tasted home cooked meals which were yummy but I didn't comment about them at home ,Mum took offense very easily.
At school we had school dinners which were made on the premises.
They were lovely and filling and flavourful.
There was always pudding and a drink of orange squash or water.

Most children who at dinner in school,had tea at home of sandwiches or a small portion of something.
We had free school meals ,ate the lot and then a second dinner at home with pudding.
I can only imagine that our own home food was so awful that the calories were empty (bulked out foods with nothing substantial) because I was never over weight and neither was my constantly eating brother.

My little sister however, was fed sweets almost every day after school and expanded accordingly.
Her portion sizes were equal to our own which didn't help matters.

Xmas was a time of indulgence all round.
Ours was generally a hamper of stuff that mum paid into all year.
There were tins of meat, vegetables,fruit and nuts.
We would have a turkey from the butcher and pop.
The adults had sherry but I think the bottle was perpetual because I don't remember ever seeing them buy it.
Maybe it was gifted from mums employers (she was a cash in hand cleaner for various people).
Dad drank Drambui in tiny little frosted green glasses. One little tot of it at a time.
A big tin of Quality street was a yearly thing. Did it come in the hamper? Dad only ate the soft centres given his lack of teeth.

The pop bottles were taken back to the shop for the deposit money.


Dad always carved the turkey and made mince pies. He had once seen mum make them and decided he could do better. They were brimming with mince but the pastry was usually rock hard and shiny with glaze.

If you got a mice pie outside of home,it was like eating manna, soft and short pastry with a sugary coating.
We never complained of course, we just shoveled them down.